Jason Watches IRON MAN 3 in 3-D

A wacky self-referential meta-comedy about a billionaire playboy superhero who is having a nervous breakdown about  the "events" of New York (ostensibly about the fight in THE AVENGERS, but designed to make you think 9/11). Adorable moppet sidekick, remote controlled suits (although he spends the bulk of the movie without a working suit), old girlfriend, old enemy, wacky and inexplicable twists, a flashback voice-over narration that director Shane Black used to much greater effect in KISS KISS BANG BANG.... And a hero who frequently freaks out--is reduced to a quivering lump--by any mention of New York or the events that happened there.

If this sounds schizophrenic, it is. But more than that, it's a movie about schizophrenia. In the opening scene, Tony Stark is at a 1999/2000 New Year's Eve party wearing a name tag that says, "You know who I am." The thing is, he doesn't. Or at least, once he becomes Iron Man the line between Tony Stark and the suit gets blurred. Multiple times the suit is walking (or flying) around for minutes before the big reveal that nobody is actually inside it. And as I've already mentioned, Tony spends a huge chunk of the movie without a working suit. In fact, in the end where he finally says, "I am Iron Man" he's not wearing a suit and (SPOILER, except that it was kinda revealed in the trailer) his entire inventory is destroyed. The only obvious conclusion--the Iron in Iron Man isn't the stuff of the suit, it's the stuff of his heart. Or...he's secretly building new suits so that there can be yet more Iron Man/Avengers sequels.

Oh, and as for the 3-D. I don't care. I've become so inured to it that it neither impresses nor annoys. It just looks like a movie. Of course, 2-D movies look just fine to me, too, so there's a big "what's the point" angle there. Now I've been told by a friend that THE GREAT GATSBY has some of the best 3-D he's seen, so I suppose I'll have to see that.

Running Time: 130 minutes
My Total Minutes: 327,940

Jason goes to the Niles Film Museum for a Laurel and Hardy (and Our Gang) Mother's Day...er...Train Show.

The second Sunday of every month is Laurel and Hardy day at the Niles Film Museum, even if it's Mother's Day. But they didn't actually do a mothers themed show (for one thing, while Our Gang had a lot of motherly influence, Laurel and Hardy almost never referenced their mothers in their movies). Instead, since it's the only time this year (other than the train of lights in December) that the Niles Canyon Railway was running a train on the second Sunday of the month (they've cut back to only the first and third weekends every month), they did a train-based show instead.

CHOO-CHOO (1932): Our Gang wants to take a train ride. So they trade places with a group of orphans. And wacky hijinx ensue as Dell Henderson (the adult in charge of the orphans) tries in vain to regain some control. Very funny.

BERTH MARKS (1929): Laurel and Hardy as traveling musicians attempting to get to a show. They have trouble meeting in the station, lose their sheet music, nearly lose their cello (which Hardy calls a "big fiddle,") barely make the train, and then cause a bit of havoc before attempting to get into their sleeping berth. By the end the entire train is in disarray and they're just about ready for a nap when they pull into their station. Hilarious stuff.

Then, after a brief intermission...

RAILROADIN' (1929): Our Gang learns the dangers of playing around on a train without supervision when Joe Cobb learns how to make the train go but not how to stop. More of a train thrill picture than a real comedy, but it's pretty well done at that (the scene where Farina has a foot stuck in the tracks and the train goes right over him repeatedly is pretty amazing.) Of course, it's all trick photography, no one would put those kids in actual danger just to make a movie...right? (Answer: Yes. Of course, don't be crazy!)

GOING BYE-BYE (1934): So Laurel and Hardy didn't really make any train movie other than BERTH MARKS, so this is kind of a stretch. They're preparing for a trip. They're preparing because they just gave the evidence to put the vicious Butch (Walter Long) away for good. But he escapes (in keeping with the theme, he escapes from the train that is taking him to prison). So they have to be smart, quick, and strong to avoid his vengeance. Spoiler alert: they're not smart, quick, nor strong. But they are funny.

Total Running Time: 78 minutes
My Total Minutes: 327,810

Jason goes to SFIFF--The End

Okay, SFIFF ended a week ago, and I've finally gotten a little rest and it's time to finish this up. I skipped the closing night gala of BEFORE MIDNIGHT. Not only is it coming out soon, but I haven't seen the previous films in the series (BEFORE SUNRISE and BEFORE SUNSET). I was assured that seeing the first two was not necessary, but I'm kind of hoping one of the awesome theaters in the Bay Area will do a marathon of all three. That seems like the right way to see them.

Instead I went to the Kabuki for two films, staring with THE KILL TEAM, the winner for Best Bay Area Documentary Feature. A troubling account of a rogue (or is it typical? There are allegations but no details) platoon in Afghanistan. It focuses on Adam Winfield, a bright-eyed all-American kid who wanted to join up and serve his country. He found himself serving with a sergeant who kept a necklace of fingers as war trophies, and he certainly didn't expect to get used to that. Turns out his platoon has a bit of a thing for capturing and killing Afghans...maybe without really finding out if they're actually enemy combatants or not. As Adam is going to trial, interviews with himself, his family, and other members of the platoon (not the sergeant, unfortunately. But then what would he say other than insisting they were legitimate enemy combatants?) bring up the question of whether he was an active participant, a reluctant participant who gave into peer pressure, or a whistle-blower who is being unfairly punished. The movie--or rather Adam and his parents--make a compelling case for the latter. But there's more to it than that. Could he have done something to stop it or report it earlier? There's plenty of evidence--or at least belief--that if he had there would have been retaliation up to even the possibility of him 'accidentally' being killed while out on maneuvers. But is his fear of retaliation evidence of cowardice that warrants a court-martial? That's eventually what he plea-bargained to. And the movie...leaves that a little unresolved. In fact, as much as it focuses on Adam it actually shows more about the military culture, and how little we really understand of it.

And that reminds me of something I've said before. I will never understand what it's like to be a soldier. I haven't been one, and I don't want to. I respect the people who volunteer to fight so I don't have to. I admire them. And the one thing I think they truly deserve--my understanding--is something they will never get. This all still holds true. But please guys, stop being dicks, so I can at least still have respect and admiration for you.

And finally, I ended the festival with BYZANTIUM, a late-added program of Neil Jordan's (INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE) new vampire flick, told from a woman's perspective. Young Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) and her older companion Clara (Gemma Arterton) are vampires. In fact, while Eleanor looks 16 and Clara looks just old enough to be her mother (spoiler aler: because she is) they've actually been around for 200 years, hiding from the patriarchal vampiric authorities (it's a strict brotherhood, no females allowed). It's kind of hard to conceive of how exactly they survived so long, since they have a bit of a habit of making huge messes (like burning up their flat). Mother/daughter strife (apparently although they've had 200 years together they have only just begun working on their relationship issues), survival, romance, etc. It's about 80% tedious, with flashes of brilliant, beautiful scenes. Although the biggest, most beautiful scene is re-used so often that by the end I was just thinking 'Oh, this again. Whatever.' Anyway, a bit of a disappointment for the ending of the festival, although that's probably only because my hopes were so high (I do love me a kick-ass lady vampire flick.)

Total Running Time: 192 minutes

My Total Minutes: 327,732

Jason goes to SFIFF--Day 13

Just one film last night (Tuesday*), and it was the annual SFIFF presentation of a silent film with live music. I haven't seen the silent films at SFIFF since 2010 and the Stephin Merrit 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA atrocity.

Well, this was the German expressionist classic WAXWORKS (1924), in a print with French intertitles (with English translations superimposed from a second projector), which they got from Italy, of course. A rather simple tale of a writer (Wilhelm Dieterle) who takes a job writing back-stories for the figures in a wax museum--the caliph Harun al Raschid (Emil Jannings), Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt), and Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss.) He inserts himself and the museum owner's beautiful daughter (Olga Belajeff) into the stories. The Caliph story is a comedy, the Ivan the Terrible is more of a dark drama, and the Ivan the Terrible story is a horror nightmare.

The accompanists were Mike Patton (from Faith No More) and percussionists Scott Amendola, Matthias Bossi, and William Winant. So I knew going in that it was going to be a bit of a percussive cacophony, and I expected it. I just hoped that they would do a good job of complementing the film--let the action in the film lead the soundtrack, and don't fight with it. Unfortunately, for the most part it didn't. Some parts were good (the climactic chase scene in the Caliph sequence, especially). But for the most part, it was a concert that happened to have a film playing in the background. It's good as a concert (and from the standing ovation they got from ~1/2 the crowd, I'd say Patton's fans sure loved it), but I'm there as a movie fan and wanted the movie to be forefront, not the music.

I guess I should just give up on the experimental music/silent film pairings at SFIFF. Plenty of people love it, but it's just not my cup of tea. I'm not an absolute traditionalist (I don't insist on always hearing the original score, although I always appreciate it) but I at least want a film-first, complementary-music it experience. And I have plenty of opportunities for that. There's the big SF Silent Film Festival in July, along with their other programs throughout the year (like the upcoming Hitchcock Nine.) Or there are the silent programs every year at Cinequest, which always feature the masterful Dennis James. Or the semi-regular silent programs at the Stanford. Or at the PFA (if you can't make the Hitchcock Nine at the Castro, they're bringing them all to the PFA in August, with the excellent Judith Rosenberg on the piano.) Judy's also one of the regular pianists at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum where you can see silent films with live music every Saturday Night (and for only $5). You can also tour the museum noon-4 pm on Saturdays and Sundays, and if you're lucky you might even find me there giving tours.

So yeah, I have no shortage of excellent silent film experiences here in the Bay Area. I'm not going to fret about a more experimental take on it that I didn't really dig. Especially when so many other people did enjoy it. I'll just avoid these in the future (unless, of course, they bring in someone with a real, established record of accompanying silent films the way I like.)

Running Time: 71 minutes
My Total Minutes: 327,540

*Daily obligatory sleep-deprivation correction. Yesterday was Tuesday, not Thursday as originally stated. But then, it was probably Thursday somewhere in the world, just not here. I don't know how time zones work.

Jason goes to SFIFF--Day 12

Two more movies on Monday, starting with the late addition to the festival, THE SPECTACULAR NOW. First, a comment on the added programs. The festival has done, in general, a pretty poor job of publicizing the added programs and the added screenings of existing programs. For your elucidation, the added programs can be seen here. If you wanted to find that yourself, you'd go to the film list, click on the drop-down list of Categories, and select Added Programs. Yeah, you have to think of added programs as a "category" in the festival, similar to documentaries, new directors, world cinema, etc. Now to find the added screenings...as far as I know, you're S.O.L. I have heard there are flyers on the festival information desk at the Kabuki, I have also heard that they weren't initially available when they first added screenings. For the most part, the way I've heard them communicated (other than just appearing unceremoniously online) is to tell people who attend the earlier, previously programmed screenings. So, for example, if you were in an earlier screening of LEVIATHAN, you would be told they've added a screening on Thursday, May 9th at 5:30. I guess you could get some word-of-mouth dissemination of the information, but is the best primary target for this information really people who are already about to see the movie? That seems a little...dumb.

Look, I don't want to turn this into a rant about the festival. I know there has been a lot of turmoil over the untimely deaths of two executive directors in quick succession (gives new meaning to "Keep Hope Alive") and other turnover in festival management. And I really have had a fantastic time at the festival. It's just frustrating to see an organization not execute it's centerpiece in the best way possible...especially when you've seen them do it in the past. I'm giving them some leeway this year, but I expect some organizational and communications improvements next year. At the same time, I promise to be vigilant against myself just becoming a grumpy old fuddy-duddy who simply objects because "it's not the way they did it in the past!" (with that said, please don't get rid of the printed program guide! In fact, bring back the larger guide, even if you only give it Cinevisas or sell it for $5 or something!)

Okay, on to the movie, THE SPECTACULAR NOW, which played to a much smaller audience than it should have. It's a teen drama/comedy/romance that is 90% excellent and realistic and 10% over-written. Let's get the over-written part out of the way first. It's just isolated lines and scenes, and might get a little spoiler-y. Lines like "Get away from me, can't you tell I'm bad for you!" Or the exchange, "I suppose if I were your father this is where I'd give you a lecture." / "If you were my father, you wouldn't need to." Or the framing device of a college essay where the protagonist eventually writes about how his poor decisions have been the toughest obstacles in his life. These are fleeting moments, that momentarily take me out of the movie before I get sucked right back in (they're also similar to complaints I made about SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and not only was it nearly universally loved, it was nominated for several Oscars including Best Writing, so I'm usually on the minority dissenting side of these thing.)

Now on to the excellent stuff. The lead character Sutter Kelly (Miles Teller) is an unusually fully realized and recognizable high school character. He's the life of the party, a funny, charismatic guy who gets carried away with the drinking way too often. The awkwardness of teenage friendship and romance is very well depicted. The love scene is one of the most tender, awkward, and erotic scenes ever put on film. And almost every time it had a chance to veer into melodramatic cliche (There will be a love triangle with his ex, they're going to be in a terrible car accident, etc.) it pulls back--so that actually the one huge dramatic shock packs a heck of punch. Seriously, there's a scene that made the whole audience jump and knocked the breath out of me, it was amazing! This is easily more than enough to counterweight the handful of over-written scenes, and make it a highly memorable--and highly recommendable--movie.

And then I ended the night with a personal treat, DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY. I love Ricky Jay, I remember in college watching more than a few David Mamet movies on VHS in the lounge, and always noticing that big, bearded guy who had a supporting role. In one (and I can't remember which, it was many movies ago) he says something like "I can't do that, I'm not a magician!"* Then a friend pointed out this was an inside joke, because he's actually one of the most highly regarded sleight-of-hand magicians in the world. Shortly after that I saw his TV special (I don't remember the title) where he threw cards all over the theater and even into the hard outer rind of a watermelon. He was funny and amazing, and I was a fan, if not quite a rabid one. And now this documentary, which at times tries to be hero worship, but Ricky is quick to deflect a lot of that. Nor will you learn a darn thing about how he does any of his tricks. Instead, you'll get amazing profiles of his mentors and a history of magic going well back into the 19th century (and at times, much further back). His grandfather, the amateur magician Max Katz. Masters that amazed him in his childhood, like Cardini, Slydini and Al Flosso ("The Coney Island Fakir" who played at young Richard Jay Potash's bar mitzvah.) His later mentors--Dai Vernon and Charlie Miller--both of whom Ricky regards as mythical senseis in the art of magic (interestingly, he seems reluctant to accept the same role for himself.) And there's a lot of talk about the magicians' code--but it's not so much that you never reveal your tricks, you just reveal them slowly, over the course of  years...to select students...and only when they're ready. What great fun. I want to see Ricky Jay live now. But as he himself points out, the best magic isn't on stage, it's spontaneous, when you least expect it.

And that was Monday at SFIFF 2013. I'll be seeing a silent film (WAXWORKS) with live music tonight (Tuesday). I'm actually skipping the festival on Wednesday to see a SJ Earthquakes game. And then two more movies on closing night (I'm skipping the closing night special at the Castro to see KILL TEAM** and BYZANTIUM at the Kabuki). So I'm down to my last three screenings. Looks like I'll survive after all.

Total Running Time: 187 minutes
My Total Minutes: 327,469

*Update: Chalk this one up to an incredibly faulty memory. In poking around for the movie quote where Ricky Jay says, "I'm not a magician!" It turns out I was completely wrong. It wasn't a David Mamet movie, it was the 1999 (after I was out of college) superhero parody MYSTERY MEN. Ricky plays Captain Amazing's (Greg Kinnear) publicist. And I was the one who pointed out the inside joke to my friends, not vice-versa. That's odd, because usually my faulty memory makes me look more awesome, not less.

**Due to a brain fart, I originally wrote KILL LIST instead of KILL TEAM. KILL LIST is an excellent British horror film by Ben Wheatley. I've seen it twice (once while fully awake) and own a DVD of it. I kind of want to see it again now. But on Thursday, I will be watching KILL TEAM, not KILL LIST.

Jason goes to SFIFF--Day 11

The second big weekend of SFIFF is over. I saw only three movies on Sunday. But one was a 5 hour, 16 minute masterpiece of Finnish cinema, so I think I get extra points for that. Yes, I give myself an extra 2 points for that (note: "points" are something I just invented on the spot and have no value--monetary or otherwise--whatsoever. In fact, I'll probably never speak of them again.)

That Finnish epic was EIGHT DEADLY SHOTS, originally shot in 1972 on 16 mm film and shown as a 4-part series on Finnish television. It was edited into a ~2 hour film, which allegedly isn't that good. This was actually the U.S. premiere of the full 5+ hour cut. It was inspired by an actual incident, although the opening of every episode takes great pains to emphasize it's fictional and not based on any specific case. In that incident, a farmer--drunk--killed 4 policemen with eight rifle shots (he made sure to get them all twice, I guess.) And the film opens with those shots. After a few minutes of the stark winter of the Finnish countryside, we hear those shots before we see a single person on screen. And that person is the farmer, Pasi (played by director Mikko Niskanen, who has said it was such a difficult role he couldn't ask anyone else to play it.) We see the funerals of the cops, and we see Pasi sitting, remorsefully, in jail. And then we go back one year, we see the last year of Pasi's life, leading up to that moment and leaving us--some five hours later--in a position where if we don't approve of his actions we at least sympathize with his plight.

Each episode is introduced with text about how alcohol was the root of all evil (I don't recall the exact text, or I would quote it.) And that's certainly a huge part of it. Pasi is a moonshiner who drinks a bit too much of his own product. As his wife notes, if it was just a little bit now and then, it would be okay. But he definitely drinks to excess far too often. But there's a lot more than that. When he has work, he's a hard, diligent worker. "When he has work" is the important part. And this is something that would have been lost without Peter von Bagh's introduction. Finland in the 70s--particularly rural Finland in the 70s--was the fastest declining region in all of Europe. People were leaving either for the cities or for Sweden. Those who stayed found it increasingly difficult to make a living on their small single-family farms or with the occasional part-time work offered by the employment office. So he supplements what little he gets from his farm by taking on odd jobs, clearing forests to sell firewood, but mostly through moonshining. The rest of the village is in a similar dire situation, particularly his neighbor and partner-in-moonshine Reiska. The pressure, the poverty, and yes the drink weighs on him--on more than one occasion his wife and children flee from his drunken rages into the cold Finnish night (something he had to do as a child when his own father came home drunk and angry.) Add to that a heart condition that incapacitates him from time to time.

But I don't want it to sound like everything is bad. He has periods where he's clean, he's working hard, and he gets along with his wife and children. It's that journey, the multiple cycles of hope and despair--with increasing pressure from the authorities--that has to be done over 5 hours (it could've been drawn over even more episodes, in my opinion.) I can't imagine taking that journey in only 2 hours. Maybe you could've told the story, but you couldn't have taken the emotional journey. Cutting this down would be the equivalent of saying you've visited Finland because you changed planes in the Helsinki airport once.


Then I finished the night with two very engaging and very different documentaries, starting with GOOGLE AND THE WORLD BRAIN. The world brain--a library of all human knowledge accessible to everyone--was a Utopian vision of H.G. Wells. But the idea of a library of all knowledge is much older--dating back to the Library of Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE. Now, with the power of the Internet, it's possible...but with complications. Google is not the only one trying to do this, but they are the biggest and most ambitious. And this isn't about search, it's about book scanning. After all, there's no bar to what gets put on the Internet (trust me on that), but what we put in books--at least, books with a real publisher instead of self-published--has at least a minimal standard. But who are the interested parties. Google, of course, who has sunk billions into the world's most ambitious book-scanning project. Libraries, many of which have partnered with Google, whose mission is to share as much information as possible. And copyright holders...ah, there's the rub. What to do with copyrighted works? Well, Google made deals with some publishers, for sure. But what about "orphaned books"--not in the public domain, still under copyright, but out of print? Sometimes you can't even find the author to ask for his permission. Well, long story short Google's initial strategy was to offer snippets. You could search on keywords and see a few lines of the book for each keyword found. Some people had a problem with that. First, if you searched for enough keywords you could piece together most if not all of a copyrighted book. Second, the mere act of copying a copyrighted work, even if you never show it to anyone, is a violation of copyright law...maybe...or maybe not. Look, I'm not a lawyer, and as far as I know this is still under litigation (it was at the time of the film, at least.) An initial settlement proposal gave  Google the rights to publish "orphaned" books and give the copyright holders a substantial cut. But this suddenly changed Google from a library to a bookstore, and the library partners objected. The movie provides several competing views (anywhere from 'Google has a secret nefarious plan to control the world's information' to 'copyright is obsolete in the modern age and Google is doing a good thing') but it still definitely has its opinion. Which is that Google is not malicious but has played fast-and-loose with the project and has crossed lines that companies with a more conservative legal department would not have crossed. And fighting the court battles has become huge. In fact, to hear some subjects talk about the potential cost per copyrighted work, this could be a bet-the-entire-company move. For what it's worth...I want a universal library. I want a World Brain. I don't have any particular stake in whether Google owns/manages/controls access to that World Brain or not. Maybe it's better that it be taken out of the hands of a for-profit company and be acknowledged as a public good. But if that's the case, who's going to fund it? Anyway, ideas and opinions aside this was a very engaging, well-made movie that certainly doesn't suffer from either a deficit of balance or a deficit of opinion.


And then a very different, almost experimental documentary LET THE FIRE BURN. The MOVE organization in Philadelphia in the 70s and 80s was a controversial and confrontational organization founded by John Africa (born Vincent Leaphart). They were about...black liberation, back-to-nature,...okay, maybe they had a more explainable philosophy but at least in this movie all you get is a frustrating and elusive 'follow the teachings of John Africa.' What are his teachings? The truth! What truth? The truth about the lie of the system! What is the system? ...it gets frustrating. Here's the important thing--on May 13, 1985, a raid on their row-house headquarters ended in an inferno that left 11 people dead and several houses (not just theirs, but neighboring houses) destroyed. There's more, of course. They were a public nuisance and a thorn in the sides of the local Philadelphia authorities (and their own neighbors) for years beforehand. The authorities wanted to evict them a long time ago. And blame...well, blame is a tricky thing. Or, in the words of William Richmond (Philadelphia Fire Commissioner at the time), "Blame is a broad brush." And this movie attempts to untangle the incident--and the history of Philadelphia's confrontations with MOVE, solely by using archival footage. New interviews with some key subjects were done for the movie, but discarded (perhaps they'll resurface as DVD extras?) in favor of using footage from the time. Most prominently, public hearings in the aftermath of the May 13, 1985 incident. And those hearings, news reports, and an interview with a little boy who grew up in MOVE are...chilling. MOVE seemed at best an unpleasant, angry place (maybe some members were loving internally, but externally obnoxious at best. At worst, it was an organization that engaged in child abuse and stockpiled weapons.) Still, that doesn't seem to justify what is at best excessive force and at worst murder-by-arson on the part of the police. A powerful movie that is a difficult and painful look at a difficult and painful incident in American history.

And with that, Sunday and the final weekend of SFIFF 2013 ended. We're on the final stretch now, leading up to the closing night on Thursday.

Total Running Time: 499 minutes
My Total Minutes: 327,282

Jason goes to SFIFF--Day 10

I missed a good chunk of  Saturday at SFIFF in order to cheer for my San Jose Earthquakes. After going down 0-2, they stormed back and scored an exciting stoppage time equalizer! Exciting, but we've had too many ties lately, we need to start getting some wins.

Anyway, I did make it up to the city for the centerpiece presentation of INEQUALITY FOR ALL. But before I get to the movie, I have a gripe about how the festival staff handles rush tickets.

The majority of the screenings I've attended have been at rush, but almost all of them have had at least a few empty seats by the time the film plays. That's normal, they have to cut off pre-sales when there are still enough seats left for passholders--Cinevisas, filmmakers, sponsors, etc. I've always assumed there were seats left over at the end because everyone in line for rush tickets got them and there were still leftover seats. Now INEQUALITY FOR ALL was pretty full (including lots of reserved seats for VIPs--sponsors, board members, guests of the filmmakers, etc.) but from my vantage point in front row center there were at least a half-dozen seats available. This includes the seat next to me, and the one 3 seats from me (the guy two seats over had empty seats on both sides. I don't know why, he didn't smell that bad to me.) I assume there were other seats available throughout the theater. However, the staff simply declared it full and cut off rush sales. I know this because a friend of mine was at the front of the rush line when they did that, and they told her there were no more seats available. She was cool about it, but I will not be.

In every other festival I've been to--including previous years of SFIFF--when a screening is nearly full, they will make some announcements. They will ask everyone to move in to the center, making sure there are no empty seats in the center of a row that would be difficult for the late-arriving rush customers to get to. They ask people to raise their hands if they have an empty seat next to them. They ask people to please remove their belongings from neighboring seats unless they're saving it for someone who already has a ticket and is in the building (e.g., they're just at the concession stand or in the bathroom). None of this was done. They simply weren't interested in filling every seat.

Now I assume they didn't make the effort because they were more concerned with starting on time (or near that, almost every screening at every festival starts at least 5 minutes late). But that is misplaced priorities. First of all, it's pretty fuckin' rude to the people who waited for an hour or more in hopes of getting tickets. Maybe not everyone can get in, but they should be given the fair opportunity if there are still seats empty. Second, if the festival doesn't care about getting every dollar it can out of the rush customers, then why the fuck did they jack up the price of my Cinevisa!? Have I been forced to subsidize their ability to shit on the rush line?

Okay, enough griping, on to the movie. INEQUALITY FOR ALL is based on the writing, lectures, and other lessons of Robert Reich, the littlest giant (seriously, he's like 4'9" but packing a giant intellect) in economic matters. Using his UC Berkeley lecture on Wealth and Poverty as a framing mechanism, he answers three big questions--how much inequality is there? Why is there inequality? And is that bad? Spoiler Alert: A lot; many reasons, but mostly the vicious (instead of virtuous) cycle; and yes. Reich is a master at making very complex ideas understandable to the layperson, and his charisma as well as visually engaging graphics tell the story pretty well. Better than I can in my dry-ish text where I'd have to resort to numbers to try to explain it. (speaking of numbers, I could've sworn the scale was off on one of the graphs. They show a line that's supposed to be at 23%, and it was placed between the 20% and 25% divisions, but it looked closer to 20%. Like they graphed 22% and labeled it 23%. But I digress) They pepper his lectures and interviews with personal stories from his life, including how as a Rhodes scholar met the man who would later make his Secretary of Labor--Bill Clinton. He makes a compelling case that even the super-rich would be better off with a slightly smaller part of a rapidly increasing pie rather than a bigger part of a slowly increasing (or even decreasing) pie. To those who have heard Reich speak before (and my knowledge is basically limited to his regular, short pieces for NPR) there won't be a lot of really new ideas. But he does take some time to bemoan how he's been saying this for 30 years and nobody seems to be catching on. Perhaps this movie will change that.

Oh yeah, and after Reich the most interesting person was the multi-millionaire venture capitalist who comes in to echo a lot of Reich's points. One of the most interesting points is how one guy making $10 million doesn't generate nearly the same economic activity as 100 guys making $100,000 each. In the Q&A they mentioned they screened the film to a select audience of multi-millionaires, and the reception was remarkably positive. Perhaps there is still some hope of turning things around, if the so-called "job creators" start actually working in their long-term rather than short-sighted best self-interest. For more information (soon...it's kinda a placeholder now) check out their website here.


After that, I caught a quite, contemplative, and spiritual (that is, if I believed in such things) short and feature pairing. First the short, HOME. A wordless examination of a house becoming a home. We see the inside of a pre-fabricated home. Doors open and clank shut. Perhaps it's haunted? Then, looking out a window, we suddenly see that it's moving. It is being moved on one of those giant trucks, over windy roads, while a brave cameraman stands inside shooting footage, until it is placed on a foundation, the cracks from the move are patched up, and a family moves in. Very cool.

And then the feature INORI. Let me start by saying it was a long, long day and I struggled (and ultimately failed) to stay awake. Not that I snoozed through the whole thing. I awoke fitfully throughout the course of the film, and my half-open eyes were always greeted by scenes of beauty. It starts with a dying goat shedding a single tear, transitioning into a mountain stream (was the stream fed by goat's tears?) We gradually meet the few remaining denizens of a near-empty village. Decaying institutions are being reclaimed by nature, and watched over by the graves of the past. I don't know what to make of it all, but the shot of cherry blossoms blowing over the water might be the most beautiful thing I've seen in the entire festival.

And that was Saturday. That totally happened.

Total Running Time: 168 minutes
My Total Minutes: 326,782