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Eight Days a Week

Austin Film Festival 2002

October 11, 2002, Screens

The first festival in the country to devote itself to the art and artistry of screenwriting kicks off its ninth year this Thursday and runs through the next. That means eight days of wall-to-wall films (not to mention this weekend's screenwriting conference, boasting such celebrated penmen and -women as Darren Star, Jessica Bendinger, and the Weitz Brothers). Eight days, and a lot to choose from, beginning with tonight's doc, Lost in La Mancha, about Terry Gilliam's season in hell trying to adapt Man of La Mancha, and capping off with the much-loved Standing in the Shadows of Motown, about the unsung heroes of Motown, the Funk Brothers (who'll perform at the Paramount). And what a fitting end to a festival devoted to another underappreciated profession -- that of the writer.

Due to time constraints and screener availability, we haven't yet seen everything playing at this year's fest, so take these picks as a list of what we like, and don't take what we've left out as an indicator of what we don't like. We'll get to them, too. We've got eight days. -- Kimberley Jones

For more information, visit www.austinfilmfestival.com. For detailed synopses of every film playing at the fest see www.austinfilmfestival.com/filmfestival.php.

Thursday, Oct. 10

LOST IN LA MANCHA

D: Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe.

Documentary Series

Lost in La Mancha documents the frustrating efforts of one of cinema's wild visionaries, Terry Gilliam, as he is thwarted at every turn while trying to mount his long-fantasized film version of The Man of La Mancha. Weather, actors' schedules, a health crisis, and much more beset this doomed production in a litany that becomes heartbreaking to witness. Few "making of" movies have ever aroused this kind of emotion and sympathy. (10/10, 7pm, Paramount) -- Marjorie Baumgarten

SEE YOU OFF TO THE EDGE OF TOWN

W/D: Ching Ip; with Zhu Xi Juan, K.K. Wong, Yvonne Teoh, Jo Chim.

Competition Film

Take one graduation weekend in Los Angeles. Add one balding Hong Kong salary-man and his brittle wife. Then add their two daughters -- a careerist travel agent with her flip-phone welded to her hand and a punky-haired collegian. Mix and place in a 1953 Cadillac hearse on the highway to the Grand Canyon. It sounds like a "road to wackiness" farce, but the relationships are front-and-center in this smart family drama. The story takes its time getting from place to place, but the journey is rewarding. (10/10, 9:40pm, Westgate; 10/14, 7pm, Westgate) -- Marrit Ingman

Friday, Oct. 11

DECADE UNDER THE INFLUENCE

W/D: Ted Demme & Richard LaGravenese.

Advance Screening

THE FISHER KING

D: Terry Gilliam/W: Richard LaGravenese; with Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges, Mercedes Ruehl.

Retrospective Screening

Recipient of AFF's 2002 Distinguished Screenwriter Award Richard LaGravenese (Beloved, The Ref) will be in attendance at this evening's double feature. Beginning the bill is the work-in-progress Decade Under the Influence, a joint venture of co-writers and directors LaGravenese and Ted Demme (who passed away during filming). Demme said the film's goal was to be "a love letter to the artists that made the Seventies the greatest decade in American filmmaking." Also screening is The Fisher King, the terrific 1991 Oscar winner scripted by LaGravenese. (10/11, 6:30pm, Dobie)

-- K.J.

EMMETT'S MARK

W/D: Keith Snyder; with Scott Wolf, Tim Roth, Gabriel Byrne.

Competition Film

A snot-nosed rookie police detective (Wolf) is diagnosed with a painful, terminal disease. So he asks a sympathetic ex-cop he meets in a bar (Byrne) to hire a guy to put him out of his misery. You can see where this is headed, right? Writer/director Keith Snyder rounds up the usual plot twists in this moody policier, but squeezes some sympathetic moments out of his reliable cast, particularly Tim Roth as the reluctant hit man. (10/11, 10:15pm, Dobie; 10/16, 7pm, Westgate) -- Sam Hurwitt

THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS

W/D: Rose Troche; with Glenn Close, Jessica Campbell, Patricia Clarkson, Joshua Jackson, Moira Kelly, Robert Klein, Dermot Mulroney, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Kay Place.

Advance Screening

Based on a book of short stories by A.M. Homes, The Safety of Objects is the third feature from writer/director Rose Troche (Go Fish). The movie examines the world of well-to-do suburbanites, whose unhappiness with their lives is not assuaged by their accumulation of and attachment to physical things. Characters and situations born in the discrete short stories are interwoven in the film to provide a striking portrait of modern dissociation.

(10/11, 9:30pm, Westgate) -- M.B.

SHAG CARPET SUNSET

W/D: Andrew McAllister; with Duke Novak, Robert Dorn, Arlette Del Toro.

Competition Film

Shag Carpet Sunset (directed by recent Austin transplant MacAllister) isn't exactly a great movie -- in particular, its slacker-struggles-with-adulthood scenario has been done to death -- but this fact somehow fails to keep it from being immensely, relentlessly likeable. Blessed with a wry, wise script, talented and photogenic actors, and garishly vibrant photography, Shag Carpet Sunset works best as a shambling series of vignettes, peppered with hipster tableaux and surreal zingers. In its laid-back lyricism and slack poetics, it comes across as a low-rent miniature of Buffalo 66 or The Big Lebowski -- charming because it's all about pleasure, and in no hurry to get anyplace special. (10/11, 11:30pm, Omni; 10/17, 7:30pm, Omni) -- Will Robinson Sheff

Saturday, Oct. 12

LAVA

W/D: Joe Tucker; with Tucker, James Holmes, Nicola Stapleton, Grahame Fox.

Advance Screening

This Brit-pic is right up there with the best of them in terms of random acts of senseless violence. The first casualty comes two minutes into the film, when a homeless man is offed for sudsing the windshield of the wrong Jamaican gangster. Things progress at a steady clip, and the body count soars, as a mentally retarded man and his obviously deranged friend set out to avenge an unprovoked beating that has left his brother a drooling vegetable. It's the bizarre and unconventional characters that make this shoot-'em-up pic worth watching, even if a variety of outrageously thick accents means you have to work a little harder to understand them. (10/12, 7pm, Paramount) -- Cathy Vaughan

REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES

D: Patricia Cardoso/W: George LaVoo, Josefina Lopez; with America Ferrera, Lupe Ontiveros, Ingrid Oliu, George Lopez.

Advance Screening

This movie cleanses the spirit with the purity of a refreshing summer rain. Although its storyline is fairly familiar, the movie's depiction of the lives of unconventional movie characters and cultures is most original. Real Women Have Curves tells the story of one Latina high school graduate who is determined to break out of the traditional female life cycle of marriage and sweatshops. The film earned the Audience Award when it played at Sundance earlier this year. (10/12, 9:40pm, Westgate) -- M.B.

STANDARD TIME

D: Robert Cary/W: Isabel Rose; with Rose, Cameron Bancroft, Andrew McCarthy.

Competition Film

Any film that features former Bat-fling Eartha Kitt already has a lot going for it in our book. This comic meditation on the hapless pursuit of dreams and love by the eternally hopeful airport lounge chanteuse Billie Golden (writer Isabel Rose) and the two men in her life -- musician McCarthy and former schoolmate Bancroft -- manages to be both charmingly old-fashioned in its idealized hopefulness and borderline goofy in its humor. Rose is a whip-smart comedienne, and her idolatry of Audrey H. does her (and the film) no harm. (10/12, 7:15pm, Westgate; 10/16, 7:15pm, Westgate) -- M.S.

Sunday, Oct. 13

ROGER DODGER

W/D: Dylan Kidd; with Campbell Scott, Jesse Eisenberg, Elizabeth Berkeley, Jennifer Beals.

Advance Screening

What do women want? Certainly, we can only hope, not Manhattan bachelor-cum-center-of-the-universe Roger (Scott), the sort of insufferable lothario that gives all mankind a bad name in the name of gettin' it on, baby. A night on the town spent in the company of young virgin nephew Nick ends badly for Roger, but opens up all sort of doors for the sensitive Nick. Berkeley and Beals are a pair of nightbirds drawn to the kid's wide-eyed innocence and simultaneously repelled by Roger's oozy sleaze. Compared to most "New York movies," not a lot happens here, but the film is as charming as its young star, and has crackly dialogue smarts to burn. (10/13, 7pm, Paramount) -- M.S.

SECRETARY

D: Steven Shainberg/W: Erin Cressida Wilson; with Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Jeremy Davies, Lesley Ann Warren.

Advance Screening

Who knew S&M could be so poignant? Steven Shainberg is the man to thank for fashioning this modern love story between two sad souls who bond in the most unusual (yet literal) of ways. Gyllenhaal is a wonder as Spader's mousy young secretary, who blooms under her boss' frequent spankings. It sounds weird -- and it is -- but it's also funny and tender and always surprising. Spank you very much, indeed, Mr. Shainberg. (10/13/9:30pm, Westgate) -- K.J.

Monday, Oct. 14

FILM COMPETITION WINNERS

Festival favorites will get a reprise screening this evening. (10/14, 5pm, Dobie)

THE PRINCESS BLADE

W/D: Shinsuke Sato; with Hideaki Ito, Shiro Sano.

Advance Screening

Rivaling Tsui Hark's slice 'n' dice epic The Blade for sheer exuberance in swordplay, this futuristic samurai drama merges the apocalyptic malaise of Blade Runner with the honor and duty themes of Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo (minus the anthropomorphic bunnies, of course). Actually, Princess Blade is almost traditionalist in its depiction of samurai life -- it ain't all seppuko and flying heads -- and Princess Yuki (Ito) manages to find time amid the plotting and bloodshed for something approximating a normal (albeit action-packed) samurai lifestyle. This is Sato's debut film, which bodes well for the future of Japan's moribund samurai genre. (10/14, 7:30pm, Paramount) -- M.S.

Tuesday, Oct. 15

EASY LISTENING

W/D: Pamela Corkey.

Competition Film

Things are going bad for Burt. He can't even kill himself right. He plays easy listening while his heart longs for jazz; his ex-wife offers bile when all he really needs is, well, love. That comes in the form of Linda, one of those fabulously carefree girls who roll down hills and blindly pursue middle-aged burnouts. Using a quirky tone and Sixties-inspired visual riffs, writer/director Pamela Corkey turns this predictable number into a charming romantic fable. (10/13, 7:15pm, Dobie; 10/15; 9:30pm, Omni) -- Sarah Hepola

Wednesday, Oct. 16

MANFAST

W/D: Tara Judelle; with Lala Stoatman, Jeremy Sisto, Klea Scott, Bruce Davison, Ethan Embry.

Competition Film

When the feministas of Florida-based zine Beotch can't make next month's rent or make a dent in paying back a $20,000 loan, they raise funds by taking on an intriguing bet: Go 100 days without men (meaning no sex, no flirting, hell, not even a harmless cup of joe); in return they'll land $25,000 in grant cash. First-time writer/director Judelle and her likable cast fuse feminism and an ultra-girly girliness in this amiable sex comedy (sans, of course, the sex). (10/12, 11:45pm, Dobie; 10/16, 7pm, Dobie) -- K.J.

TENDER MERCIES

D: Bruce Beresford/W: Horton Foote; with Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley.

Retrospective Screening

Robert Duvall's amazing performance in this film as a washed-up country singer earned him an Oscar. Duvall wrote his own tunes as well. Horton Foote's touching story also earned the screenwriter an Oscar. Foote will be in attendance at the Paramount screening; one wonders if Duvall -- in town shooting Tim McCanlies' Secondhand Lions -- might pop in for the retrospective as well. (10/16, 7:15pm, Paramount) -- M.B.

MASTER OF THE GAME

D: Jeff Stolhand/W: Uygar Aktan, with Aktan, Garry Peters, Steven Prince, David Stokey.

Austin Showcase

If you can believe -- or suspend your disbelief -- that a bored group of Nazi officers would on a dare submit their lives and authority to a captured American Jew, this claustrophobic excursion into the nature of power and identity is intelligent, suspenseful, and an actor's tour de force. The engaging script is by Uygar Aktan, also the lead, a nameless soldier who challenges his captors to assume the roles of condemned prisoners for the purpose of a metaphysical question: Is authority natural, or socially constructed? Remarkably, Aktan, director Jeff Stolhand, and a strong cast dramatize that problem in a manner always interesting and often gripping in this locally made production. (10/16, 9:30pm, Westgate) -- Michael King

Thursday, Oct. 17

FABLED

W/D: Ari Kirschenbaum; with Desmond Askew, J. Richey Nash, Coleen Sexton.

Competition Film

Absorbingly self-conscious and nearly crackling with visual distortion, short takes, long shots, and jump cuts, Kirschenbaum's first feature is one that capitalizes on its own confusion, leaving one scared shitless and wondering about one's sanity. It pulleys back and forth along that most wobbly of plot lines: the fable, this one about a wolf and a crow. Askew (Go) is Joseph Fable, a rich but working stiff who suspects that his former girlfriend is "cheating" on him. Nash is his buddy Alex, always around with a shoulder to cry on. But when Joseph's alcoholism and absolute mental and emotional breakdowns consume him, it's hard for anyone -- including his psychiatrist (Panes) -- to believe what they're seeing. (10/11, 10:15pm, Dobie; 10/17, 7pm, Dobie) -- Shawn Badgley

STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN

D: Paul Justman/W: Walter Dallas, Ntozake Shange.

Documentary Series

Based on the book by Allan Slutsky, Standing in the Shadows of Motown is a rousing documentary that shines light on the unsung source of the Motown sound: the Funk Brothers. These faceless -- until now -- studio musicians laid down the tracks that played behind every Motown hit until 1972 and, as this documentary makes clear, the rhythms and hooks of these session players are the reason the Motown sound has enjoyed such enduring popularity. The Funk Brothers and Allan Slutsky will be in attendance at the Paramount premiere. (10/17, 7pm, Paramount) -- M.B.