Who likes to see awesome free movies? Me! Me!
Alright, I suppose it's unfair to condense the Telluride Film Festival into those terms. Or maybe it's fair but it makes me sound ignorant. Whatever the case, I'll elaborate to make this sound better.
Last week I was lucky enough to attend the 35th annual Telluride Film Festival. During this weekend, Telluride offers a generous amount of events that are free to the public, which makes the festival extremely accessible to students (or anyone who doesn't want to shell out the few hundred for a pass). I decided to get the Late Show Pass, which let me into the last show of either of two theatres. The pass was 40 bucks, but I thought 10 dollars a film (a new, up-and-coming film at that) was justified.
The first night (after an eight hour car ride), I saw a free film in the park, or the Backlot, called "A Frozen Dream". It details the journey of three adventure-driven men to the north pole...in a hot air balloon. Mostly the documentary consisted of old photographs, which were quite compelling, but I felt like the picture zooming got old after a while. It might have been the annoying youth in front of us that were tackling each other and texting on cellphones the whole time that contributed to my frustration. Fortunately Pablo was there to yell, "Turn your fucking cell-phones off!" I had hoped a fight would come out of it, but no luck.
Friday, August 29 was the first real day of the festival. That day I saw four films. First was a documentary about Mary Pickford ("The Muse of the Movies") and I found it more informative (that lady really was a badass) than cinematically pleasing. "12 Canoes" tried to explain the customs of aboriginals in an artistic way, but I was mostly bored. You know those mind-teaser slates with numbers that you push around and try to get in order? I remember playing those as a kid. Anyway, that's what the film reminded me of visually. They pushed tons of images around, but unfortunately they never reached any form of coherence. Later that night, I saw a series of shorts, which were fantastic. Actually, we're showing one of the shorts ("Sikumi") on our Sundance Shorts day on Friday, October 24th if you're interested. "2 Birds" and "The Frozen Sea" were my favorites out of this bunch, but all of them really were very well done. The last film of this day was "O'Horten." Very visually pleasing and the narrative worked well, but it moved quite slowly, so if you're thinking about seeing it later, be prepared and maybe drink some coffee beforehand.
Saturday, I started out by attending a panel discussion called "The Director and The Actor: Cultivating Creativity." I was accompanied by my trusty low-back lawnchair so I got a pretty awesome seat. Here's a picture:
Recognize anyone? Left to right, that's Greg Kinnear (maybe you know him from new film "Flash of Genius" or the dad in "Little Miss Sunshine"), Mike Leigh (director of new film at festival "Happy-Go-Lucky"), Elsa Zylberstein (actress in festival film, "I've Loved You So Long") , the moderator Annette Insdorf, David Fincher ("Fight Club", etc, duh), Jean Simmons (Academy Award nominated actress in "Spartacus") and Jeff Goldblum (promoting new film called "Adam Resurrected"). Great discussion here. By the way, Jeff Goldblum's character in Jurassic Park isn't far off from who he is in reality. It's the odd stuttering, minus the dinosaurs and the water-trickle hand demonstration thing. Here are some videos I took during the discussion:
This is Jean Simmons speaking about the antics of a specific director she worked with.
And this is David Fincher talking about the making of "Fight Club".
The rest of Saturday was spent with a collection of animated shorts (great, again) and with "The Good, The Bad and The Weird." I LOVED THIS FILM. If it plays anywhere near us in the future, go see it, okay? So awesome and so much fun. This enough made the trip to Telluride fulfilling, I think.
I started out Sunday with another panel discussion, this one aimed at the question "are cutbacks in film distribution and criticism affecting quality filmmaking?" Lots of different answers from the panel members here. Mr. Paul Schrader basically said that cinema is dead and he's down for producing series on cellphones. Well I say that Paul Schrader seems like a pessimistic asshole. That does not have an effect on how much I appreciate "Taxi Driver" or "Raging Bull", though. There was lots of ranting from an independent film director at the back who somehow managed to turn the conversation towards himself. Nevertheless, it was an interesting hour or so.
Sunday was also a Zizek-filled day. In fact, I feel that I've had my share of this fellow to last me at least a decade. He's neurotic as hell and loves Lacanian theory a bit too much. True, Jacques Lacan holds a special spot next to my heart, but I just can't find the need to explain every movie I see through how each main character is affected by the mirror stage. Blah. Anyway. I saw a discussion with him, as well as saw "Seconds" (fucking awesome, please obtain it via Netflix if you like analyzing the shit out of subtly suggestive movies) which was followed up by a Zizek question and answer session (since he brought the film to the festival).
Maybe the biggest disappointment of the festival was Danny Boyle's "Slum Dog Millionaire." DO NOT PAY TO SEE THIS. Unless you like wasting money. More accurately, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WATCHING THIS. Unless someone is paying you to watch it. That's how bad it was. People are claiming this is the next "Juno." Well as someone who hates that generic, over-rated movie, I'm telling you that "Slum Dog Millionaire" is a million times worse. But there is one good thing to come out of it...apparently two of the children actors were found in the slums where the movie was shot and then placed in school and given a shot at a life away from poverty. So, um, respect Danny Boyle but not the movie?
Monday was my last night and I saw two events. The first was another collection of shorts called "Calling Cards" (highlight of that was Natalya Uglitskikh's "Tag" which was shot in one continuous take and was amazingly hilarious), and the last was "Flash of Genius." "Flash of Genius" was alright: not disappointing, not spectacular, just plain okay. If you're bored in the future, go see it. At the very least it will educate you on the history of windshield wipers and make you want to egg Ford dealership executives' houses.
Overall, great experience at the Telluride Film Festival, despite the endless political banter (which included some senile asshole who kept ranting conspiracy theory and how he used to be young and ignorant like me after I told him I didn't want to talk politics with a complete stranger). And hey, it's definitely accessible if you don't have a pass, so hopefully this has inspired someone out there to give it a shot.
Cats think they're dogs in Telluride.
This portrait symbolizes how sexy, artsy, and hip you can be if you go to the Telluride Film Festival. Or I just found this spraypainted on the side of an electrical box there. Either one.
