Best of QT Fest - Day 2: Where the hell is the Glenn?

Bounced from Geoff Gillmore to try to make it out for the The Savage Seven, but there was a big problem. The directions that AFS gave us, that the Glenn gave us, just sucked. My friend and I went two counties over, and over a lake before we decided we'd gone too far. There's no signs or anything pointing to this "all natural ampitheatre". Plus this "all-natural ampetheatre" is in the middle of a freaking strip mall shopping center. We arrived about 40 minutes into the movie.

I was not happy. I was a little bit upset, I really wanted to see this and especially wanted to see Quentin's intro. It didn't happen. However, watching the movie in this place got rid of my anger. It's a pretty cool venue, actually. The big question of the day was if we would even be here, as rain was predicted for the area. AFS said, "let's do it anyway" - and it really paid off. The entire night, not a drop fell on the Glenn. Lightning would flash in the clouds behind the screen, but we'd never hear thunder. It was cool beyond words.

The Savage Seven
The first movie (or what I saw of the first movie) was pretty cool. Bikers and Indians teaming up against a landowner who was trying to take away their town - or something. Not sure on the specifics, but that's the plot I got. Watching it made me really wish that I'd seen the first, but, be very glad that I was seeing it because it was doing a lot of great things. The gang of bikers would rough people up, break stuff, and their leader would act tough, but he was a pretty nice guy throughout it. He was always doing something close to the right thing, acting with a conscience. It was kind of like a mash-up between the movies that hailed bikers and condemned them. Yes, Bikers are mean, angry drinkers who break stuff, but sometimes - it's for a good cause.

Hollywood Man
Holllllllywood Mannnnnn. Quentin had quite an intro tonight. Too bad a lot of people missed it. Once Savage Seven finished up, people started heading for the exits in droves. 60% left, I'd say. Not for any reason of hating Savage Seven (although, I imagine some did) but because it was really, really cold at the Glenn. We didn't get the rain, but we got the wind. The people who left really missed out because they missed a fantastic movie in Hollywood Man, and because once Hollywood Man got going, it wasn't that cold anymore (or was it the power of Hollywood Man that made me just stop being cold. If anybody could do it, Hollywood Man could.)

Tarantino came out and gave an intro that just deserves to be something of legend. He called this "The 8 1/2 of Biker Movies" (I was thrilled right there) and talked about how when you make a movie about making a movie, it's pretty risky, but Hollywood Man pulls it off completely. It's got Bikers, it's got the Mafia, and it's got a slow theme song that they play about five times in the movie - "The first time you see it, it's kinda lame, but then you hear it again and again, and by the third time you're waiting for it. By the end of the movie the song is stuck permanently in your brain, you will never be able to forget Holllllllywoood Mannnnnnn. You will be 90 and have alzheimer's and not be able to remember your wife's fucking name, but you will remember Holllllywoood Mannnnn". Absolutely incredible. Just hearing him singing it was a treat - he's dead on to how it's performed in the movie.

However, I do have to take issue with him about one thing. He said, "You'll probably never see Hollywood Man again" and at that moment I wanted to yell out, "You don't know that!" but I was too far back. That said, I stand by that thought because, I am going to watch Hollywood Man again someday. At this point (4 films in) it was by far my favorite film in the festival. The story is about an aging actor who makes a Biker movie and runs out of money so he goes to the mob to get more money to finish the film. Not a good idea. The mob gives it to him, then pays off some goons to make sure that they don't finish the movie and the actor, Raef, gets deeper in the mob's pocket. To add to this, Hollywood Man's writing credits include William Smith, the lead actor and "the cast and crew", so this movie reflexes all over itself. And that's what makes it great. A lot of love went into this movie and you can tell that they absolutely had a blast making the movie. It's fun, it's funny, it's full of action, loud bikes, hot girls, great lines. I loved this movie. I want a copy of Hollywood Man.

I rode back home with my friend who got pulled over on the way due to a taillight issue. He asked what we were doing out so late and had to explain QT-Fest to him. That was fun. When he started off again, all I could do was to quote Hollywood Man - "I'll show you a Honky Sheriff".
11:13:20 PM    comment []  trackback []

Gillmore

The master class is in it's final phases, but it's certainly not slowing down. This one is one that I was particularly looking forward to. Geoff Gillmore of the Sundance Film Festival is a person who's opinions really matter. As a programmer of the festival as someone who is basically at the center of the independent film world and functions as a large part of it. This master class was the one to see.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's really cool, really great to have Gus Van Sant and Mike Judge and all of them come in, and I've learned a lot from them, but bringing in a strictly industry person (I may be wrong, but I haven't found any sort of evidence of him being a filmmaker in the traditional sense) is different. You can have Spielberg come in and talk for three hours about making E.T. and solving the problems of E.T. and that's really cool and all, but when you walk away from it, you now know how to solve the problems of E.T. and you might have some hints and ideas of how to better yourself/your film, but what you're getting out of it will always be a question. In my interaction with film types there's not a lot of hard knowledge about the festival system. There's a lot of mystery, and some don't bother trying to learn. I've paid attention and I have an understanding, but I'm not sure how good that understanding is.

That said, my understand is much better having seen Gillmore speak. There's a lot of questions when looking at Sundance selections, some look and see a few "regulars", people who seemingly get in very often, some films that are owned/produced by major studios, it looks a bit different than a hypothetical "perfect world" scenario that appears in most of our heads when we think of what it "should be like". We envision this sort of thing from reading the press reports and the trades, without seeing what the programmers go through. I did have the questions of politics and selection schemes and whatnot, and I got some answers. Basically, this NY Times article is a very close look at what happens. They try to find the best, they vote and argue about what films get in, they are approached by the studios and others, but they turn them down much more often than not. Gillmore made a point about mentioning that the press on Sundance is a distortion of what happens there - high profile films, stars, drama, etc. gets the press attention. Other films without these things get ignored by the press and a skewed perception comes about.

Geoff also spoke about the state of the Independent film and made some really great points. One was to point out "Inside Deep Throat" by Universal. It's a documentary that was made for $2M by two dedicated and impassioned filmmakers, but it was for Universal. Does the involvement of Universal make it to where it's suddenly in the same genre as Universal's Jarhead? IDT has more similarities to other underground docs, plus Uni had a minimal involvement. Does that make it not independent? I'm not a big fan of the argument in general over what is independent and what isn't because there's no real way to settle it, but Geoff had some arguments that made me think about it a little more.

Geoff was genuine, honest and seemed to really love movies. He doesn't like the attacks Sundance gets from people who didn't get in, he'd much rather have them understand the process a bit more. Yes, John Sloss and Harvey Weinstein call him up and have him look at movies. They don't automatically get in. They don't get a special treatment because of them - he said that seven films Harvey showed him this year were either not ready yet or just not good enough.

Ultimately, the trick to getting into Sundance: Make a good movie. Make a really, really good movie.

I'll try.
10:16:58 PM    comment []  trackback []