No Wrench

Another sports documentary and another relatively mediocre effort. The ESPN portion of the Tribeca Film Festival has turned out to be something of a disappointment because it played host to a lot of subpar efforts. Now most of them haven’t been particularly bad; I gave both the Bobby V documentary and the Iranian soccer movie fours because they did do a decent job of addressing an interesting subject. Gunnin’ for that #1 Spot was a look at the Elite All-Star game played by the top 24 high school students in the country on a famous streetball court in Manhattan.
The first part of the film consists of profiles of eight of the players, from different backgrounds and different parts of the country, which is then followed by footage of the game. I was left wondering why I was really supposed to care about the player profiles. There wasn’t any sort of arc or narrative tying it together, so it was just a bunch of people talking about the pressures of being a high school athlete these days. And that is certainly an interesting subject, but it wasn’t really the subject of this documentary, so while it was tangentially addressed, it was not the focus. The actual game footage was amazingly shot and edited, so that was a lot of fun to watch. But overall there was little point to this film. It didn’t inform enough to be a serious doc or entertain enough to just be fun. It gets a three.

Funny movie featuring naked people, porno spoofs of famous movies, unrequited love, and lots of marijuana. Not a whole lot to complain about. There isn’t really any substance here, but I don’t think there was intended to be any. The movie set out to be a raunchy good time featuring lots of bad puns and it succeeds admirably. Seriously, the world needs more movies like Full Metal Jackoff. Four of five.

Boring, pointless period epic from China, about the Five Tiger Generals and their war against the Cao kingdom. There was no plot worth mentioning, the fight scenes were boring and often suffered from excessive camera shake rendering them incoherent, and none of the characters were likable or sympathetic. It was, pretty much, a complete waste of my time. It gets a two, because it wasn’t painful to watch, but I can’t think of a good reason to recommend that anyone see this film.

The increased trend of the executive branch of the government to label everything as top secret to hide its complicity in numerous assaults on the American democratic institutions is clearly worrying to those of us who care about the Constitution and civil liberties. This documentary is an overlong and unfocused look at some of those problems, which will probably bore people much than it will serve to motivate them. The entire film consists of talking heads discussing different points of view about national security and secrecy. To make it slightly more visually interesting, they include lots of shots of pieces of paper label SECRET and some occasional quasi-abstract animation of . . . stuff (hard to say what it is supposed to be).
But the people who are talking are usually talking past each other: I don’t think there was more than one situation where anyone directly confronted and discussed a point made by someone else, something caused by the fact that all the interviews were conducted separately and by the failing of the filmmakers to ask the right questions or at least present the answers coherently. And because the entire film is without a real plot and without narration, its focus continually wanders. There are two stories that weave in and out of the dialog which are meant to be examples: a court-case from the fifties which set the precedent for judicial respect of national secrets (preventing court cases from proceeding if the government asserted it would hurt national security) and the recent Hamadan vs. Rumsfield case over the Guantanamo Bay detainees. But these two examples are dragged out over the entire course of the film (maybe an attempt to add some narrative tension to the film?) and very few of the surrounding comments directly address the issues raised by these cases.
Secrecy gets a 3 out of 5 for presenting some interesting issues, but failing to be a coherent documentary.

A teen coming-of-age movie set in 1994, The Wackness reminded me a lot of Charlie Bartlett from last year’s festival. Both movies center around a high school senior, in a world where drugs play a major role (although not in destructive ways), trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do with the rest of their lives. But where Charlie Bartlett is soft around the edges in a happy, everything will be all right manner, The Wackness brings a little bit more rawness and reality to what being a teenager is about. Both films studiously avoid the traditional cliches that Hollywood teen movies espouse, while still delivering on the comedy and occasional tragedy of being a teen. They also both take a close look at adults, pointing out that the very people that adolescents look to as authority figures and role-models are often just as confused and screwed up as the children themselves.
The Wackness’s main character is a pot dealer in Manhattan who spends his time peddling drugs to a growing assortment of oddball figures (including Mary-Kate Olson, playing a drugged-up hippy, which might not be much an acting challenge for her). His main friend is his shrink, with whom he trades drugs to for therapy, who also happens to be the step-father of the girl he has a massive crush on. Ben Kingsley is absolutely superb as the shrink, clearly more messed-up than many of his patients, using drugs, both legal and illegal, to cope with his failing marriage and his lack of purpose in life, but who still maintains a hilariously cynical but vulnerable outlook on life. The two characters provide an odd counterpoint to each other, forcing the audience to reconsider the notion that adults have the answers or know more about life than children.
The comedic writing and timing in the film is fantastic. Human pathos can be incredibly funny if handled right and in The Wackness it is. While it never loses sight of its characters story, it also never fails to entertain the audience. The soundtrack, which is primarily early 90’s hip-hop, is also fantastic and does a great job of helping to reconstruct New York of ten years ago. Guiliani gets plenty of flack as well from the drug-buying community, a nice historic touch. You cannot ask for more than this from a coming-of-age film. It entertains and provokes its audience without ever condescending to its characters. Gets a five out of five.

Spanish language films appear to be strong this year at Tribeca, as this is the second one scoring a five out of five. Unlike Fermat’s Room, which was Spanish, this film is Latin American, set in Columbia (the country) and Jackson Heights, Queens. It tells two stories at once. One is the story of two Columbian teens who are trying to get smuggled into America, and the other is the story of what happens when they get here and get separated.
The privations that the two suffer through are intense and really make those of us who live at ease in this country realize what it is we’ve gotten by being born here. There was no suffering with being robbed and raped in the woods of Mexico, no being smuggled across the American border inside hollowed out logs, trapped for hours without light or water.
The story in NYC is simple. The boy wanders out of their hostel, gets chased by the police, gets lost, and cannot find his way back. During the course of his struggles to find Raina (his girlfriend) again, he is forced to come to terms with who he is and, amazing, find himself. He stumbles into a lucky situation where some older Columbian immigrants take pity on him and give him a job at their restaurant. But for the most part, his life is on the outskirts of society, living in shanties or shelters, stealing clothings, trying to cope with being so far from home and so alone.
In many ways it is a simple film. But like one of my college animation teachers liked to say, “Simplicity is beauty. That is, simplicity well done.” And Paraiso Travel is incredibly well done. Plus it features John Leguazamo as a stuttering fetish photographer. What more do you need?

Just what we need. An indie film mocking other indie films for being too indie, whilst attempting to masquerade as a horror film. Seriously people, is this really necessary? Look, Baghead isn’t a terrible movie. It has some generally funny moments and the actors do a fair job given what they’ve got to work with (the lead actor Ross Partridge reminds of Mark Ruffalo in a good way). But there isn’t a whole lot of substance to the movie. Essentially four friends drive out to a deserted cottage to try and write a feature film. Two are an on-again off-again couple, the other are a couple of friends where the guy has a desperate, doomed crush on the girl. And then there’s this dude with a bag on his head running around in the woods, or is there? Maybe its just the four friends playing tricks on each other.
I gave it a three because it isn’t a bad film. It never bored me or made me wish I was somewhere else. But it never really drew me in and I didn’t really care about any of the characters. I’d contrast this with something like Bart Got a Room. That film, though nothing brilliant, crossed the line from not wasting my time to being enjoyable. Baghead never got across that line.

Bill Plympton described his new feature length animated film as something different and the film he hoped would be a ‘breakthrough’ for him. While it is certainly different than his previous films, it is impossible to describe it as an improvement. I’ve always been a big fan of his short films, which were the perfect format for the gag-based style he is known for. His features have always seem strained, as things which would have been funny in a five minute film are stretched beyond their ability to amuse.
In Idiots and Angels, Plympton has removed much of the traditional wacky humor, trying to make a more serious and compelling film.
Unfortunately by removing the more humorous elements of his film-making style, he delivers a film which doesn’t work on any level. As a comedy, it falls woefully short. Aside from the young teenager sitting in front of me who appeared to have forgotten his Ritalin, the laughter was brief and sporadic. There were occasional moments of the typical Plympton excess which were genuinely amusing, but they were primarily subsumed by the more serious plot. The characters, like in most Plympton films, have no emotional depth, a serious problem when attempting to make a more dramatic film. When the primary theme of a movie is redemption and there is no way to identify with any of the characters, it severely inhibits the attempts of the film to move you. Again, in a short film where humor is the focus this is not a particular problem. But when it is drawn out to feature length it becomes rather unbearable.
The list of problems with the film continues. There is no apparent motivation for most of the characters actions, except the apparent whim of the film-maker. This means the redemption of the main character is completely unmotivated and does not feel satisfying or believeable. The film is heavily misogynistic: while none of Plympton’s characters are ever appealing, he makes sure that the two female characters in this film are vacuous and unmotivated. One plays no purpose except as an object of derision, and the other lacks any motivating force, immediately falling for the same man who continually abused and harassed her, again with no believable motivation.
The plot in general just is not all that compelling for a feature length film. A horrible man growing wings which force him to do nice things is a pretty conceit for a short, but lacks for a feature. The result are large amounts of filler and tedious pacing, as Plympton tries to extend the film’s length.
There are a few things in the film’s favor. The animation is beautiful and Plympton’s inventive use of the medium is as impressive as always. The score is also excellent, so props to the composer. But on the whole, this earns a two out of five.

Iran has a womens’ national soccer team. Since the Islamic revolution the team had not been allowed to leave the country and no international teams had been able to journey into the country to play them. So a club team in Germany, incited by an Iranian friend living in Germany, decided to try and journey to Iran to play the women.
The subject of this film is amazing. Like last year’s documentary on Iranian hip-hop, any glance that we get into Iranian culture shows just how much in turmoil and conflict the country is. With the youth pulling so hard to move the country into the present and the religious leadership fighting as hard as it can to resist this trend, the country is a constant and unpredictable battleground. As the Iranian who kicked off this adventure states, “In Iran nothing is possible. In Iran anything is possible.” The restrictions and adversities are many. First the game is delayed months by the Iran Security Ministry. Then they almost do not get visas. There are issues as to what fields they will get to play on, whether they can get suitably modest uniforms in time, and finally the general air of fear caused by being followed and watched all the time. In the end it all manages to magically come together and the two teams get to play soccer in front of an enthusiastic all-female crowd (men are not allowed to watch women play sports in Iran, it being too indecent).
The actual execution of the film is fairly weak. There is little to no central focus in this documentary. In many ways it is a character study of different members of the team and the attempt is made to tell the story through their interactions. But there isn’t enough to really tie these characters together into a narrative. So the story progresses, but we get it in bits and pieces and the resolutions are uneven. The time that is taken getting to know the Iranian team is fascinating because it provides a view into a culture we know so little about here in America. However the time spent getting to know the German team feels almost wasted because we don’t learn anything really new from it. Who they are is not central to what the documentary is about. And while a lot of time is devoted to them talking about what their expectations are, little is spent at the end to hear them talk about what they took away from the trip. If the film had removed seventy percent of the German team in Germany and replaced it with more in-depth examination of both teams in Iran, it would have been a much stronger film. Also, while the film is sporadically narrated by one of the German players, it either needed to have a much stronger narration or allow the plot to be revealed through the characters. The inbetweenness of the narrative style leaves the film flounder at times.
However, all in all, it is a film I’d give a four to, not because of the astute film making, but because of the fascinating topic that it does a good job of exposing to audiences.

An absolutely fantastic Spanish film about four mathematicians trapped inside a room which is trying to kill them. The atmosphere of the film and the personal drama that links the four are enthralling; it reminds me very strongly of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s book “The Shadow of the Wind” (conveniently also Spanish) in the way it builds a world for its characters to live in. There are certain logical discontinuities in the film’s world which would probably not stand if they were probed too deeply. But the filmmaker does such an excellent job of telling their story and allowing the characters’ inner selves to unspool that you’re never given a chance to ponder them. In the end, this film stands firmly on its minimalism (the single room and four actors) and succeeds.
It also stands on its philosophical convictions. A strong contrast is drawn between people who deal with math and science for the sake of dealing with math and science as compared to those who deal with it for practical reasons and do things to better humanity. The solving of pure mathematical problems (like Fermat’s Last Theorem) are treated as hubris seeking and self-involved. The film makes sure to draw a sharp contrast between the results that people who concentrate on practicalities achieve when placed in real life situations vs. those who are limited by their theoretical pursuits. It is a message which I agree with, but more importantly, a message present with style and elegance. Five out of five.