Notes from Underdog.

In Memorial (Day): My Favorite War Films

In honor of Memorial Day -- take a moment of silence for all the soldiers who have served this country over the years (and centuries), and then take another moment to think of some of your favorite films about the horrors of war.  These are mine:
(Note: I'm keeping to fictional features here, no docs allowed, for the sake of focus.)

WWI:
Paths of Glory - 1957
One of the finest anti-war statements ever made, it's also acted to perfection by Kirk Douglas, powerfully so, and company; despite the utterly tragic denouement Kubrick builds the suspense expertly.

Gallipoli - 1981
Peter Weir's Australian film about the horrifically tragic battle at the titular local in Turkey during WWI is also magnificently compelling; features a young Mel Gibson back when he was still an Aussie.  Memorable right down to the famous final shot.

Grand Illusion - 1937
Still holds sway as one of the greatest anti-war dramas, which also served as an influence on many other films -- including the aforementioned Great Escape. But as Roger Ebert notes, it's less about an escape than it is "a meditation on the collapse of the old order of European civilization." A remarkable piece of cinema, and director/actor Erich von Stroheim gives one of his two greatest performances (see Sunset Blvd. for the other).

Other Favorite WWI Movies:
All Quiet on the Western Front
Joyeux Noël
A Very Long Engagement

WWII:

Bridge on the River Kwai - 1957 
I still think it drags on a bit in the midsection when William Holden is off living the good life again, but otherwise this is one of the greatest of all WWII action films and is there a better, more gripping and satisfying 3rd act in cinema?

The Great Escape - 1963
Favorite POW movie, despite knowing how it ends, and its epic length, I'll watch this any time it's on because it remains entertaining with one of my favorite Hollywood casts ever.  Plus Steve McQueen on a motorbike!

Letters From Iwo Jima - 2006
Eastwood's beautifully realized film from the perspective of Japanese soldiers sent on a deadly mission to hold on to this godforsaken island. Unforgettable. (And more coherent than its sister film Flags of Our Fathers, though that film also has its share of moving moments.)

The Train -- 1964: Burt Lancaster as a French railroad official who must help the resistance sabotage a train full of art stolen by the Nazis. John Frankenheimer's film is taut (if a little overlong) and most exciting. Don't miss this one.

Other Favorite WWII Movies:
Battleground
Big Red One
Das Boot
Days of Glory
Decision Before Dawn - 1951: Both exciting and harrowing, surprisingly moving; underrated war espionage thriller.
Downfall
Story of GI Joe: Burgess Meredith as journalist Ernie Pyle in a most realistic and humane war tale, made back when it was all still quite fresh and raw.

Civil War:

Glory: Still my favorite Civil War movie, a most powerful story about race and hypocrisy, with a terrific cast. It's not flawless, but hard to forget.  There really aren't a ton of Civil War movies I'd deem "great," for whatever reason.

Korean War:

M*A*S*H*: There aren't too many great Korean War pictures and Altman's black comedy based on Richard Hooker's book was only ostensibly so, given it came out during 'Nam and aimed at the absurdity of that war while using Korea as official backdrop. Still -- it counts. And it's still outrageously, darkly funny. I can watch this one repeatedly.

Vietnam War:

Apocalypse Now
Full Metal Jacket
Both flawed but unforgettable. I think the flaws for both lie in having a 2nd half (or 3rd act) that is weaker than the amazing first part. Full Metal Jacket's basic training scenes, the first half, is one of the all-time greats. First time I ever saw Vincent D'Onofrio and right then I knew he'd be something special.  And I'll take either of these over Platoon any day of the week.

84 Charlie Mo Pic: Underrated, powerful little 'Nam movie shot from POV of a cameraman.

Persian Gulf War + Iraq War:
Three Kings
Generation Kill

Adventureland deserved a better fate.

Here's a case of a film that was totally mis-marketed. I'll admit, I finally saw Adventureland quite a bit late, after it had already moved theaters (and in my case, the fact that I was literally the only one in the theater(!) can probably more be blamed on that fact as well as that it was 4 o'clock on a weekday), but it's still easy to gauge how much it deserved a better fate. The marketing campaign sold it as a rather ribald, silly comedy, with comic actors like Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, and from the director of Superbad (and the movie font and colors even look a little Superbad-ish, and Jesse Eisenberg even seems at first glance like Michael Cera's slightly older brother), and I guess you can't totally blame them, but the film -- although it definitely has its share of laughs -- isn't just a comedy or a coming of age story but goes deeper than that to create a wholly relatable universe of people that you care about. I even found the ending moving, unexpectedly so.

I'll admit I'm also a sucker for the soundtrack -- which was the soundtrack of my high school years (I was in h.s., just finishing it, in the year the film is set, 1987): from Minneapolis punk/indie rockers Husker Du to the more pop-ish, mellow new wave of Crowded House, this was my soundtrack too. While a cynic may say that the film doesn't necessarily had to have been set then, but it's not just the music that is of that time and place, it's the characters and more importantly the locale itself, the fading amusement park, that needed to go 2 decades back. 

Both Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart are so incredibly appealing and empathetic young actors (sad to me that millions more will see her in Twilight than in this), as is the supporting cast, which includes Freaks and Geeks/Knocked Up's Martin Starr as his philosophizing, pipe-smoking, insecure friend, along with some relative newcomers, and Ryan Reynolds who makes what could have been a caricature of a role, the older guy cheating on his wife with girls who are way too young for him, into a 3-dimensional creation -- you even feel for him a bit, despite what a slime he is. The cast raises it to even another level.

Anyway, see it, and bring friends so you're not the only one in the theater.

--
Meanwhile, here's Martin Starr talking to Slash Film about the movie, in this bit about how it was marketed -- or wasn't:

Yeah. The marketing for Adventureland just seemed way the fuck off. The premise was great and so was the cast, but by the time it was released, the marketing made me not want to see it. It made me un-psyched. The TV-spots had, like, studio indifference: like here’s this great comedy that isn’t “loud” and it’s a fucking chore for them to deal with. Does that make sense?

Martin Starr: Yeah. [big laugh] I think that had things gone different…you know, I’m not too disappointed with how things turned out though. I mean, if [Miramax] were smarter, they would have aimed some of the marketing at the Twilight crowd and focused on [co-star] Kristen Stewart. Those fans come out in triplicate, with their parents. [Twilight's following] is a bit creepy, but they’re nice; we met some of them at Sundance. Something that Judd taught me was to keep your hopes high and your expectations low. And I had total faith in [director] Greg [Mottola], but after I saw the film, I was like “Holy Shit.” I think Adventureland is a film that in 10 years, I think people will really appreciate. Do they right now? I have no idea.

Useful advice on acquiring story rights.

I got this online elsewhere but it's from Lehmann Strobel (and was updated this year).

Download Acquiring-story-rights >>

Definitely of great use for any of us screenwriters and/or producers who are investigating the idea of getting rights to a book or real-life story.

As I am currently struggling to do.

Wear it in good health.

Star Trek: Critic's log, stardate May 10, 2009.

Star Trek is great fun. And I could really just leave it at that. But even though everything's already been written about the movie at this point already, I'll just list out a bunch of random thoughts I had:

What I appreciated in particular: the co-screenwriters, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, both well versed in Star Trekology (and they apparently read tons of notes from the Roddenberry estate as well as more nerdy Trek handbooks and so on), were true to the spirit of the characters while also opening up the universe a bit. 

They smartly start off the story with a bang, don't spend too much time on the requisite "where they came from" youths of Kirk and Spock, and don't introduce all the key characters at once, so there's a bit of pleasure to be found in each of their first appearances.

They also earn their Trek Origins merit badge by prominently featuring the character of Captain Pike (played here by the very underrated Bruce Greenwoood, played in the first failed Star Trek pilot by Jeffrey Hunter). Pike's inclusion here doesn't end up feeling like a contrived nod to true Trekkies, though; instead Pike ends up serving a purpose in the mentor role (mentor, adversary, and father figure) and with Greenwood's charm adds another captivating element to what could have been more of a throwaway role.

While the time travel element (which I won't go into here) may remind people of Abrams and Lindeloff's show Lost, it makes enough sense here that it's hard to argue against. (Or at the very least it gave them a good way to have Nimoy's older Spock in the film for more than just a quickie cameo.)

All the casting is surprisingly good - I say surprising because I wasn't really sure about Chris Pine, unknown to me until now, but he's certainly charming as Kirk and captures the man's youthful arrogance, confidence and soft underbelly. TV actor Zachary Quinto (Heroes, 24) makes a fine young Spock, adding an element of an emotional undercurrent -- the writers really play up the division within him, human side vs Vulcan side -- to make the character really three-dimensional. He even does well in his one scene with Spock.

I'd love to see Simon Pegg's (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) Scotty have a larger role in a sequel, assuming there is a sequel (and why wouldn't there be?) He may be almost too obvious casting but he still nails the character, both his sense of exasperation and humor. Right in Pegg's wheelhouse.  And Karl Urban makes for a super Bones. He doesn't quite do a DeForrest Kelly impression (though he comes close a couple of times) but he does capture the man's neuroses and tight fuse. I also liked Anton Yelchin, the young Russian-born, American actor (quite good in the indie comedy Charlie Bartlett) as Chekov, down to the trouble with double-u's.

I didn't even recognize Winona Ryder as Spock's human mother, Amanda, a character who appeared in a couple of other Trek movies and an episode of the series. Give Winona props for playing older than she is and not looking too "old-person-make-up-y" and yet still not all that recognizable (or frankly, memorable, but I quibble). 

And this is probably also ultimately a minor quibble, but I was distracted by seeing a Korean American actor (the very likable John Cho) playing a Japanese American character. Is that nitpicky? They let a Vulcan actor play a Vulcan!  Anyway, apparently JJ Abrams was concerned about that as well (reading Wikipedia entry), but George Takei explained to the director that Sulu was meant to represent all of Asia, so Cho was cast. This makes a bit more sense to me, but Takei as Sulu is so engrained in our consciousness at this point it's still a little irksome.

There are a few contrived moments, to be sure, and the main storyline, though perfectly servicable and engaging as a framework to hang the character development on, is really not that much different than a lot of other Star Trek plots -- a mad/angry alien humanoid character bent on revenge for a past tragedy wants to  take the Federation and the Enterprise down with him, etc. Eric Bana is effective as the villain but I don't think that was the most memorable aspect of the film. What works best is the characters, their developing relationships, and not surprisingly, many of the action sequences are very well staged and exciting (Abrams is usually very good at this with his TV work).

Finally, rather than quote from it at length, I'll just recommend you get the new issue of Script magazine for a lengthy interview with the two scribes talking about the process of creating the story and script for the film. Great read.

At least now, with the prospects of a sequel more likely (the ending certainly seems to acknowledge "Oh we'll be back"), I won't cringe cynically at the thought of it. Maybe, dare I say, I'm even looking forward to it. Beam me up.

3 more SFIFF52 REVIEWS: The Paranoids, Rudo y Cursi, Good Cats

Also a repost from GreenCine Daily.

The Paranoids (Los paranoicos)

Argentinean filmmaker Gabriel Medina's offbeat first feature moves a bit slow, but it's still inventive and enchanting enough to make one curious about his follow-up work. Essentially a character study, the film follows Luciano (Whisky's talented Daniel Hendler, looking a bit like a Uruguayan Paul Schneider), a quirkily neurotic, procrastinating screenwriter who earns a living entertaining at kids' parties (garbed in a Smoochy-like suit as his character "Cachito"). He spends a lot of time brooding in his apartment because he's, well, paranoid and sociophobic. He's such the perfectionist that he's spent years struggling over one script, and unsurprisingly, all his anxieties make it hard for him to have a girlfriend. (In the midst of a fling, he's terrified of contracting an STD because the condom breaks.) After he accidentally puts his performing partner in the hospital, his life is changed (in shades) when his longtime friend Manuel comes to visit. A TV producer, Manuel thinks Luciano's writing may be of interest to a Spanish program called "The Paranoids"—which, as Luciano discovers, is largely based on him. Things are further complicated when Manuel's girlfriend Sofia stays with Luciano while her beau works. Packed with emotional issues of her own, Sofia and her host find themselves intrigued by each other.

The Paranoids is unsettling at times; it's described as a dark comedy but I didn't find it particularly hilarious, though it has a certain downbeat drollness. (It's hard not to chuckle during the boxing videogame sequence). Medina does a nice job keeping the balance between comedy and tragedy, where Luciano's life is constantly teetering between. It's not the most gripping of plots, but the film is more a mood piece, enhanced by Lucio Bonelli's lovely cinematography. Even with only a peripheral knowledge of Argentina's recent economic collapse, it's clear that the country's anxiousness about its tenuous future is perfectly reflected in Luciano's fearful personality. The other main reason to see the film is Hendler's performance. Playing someone who could potentially grate quickly, he manages to make his nervous protagonist sympathetic, even endearing. Check out Lost Embrace on DVD for another great Hendler role. I look forward to more from both Medina and this charismatic young actor.

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Rudo y Cursi

Diego Luna is Beto (a/k/a Rudo, meaning both "crude" and "tough") and Gael Garcia Bernal plays Tato (a/k/a Cursi, or "cheesy"), two rural Mexican half-brothers with ultra-competitive streaks, in this brisk, irresistible sports comedy from Carlos Cuarón (half-brother to Alfonso, who directed Luna and Bernal in Y tu mamá también). When they're not picking bananas for tiny wages, they're found playing soccer on the most ramshackle fields imaginable—Rudo the goalkeeper, and Tato a show-offy striker—but even if these hardscrabble fields offer games more pure, the two both dream of making it big. They're each discovered by a corruptive but charming agent nicknamed Batuta, or "baton" (played with alegría de vivir by Guillermo Francella), who seems to have a different babe on his arm every time we see him. Understanding straight away that the boys have clearly had a life-long competition with each other, Batuta plays brother against brother, ultimately getting them both into the Mexico City spotlight. Tato becomes a star player, earning his nickname for his fancypants playing and lifestyle outside the game—he dates a TV hostess/model, and pursues the career that really matters to him: singing professionally.

Batuto narrates the film in a fourth-wall-breaking way, but unlike many superfluous voiceovers, I found his insights especially amusing. Lines like "Wars are mistaken for games, and games are mistaken for wars" give the film another playful layer. The earliest parts of the film are most charming, when simple pleasures can be found in Cuarón's depiction of poor, rustic Mexico. When the plot inevitably moves to Mexico City, the film becomes a bit more predictable, with Cursi's ascent happening awfully fast. But while sports-movie clichés sneak onto the field (gambling problems, drugs, shady agents, untrustworthy women, ethical conundrums, right up to the Big Game With Seconds Left on the Scoreboard Clock), I found myself fairly forgiving because the film ultimately glides smoothly on the effortlessly appeal of both leading actors. Despite us essentially knowing the outcome, the conclusion still satisfies; it's an appropriate ending. Soccer movies are rare enough; good ones are harder to find. Even the mega-popular Bend It Like Beckham had fairly unrealistic soccer scenes. While I wouldn't rank Rudo y Cursi even close to a classic, fans of the game will find plenty to enjoy in how it captures all the levels of the game, from the banana fields to the huge estadia, in the world's most popular team sport. For non-fans, there's still enough humor and spirit, and Luna and Bernal's not insignificant charisma, to hold interest.

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Good Cats

Director Ying Liang, whose previous two films (Taking Father Home and The Other Half) also played at SFIFF, has made a provocative narrative about the New China. Set in the city of Zigong (Sichuan), which has so been late to develop that it's playing catch-up, the film depicts eager real estate developers corruptly and too-quickly trying to rid the city of its "peasants." Ying is already becoming a "master of the bleak comedy" (as Roger Garcia correctly wrote in the fest's synopsis) and Good Cats might be his best yet. It centers around Luo Lang, a young man trying to make ends meet as a driver for a local business magnate, i.e., "boss," whose weight seems in direct proportion to his greed. Luo is in an unhappy marriage, isn't satisfying his in-laws' expectations, and watches as his failed former mentor drinks himself to death. Shot on digital video, the film has an immediacy that makes the tribulations of Zigong seem all the more naturalistic. Interestingly, Ying uses long takes and distant shots to let the audience choose where to look in any given scene. While this is occasionally distancing, it enhances the realism and the Jarmusch-like deadpan wit (such as a running gag in which Luo's rickety motorbike refuses to start).

The title playfully refers to Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's famous quote: "I don't care if it's a white cat or a black cat. It's a good cat so long as it catches mice." (There's also a running kitty motif here, with alley cats constantly "mao-ing" in the background.) It's not an entirely developed conceit, but it's at least clear that Ying finds a profound irony in that statement—the drive for economic windfall has led to a lot of greedy, shortsighted cats getting involved in Chinese development. Similarly, the impending Beijing Olympics form a tongue-in-cheek backdrop, with creepy-cheerful iconic advertising surrounding the protagonist on every nearby television screen and billboard. Good Cats is a bittersweet portrayal of the New China, but it also works as a satire, full of richly textured characters and amusing set-pieces. The haunting music in the film doesn't hide in the distance; Chinese indie rockers Lamb's Funeral appear to perform dirge-like ditties at several key moments (including the unforgettable final scene), like some sort of death-metal Greek chorus. (Sadly, as the director noted in the Q&A, the band has since dissolved.) It's sad to think this film may not get a wide international release. Seek it out if you can. Given the number of people who are circulating DVDs in China these days as sort of homespun film festivals, maybe someone, perhaps even the director himself, can dupe a copy for you.

Dengue Fever + Lost World at the SFIFF.

Bit late in reposting my two other SFIFF dispatches from GreenCine Daily, but here they are. New, brief post about Star Trek tomorrow I hope.

SFIFF '09: Dengue Fever vs dinosaurs.

The experience of watching a silent film, especially if you have the rare opportunity to see one on the big screen, can be transportive. I often have found myself drifting off, imagining what it would be like to have seen the film when it originally came out, the experience of watching a movie was just that, an experience -- people dressed up, there was live music before and during the film, the things seen on screen in such a young art form were sometimes the first time they'd ever been seen. It was a magic lantern, indeed.

I had this in mind when I went last night to the San Francisco International Film Fest's presentation of the 1925 silent feature The Lost World, with live musical score by Dengue Fever, at the magical movie palace (and historic landmark) the Castro Theater. At the Castro, one is always put in the proper mood straight away even before the film starts with the delightful stylings of organist David Hegarty, who comes out of the floor on the pipe organ like some musical wizard.

Then came Dengue Fever -- a six member band based out of Los Angeles but inspired by Cambodia. Their music ranges from dreamy pop, lounge-y riffs and psychedelic rock, and are fronted by Chhom Nimol, a Cambodian-born singer with a transportive voice who sings mostly in the Khmer language. While it may on paper seem an odd pairing, this band matched against a classic silent fantasy film based (loosely) on an Arthur Conan Doyle story, it worked.

Harry O. Hoyt's film is both an incredible achievement for its time, with groundbreaking stop motion animation by the legendary Willis O'Brien -- and in places uncomfortably dated, i.e., the actor in blackface playing a Negro stereotype with jaw-droppingly cringe-inducing dialogue, and the silly romantic plots. But despite that and some clunky/incoherent action editing, the film remains quite entertaining. It tells the story of a young reporter named Malone (an earnest Lloyd Hughes) who wants to impress his fickle fiancee, who seems to require he prove his mettle to her by doing something brave. Doesn't matter what, as long as it's brave! So he weasels his way into an expedition led by the crazy-haired professor Challenger (the always memorable character actor Wallace Beery) who wants to prove there are dinosaurs in a lost valley in Africa. The expedition also introduces Malone to Paula White (played by the lovely Bessie Love), daughter of the missing explorer who's diary set off this whole expedition in the first place.

When they reach the magic plateau, they do indeed discover dinosaurs -- as well as an obnoxious ape man and his chimp companion (what their relationship is is never clear, I only assume that they are cousins, at least genetically). They witness several exciting dinosaur battles, all of them involving a rather nasty, hungry Allosaurus, which at one point fights a Brontosaurus, knocking the poor beast off a cliff and into a mud pit. Somehow, Dino survives both the fall and about a month stuck in the mud, and transported back to London (that part is never shown, we'll just assume they had a big boat and a rillly big cage), where something goes awry and the Bronto terrorizes the streets of London (I guess it had given up on its herbivorous diet) before eventually falling down off London Bridge. The film ends with it swimming away, looking awfully Loch Ness Nelly-like. Perhaps this is where the famous footage of the mystical beastie came from!

Clearly the story was a major influence on King Kong, which came out eight years later and for which O'Brien also did the creature animation, but while O'Brien had perfected his technique by the time of Kong, The Lost World is still a most impressive achievement technically. Sure, "...for its time" -- but, again, I pictured how it must have felt to see these creatures come alive on screen for a 1925 audience and give the film its proper due.

But with Dengue Fever's up-tempo, tropicalia, feverishly loungey music accompanying the film, it became even harder to lose interest. There were times where the music mixed with the surreal images on screen when I drifted off into a reverie, my own fantasia of dinosaurs, jungles, Tiki huts, martinis... wait, where was I?

In shows like this the music sometimes comes to the fore, with the film serving more as a backdrop; most of the time it's up to viewer, or dependent on which is more interesting at the moment. There were only a few instances in which I found Dengue's score intrusive or overbearing -- or completely out of synch with the music on screen. More often their score was an aural enhancement.

Dengue Fever provided an amazing soundtrack to what felt like a waking dream, a different kind of lost world than the makers of the silent film probably ever imagined.

SFIFF Dispatch 1: Tales of childhood woe.

(This originally appeared on GreenCine Daily blog. A few more reviews from SFIFF coming soon.)

HANSEL AND GRETEL
Korea, 2008.

A young man, Eun-Soo, drives on a lonely forest highway while having an argument via cell phone with his girlfriend. This leads to what could serve as the greatest PSA warning about the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving: his loses control of the car just long enough to swerve and flip over a ditch. In his dazed, bloodied state he wanders into a forest before passing out with a concussion. When Eun-Soo (Jeong-myeong Cheon) wakes, he's pleased to see a young girl -- wearing a little red riding hood, natch -- has found him. She offers to lead the dazed man back to her home, which welcomes him with a sign reading "Home for Happy Children" -- a good indicator that things are just not going to go well here. It's a house not made of gingerbread but seemingly too good to be true... And that's just the first few minutes of director Yim Phil-Sung's (Antarctic Journal) memorably dark fable inspired by, but also transposing, the titular Grimm fairy tale.

The son, Soojeong, seems to have special abilities that may begin to remind you of that famous Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" (remade in the TZ movie), a boy burdened with a gift who wants to get everything he wishes. But the family history as it's slowly revealed will give you a great deal of sympathy for the life he's been cursed with. This "family" of three children of various ages (and you don't know the half of it) turns out to have a few surprising secrets underneath that initial layer of rosy-cheeked friendliness. Eun-soo does everything he can to try to leave the house, to return to his pregnant wife and ailing mother, but all paths away from the house seem to lead right back to it; it's a Bermuda Triangle in the heart of the forest.

The story gets a bit convoluted as it rolls on, rushing through a few too many plot points and explanations, but slowly builds the layers of dread. Eun-soo becomes more protective of the children while also battling against a deacon who'd ended up at the house and seems to cloak his own dark side under a veneer of insincere friendliness.

What the film also has going for it is the look, the lushly colored cinematography and art design are perfectly in tune with the story of a distorted childhood, of being stuck in time and place. The pastiche of creepy kitsch and domestic detritus -- odd bunny paintings (it's the best creepy rabbit movie since Donnie Darko), time warped cartoons, fluffy desserts, children's toys everywhere -- and the variations of forest light and darkness, all of this adds to the feeling of dread that hangs over the film.

It's as if Kore-ada's Nobody Knows took a detour through purgatory before returning to humanity.

It's not fun for the whole family, but it's a pretty memorable work.

IT'S NOT ME, I SWEAR!
Canada, 2008

It's Not Me, I Swear! (C'est pas moi, je le jure!), a French-Canadian film from Philippe Falardeau, the director of the unappreciated Congorama (which screened here at the SFIFF 2 years ago), is based on Bruno Hebert's 1997 novel and its 2000 sequel. It's a disquieting coming of age tale set in 1968, which seems a bit of an obvious watershed year to set a film in, but to its credit the film never pushes this too hard, only uses the political upheaval going on across the world as something to touch fingers with -- and the children depicted here seem in tune with the political zeitgeist. Set in suburban Montreal, IIt's Not Me, I Swear takes place from the skewed point of view of Leon -- played by the unforgettable Antoine L’Écuyer, who seems to have stepped out of an early Truffaut film -- an acutely intelligent ten year old with a delinquent streak (in the most egregious example, he breaks into the wealthy neighbor's house, plays with their stuff and pees on their collection of fur coats).

His parents have a tumultuous relationship, with the mother the epitome of child-enabler -- she even tells Leon the right way to lie ("make sure you keep your story straight") -- before she abruptly abandons them for a Greece in the midst of a socialist upheaval. It seems hard to believe that even as self-centered and soul-searching as she is that, given her tight bond with Leon, and her constant worries over his cries for help, she would abruptly leave him, but, again, since the film is from Leon's point of view we don't know all the angles of her story.

At any rate, you can see why he's a bit messed up (the film could be used in any bad parenting workshop). He tries to hide his pain with increasingly desperate acts and Harold and Maude-ish suicide attempt ploys. He meets his match with Lea (Catherine Faucher), a girl with family problems of her own, suffering with an abusive, drunken uncle. Their budding friendship and subsequent aborted quest to escape, as the two kids help each other try to repair the damaged trail their wayward parents have left them on, forms the main thrust of the story. Leon also finds more comfort in a lonely corn field and in a local bowling alley than he does at home.

The film manages to navigate through subtle shifts in tone, with humor (a bit involving Leon lying about his eyesight is particularly funny) and pain equal partners. What is most heartbreaking is how much pain he causes his poor older brother, who just desperately wants to have a normal family in which everyone is happy.

Even though much of the film sounds, at least on paper, like a lot of other coming of age stories about warped pre-adolescents, like Hansel and Gretel, It's Not Me, I Swear has a unique feel to it, buoyed by the superb cinematography by André Turpin. Turpin, who also shot Congorama and the Genie Award-winning Maelstrom, has a lovely way with color hues, here using slightly blown out lighting that makes the film look like a more crisply shot home movie. And Patrick Watson's music score, augmented by appropriately emo songs, adds to the moodiness.

Falardeau's film ultimately ends up being both shocking and touching in equal measure, with several images near the end you won't soon forget.

Not For Duplication.

This isn't the San Francisco International Film Festival's fault, but a review DVD I got from them of the Greek film "Small Crime" had in big letters across the middle of the screen "Not For Duplication."

Okay, I thought, that will go away after the first few minutes.  My girlfriend and I had settled in to watch the movie and looking forward to it. Yep, that will go away. A few minutes passed. Nope, it's still there.

And still there. I fast forwarded through 20 minutes of the movie. It NEVER goes away. 

They put that copyright protection for the film's entire running time.

And thus rendering it unwatchable.  Not wanting to punish the film itself with a grouchy review in which I was distracted from the visuals for the whole film, I stopped it.

 

Just a word of warning for any world film distributors out there -- when duplicating DVDs for review, try to keep it at least watchable for a critic. A copyright protection at a few intervals is all that's needed, at the most. 

Oh well. Hopefully I'll get another crack at watching that film.  Instead, we ended up watching part of Terry Jones' Barbarians series on cable. Which had a few references to Greece on it, at least.