Jason goes to Holehead--Closing Night

One last movie, GRAVE ENCOUNTERS. A clever and well made "found footage" film opens with an introduction by a television producer, explaining that some time ago he produced an unaired reality series featuring the adventures of a team of psychic investigators. This series was to be called "Grave Encounters" and the reason it never made it to air is what happened in episode 6. Then the tapes of episode 6--edited for time but altered in no way--are shown.

The team assembles and prepares to investigate The Haunted Asylum, an old abandoned mental hospital. Caretakers explain the history--some of the first lobotomy experiments were performed there, and locals claim that some nights you can see figures in the windows and/or hear the screams and laughter of the inmates. The crew keeps the cameras running all the time, so you get to see "behind the scenes" moments that reveal the show is a total fake--none of them believe in the paranormal, their psychic is a total act, and they bribe a landscaper to talk about seeing really scary ghosts. And that all sets up the main premise of the episode--they'll lock themselves in the hospital for one night, and film everything that happens. Of course, they start by ginning up a few events, but soon the real spooks come out, and the sun never comes back up (and none of the lights work in the building). And then it's a series of escalating scares. There's not much of a surprise in the main premise (it's almost identical to HAUNTED CHANGI from earlier in the festival), but it's accomplished very, very well. It even made me jump a few times. Great work for a first feature film by the Vicious Brothers (not their real names...in fact, I don't think they're really brothers).

And like that, Holehead is over...for another year...or possibly another six months, if they actually do a winter event like they're promising/planning.

Running Time: 92 minutes
My Total Minutes: 240,408

Jason goes to Holehead--the penultimate night

It's almost over.

First up, was supposed to be the short SUSPENSION, but the disc was cracked, so that didn't happen. So we jumped right into the feature, MIDNIGHT SON, which I brought to Holehead after seeing it at Cinequest. Here's what I said back then:

Without an origin back story (which I like), Jacob is going through some changes. He works night, because he is so sensitive to sunlight that it literally burns him. He eats constantly, but his body is failing him as if he's malnourished, or maybe anemic. Okay, there's no surprise that he's a vampire succumbing to the hunger for blood. But the journey there is smartly done and cool as hell. He meets and falls in love with Mary. He scores blood from a pusher working in a local hospital. He has a showing of his art--paintings of the sun. And he struggles with being good despite his hunger. In fact, I don't think the word "vampire" was ever spoken. There's no underground society or secret world. It's just a guy dealing with changes coming from within his body--same as any guy dealing with disease, or puberty, or addiction. Vampirism has been used as metaphors for all of that before. In fact, I've heard it said that the Vampire is the most used monster character in the history of film. MIDNIGHT SON shows once again that the vampire is a character that with a smart script and great acting can still hold a mirror up to humanity and show us something new.

Yup, I still liked it after a second showing. Although I'll clarify that the word "vampire" is used at least once. Early on, when Jacob explains his "skin disorder" to Mary, she says, "it's like you're a vampire." And there's a moment of a meaningful look where he's thinking, 'maybe I am.'

Then the late show, with a large, rowdy, rude crowd (allegedly many of them invited for free to boost attendance). And the longish short AXED was a hell of a zombie treat from Australia. After a gruesome opening scene, we go back to the origin. A pleasant barbecue is interrupted by biohazard suit wearing jackbooted thugs, who round up everyone and put them in quarantine. Some time later, they drag them outside and unceremoniously execute (bullet to the back of the head) everyone showing the slightest signs of infection. One guy survives, picks up a trusty axe, and goes buck wild on both the zombies and the bio-suit thugs. And then it's about a good half hour of violence. Awesome.

And finally the shortish feature, KRACKOON. I really, really wanted to like this movie based on the premise--a raccoon on crack befriends a little boy and terrorizes the corrupt politicians/gangsters of New Jersey. Instead it became a lesson of what I will and won't forgive in an intentionally cheesy, no-budget movie.

• Outlandish premise. There's nothing to forgive here, this I liked.
• Ridiculously bad "special effects." As in, the krackoon is just a hand puppet with bulging eyes. Yeah, I forgive that, even embrace it as part of the cheesy fun. And actually some of the blood and gore effects are pretty good. Perhaps someone on the crew is actually a professional.
• Bad acting. Easily forgivable. It's clear there are no professional actors here, just a bunch of friends running around making a silly movie. I can embrace that fun.
• Bad shaky-cam cinematography. Particularly in the krackoon POV shots. Okay, I know this is a direct homage to Sam Raimi's love of POV shots (especially the unnamed evil POV shots in the EVIL DEAD movies). He did it much better, much more fluid. I can take a lot of shaky-cam, but this started giving me a headache. But still, if this was the worst of it, I could forgive it.
• Bad sound mixing. I've seen this over and over again. The difference between a watchable and unwatchable movie actually has nothing to do with the images, it's all about the sound. This was unbearable. I shouldn't have to constantly switch between straining to hear the dialogue and plugging my ears from a blaring soundtrack. I like to think that putting this in the hands of a competent audio expert would improve it by an order of magnitude. I hope so. It might be unsalvageable. But this is what totally lost me.
• A rowdy audience. Okay, not the movie's fault, and generally I'm fine with a rowdy audience, if they're reacting to the movie. This was more of a drunken mob who were reacting to themselves. I'm really afraid this will make me feel like an old fart, but the typical Holehead bunch is a mix of die-hard horror fans and serious cinephiles (the people you see at other, non-genre film festivals). We're not afraid to react to a movie (and engage in heated discussions afterwards), but generally it's in accordance with what's on screen, not just hooting for the sake of hearing our own noise.

Okay, that's all. And I'm proud I got through that without making some offensive joke about how the CIA invented crack to destroy the coons...oops.

I have just one more movie to see tonight and my Holehead will be done for this year (Maybe. There are rumors/hopes of a winter event. Stay tuned.)

Total Running Time: 189 minutes
My Total Minutes: 240,316

Jason watches X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Had another couple of days off from Holehead, so I caught this flick. It's fun, well made, great performances by the two leads (especially Michael Fassbender, who really tears it up as Magneto) and really adds a lot to the back story of the X-Men universe. And I have very little interest in being the thousandth person to write about it, so I'll leave it at that.

[Update below]

Okay, on second thought I decided to add a few random thoughts. First, I haven't read the comic books so I have no idea if it matches or contradicts canon. I also don't care. Second, there are plenty of amusing in jokes that I couldn't help but laugh at. Third, the montage of Charles and Erik traveling the world recruiting mutants was excellent, but the best part is capping it with Wolverine telling them to fuck off (and yes, he uses the word, "fuck"). And finally, while the transformation of young Hank McCoy into Beast (reminiscent of several werewolf movies) was cool, it does contradict a brief cameo in X-MEN 2 when a human Hank McCoy is shown on TV.

Okay, that's all.

[Note: not really, I had a few more random thoughts]

Setting it in the 60's, and particularly during the Cuban missile crisis, was a nice touch. And the best part is newly graduated PhD Charles Xavier picking up chicks in bars by pointing out their "groovy mutations."

Okay, really, really that's all.

Running Time: 132 minutes

My Total Minutes: 240,127

Jason goes to Holehead--Day 10

Now we're really getting near the end. 4 more movies last Sunday.

First up, the special 50th anniversary screening of MOTHRA on glorious 35 mm. A shipwrecked crew survives on Infant Island until rescuers come. Infant Island was used for atomic testing by the "Rosilican" government. Strangely, the survivors have no signs of radiation sickness, which they chalk up to the red juice the natives drink. Wait, natives? Immediately an expedition (privately funded by entrepreneur Clark Nelson) sets out to...completely ignore the red juice and instead kidnap two fairies ("tiny beauties") who live there. Well, that pisses off the natives, who appeal to Mothra for vengeance, but at least the tiny fairy show is a big hit. Not so much of a hit after Mothra shows up (in caterpillar form) and destroys Tokyo. In fact now Nelson is a wanted man, but even though he's world famous for being a money-hungry douchebag who caused Tokyo (and wherever he brings the tiny beauties) to be destroyed he still thinks he has a profitable act. So he flees back to his home in Rosilica...but that's just going to cause Mothra to attack New Kirk City. Awesome, hilarious (maybe even intentionally), and with a moral message of peace and forgiveness in the end.

The next show started with UNICORN GIRL, a whimsical, local short about a girl who wakes up after a party where she dressed up as a unicorn. The party looks like it was somewhere up in Napa, but she needs to get back to the city, so she gets a ride and has an interesting adventure. Lots of fun.

And then the feature, ABSENTIA, probably the smartest film with the best developed characters in the festival. In fact, if you stripped away the supernatural elements, it's core is a solid, character driven drama. 7 years ago, Callie's husband Daniel just...disappeared. With the help of her recovering junkie sister and the detective covering the case, she's finally moved on. In fact, judging by her very pregnant belly, she's moved well on. And now it's time for the final step--having him officially declared dead in absentia, and getting the death certificate. But suddenly she starts having visions of him. Maybe her mind is just playing tricks, but Tricia has a coincidentally weird experience with a homeless man in a tunnel, and she starts seeing things. Well, maybe she's just back on the junk. Or maybe something horrible is going on. In any case, Daniel reappears and everyone, including the detectives can see him. He's just horribly changed. Emaciated, ashen, and paranoid, still wearing the clothes he had on when he left. Something horribly creepy is going on, and it's an effectively scary movie that relies on atmosphere and characters rather than special effects and blood. Excellently done.

Then the next show started with the short, THE KING OF ENGLAND. Technical glitches caused it to stick every few seconds, which was really distracting (they tried two discs, and the second was even worse). But the story was still pretty clear. Soldiers in the Middle Ages in England are in the woods. Bors, their pagan guide is nervous about an old warrior/spirit who he hears rustling around in the trees. But the Christian soldiers think he's a paranoid fool. Bors is right. It's really more of an isolated scene than a full story, and it was all made locally in the Bay Area as a test to build interest/investment in making a feature. They did a good job, and I would watch the feature if it gets made.

And then the feature documentary, I AM NANCY, by and about Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy Thompson in the original NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. It's a comic look at the legacy of the NOES series, and her life on the road going to horror conventions all over the world. She pokes a heck of a lot of fun at the relative popularity of Nancy compared to Freddy, showing long lines for Robert Englund and a few people lined up for her autograph. She compares the incredible detail of Freddy toys vs. the dearth of Nancy toys available at all. She meets tons of fans with Freddy tattoos, and...well, I won't give it away, but far, far less with Nancy tattoos. But she takes it in stride with good humor and grace. She sits for a chat with Wes Craven, about their shared legacy. And ultimately she explores the nature of fear and the courage that comes with facing fear--the very strength of Nancy's character. It's a comedic documentary, but there's a wonderful montage in the end of fans explaining the painful experiences they've been through and how Nancy's strength and courage has kept them going. "I am Nancy" is not just a line to describe Heather Langenkamp, it's a line to describe all her fans who drew strength from her example.

Oh yeah, and Heather Langenkamp was there for a brief Q&A afterwards. And she was totally cool and engaging with the audience. Very nice.

And finally, I ended the night with the supremely indulgent film, THE BOOK. In the year 2484, humanity celebrates 200 years since an alien intelligence delivered a book that ended all wars and brought a rein of unending peace and prosperity. Underground, a group gathers to tell the story of the creation of the book. And it's a bizarre tale of a writer who goes to the country to finish his novel and the alien (from inner space) who replaces him. This bizarre story has the visuals of 50's sci-fi spiked with a heavy dose of hallucinogens. For much of it, I was simultaneously puzzled, amazed, and thought the director (who uses a symbol as his name, which you can see on the film's website) was full of himself. And then (without giving anything away), we got to the ending, and I accepted it as pure, insane genius!

Total Running Time: 386 minutes

My Total Minutes: 239,995

Jason goes to Holehead--Day 9

After staying up past 2 am Friday night, then getting up early for the special screening of SUPER 8 Saturday morning, I still dragged myself up for three movies at Holehead.

First up, APOCRYPHA, a cool little locally made film. Griffith is a senior editor at the San Francisco Chronicle. If that's not impressive enough, he worked his way up there in just a year...after appearing in San Francisco with absolutely no memory of who he is or how he got there. He's also a womanizing douchebag, but lately he's had a powerful desire to bite the women he beds on the neck (worse yet, some are into it). He confesses all this to his psychiatrist, a delightfully acerbic drunk who blames Griffith for driving him to drink. Meanwhile, Maggie wakes up in Golden Gate park with absolutely no memory. An odd set of coincidences will inevitably bring these soulless-mates together. It's a good story, cleverly revealed, and features a pretty meaty role by the Thrillpeddlers' Will McMichael (that reminds me, I've got to find time to see their Vice Palace before it ends its run).

The next show was supposed to start with the short PROCESS, but they didn't have the copy so instead they showed ROID RAGE again. Still hilarious.

Then the feature RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE. I actually saw this las December. Here's what I wrote at the time:

The locals are pissed about the crazy American corporation that is drilling for archaeological relics in their mountain. But if they thought it was bad that they were disturbing the wolves and ruining the reindeer hunt (oh yeah, the heroes are reindeer hunters), just wait until they unearth the most amazing Christmas legend ever. You see, the Santa Claus created by Coca-Cola wasn't the real one. The real one was a demon who wasn't so interested in giving children presents, he was more interested in punishing naughty children. And now he's back. Pretty awesome, although I will say I wanted a bit more of a reveal at the end. Although to say anything more would be too much of a spoiler.

Huh, that was kind of brief. I'll add that the hero kid is pretty awesome. And the "reveal" at the end is actually just right the second time around. And it's hilarious. That's the most important part--it's really, really, really funny.

And the final show of the night started with the short THE MONKEY AND THE QUIET CORPSE. A drug addict beats one of those clanging cymbals monkeys to a bloody pulp. I think it's a metaphor for getting the monkey off your back. Whatever it's about, it was pretty cool.

And finally my night ended with RAT SCRATCH FEVER, a celebration of gloriously cheesy no-budge special effects. A team of privately funded astronauts explore Planet X, where they discover giant rats (played by real rats scurrying through cheesy miniature sets). Only one astronaut survives and makes it back to earth, but she's carrying a horrible rat plague. The psychotic head of the private space exploration company wants her exterminated, but her special forces boyfriend has other plans. And L.A. becomes overrun with rats. It's cheesy, it's cheap, all the 'strings' are showing, and that's all part of the fun. Don't take it seriously, just sit back and enjoy it. My personal favorite scene--when a body is thrown out a window and becomes a doll on the other side for the rats to climb over.

And that was my Saturday at Holehead.

Total Running Time: 300 minutes
My Total Minutes: 239,609

Jason watches SUPER 8 in D-Box projected from a Sony 4K using the 3D lens even though it's 2D

Whew, sorry for the long title, I'll get to the movie in a minute, but first I have to set up the context.

The management of the Camera 7 in Campbell, CA invited me to this special screening at 8:30 am (knowing full well I was up late the night before at Holehead). The purpose of this was part of a grass-roots campaign to combat some of the negative (and misleading) press from two recent Roger Ebert articles. First, his article claiming that projecting 2D films through 3D lenses cut the light output by ~50%. Second was his acerbic article about D-Box, in which he accused it (along with 3-D) of continuing the "dismemberment of the traditional movie going experience...." (he also calls himself a "reactionary purist," which in most contexts I'd take as an insult).

So first a little context about myself, so you can understand where I'm coming from. A few years back I might have joined in the chorus insisting movies must be shown "the right way." I might have even called myself a reactionary purist. I admit I fetishize film. I love the guys at the Film on Film Foundation. I love that Noir City keeps up the increasingly difficult effort to get the studios to give up 35 mm prints for their festival. Heck, as a resident of Fremont, CA and a volunteer at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, I love being 10 minutes from the only theater in the country (world, maybe), that every week plays films as they were truly originally meant to be seen--on film, silent, with live musical accompaniment (BTW, if you could take a few minutes and vote for us by going here, we'd really appreciate it. It takes just a few minutes, you can vote once per e-mail address, and so far I haven't been spammed by them). Heck, as a volunteer at a silent film museum, I can still bear a grudge against the greedy movie houses in the teens and twenties who had the projectionists crank at a faster speed so they could squeeze another show or two in a day. This still results in silent films being shown artificially fast (especially on television).

But in the past decade or so, I my stance on the "purity" of the movie-going experience has softened. I've seen many films shot and projected on many formats, including a lot of standard definition digital films. I've been to many film festivals in the Bay Area, some that have the resources to project well, some that don't. Same with art-house/independent theaters. Contrary to Ebert's closing paragraph in the D-box article, I wouldn't recommend your average art theater if you care about the best possible projection. Too many are struggling financially. You'll find projectionists and managers who care about proper projection, sure. But you'll most likely to find that they don't have the money to upgrade and project the best possible image. I've seen many, many movies that were projected sub-optimally because that was the only venue where I could see them.

Furthermore, I've spent nearly all of the last decade seeing all these movies from the front row, because that's where I like to sit. I know it's not the "sweet spot" of the theater, and I've been told over and over again that I'm sitting "too close." I know I have to crane my neck up and look at a weird angle that distorts the picture. Tough, that's the way I like to do it. So arguably I haven't seen a single movie "the way it's supposed to be seen."

None of this truly matter. If I'm thinking about how the movie was either shot or projected, rather than the story, the movie has already failed. I can easily get "lost" in a good story that's shot and projected on shitty, under/over-exposed standard definition digital video...if it's a good story.

A few things happened in the past year that made me nearly totally reject my "purist" leanings. First, Holehead last year played the Giorgio Moroder rock and roll version of METROPOLIS: REDUX. This is a mere week after the San Francisco Silent Film Festival played the restored version of METROPOLIS, so I could do a very quick comparison. I joined in the chorus of my friends calling REDUX blasphemy (before I even saw it), and reviewed it negatively in my blog. By year's end I gave it some credit in my year-in review for Hell on Frisco Bay. I didn't put it in my top 10 repertory/revival screenings, and even then expressed the appropriate shame, hating it as a cinephile but appreciating it as a "fan of new experiences." I am now confident enough in my own opinion to say, yes, I liked it. It's not METROPOLIS as it was meant to be seen (and seeing it so close to the restored METROPOLIS is a mistake), but it is it's own unique, enjoyable experience (although I still say the colorization was distracting). And if crapping all over the "purity" of Fritz Lang's original vision can create something enjoyable, then isn't the only value of "purity" to remove enjoyably impure experiences from the world?

The other thing that happened last year was that my beloved Roxie theater finally upgraded their digital projector. Now I don't know anything about their equipment or the specs. I know it's an objectively better projection for the simple reason that the red dot is gone. That's right, for years they used a digital projector with a dead pixel in the lower right quadrant of the screen. And I saw hundreds of movies with an annoying red dot on the screen. And when they replaced it, I joked that I miss the red dot. But that joke has a bit of truth behind it. I really am, in some small way, nostalgic for a broken projector. I had many great experiences watching movies with the red dot in the corner, and it got to the point where ol' Red Dottie meant I was home. And I don't see this nostalgia as any more or less laughable than fetishizing the scratches, dots, and cigarette burns of 35 mm film.

And finally, and I hesitate to speculate on this because I'm generally averse to analyzing greater sociological trends, but I I've met plenty of young director's at film festivals who actively want the audience to interpret (and possibly subvert/contradict) their intentions with their work. Perhaps in the creative community today a "pure" vision simply isn't as valuable or interesting as sampling/modifying/re-purposing other's (and each other's) creation. Purity isn't valuable, and subverting purity is part of the new aesthetic. As I said, I should shut up, I'm not that comfortable with analyzing social or artistic trends.

Anyway, I have a new mini-manifesto, in my capacity as a star of thousands of motion picture audiences:

I shall no longer pursue the fool's errand of seeing a movie exactly as someone else thinks "it's supposed to be seen." Instead I will embrace my unique privilege of seeing a movie exactly as I see it. This is something no one else can do, and a privilege I shall cherish. I will stick to this whether the person telling me the "right way" to see it is a movie critic, a projectionist, or the director himself.

This is not to say there's no such thing as bad projection or bad distractions in a theater. I am still fully behind the "murder people who whip out their cell phones during the movie" ethos. And I have seen plenty of movies that were projected wrong. I make a huge distinction between "poorly" as in 'compromised due to lack of money, time, or expertise to buy/use the best equipment' and "wrong" as in 'I have the right equipment but set it up wrong and didn't notice.' I still remember the first time I saw GANGS OF NEW YORK I kept thinking "these shots are composed oddly, it's very unlike Scorsese to not use the space well." I couldn't put my finger on it until the end credits ran and it was clear the screen was masked wrong, and a significant chunk on each side of the screen was cut off. And I've seen plenty of other films with temporary glitches in the projection (I've usually ran out, alerted someone, and it's fixed right away). I just want it to be clear that I'm not embracing all deviations from ideal projection as a marvelously unique new experience. I'm just not chasing perfection.

Now, as for the technical meat of Ebert's two articles. I will start by explaining I'm by no means a technical expert. I'm sure I've got some this wrong, but here's what I was told by the management of the Camera 7 (to the best of my memory):

First, most accounts are probably confusing the 3-D lens with the 3-D filters. The filters polarize the light from the dual projection, and the glasses you wear lets through only light polarized a certain way, so each eye gets a different image, creating the 3-D illusion. Yes, if you leave the filters on the projector and show 2-D, that cuts down the light. Removing the filters is a 30 second operation, and at least the team at the Camera 7 do just that. If you remove the 3-D filters, the light output in 2-D is not an issue. In fact, when projecting 3-D they have to crank the lamp all the way up to get enough light through the lens, filters, off the screen, and back through the glasses. In 2-D, without switching the lens (just removing the filters), they have to crank the lamp down to keep the projection from being too bright. The measure of "too bright," "too dim," and "just right," however, is anecdotal (much like Ebert's article). They're getting a light meter in the next week to make some concrete measurements to back this up.

Oh, the other part of the whole 3-D/2-D lens controversy is the story/stories about how hard it is to change the lens. Allegedly if you screw up the whole projector shuts off. Some theaters claim it's a 90+ minute operation to change lenses. Sony claims 20 minutes to do it right. Here's the claim from Camera 7: If you're installing a new lens, including mechanically calibrating it, this can be the 90+ minute job. Once it's calibrated, the system remembers the mechanical settings and when you change lenses and set it in the proper mode, it'll move the lens to that position. This is what Sony says should be a 20 minute operation. The Camera 7 claims that they can do it in seven minutes, walking someone who has never done it before through it (then add 3 minutes to mask the screen properly, because that's still manual so they have to walk downstairs to do it). However, that is if the booth was originally built with enough room to do that easily--theirs isn't (it's an old multiplex that was retrofit for digital projection. I got to tour it after the movie, and saw exactly what they meant). Because of the difficulty of space, and because they claim it doesn't make a difference in brightness, they routinely show 2-D movies through the 3-D lens (again, with the filters removed).

Again, they have a light meter coming in soon so they'll have hard numbers that I'll be happy to report however they come out. I can tell you that using my personal organic light meter, the JW-2 HU-Man IBalls, the movie was not noticeably too bright or too dark. But perhaps my equipment is out of calibration.

Okay, now for some words on D-Box. First thing I should stress is that if D-Box doesn't sound like something that would appeal to you, or if the $8 upcharge doesn't appeal to you, all you have to do is sit in any of the hundreds of regular seats instead of the 22 D-Box seats. Second I'll point out that all the D-Box seats in the Camera 7 are in the same two rows. If you're not sitting in a D-Box seat, you also won't be sitting next to someone in a D-Box. As for the other pet peeves Ebert mentions--talking in the theater and turning on cell phone screens (both of which I'm in full agreement with Ebert)--I'd hazard to guess that the money and the added experience D-Box provides is likely to reduce such behavior, not increase it.

Finally, I'd point out that the controls are a simply"+" and "-" button, to set the motion to high, medium, low, or off. I set it to high and left it there. The important thing is, contrary to Ebert's fear, bored kids won't be "entertaining themselves with their joy sticks." Unless, of course, he was making a dirty joke, in which case I'd point out that A) kids can do that in the regular seats, too, and B) apropos of nothing, but since the D-Box seats don't fold up they're harder to clean.

Okaaaaay...now that I've countered Ebert's fears (and created some brand new ones for you), how was my D-Box experience? Well, let me start by saying I already have my way of immersing myself in the movie--sitting in the front row. My way of watching the movie makes it as big as possible, fills my vision, and puts absolutely nothing between me and the movie. And it's appropriate to note that most people consider this the "wrong" way to watch a movie. I say this because the main thing the D-Box seats have against them (unique to my desires) is that they're halfway up the theater, in the "sweet spot" at the front of the top section. If I were a billionaire, I'd commission the Camera 7 to install a D-Box seat in front row center with a "Reserved for Jason" sign.

So D-Box is an interesting experience. For the most part it adds something to the movie experience, although at some times it's odd noticing how they programmed it. Sometimes I wondered why they would program the motion of one car and not the other. And SUPER 8 has enough quiet moments when the seats aren't moving that I became acutely aware of waiting for the next movement. Maybe some of that is because it's my first D-Box experience, and I didn't know what to expect. I'm willing to try it again on a more kinetic 'thrill ride' kind of movie.

So how do I react to Ebert? Well, I understand him, but I suspect he's at least partly mistaken about the Sony 4K. It appears it's not the lens, it's the filters, but I'll wait for hard data for a final conclusion. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised to find some theaters who don't know how to use it well. Camera 7 does it right.

I also understand Ebert's reaction to D-Box, and he's absolutely right...when he calls himself a reactionary purist. I can understand D-Box (or 3-D, for that matter) being an affront to his purist aesthetic. But it's not a moral affront, and it's not a worthy reason for boycotting a theater. I now know plenty of people who love it, and some of them are cinephiles who go to tons of art-house movies and attend film festivals. The proper response to your aesthetic disapproval is don't pay the $8 upcharge and sit in a regular seat.

Whew, well after all that, I suppose I should also review the film. SUPER 8 is a hell of a lot of fun. It truly is a throwback/homage/nostalgia piece for 80's kids action movies, in the mold of executive produce Steven Spielberg. Kids in small town Ohio are spending the summer making a movie on a super 8 camera. Here we've got kids playing, and young love involving the makeup/model kid and the leading lady. A night shoot is interrupted by a train crash that turns out might have been intentional, and caused by their science teacher. The train had Air Force cargo, and something has escaped and is rampaging through the town. It's a mystery, it's action, it's adventure, it's a sappy moral. It's an 80's movie. And oh yeah, if you see it on a digital projection with the sound system they used there (I think it Dolby 7.1) and you sit closer to the back than I normally do, and you listen closely during the quiet moments, you can hear the sound of a 35 mm projector coming from the booth--JJ Abrams inserted that onto the soundtrack.

Running Time: 112 minutes

My Total Minutes: 239,309

Jason goes to Holehead--Day 8

The big second weekend begins with four shows Friday. Here we go:

First up, the hit short from Cinequest, BY A HAIR: still hilarious, still a cautionary tale about picking at a stray hair.

That was the lead in to the feature, THE BLEEDING HOUSE. Out in the middle of small-town nowhere lives a dysfunctional family. On the outside they don't seem too weird--an artistic mother, hard-working father, a teenage son who's embarrassed to introduce his girlfriend to them (or is it vice-versa). The one odd bit is the daughter, a Wednesday Addams type goth (though not quite so pale) who pins dead bugs to her walls. Enter a stranger named Nick, dressed all in white and talking all fancy. Seems he had some car trouble, or so he says. But of course, there are some surprises in store. Of course, I immediately guessed that the stranger is pure evil/a representation of the devil. And for quite a bit the film neither surprised nor disappointed me. Although predictable, I was reveling in the over-the-top gleefully evil acting. And then the ending took a slightly less predictable turn, and I loved it even more.

Next up, another representation of evil/the devil, in BREATH OF HATE. Jason Mewes, sober and stretching as an actor, stars as a regular client who falls in love with an escort. So in love, he offers to take her away, but her pimp has other plans. And he sends her on a call with two other girls, for an all-night party in a mansion. There they meet their creepy, creepy clients--a melon-fucking retard, an S&M mistress, and the ringleader Hate. Hate has a deranged plan to fix the world by...I don't know, killing whores I guess. So we're in for a bloody night. Very well done, and it plays a little with disoriented time and takes a bit of inspiration from the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" which makes it a bit of a puzzle film, but not one that's too difficult to untangle.

Next up, Holehead/SF Indiefest continued their relationship with Uwe Boll by playing AUSCHWITZ. You know, I go to a lot of film festivals and pretty routinely I see movies where the director says he wants the audience members to interpret the film for themselves. So it's rare and odd to see a film where the director is so excruciatingly explicit in his intentions for the film. It opens with Boll introducing himself and taking full responsibility for the film. He talks about how 60-70 years after Auschwitz was in operation as a killing factory, we still see genocide in places like Darfur, and he's afraid that we've forgotten the lessons of the past (side note, from meeting him a couple of times I can say this is something of an obsession for him). What films are made are in the SCHINDLER'S LIST mold--showing the tiny rays of hope in the darkest of situations. He wanted to show the bleak truth, no silver lining, so that we may never forget what happened there on a daily basis.

He backs that up by bookending his film with interviews with German high school students. Disturbingly, with one major exception (one kid can recite all the facts, figures, and litany of horror) they seem to know surprisingly little about the Holocaust. Now I don't know if there's selective editing going on, I hope that he found several more kids who did know plenty but was more interested in showing the ignorant ones.

And then the meat of the film was a dramatization of a day at Auschwitz. Actually, "dramatization" is the wrong word, since it's specifically stripped of any drama. In his un-dramatization, Jews are marched in, stripped, and sent to the showers--where instead of water of course they are gassed. Meanwhile Nazi guards (including Boll) watch dispassionately (Boll takes a nap outside of the gas chamber while frantic victims are pounding on the door). Babies are shot in the head (too small to be of any use), soldiers drink and play cards, Jewish workers are sent in to pick up the bodies and carry them to the ovens, and black smoke blocks out the sky. It's bleak, horrible, and perfectly effective at its goal of showing both the extremity and extreme mundanity of absolute horrific evil. And that's a goal worth achieving, even if the end result is hard to watch.

And after that, I could use a wacky comedy, and that was the midnight movie, ATTACK THE BLOCK. Executive produced and co-starring Edgar Wright [note: Edgar Wright doesn't act in the movie. I confused him for Nick Frost. See comments. I left the incorrect statement in as a sort of 'own-your-mistakes' kind of integrity] (SEAN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ, etc.) and directed by frequent collaborator Joe Cornish, it opens with a scene of a young woman getting mugged by some street tough kids in London. Then a meteor lands, a vicious little alien pops out, and the action starts. The thing is, in your typical monster movie these kids would be dead meat. They started out very unlikable, and unlikable kids die in monster movies. But in this one, they're the heroes. Sure, some die, but they also save the planet. And there's never a typical Hollywood "redemption" scene where they tearfully apologize and swear to live right. Hell, later they break into the same woman's apartment for refuge, and finding out she's a nurse they force her to perform first aid on one of them. But remember, they're the heroes. There's an important scene early on where she looks at the aliens, looks back at the thugs, and after a quick deliberation runs to the thugs as the lesser of two evils. So while I was watching it, I enjoyed the action and comedy (particularly Ron's weed room as the ultimate refuge) but I was a little put off by the fact that the "heroes" were thugs who mugged a woman for no apparent reason in the opening scenes. But while thinking about it the next morning, I realized there was a reason. It was a scene I didn't really pay much attention to at the time, but there's a part where they admit when they mugged her their knives were just for show, and they were just as afraid of her as she was of them. And they say they didn't know she had just moved into the block, and wouldn't have touched her if they knew she was a local. And this is very important to the 'we-take-care-of-our-own' ethos of the block. When they mugged her, they were simply defending their turf, attacking any stranger who enters the block. Exactly the same reaction they have to the aliens. They don't need a redemptive moment because their moral code never changes, and given their living conditions they were correct all along, and her mugging was a simple mistake.

I apologize for totally over-analyzing the morality of this movie. In fact, it's totally a popcorn action-comedy flick. It's just that to enjoy it as a popcorn flick, you have to either ignore morality or learn and embrace the block's morality. Belief!

Total Running Time: 345 minutes
My Total Minutes: 239,197