SXSW: Reeker

Reeker is the story of how betraying an ecstasy dealer can go wrong. That leads to the typical mysterious unstoppable monster that has no consistency, can do anything it wants to, except at a critical moment. The movie had some inspired moments, mostly dealing with it's blind character, but in the end, it really wasn't that great, and it had the most common horror movie problem - in an overt desire to have a twist that the viewer didn't see coming, it fails to make any sense at all. In the end, it left me cold and mostly uninterested.
3:58:56 AM    comment []  trackback []

SXSW: Pucker Up

Every year SXSW has a movie about some sort of lost art or lost sport that people ignore that has it's own competition complete with a bizarre cast of characters. This year, it was Pucker Up - a movie about competitive whistlers. Now, I have to add a disclaimer - I cannot whistle. At all. Not one bit. Fortunately they address this, they start with the phrase "There are those who can whistle and those who have tried". A great start. The movie starts out pretty strong, unfortunately, it couldn't keep it up. The biggest problem was their audio was messed up. I was told that it had problems at both locations that the movie played, meaning the problem wasn't in the setup, but the movie itself. These problems really damaged the movie, as it's mostly about audio.

The movie shows off the many whistling tricks that the experts can do, which are impressive, but there's only so much that they can do. There's some weird methods of whistling, but they're briefly addressed and pushed aside for the standard form of whistling, arguably the most boring kind. I was really impressed with people who could whistle and mimic bird calls and various other forms, the regular whistle just got boring after a while. I'm not alone in this opinion: the National Whistling Convention that the competition was taking place was nearly empty. There were the entrants and that's about it. Made me think that maybe some of these dying arts should just go ahead and die.

The movie made me think back to last year's doc that filled this slow - A League of Ordinary Gentlemen, about bowling. I just couldn't stop thinking about how much better it was than Pucker Up. Pucker Up becomes a very paint-by-numbers competition documentary, trying to get some tension going about who will win the contest, but it's never able to maintain that competition, parts that should be tense moments just come out of nowhere. A runoff between two of the best should have a lot of build up leading to an even more tense part, in Pucker, it just has a guy walk on stage and say "There's a tie" - you didn't know if he was introducing another whistler or anything. Combined with the competition aspect, they tried to show the novelty parts of whistling, from different styles to an Italian island where people communicate by whistling. These interesting bits are introduced and quickly gotten rid of. I wanted more of that, less of the competition.

The movie is well made and well constructed, but in the end, it just doesn't deliver like I wanted it to. Too much focus on a competition that I really didn't care all that much about left me dry. In the end, it left me with an overall mediocre feeling. I'm sure there was a crop of odd sport docs, and I was hoping that the festival filter system would weed out all but the best, if this was the best, this year's crop is weak.
3:58:20 AM    comment []  trackback []

SXSW: Reeker

Reeker is the story of how betraying an ecstasy dealer can go wrong. That leads to the typical mysterious unstoppable monster that has no consistency, can do anything it wants to, except at a critical moment. The movie had some inspired moments, mostly dealing with it's blind character, but in the end, it really wasn't that great, and it had the most common horror movie problem - in an overt desire to have a twist that the viewer didn't see coming, it fails to make any sense at all. In the end, it left me cold and mostly uninterested.
3:58:56 AM    comment []  trackback []

SXSW: Pucker Up

Every year SXSW has a movie about some sort of lost art or lost sport that people ignore that has it's own competition complete with a bizarre cast of characters. This year, it was Pucker Up - a movie about competitive whistlers. Now, I have to add a disclaimer - I cannot whistle. At all. Not one bit. Fortunately they address this, they start with the phrase "There are those who can whistle and those who have tried". A great start. The movie starts out pretty strong, unfortunately, it couldn't keep it up. The biggest problem was their audio was messed up. I was told that it had problems at both locations that the movie played, meaning the problem wasn't in the setup, but the movie itself. These problems really damaged the movie, as it's mostly about audio.

The movie shows off the many whistling tricks that the experts can do, which are impressive, but there's only so much that they can do. There's some weird methods of whistling, but they're briefly addressed and pushed aside for the standard form of whistling, arguably the most boring kind. I was really impressed with people who could whistle and mimic bird calls and various other forms, the regular whistle just got boring after a while. I'm not alone in this opinion: the National Whistling Convention that the competition was taking place was nearly empty. There were the entrants and that's about it. Made me think that maybe some of these dying arts should just go ahead and die.

The movie made me think back to last year's doc that filled this slow - A League of Ordinary Gentlemen, about bowling. I just couldn't stop thinking about how much better it was than Pucker Up. Pucker Up becomes a very paint-by-numbers competition documentary, trying to get some tension going about who will win the contest, but it's never able to maintain that competition, parts that should be tense moments just come out of nowhere. A runoff between two of the best should have a lot of build up leading to an even more tense part, in Pucker, it just has a guy walk on stage and say "There's a tie" - you didn't know if he was introducing another whistler or anything. Combined with the competition aspect, they tried to show the novelty parts of whistling, from different styles to an Italian island where people communicate by whistling. These interesting bits are introduced and quickly gotten rid of. I wanted more of that, less of the competition.

The movie is well made and well constructed, but in the end, it just doesn't deliver like I wanted it to. Too much focus on a competition that I really didn't care all that much about left me dry. In the end, it left me with an overall mediocre feeling. I'm sure there was a crop of odd sport docs, and I was hoping that the festival filter system would weed out all but the best, if this was the best, this year's crop is weak.
3:58:20 AM    comment []  trackback []