SXSW: Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hedwig is the musical story of a boy born in East Berlin who tries to come to America by marrying an American soldier. Problem is the soldier is a man. East Berlin doesn't allow gay marriages, so they do the natural thing and take him to a doctor for a sex change operation, which is botched. It's enough to get him to the US, where he suffers heartbreak, misery and ultimately starts a pretty awesome rock band. I've seen this movie a few times and it's still just a great movie. The songs are catchy, the visuals are interesting, the storytelling is complex. It asks you to get involved, but by the time it asks, you're already tapping your foot wanting to do more. I love the movie much more than I reasonably should, but it's just so good. It's hard not to love it.
2:53:19 AM    comment []  trackback []

SXSW: Palindromes

...The movie played to a packed house, but if people knew how good the movie was they'd be trying to bribe ushers and fire inspectors to let them in. The story is about Aviva, a 13-year-old girl played by five different actors, who wants to become a mother. She goes out and has sex with the first able-bodied boy she could and becomes pregnant. Her parents find out and force her to have an abortion, leading her to run away from home in order to have a child of her own. Not your most uplifting story, but a genuine Todd Solondz script. The movie is wickedly funny. It's the sort of movie that has it's own sense of humor. It lives in it's own universe, where, yes, everything is completely serious, and natural, but, the way it's looked upon, the context it's given, it's just funny.

Don't get me wrong, it's just like his other movies in that it covers really sick topics. Sex and children always go together in his movies, some embrace it, some hate it. Most everybody who saw it with me really, really enjoyed it, but one, a devout Catholic really didn't, and was actually pretty upset by it - granted, the movie does have a lampooning of a sect of Christianity, which is, in my book, a riot. Aviva finds herself lost in the middle of nowhere and manages to be taken in by a couple who takes in troubled or deformed children, converts them, indoctrinates them, and makes them into a gospel singing act. During this part, 13-year-old Aviva is played by a large, 30-year-old black woman to showcase how out of place Aviva is (the actress who plays Aviva is changed when Aviva or her feelings change, basically). It gets pretty ridiculous, but in a good way. Solondz has made, if nothing else, the funniest film of his career and possibly the best. An absolute must-see. This thing is good.
2:50:34 AM    comment []  trackback []