DIG!
Ever heard of the band The Dandy Warhols? Very likely. Ever heard of the Brian Jonestown Massacre? Didn't think so. Dig! tells the mesmerizing true-life tale of why we've heard of the former and not the arguably more talented latter.
Documentary filmmaker Ondi Timoner began chronicling the lives of these kindred bands back in 1996, and over the next seven years, she watched them become bitter rivals as one entered into a lucrative contract with Capitol Records and the other descended into the fiery pit of hell.
The film is narrated by Courtney Taylor-Taylor, the Dandy's lead singer, but Anton Newcombe, lead singer for the Massacre, winds up as the far more fascinating subject.
Both men set out to build revolutionary bands, and both quickly attracted record company attention. But while Courtney held his band together and navigated it toward commercial success, Anton's self-destructive behavior torpedoed record contracts and kept the future of his band in constant jeopardy. Yet Anton is considered the more talented, even by Courtney, which is quite a compliment considering what Anton puts the Dandy through. As soon as they begin to enjoy some success, Anton accuses them of selling out and stealing his material. He sends them soap, encouraging them to clean up their act, and shotgun shells, each one with a band member's name on it. He even releases the album, Not If You Were the Last Dandy On Earth, in which his songs attack the band. But even when the Dandy say they'll never share a stage with the Massacre again, Courtney adds, "But I'll be the first one to buy their next album."
Anton's story becomes a moving tragedy. Despite being talented and prolific (he releases multiple albums each year on obscure record labels), he limits himself with heroin addiction, an incredible ego, and frequent brawls on stage and off with members of his own band. So his music remains underground. And as one of the Dandy sums up: "We set out to be revolutionary. But there can't be a revolution if no one hears your music."
There was a Q&A after the Dig! screening. As the director related what had become of Anton and the various band members, there was a feeling of familiarity, as though she was talking about people we had all intimately known. Not all documentaries can do that.
ZATOICHI
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In Japan, Zatoichi is much like Tarzan or Zorro. His legend has inspired many films over the years, most starring the inimitable Shintaro Katsu. Now, acclaimed writer-director Takeshi Kitano has taken a stab at it, literally, himself portraying the mythological blind swordsman.
Like many famous samurai tales, Zatoichi is about a wandering warrior, who despite his best efforts to mind his own business, finds himself in a village terrorized by villainous gangs and is ultimately driven to violence. And there is a lot of violence. But Takeshi infuses his own offbeat sense of humor into the popular tale to lighten things up. Whenever events begin to grow too serious, Takeshi gives us a scene with the village idiot running around in his underwear with a spear, screaming because he's pretending to be a samurai.
Zatoichi himself is amusing in a quirky way. With his head hanging low, ear tilted toward danger and an odd smile frequently on his face, he comes across as both likeable and fascinating. Finding his way to town as a traveling masseur, he soon takes on unlucky gambler Shinkichi (Gadarukanaru Taka) as his comic-relief sidekick. When the two come across a couple of geishas with a hidden agenda, they become drawn into a gang war and private vendetta.
This is where things become more complicated. The story of the geishas brings a darkness to the film that sometimes seems inappropriate. Before we know it, we've gone from scenes of slapstick fighting to a scene in which a young boy is prostituting himself to older men to support his sister after the murders of their parents. There are easier ways to get us rooting for Zatoichi when he finally deals out justice to the killers.
Which brings attention to another problem: Zatoichi outclasses his adversaries by such a wide margin that the fight scenes end up being identical and boring. Countless enemies surround him, swords move with lightning speed, and somehow everyone dies except Zatoichi, who doesn't have a scratch. The same immortality is demonstrated by Gennosuke Hattori (Tadanobu Asano), a masterless samurai who becomes bodyguard to one of the gangs' bosses. For much of the film, we anticipate an impressive showdown between the two unbeatable titans, but even that battle disappoints.
Despite these problems, fans of the genre will find plenty to like. And in spite of the tonal inconsistencies, general audiences will probably find Zatoichi preferable to other bloated, self-important kung fu flicks. I won't mention any names, but they rhyme with Kill Bill.
HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE
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Now that Cheech and Chong have gone up in smoke, and Bill and Ted have long since ended their bogus journey, Harold and Kumar are picking up the torch and trying to make us laugh all the way to White Castle.
After a pot-induced attack of the munchies, the aloof Kumar (Kal Penn) and conservative Harold (John Cho) embark on a quest to satiate their hunger at the burger joint specified in the title. Along the way are the usual lowbrow comedy detours—fascist cops, babes dying to take off their clothes, adventures in flatulence—as well as some atypical stops, like an overly aggressive raccoon and a hilariously drugged up Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris, as himself).
Having last directed Dude, Where's My Car, Danny Leiner has no problem handling a film that could have just as easily been called Dude, Where's My Burger. And screenwriters Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg keep the humor random, so jokes that do hit their mark often hit unexpectedly hard. At one point Kumar pulls over to urinate in a nearby bush. As he's relieving himself, an odd man in a business suit sidles up beside him. In the middle of the night, in a huge empty forest, this man chooses Kumar's bush to take a leak. When Kumar inquires why, the man becomes indignant, offended and belligerent. Numerous bizarre scenes such as this lead into and out of nothing else in the film, but wind up being the funniest parts. Another scene that spoofs anti-pot-smoking commercials is one of the most hilarious things I've seen in a long time.
But the characters of Harold and Kumar form the same unlikely odd couple we've seen in countless previous stupid comedies. Nothing sets them apart, so no matter how well Cho and Penn deliver their typically deadpan lines, it all seems tiresomely familiar. And since the script insists on inserting scenes that ultimately lead to Harold learning to be less uptight and Kumar learning to be more responsible, the laughs are punctuated by frequent eye-rolling. The ridiculous afterthought of a love story doesn't help matters.
The ending sets up an Amsterdam sequel. Let's hope Europe brings more memorable qualities out of our hungry heroes. Harold and Kumar don't need to give Europeans another reason to hate America.
DENNIS HOPPER: THE DECISIVE MOMENTS
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Decisive Moments follows the E! True Hollywood Story formula. It begins with the celebrity's meteoric rise to success, subsequently takes him to the seemingly inescapable brink of destruction, then finally concludes on an optimistic note, the celebrity having barely survived and become wiser through adversity. However, Hopper's history is filled with so many genuine extremes, it manages to fit the familiar formula without it feeling like a stretch.
Hopper did have rather impressive successes early on. As an actor, he shared the screen with close friend and teacher James Dean in Giant. But his rebellious nature led him to clashes and stalemates with controlling directors. Eventually, Hopper found himself somewhat blacklisted and didn't return to Hollywood until years later. Having spent his hiatus practicing photography, he went back intending to direct. As director, he utilized his uncompromising artistic style of capturing reality over "virtual reality" with his iconic debut, Easy Rider.
From there, things quickly went downhill. Always the rebel, he made his Easy Rider follow-up, ironically titled The Last Movie, too experimental to find an audience, and it resulted in his banishment from Hollywood. By the time he appeared in Apocalypse Now, Hopper's addiction to drugs and alcohol had grown so incredibly that he had changed into what European director Wim Wenders (The American Friend) refers to as "the Beast." At its nadir, his drug and alcohol abuse left him nearly catatonic, with doctors informing him that he had permanent brain damage.
Dutch director Thom Hoffman tells Hopper's story through movie clips and interviews with many of Hopper's friends. Familiar faces like Sean Penn and David Lynch offer their praise to the actor, but it's the lesser-known figures like Julian Schnabel who lend the more interesting insights. And Hopper himself, with cigar always in hand, entertains us with amusing anecdotes, many of which read directly from his autobiography.
If not always particularly engaging, The Decisive Moments still manages to be consistently entertaining. Since Hoffman almost entirely uses the testimonials of Hopper's fond friends and respectful colleagues, ultimately the documentary is less a compelling examination of a Hollywood rebel's tumultuous life than a celebration of a revolutionary actor-director's body of work and the bumpy road that brought it to us.
NEVADA FILMMAKER SHOWCASE
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Directors (respectively): Francisco Menendez, Nathan Farnsworth, Doug Shutte, Billy Hinsche, Ben Kalb, Joanie Spina, Dale Melgaard, David Schmoeller, Chris McInroy, J.T. Gurzi, Anthony Piersanti, Roger Tinch
A dozen filmmakers. Each toting their own (WOOF-WOOF!) cheering sections. Not to mention ordinary film fans who just wanted to see some adventurous flicks. And one groggy reporter. Overall—minus groggy reporter—a pumped-up, late-night crowd so large they had to herd everyone to a bigger theater at the Palms.
If only De-Lovely could be so de-lucky.
To no one's surprise, the Nevada Filmmaker Showcase was a cinematic amalgam that revealed encouraging promise, baffling surrealism and out-and-out kamikaze filmmaking.
The most affecting film of the collection also was its most straightforward: Joanie Spina's 15-minute Born to Die—with its heartbreaking and sometimes graphic shots of shelter-bound pets in Vegas, euthanized animals and dedicated workers in tears—is a wrenching plea for responsible pet-ownership, spaying and neutering, and pet adoption. Of course, these pictures and this issue are ready-made assaults on the emotions, so Spina need do little to juice it up, and wisely doesn't.
Skimming among the rest, the 8-minute Hip's a Problem, a "sci-fi horror" flick about a woman searching for her sister among a nest of vampires, is a grainy patchwork, intriguing only because it was part of a British film competition in which entries had to be written, cast, shot and scored within 48 hours. Thirteen-minute The Making of the Band: San Quentin is a sincere stab at a parody of reality shows set among goofy-violent inmates, but with reality shows a parody of themselves from their inception, the humor feels pale. A certain elemental power distinguishes the three-minute 11th Hour, a mere eye-blink with little dialogue that is still an affecting scene of a dying, hospitalized man finding comfort in his son.
Love Match (19 minutes) jumps off an odd premise: a dating couple, who have already had sex, try to get to know each other even more intimately during a judo match, until the stakes get a bit too high. We're with them for a while, but when the dialogue turns unintentionally silly, the effect is compromised. And 20-minute Sands of Yore is a genuinely bizarre and cleverly shot dreamscape of an old man pinballing through the surreal recesses of his own mind with carnival-barker guides.
By and large, what was onscreen made the artistic case for talented Nevada filmmakers. And the cheers in the audience made the case for the ego-bolstering power of family and friends.
MIX
Mix is the kind of film that wants you to think it's quite a bit hipper than it really is. Writer-director Steven Lovy sets the movie in the back alleys of Budapest, against a backdrop of underground dance clubs and Internet porn, but he and his lead character both come off as rubes trying to impress the cool kids.
That awkwardness might be forgivable if the story of American teenager Mitch (Alex Weed, looking and sounding uncannily like the "Dude, you're getting a Dell" guy) stuck in Hungary and trying to earn money to get back home while wooing a fetish model (Dorka Gryllus) weren't so contrived and cheesy. The coincidences that strand Mitch in Budapest, after he comes with his overbearing father to attend his grandfather's funeral, stretch credibility at every turn, and Lovy's dialogue is often stilted and pretentious. Weed comes off as far too goofy to be the introspective youth he's presented as.
Lovy does have some innovative visuals, using slo-mo, still photography and blurring to "mix" the film like a DJ does a record, but even those get old quickly. Stuffed with clichés, Mix is far too square to make it in the down-and-dirty worlds it depicts.
GOZU
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The latest from prolific provocateur Takashi Miike is almost beyond description. After veteran yakuza member Ozaki goes a little insane, mistaking a chihuahua for an attack dog, his younger brother Minami (Hideki Sone) is assigned to "fix" the problem before any more disgrace is brought to the family. A car accident seemingly does the job for him, but then Minami loses the body and goes on a Homeric quest involving a lactating woman and a minotaur. After that, things get a little strange.
Miike is at his most lyrical, literary and Lynchian here. The story takes on a dreamlike logic, and the array of characters, each weirder than the last, recalls Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. It's infused with doppelgangers and themes of grotesque fascination, sexual fears and familial abandonment.
There are surprises around every corner, with a wild mix of horror, fairy tales, yakuza genre material, and gross-out humor that would make John Waters wet himself. It's considerably less violent than Miike's 2001 Ichi the Killer, but the ending may be even more shocking than his Audition (2000). What else would you expect from a title that translates as Cow Head?
MALEVOLENCE
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The only feature-length film made by locals to be featured at CineVegas, Malevolence is bound to give visiting Hollywood types and members of the press a poor impression of Vegas' filmmaking talent. Although competently crafted by writer-directors Nick Groff and Mike A. Martinez, Malevolence is an overlong, incoherent mess, proving that all the indie-film ingenuity in the world can't overcome a terrible script.
The central characters appear to be brothers Jimmy (Scott Brown) and David (Steve Reaser), although Jimmy doesn't show up until over half an hour into the film's 135-minute running time. Just escaped from prison, Jimmy meets up with David, and the two somehow become involved with the mob. That's about as much as I could discern of the meandering plot, which also includes lengthy diversions about a street thug, a low-level mob goon, a deranged white supremacist, and two odd psychiatrists interviewing David about his predilection for black women.
Groff and Martinez get mostly passable performances from their actors, stage semi-credible action sequences, and know what they're doing when it comes to cinematography and editing. Their problem lies entirely with their incomprehensible script, full of characters without motivation, nonsensical dialogue, and a barely-there plot that ends up nowhere. Malevolence is bloated, pretentious and just plain bad, but its creators clearly know how to get by on a small budget. Maybe they could re-invent themselves as indie-film consultants.
THE PORTRAIT OF BILLY JOE
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Which director Luciana Pedraza and executive producer Robert Duvall aim to correct in a profile of the man Willie Nelson calls "maybe the best songwriter alive today." Which you mostly know because Nelson is quoted is the CineVegas program, and less from watching the film.
Shaver, who estimates his output between 400-500 tunes, has seen his songs recorded by the likes of Elvis Presley, the Allman Brothers, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings, among an army of top-flight performers. Yet, the rookie director skims lightly over his prodigious catalog, though he is glimpsed in performance, and focuses largely on a hard-knock life that began while he was in utero. His violent father, he says in interviews, stomped on his mom when she was pregnant. She, in turn, vowed that if the child were born male, she would leave, fearful of "like-father-like-son."
And leave she did, the parenting left to his grandmother in Corsicana, Texas.
There is much tragedy and fascination in this life—the drug-related death of his son, the one woman he married three times who cheated on him and died of cancer, the substance abuse, the loneliness, the embrace of religious faith, even a budding film career (he appeared with Duvall in 1997's The Apostle)—all of it involving. Yet the music, which is largely the point, is largely missing. And though the man onscreen appears humble, kindly and God-fearing, he isn't nearly as entertaining as the quietly funny, interesting and even irreverent Billy Joe who answered questions from the audience after the screening.
Someone should have filmed that.
DRIVE, HE SAID
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For a brief period in the mid-1960s, Jack Nicholson's acting career wasn't exactly on fire, so he took up screenwriting, quickly followed by directing. His debut was the moody, startling calling card Drive, He Said (1971). Once criticized for its lack of cohesion, it feels fresh compared to today's homogenized cinema.
While having an affair with a faculty wife (Karen Black), college basketball star Hector (William Tepper) tries to decide if he wants to sell out to the Man by going pro. His radical roommate, Gabriel (Michael Margotta), tries to lead a revolution and slowly goes crazy, and Bruce Dern co-stars in a solid performance as Hector's coach.
This film is a fascinating, if dated, relic, steeped in '60s-era values. Nicholson's personality comes through in the film's rhythms: crazed and vibrant one moment, classical and refined another. You can almost hear his snide drawl in certain lines, co-written by Jeremy Larner. On basketball: "To you, it's poetry; to me, it's staying after school in your underwear." Or in the supermarket: "I got rat traps and rutabagas. Someone's going to think I'm crazy."
Nicholson's love of the game comes through in the beautiful basketball footage, anticipating his future courtside Lakers seats. To date, Nicholson has only directed twice more: Goin' South (1978) and The Two Jakes (1990), both decent efforts.