The 14th Annual SF IndieFest runs February 9th-23rd at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Check out the official site for further film details.

A man named Gerhard writes and narrates his instructions to a prostitute as to how he wants their time together to go. “Your caresses should be tender and shy,” he says. “I want you to put it in your mouth. It won’t take long.” His preferences continue including how she can yell at him or fall asleep beside him as long as she showers afterwards, sits in his lap soaking wet and lets him call her Lydia.

Gerhard returning home to his wife where the two await the arrival of their adult son and daughter. Their son, Bernhard, discovers the note beforehand and doesn’t show.

But their daughter Lydia does.

“I should have known.”

Bernhard (Christoph Luser) had followed his father (Fritz Hörtenhuber) to the prostitute and afterwards retrieved the letter from her. He’s taken aback, understandably, but doesn’t quite know what to do. When he finally arrives home to attend a family session for Gerhard’s alcoholism he presents the note to his dad for an explanation. Gerhard leaves, saying nothing with his voice but everything with his eyes, and the letter gets shared with Lydia (Daniela Golpashin) and their mother.

What follows are the multiple threads of the four family members over the next twenty four hours as they each struggle to understand the revelation. While Gerhard ponders turning himself in or picking up a shotgun his wife gives in to a shocked resignation and acceptance. Bernhard meanwhile tries to make amends with Lydia over the guilt he feels for not recognizing their reality sooner. They find a tin of photos in their dad’s shed, and it’s filled with pictures of her as a child in random states of undress.

Bernhard found it the first time when he was just a boy, but in a misguided and heartbreaking act of jealousy did nothing about it. He was jealous because he had been cut out of the photos. (Shades of Todd Solondz’ soul crushing but hilarious Happiness there.) Now he wonders if he could have prevented possible tragedies if he had spoken earlier.

The revelation at the core of Still Life (aka Stillleben) is almost unimaginable, and it would be easy to take the story down some melodramatic paths. Co-writer/director Sebastian Meise wisely and beautifully avoids that trap though and relies on his actors to deliver the story with honest humanity. How would you possibly deal with the discovery that your father harbored sexual thoughts and desires for one of your siblings? Or for you? It’s almost impossible to comprehend, but the cast makes it a wrenching reality.

Much of the communication between them (and with viewers) is accomplished with little to no dialogue. Anger, fear, sadness and more emanate from their eyes as if mere words could never do justice to the emotions they’re feeling. Hörtenhuber in particular moves between guilt, shame and loss without saying a word, and the effect is an all encompassing sadness.

The topic is one that could have easily descended into a salacious movie of the week, but it deserves and receives a far more sober and affecting approach here.

Still Life screens Thursday, February 16, at 9:30PM.

The 14th Annual SF IndieFest runs February 9th-23rd at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Check out the official site for further film details.

The 14th Annual SF IndieFest runs February 9th-23rd at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Check out the official site for further film details.

Two Russian ghosts, brothers tired of a life that is really no life at all, decide a change of corporeality is in order. After consulting with an oracle they begin to follow the Way of Saint James, a path that should lead them to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. Once there their bland, boring and restless existence will be exchanged for new physical bodies. The journey will be made mostly by foot, but occasionally they’ll take advantage of a horse and a wheelchair as they travel through inhospitable lands filled with odd characters and creatures.

That summation is accurate in its details, but it’s a lie in one very specific regard. Ghosts seeking to leave the afterlife, a surreal quest for humanity, and an absurd collection of oddities along the way seem to promise an interesting and engaging entertainment. Sadly, Finnisterrae is neither of those things.

“Wait.”

Writer/director Sergio Caballero certainly fills his film with alternately beautiful, fun and enticing visuals starting with the ghosts themselves. The phantom duo are represented by men wearing white sheets with large, black ovals where their eyes would be. It’s immediately comical and enhanced by the thick Russian voices emanating from beneath the fabric, but it’s far from the film’s only absurdity.

The live horse is intermittently replaced with an intentionally fake one. They pass through a “Forest of Words” where the trees all sport a pair of human ears, the better to hear the constant chatter echoing amidst the foliage presumably. An opera-singing hippie chick replete with a cape and extraneous dunlap offers directions and ill-advised barter to the two spirits. Another tree’s knothole offers a disgusting video-feed within.

And let’s not forget the stripper ghost in knee-high socks who entertains one of the brothers in split screen while the other sits unattended and under the weather on the other side. Seriously, don’t forget the stripper because she’s the film’s biggest highlight.

Some of the ideas and images would kill in a sketch show where they’d be focused and pointed, but here they seem to exist as throwaways or parts of a whole that never coalesces. Life, death and the meaning behind our time on earth are clearly the topics of the day, but any observations made about them feel so slight as to be accidental.

The film also drops the ball at a couple moments that promise to offer some kind of engagement. We’re led to an exchange or interaction only to see the screen go black with an interstitial that tells viewers what happened… but we don’t get to see it. It’s unclear if it’s a narrative or budgetary decision, but it lessens the effect regardless.

The film doesn’t really work as anything more than a collection of individual moments and frames, but with a running time under eighty minutes that could have still counted as a minor success. A film can miss the mark on the whole but succeed on a piecemeal basis, but unfortunately these handful of interesting ideas appear so intermittently that they’re swallowed up by the film’s  ponderous pace never to be recalled. Except for the stripper in the bed sheet of course. You’ll remember that one.

Finisterrae screens on Sunday, February 12 at 9:30PM.

The 14th Annual SF IndieFest runs February 9th-23rd at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Check out the official site for further film details.

On a hillside overlooking the beaches of Normandy, American soldiers surround a Korean and a Japanese man wearing Nazi uniforms. This is the second-most intriguing image of Mai-wei, the WWII epic from writer/director Je-gyu Kang. What’s even more fascinating is that the image is drawn directly from real life. How they got there (and into Hitler’s army no less) is a story told while trudging through the freezing mountains of Russia and the hot open plains of Korea.

It’s an enormous movie, told through a decade as two competitive marathon runners – Jun-shik Kim (Dong-gun Jang) and Tatsuo Hasegawa (Jo Odagiri) – begin as alienated enemies and become friends through the brittle evolution of battle.

Certainly its most striking achievements are the extended, highly-choreographed war scenes that steal the breath right out of your lungs. The visual style is an angrier version of Saving Private Ryan, but instead of beginning with Normandy, Mai-wei ends with it, and instead of having a few huge battles, Mai-wei has a solid half-dozen.

Make no mistake; it’s a movie that slams your head into the wall without giving you a helmet.

To the movie’s credit, everything is turned up to eleven. Its depiction of war is unrelenting and raw. At times, it can be overpowering with the camera equally interested in the landscape of explosions as it is the microscopic detail of dirt lifting off the ground and resettling after a man’s blood-drained face slams to the earth for the final time.

It’s violence made beautiful, but the visuals are robust purely because they hold steady as bullets rip through flesh or tanks roll too-slowly over legs and torsos.

All of it is packaged in the context of a war fought by slaves – a frustrating situation where each man loses his freedom and control of his own destiny. More than just citizens conscripted for service, Jun-shik Kim, as a Korean man living under Japanese rule, is forced alongside his friends to fight for a country he doesn’t even belong to. That group is an unsurprisingly ragtag group led by the heroic Kim and his congenial best friend Jong-Dae (In-Kwon Kim). Why is unsurprising? Because the other aspect of the movie’s tone is how broad and cliched it is. Je-gyu Kang does brilliantly when the war is raging, but he has no patience or economy to turn the volume down for everything else. Just as the violence is bombastic, each moment of triumph is met with a sweeping score and an over-the-top semi-slow-mo style just in case the audience couldn’t catch that it was an important scene. The problem? He makes every scene “important” which leaves no room for the calm reality of real life.

The worst offense comes when the soldiers play a too-smiling game of soccer on the Normandy beach after a hard day of setting up blockades and waiting to be shot in the head. It’s the Korean War Movie answer to Top Gun‘s volleyball scene.

Besides the massive dose of sugar this movie didn’t need, everything else is above and beyond excellent. The sports movie aspect, complete with its own cheese, is a fantastic element that puts the two leads on display as competitors who need each other to get better. Fortunately, the movie is also complex enough to realize both the frivolousness of grown men playing a game and the incredible necessity of engaging in something social and aggressive without people being killed. War makes their marathon aspirations both petty and vital. It’s enough to bring every small act into greater focus, and Je-gyu Kang and company never lose sight of that.

Dong-gun Jang and Jo Odagiri are both massive stars in the world of Asian cinema, and they are more than capable here, but the story is the real star. At its heart is the mystery of how two men from East Asia found their way far beyond the western front, and the lifeblood is the continual examination and re-examination of what war does to change good men. For some, it will erase their souls. For others it will fulfill a sense of duty. For most, it will wipe them off the face of the planet.

As hammy as some of its scenes are, Mai-wei is limber and nuanced when it comes to illustrating the break downs and epiphanies that occur when you’ve lost most of your men fighting off ten tanks only to see forty more crest the hill.

Thankfully, the sweetness and hand-holding is left out of the action. If war is hell, this movie is the ninth circle.

That’s important, because the cost of war is high and real, and the production here both understand and honor that. Unfortunately, the movie falls well short of being a masterpiece. With its too-obvious flashbacks to remind the audience of elements that echo each other, and a healthy slice of cheese added to certain segments, the enormity of the powerless (and perhaps pointless) situation that everyone finds themselves in is diminished to a size small enough to fit on the spoon we’re being fed with.

That’s a shame, but it’s still a damned fine movie that is, at times, physically affecting and philosophically challenging. Plus, even if that were stripped away, it’s a classic story about friendship, dedication and sacrifice that’s told on a gorgeous grand scale.

The realm of 18th century France is a dusty one. Period dramas, especially lofty costume dramas, are so numerous that you can barely toss a powdered wig without hitting one. With Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux à la Reine), writer/director Benoît Jacquot tears off the wig, pulls down the drapes and sets fire to both.

The wonderfully un-stuffy film stars and is told through the eyes of Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux) who acts as a cipher for the manic last few days of Marie Antoinette’s (Diane Kruger) reign in the late 1700s. It’s Laborde’s story, meaning it’s the story of a voyeur who watches from doorjambs as the business of being extravagantly wealthy and powerful becomes not only meaningless, but fatal.

The vantage point is a bold angle that comes with its own set of challenges. Instead of following the leader, it makes Versailles an insular cocoon where rumors float down candle-lit hallways on sleepless nights and the people trapped by their own excess are revealed more through reaction than action. Yes, it’s a challenge, but it’s one that Jacquot and company handle with something close to greatness.

If the perspective is one reason this film bucks the period trend, its pacing and aggressive nature are real reasons to praise it. This is no dry wheeze where polite society hems and yawns through subtext and things unspoken. It’s direct. It’s nasty. Beyond forcing the main perspective and anchor into the lower class, it pivots off of a vision of perfection that is rarely seen. Opulence is hard to take seriously when it demands that dozens of loudly-dressed patrons shuffle-run down the hall in order to appear poised and proper like statues who have always stood in the place where the King and Queen are about to emerge.

It’s a desperate awkwardness born from trying to force things to appear a certain way. Instead of being played for laughs, it’s more often played for pity.

On the acting front, Seydoux makes it all look easy. She’s cunning and clever, but she’s appropriately weighed down by her station. She has the intricate task of existing not as a true main character, but as the character that’s onscreen the most. Even though she’s a constant presence, the story seems to happen around her as she observes and acts accordingly. It’s a steamy essence that she brings to everything, and her crisp slyness rings throughout.

However, even with stunted screen time, it’s Kruger that radiates the most here. She’s so strong a force that Antoinette is in every room and thought without being seen. Kruger doesn’t play her as an uncaring hammer – she creates a monarch that’s sometimes childlike and fearful behind the shrewd wielding of her influence and position.

When the two are together, there’s a strand of tension tied tightly between them, and they (and all women in the film) seem to play each conversation as if a fight or a passionate kiss is about to erupt. That subtle, semi-violent sexuality hangs on the coattails of each scene – used for both titillation, drama and insecurity.

Sadly, the movie falls off its pedestal for two reasons. For one, Jacquot (and/or his cinematographer Romain Winding) approach the camera work like a fidgeting little child tugging on his mother’s dress in church. It’s as if they received a shot-style-of-the-day calendar and just had to use it. The best segments come when the director calms down and lets the dialogue move on its own. The lack of cohesion is irritating, but why it shifts back and forth from steady to handheld is baffling. No matter the answer, it injures the overall product and gives the appearance that Jacquot had the camera move simply because he didn’t know what else to do while people were engrossed in long bouts of talking.

For two, a handful of the scenes feel staged and overly produced. There’s a false-feeling choreography to some of it that tends to value a poetic movement of people over something that would feel more natural – especially considering how organic the core of the story emerges.

The damage is there, but the movie is still a fantastic piece of period work that doesn’t follow any of the rules that make costume dramas so drab and dull. It’s innovative without being crudely rebellious, and the acting on display is formidable and incendiary. It goes without saying that the production design, make-up and costuming is strong – that’s the very least a film like this can do. What’s really magical about Farewell, My Queen is that it gives the audience something to do other than stare at the scenery. It’s thrilling. A rare example of something antique feeling genuinely brand new.

Complete Berlinale Coverage

You may have heard the song “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang (“I said a hip hop, a hippie, a hippie to the hip hop”), but what you might not know is this song helped hip hop break into the mainstream and helped a genre that, up until that point had been brushed off as a fad, start to take root in our musical history. Even though the group was changing the face (and sound) of the music industry, The Sugarhill Gang found themselves on top of the charts with barely a dime to their name. While this is not the first time we have heard stories of talent swindled by shady and greedy record executives, the story of the Sugarhill Gang is not just about losing money, it is about having their name and the true identity of the band member’s themselves stolen from them.

The Sugarhill Gang was originally made up of Wonder Mike (Michael Wright), Master Gee (Guy O’Brien), and Big Bank Hank (Henry Jackson), a trio that was put together by Sylvia Robinson who, along with her husband Joe Robinson, ran Sugar Hill Records and released the group’s first single, “Rapper’s Delight.” While the track climbed the charts and the fame and popularity of The Sugarhill Gang grew, the three members continued to find themselves broke as the Robinsons got richer.

Eventually Wonder Mike and Master Gee had enough of being stuck in a situation that was clearly making those “in charge” rich while they were left with almost nothing and left the group (and the music industry) while Jackson stayed. After the exit of O’Brien, the Robinson’s son, Joey Jr., began performing as Master Gee and not only began claiming he was the original Master Gee, he went so far as to copyright The Sugarhill Gang’s name and Wonder Mike and Master Gee’s individual names as well. I Want My Name Back follows Wright and O’Brien as they work to get back into the industry and find themselves faced with legal issues and threats that they are not who they claim to be.

Told through interviews with various legends and names in the industry, I Want My Name Back shows Wright and O’Brien as they try to not only move forward with their careers (and their names), but also attempt to right musical history. The film works in not only telling the true history of one of the industry’s most noted hip hop groups, but does so in a way that is almost baffling as it shows how blatantly some have tried to rewrite that history. While director Roger Paradiso is a bit bumpy in his documentary style, I Want My Name Back succeeds in taking viewers through the group’s first meeting and shows how everything that happened after that moment not only changed the face of hip hop, but these artist’s lives as well.

Part cautionary tale, part inspirational story, I Want My Name Back proves that talent and creativity can end up meaning very little in a business that works to sell (more than create) music, but those who create music out of their love of the art may end up being truly richer in the end.

The Upside: An interesting, frustrating and important look at the true birth of hip hop and who actually created the rhymes that brought rap to the mainstream while never losing the positive and hopeful message of the original Sugarhill Gang.

The Downside: Filmed in a slightly awkward documentary style with quick cuts between interviews and on screen information, along an almost monotone narration from former Sugar Hill Records employee Tony Rome, the style ended up being more distracting than helpful when attempting to move the story along.

On The Side: Adding insult to injury, while Wright and O’Brien each wrote their rhymes in “Rapper’s Delight,” Jackson’s verses were stolen from Grandmaster Caz (known then as Casanova Fly) as proven from his opening verse in the song stating, “I’m the C-A-S-A-N-O-V-A and the rest is F-L-Y.” Not to mention the fact that the track itself sampled (and did not originally pay credit to) “Good Times” by Chic.

Echoing throughout the concrete of the subway between Stadtmitte and Potsdamer Platz is a young man slamming out a guitar chord like it owes him money and singing out “I want to see the movies of my dreams.” His droning twang sounds more like it was unearthed from the soil of North Carolina, but the Euro coins in his case and the writing on the wall prove he’s in Berlin.

His sentiment is a powerful and timely one as the red signs everywhere shout out the presence of the Berlin International Film Festival. Just a dozen feet above that young man’s head is the shuffle of mud-covered feet swishing through snow as more of it falls on the ground. An ice cream parlor is inexplicably still open and doing good business nearby.

It’s 21 degrees outside, but it feels like 8, and that creates a kind of energy. People are moving quickly to both to keep up with the lazy first day rush and to keep their bits from freezing off. Maybe that will make getting into a darkened (and heated) theater all the sweeter. At least that’s the hope on the largely movie-less, paper work-heavy start to the Berlinale.

Beyond the scattered preparations and disparate schedules cluttering the mental nodes and notebooks, there’s the spirit of the place. As the night and the temperatures fall together, it breathes hard and heavy with the anticipation of the opening film – a  period piece from Benoit Jacquot called Farewell, My Queen where Diane Kruger wants everyone to eat cake. Outside now, there’s a red carpet filled with women who haven’t even seen cake in years, all stuffed into dresses with sizes as low as the Celsius temperature. That they’re baring their arms and cleavage in such frigidity is a testament to the kind of noble stupidity that only keeping up appearances can inspire, and the bearded men they use for warmth waltz them from huddle to huddle of cameramen and forest to forest of black microphones. They’re waving and smiling as the odd mixture of black sludge that comes when dirt marries snow drops from their heels and clings to the carpet-covered ground. It collects there, turning the red more and brown, but the cameras don’t shift their gaze.

On a large screen, I’m watching celebrities I don’t recognize. It’s a jarring feeling. Everyone is clamoring for enough of their attention to get a good flash bulb broken, but I can’t place a face or a name.

I don’t know the people that everyone else knows.

There’s something both alarming and freeing about that. Alarming because I’m a stranger in a familiar land and freeing because it makes it just that much easier to find a darkened corner in a fancy hotel to contemplate and reflect on what I’ve just seen. My movie, the same movie, will start an hour after theirs a handful of subway stops away without any muddy red carpets or dancing bears. There will be no pomp or circumstance welcome, and that’s probably the way it should be. It will just be the movie, naked as it came, waiting to be loved, loathed, or something not as dramatic.

For me, it will be the first of many opportunities to see greatness. Like any film festival, Berlin is more casino than kino. In a hotel three blocks north of the Potsdamer Platz subway exit there are half a dozen movies playing every two hours hoping to get a distributor or an invitation to the next festival. An equal distance south, there’s an entire building of projects trying to secure the last bit of funding or impress a buyer. Tonight, I’ll take Marie Antoinette by the hand and walk into the next days where filmmakers trying to make a mark either grab audiences by the ears or fail to grab them at all.

Like any film festival, it’s the hope of the first day that will resonate like a foreign folk song off of underground German concrete walls. With any luck, the energy of Berlin will come from more than just the cold. There’s potential floating in the air, and just like that scruffy busker, I want to see the movies of my dreams.

Berlinale, let’s see what you’ve got.

Here is the place where I will start screaming about how everyone needs to just shut up and make room on their calendar to check out V/H/S because it’s so fun and scary and cool and such a great midnight film and so great to see with a crowd and then I’ll run out of breath from this ludicrous run-on sentence and get back to at least the appearance of professionalism.

Joining their previously announced feature line-up, SXSW has now released their full listing of all films showing at the film festival this year, including Midnight features and a positively huge schedule of short films (including narrative shorts, documentary shorts, global shorts, music videos, Texas shorts, and Texas high school shorts). Some highlights to look out for on the Midnight beat include V/H/S (duh), the world premiere of Austin Chick’s Girls Against Boys, the U.S. premiere of Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s Intruders, and some form of “Super Secret Screening.” On the shorts side? How about Nash Edgerton’s wicked little Bear, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman’s A Brief History of John Baldessari, Kat Candler’s Hellion, and Don Hertzfeldt’s it’s such a beautiful day?

Check out the (now totally) complete listing below of the feature and short films playing at SXSW 2012!

FEATURES

MIDNIGHTERS – Scary, funny, sexy, controversial – provocative after-dark features for night owls and the terminally curious.

The Aggression Scale
Director: Steven C. Miller, Screenwriter: Ben Powell
4 hitmen + $500,000 of stolen cash + 1 family = WAR
Cast: Fabianne Therese, Ryan Hartwig, Dana Ashbrook, Derek Mears, Jacob Reynolds, Joseph McKelheer, Boyd Kestner, Lisa Rotondi, Ray Wise
(World Premiere)

CITADEL (Ireland, Scotland)
Director/Screenwriter: Ciarán Foy
An agoraphobic father teams up with a renegade priest to save his daughter from the clutches of a gang of twisted feral children.
Cast: Anuerin Barnard, James Cosmo, Wumni Mosaku, Jake Wilson, Amy Shiels
(World Premiere)

Girls Against Boys
Director/Screenwriter: Austin Chick
A psychological thriller about two girls on a killing spree. With edgy and ironic humor and a darkly meditative tone, it is also a coming-of-age story about a girl learning how the world really works.
Cast: Danielle Panabaker, Nicole LaLiberte, Liam Aiken, Michael Stahl-David, Andrew Howard
(World Premiere)

Intruders (Spain, UK)
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Screenwriters: Nicolás Casariego, Jaime Marques
The haunting story of two children living in different countries, each visited nightly by a faceless being who wants to take possession of them.
Cast: Clive Owen, Carice Van Houten, Daniel Brühl, Pilar López de Ayala
(U.S. Premiere)

Iron Sky (Finland, Germany, Australia)
Director: Timo Vuorensola, Screenwriters: Michael Kalesniko, Timo Vuorensola
In 1945 the Nazis went to the moon; in 2018 they are coming back.
Cast: Julia Dietze, Götz Otto, Christopher Kirby, Peta Sergeant, Stephanie Paul, Tilo Prückner, Michael Cullen, Udo Kier
(North American Premiere)

John Dies At The End
Director & Screenwriter: Don Coscarelli
On the street it’s called “soy sauce,” a drug that promises an out-of-body experience with each hit. Suddenly, a silent otherworldly invasion is underway. Can college dropouts John and Dave save humanity? No, they can’t. 
Cast: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman

Modus Anomali (Indonesia)
Director/Screenwriter: Joko Anwar
A man tries to save his family who go missing during a vacation in the forest.
Cast: Rio Dewanto, Hannah Al Rashid, Izziati Amara Isman, Aridh Tritama, Surya Saputra, Marsha Timothy, Sadha Triyudha, Jose Gamo
(World Premiere)

[REC] ³ GENESIS (Spain)
Director: Paco Plaza
Screenwriters: Luiso Berdejo, Paco Plaza
Koldo and Clara’s wedding is horrifically interrupted when some of the guests start showing signs of a strange illness. Before they know what’s happening, the bride and groom find themselves in the middle of a hellish ordeal, as an uncontrollable torrent of violence is unleashed on the wedding.
Cast: Leticia Dolera, Diego Martin
(World Premiere)

Super Secret Screening
Be the first to see this feature film coming to theaters near you.

The Tall Man
Director/Screenwriter: Pascal Laugier
When her child goes missing, a mother looks to unravel the legend of the Tall Man, an entity who allegedly abducts children.
Cast: Jessica Biel, Jodelle Ferland, Stephen McHattie, William B.Davis
(World Premiere)

V/H/S
Directors: Ti West, Adam Wingard, Joe Swanberg, David Bruckner, Glenn Mcquaid, Radio Silence, Screenwriter: Ti West, Simon Barrett, David Bruckner, Radio Silence, Glenn Mcquaid
A group of misfits are hired to burglarize a house in the countryside and acquire a rare tape. The guys are confronted with a dead body and an endless supply of cryptic footage, each video stranger than the last… Cast: Joe Swanberg, Calvin Reeder, Kate Lynn Shiel, Sophia Takal, Lane Hughes, Helen Rogers, Adam Wingard

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SHORT FILMS

NARRATIVE SHORTS – A selection of original, well-crafted films that take advantage of the short form and exemplify distinctive and genuine storytelling. The winner of our Grand Jury Award in this category is eligible for a 2013 Academy Award nomination for Best Narrative Short.

Aaron Burr, Part 2
Director: Dana O’Keefe
History is a contest.

Another Bullet Dodged
Director: Landon Zakheim
In the fading echoes of a relationship, character is revealed.

Bear
Director: Nash Edgerton
Jack means well, but sometimes good intentions have horrible consequences.

The Black Balloon
Director: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie
In New York City, a lone black balloon, once part of a huge 100-balloon bouquet, learns that humans are complicated creatures with extreme highs and lows. Part Sci-Fi, part children’s film.

The Chair
Director: Grainger David
The story of one boy’s reaction to a mysterious outbreak of poisonous mold in his small town.

A Chjána (The Plain)
Director: Jonas Carpignano
Inspired by real events, A Chjàna (The Plain) follows Ayiva, an African migrant worker who seeks to reunite with his best friend in the wake of the most significant race riot in Italian history.

A Fábrica
Director: Aly Muritiba
An inmate convinces his mother to take a risk smuggling a cell phone for him into the penitentiary.

FOXES
Director: Lorcan Finnegan
A young couple trapped in a remote estate of empty houses and shrieking foxes are beckoned from their isolation into a twilight world. A world of the paranormal or perhaps insanity.

Heimkommen (Coming Home)
Director: Micah Magee
When Robert’s girlfriend dies, he turns his grief against his younger sister Jo. Jo plays ice hockey with the boys, hoping to gather strength to bring her brother back to the land of the living.

In The Pines
Directors: Zeek Earl, Chris Caldwell
Simultaneously an exploration of nature and psyche, the film documents a young woman’s hunt for extraterrestrial meaning. Part science fiction, part psycho-thriller, part poetry – this film crafts a memorable scene rooted in the Pacific Northwest.

Joy
Director: Colm Quinn
Nicola reluctantly introduces her newborn daughter to her best friend Tess.

Liar
Director: Adam Garnet Jones
When a brutal teenage revenge plot gets pushed too far, 14 year-old Tara is forced to choose between standing helplessly on the sidelines or stepping in to defend the boyfriend that hurt her.

Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke
Directors: Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva
A modern Miami adaptation of the 1962 French short film La Jetee, starring Uncle Luke of the 2 Live Crew.

Little Dad
Director: Noah Pritzker
An insecure father prepares for a party at his in-laws.

Mouthful
Director: Robert G. Putka
Bobby and Bliss are a happy couple, that is, until they begin to tell each other things probably better left unsaid. A single question leads them down a highway to relationship hell.

My Friend Kills Time
Director: Jakob Rørvik
Thomas moves to a remote cabin in an attempt to disappear completely… even from himself. My Friend Kills Time mixes visual textures and haunting soundscapes to create a cinematic diary of a young man’s isolation.

Not Far From The Abattoir
Director: Kyle Thomas
A story of a man controlling his demons and trying to imagine a better life outside of the only town he has ever called home.

Pitch Black Heist
Director: John Maclean
Two men, professional safe crackers, meet on a simple job to relieve an office safe of its contents. The catch; a light activated alarm system impelling them to embark on a pitch black heist.

Playtime (Spielzeit)
Director: Lucas Mireles
A seamless journey through the lives of German youth on a Sunday afternoon.

Random Strangers
Director: Alexis Dos Santos
Lulu and Rocky meet, fall in love, spend the night together, and fall asleep looking at each other…except for the fact that he is in Berlin and she is in Buenos Aires.

Reinaldo Arenas
Director: Lucas Leyva
Told from the point of view of a dying shark, Reinaldo Arenas is the story of an unintentional immigrant in Miami.

REMAINS
Directors: Jeremiah Zagar, Nathan Caswell
A blend of documentary and fiction, Remains is about recollection and fading memories. Combining three years of recorded voice messages with stunning macro photography, the film documents a relationship from its inception to its end.

Sea Meadow
Director: Lily Baldwin
A disoriented young woman stumbles upon an empty estate. There are signs of a lush life, but the inhabitants have disappeared. Or have they? Sea Meadow revamps the thriller with pop mashups and stylized dance tableaux.

Shoot the Freak
Director: Bradford Willingham
Through the freak’s musings, this film chronicles the last days of the iconic, abrasive Coney Island attraction Shoot the Freak. In masked anonymity, the nihilistic teen indulges in drug-induced daydreams of violence and oceanic abandon.

A Short Film About Ice Fishing
Director: Jason Shahinfar
In rural South Dakota two friends go out for the most explosive day of ice fishing either will ever experience.

Syndromes
Directors: The Golden Filter, Kristoffer Borgli
A young girl’s bizarre and unexplained ability to help others leads to her involvement in a sinister underworld.

Would You
Directors: Brian McGinn, Rod Blackhurst
Two friends play ‘Would You Rather.’ When their choices magically start to come true, they find themselves in a variety of awkward and funny situations.

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS – Unfiltered slices of life, from across the documentary spectrum.

Aisha’s Song
Director: Orlando von Einsiedel
Musically lush and stunningly shot, Aisha’s Song is a touching and uplifting story of female empowerment from a part of the world where women are all too often overlooked.

A Brief History of John Baldessari
Directors: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
No more boring films! Everything you need to know about the godfather of Conceptual Art… narrated by Tom Waits.

BRUTE FORCE
Director: Ben Steinbauer
The story of Apple Records notoriously irreverent recording artist, Brute Force.

CatCam
Director: Seth Keal
When a German engineer creates a tiny camera for his newly adopted stray cat to wear, the photographs reveal more than ever expected.

Cutting Loose
Directors: Finlay Pretsell, Adrian McDowall
“I’m trusted with a pair of scissors and I’m in here for murder.” A snapshot of prison life in the build up to the annual hairdressing competition.

Family Nightmare
Director: Dustin Guy Defa
Unearthed home movies and haunting dubbed voices collide to create a personal portrait of family dysfunction.

The Fuse: or How I Burned Simon Bolivar
Director: Igor Drljaca
A nine-year-old boy thinks he is responsible for the civil war in Bosnia.

Kudzu Vine
Director: Josh Gibson
This ode to the climbing, trailing, and coiling species Pueraria lobata evokes the agricultural history and mythic textures of the American South.

The Love Competition
Director: Brent Hoff
The World’s First Love Competition.

The Man That Got Away
Director: Trevor Anderson
A musical documentary that tells the true life story of Trevor’s great-uncle Jimmy in six original songs.

Meaning of Robots
Director: Matt Lenski
Mike Sullivan’s world is overrun by an army of miniature sex robots with no end in sight.

Minor/Major: The TV on the Radio Tour Documentary
Director: Chioke Nassor
An intense documentary portrait on the band TV on the Radio as they transition from minor label darlings to major label success.

New York Accent
Director: Caleb Slain
Once a man with all the answers, Dr. Ed Dobson is struggling to resolve his own questions before succumbing to the unusual disease eating away his body.

Written in Ink
Director: Martin Rath
Can one change what has already been written in ink?

SX GLOBAL SHORTS – A showcase for cutting-edge documentary shorts from around the world.

Abuelas
Director: Afarin Eghbal
In Buenos Aires, an old woman looks forward to all the joys of becoming a grandmother. However, unfolding historic events mean she is forced to wait over 30 years.

The Contest
Director: Jakub Cuman
Observational documentary made during the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition Preliminaries in 2010.

Chronicle of Oldrich S.
Director: Rudolf Smid
Mr Sedlacek wrote one-sentence entries in his chronicle from 1981 to 2005, everyday stories of his life, his village, and of international events.  This animated documentary is based on 80 of those entries.

The Contract
Director: Lina Mannheimer
On the 5th of May 2005, Beverly Charpentier declares an oath of allegiance to Catherine Robbe-Grillet. Hereby she gives up her freedom, for the rest of her life.

Doctor Rao
Directors: Alexej Tchernyi, Wu Zhi
Doctor Rao passed away. Family and friends are celebrating his last journey.

Walt Disney Square
Directors: Renata Pinheiro, Sergio Oliveira
A “quasi-musical” approach to contemporary urban life that reflects Brazilian society and many others throughout the world, this documentary describes at the same time a place, a city and a country.

ANIMATED SHORTS – An assortment of stories told using a mix of traditional animation, computer-generated effects, stop-motion, and everything in-between. The winner of our Grand Jury Award in this category is eligible for a 2013 Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short.

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I am a 66-year cicada. There was a big earthquake. There was a big tsunami. There also was a big accident.

Belly
Director: Julia Pott
I can feel you in my belly.

Caldera
Director: Evan Viera
A young girl goes off her medication to leave a bleak metropolis and immerse herself in a vibrant oceanic cove.

Chocolate Milk
Director: Eliza Kinkz
Growing up in a Texas drug rehab, a teenage girl learns the rules of life and dairy products.

Combustion
Director: Renaud Hallée
Fire used as a visual and musical tool.

Giraffe Danger
Director: Randall Hopkins
A giraffe with personal space anxiety has a bad day.

The Hunter
Director: Marieka Walsh
A hunter searches for a missing boy deep in the snow covered mountains. He must make decisions that will forever change his relationship with the wilderness he fears. The Hunter is a stop-motion sand animation.

“it’s such a beautiful day”
Director: Don Hertzfeldt
Bill finds himself in a hospital struggling with memory problems, in this third and final chapter to Don Hertzfeldt’s “Everything will be OK” trilogy.

Little Boat
Director: Nelson Boles
One little boat, one big journey.

The Maker
Director: Christopher Kezelos
Life is what you make it.

(notes on) biology
Director: Danny Madden
An animated account of an organism adapting to its environment.

Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise
Director: Kelly Sears
A terrifying look back at high school.

Paint Showers
Director: Miguel Jiron
Swirling cosmos of paint give way to a storm of color and drips.

Photographs
Directors: Christina Manrique, Robert Clogher
An elderly woman living in an abandoned town finds a camera, which becomes a means for her to recreate her past life and remember a lost love.

Reddish Brown and Blueish Green
Director: Samantha Gurry
Child services, schwag, and the American dream.

The Shrine / An Argument
Director: Sean Pecknold
An elk wanders through a world of madness.

Summer Bummer
Director: Bill Plympton
A man daydreams about what terror could be lurking in his backyard pool.

MIDNIGHT SHORTS – Bite-sized bits for all of your sex, genre, and hilarity needs.

Cheap Extermination
Director: Minka Farthing-Kohl
For Ernst, the perfect disguise was to play himself.

Cherry On Top
Director: Mike Damanskis
A prostitute finds new ways to attract business.

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared
Directors: Rebecca Sloan, Joseph Pelling
A short film about teaching creativity—by This Is It Collective.

Duck Sauce, “Big Bad Wolf”
Director: Keith Schofield
Keith Schofield’s original, outrageous and very, very funny promo for Duck Sauce’s single Big Bad Wolf has been burning up the internet, causing millions of pelvises to be thrust worldwide. An instant classic.

I Am Your Grandma
Director: Jillian Mayer
An autobiographical video diary log (vlog) that Jillian Mayer records for her unborn grandchildren.

J.P.B.F.
Director: Steve Collins
A woman interviews for a job at a nefarious company that may or may not f**k b**ts.

Jacuzzi Boys, “Glazin”
Directors: Lucas Leyva, Jillian Mayer
Glazin’ is part of a larger narrative where a group of 6 anonymous girls innocently paint their privates and rig them to lip-synch their favorite song as a gift to the band.

Machines of the Working Class
Directors: James Dastoli, Robert Dastoli
Two robotic blue-collar workers take a brief hiatus to discuss delusions of grandeur.

Man & Gun
Director: Brian McOmber
A post 9/11 fairy tale about a man’s love affair with guns.

Merman
Director: Jono Foley
Harrison swims through the darkest recesses of his mind.

Other
Director: Daniel DelPurgatorio
Patrick is a brilliant doctor in an obsessive race to alter his own grim prognosis. During a series of unconventional experiments, he discovers a scientific loophole unlike anything he had ever imagined.

Perished
Directors: Aaron McCann, Stefan Androv Radanovich
Sometimes survival is worse than death.

Zombie Chic
Director: Todd Cobery
A stuffy dinner party is interrupted by the zombie apocalypse.

MUSIC VIDEOS – A range of classic, innovative, and stylish work showcasing the scope of music video culture.

Alexander, ”A Million Years”
Director: Benjamin Kutsko

Baskerville, ”Reloaded”
Director: Marieke Verbiesen

Battles, ”My Machines”
Director: DANIELS

Casey Veggies, ”Euphoria II”
Director: John Bollozos

Céline Desrumaux, ”Countdown”
Director: Céline Desrumaux

CHRISTEENE, “African Mayonnaise”
Director: PJ Raval

Cults, ”You Know What I Mean”
Director: Kevin Lin

Ganesh Rao, ”Empyrean”
Director: Ganesh Rao

The Good The Bad, “030”
Director: Jeppe Kolstrup

Gotye (Feat. Kimbra), ”Somebody That I Used To Know”
Director: Natasha Pincus

Hawaaii, ”Welcome”
Director: Churl Gwon

Herman Dune, ”Tell Me Something I Don’t Know”
Director: Toben Seymour

Hooray For Earth, ”True Loves”
Director: Young Replicant

Hyperpotamus, ”De Camino”
Director: Lucas Borras

Kina Grannis,”In Your Arms”
Director: Greg Jardin

Little Tybee, ”Boxcar Fair”
Directors: Brock Scott, Tom Haney

Ok Go, ”All Is Not Lost”
Director: Ok Go, Pilobolus, & Trish Sie

Porter Robinson, ”Spitfire”
Director: Saman Keshavarz

Son of Kick,“Playing the Villain”
Director: Matt Devine (Glues Society)

When Saints Go Machine, ”Parix”
Director: Daniel Kragh-Jacobsen

Whomadewho, ”Every Minute Alone”
Director: William Stahl

Yip Deceiver, “Get Strict”
Directors: Brandon LaGanke, John Carlucci

Yuksek, ”ALWAYS ON THE RUN”
Directors: David Hache, Marc-Edouard Leon

TEXAS SHORTS – An offshoot of our regular narrative shorts program, composed of work shot in, about, or somehow relating to the Lone Star state.

foolproof
Directors: Zach Anner, Marshall Rimmer
Zach Anner, the freeloading roommate, and Marshall Rimmer, the responsible businessman, eat their morning cereal together.

The Gathering Squall
Director: Hannah Fidell
A teenage girl is forced into adulthood after she is assaulted by a classmate.

The Guessing Game
Director: Angela Cheng
A very short comedy set in a retirement home with senior citizens. On the morning of his birthday, Emmett asks his fellow residents to guess his age and is surprised by their answers.

Hellion
Director: Kat Candler
All hell breaks loose when seven-year-old Petey is left with his hell-raising brothers. But things go from bad to really, really bad when Dad gets home.

Knife
Director: James M. Johnston
From the rugged cross-timbers of Texas comes a portrait of greed and vengeance.

Magpie
Director: Russell O. Buh
On a trip to reconnect with his estranged and recently engaged daughter, Phillip finds a sex tape of the little girl he used to know. Dinner is going to be awkward.

Spark
Director: Annie Silverstein
While a boy waits out his father’s tryst he is unexpectedly forced to deal with the lady-friend’s daughter. Set on a ranch in Bastrop, Texas, Spark uses the environment to explore the internal space of children.

Tumbleweed!
Director: Jared Varava
The true and historically accurate tale of one tumbleweed that did not tumble.

What It’s Like
Director: Matt Naylor
A magazine writer goes to an old folks home to buy mushrooms from one of the elderly residents. What starts as a bizarre transaction becomes a moment of connection across generations.

TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL SHORTS – Texas High School students offer a glimpse of a bright future for Texas filmmaking.

The Apparition
Director: Jonathan Munoz
Paranormal Elimination 101.

The Bench
Directors: Kalen Doyle, Hirsh Elhence
There’s a note for that.

The Bench
Director: Christian Benavides
One son’s letter to his father.

Boom
Directors: Daniel Matyas, Brian Broder
All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel. The monkey thought ’twas all in fun, then Pop! goes the weasel.

Burn Spark
Directors: Maqui Gaona, J.J. Rubin
In the future, one man fights the system to choose his own love.

Chance
Director: Jasmine DePucci
A young girl experiences a transformation by an evil spirit contained within the fluffy seams of a teddy bear.

Code Red
Director: Zach Prengler
Four nerdy guys buy the hottest video game of the year, but what they bought was not what they expected.

Drawings
Directors: Christian Larrave, Alex McKenna
The story of two doodles in love.

Drones
Director: Micah Autry
A social issue film that projects the life of the protagonist and how he overcomes constraints of a normal life.

Drum Roll Please
Director: Alexander Villanueva
Opposable thumbs have allowed humans to become the dominant species. How dominant, you say?

Janitor’s Laundry
Director: Brian Broder
A dark thriller exploring the actions of a murderous janitor, who attacks lonely victims at the local laundrymat.

Josh Lumsden, “Guilty”
Director: Josh Lumsden
Josh Lumsden sings and dances while trapped in a mental asylum.

Julian Edmonson: Who I Am
Director: Jake Wangner
Julian Edmonson is a point guard who graduated from Fossil Ridge High School. This is a video putting a spotlight on this student before he went off to college.

Knit-Picky
Director: Bobby Jorgenson
Life socks.

Language
Director: Leah Schell
Jason and his Korean foreign exchange student struggle to overcome a language barrier.

Masterpiece
Director: Anele Page
An artist struggles to create a masterpiece for a special cause.

McChange: a Manifesto
Directors: Jonathan Griffin, Josiah Sandhu
Mark McNeil is the president that Pasadena Memorial High deserves, but doesn’t need right now.

Plasticine Dream
Directors: Samantha Fine, Andrew Fields
Romance molded into the shape of a dream.

The Process
Director: Ty Whittington
Ty Whittington, a young artist, takes us through the process of creating an artistic illustration in his own way.

The Proposal
Directors: Marcella Jimenez, Susannah Rodrigue
The story of a young boys hope for childhood love.

SAFE
Director: Pierce Harvell
When a tornado threatens the lives of two brothers, one decides to take the initiative towards survival despite the reservations of his twin.

Silent Night
Director: James Bradford
Run fat boy, run!

Zwichensug
Directors: Cole Martin, Josh Willis
An anonymous man with skills of inexplicable origin infiltrates the corporate hideout of a shady, but high-ranking businessman. Using fast and fluid tactics, our protagonist is determined to complete his task.

SXSW 2012 runs March 9th to the 17th in Austin, TX.

So you can’t afford the plane ticket (or you’re afraid they’ll show Mr. Popper’s Penguins on your cross-Atlantic flight). So you can’t stand to wait outside in freezing temperatures. So you can’t figure out why an international film festival is showing A Prairie Home Companion in a one-film Robert Altman retrospective. So what?

That’s why we here at FSR are going to do all that for you. In 24 hours, I’ll be boarding a train, and 6 hours after that I’ll arrive at the apartment where I’ll sleep on Tim League’s floor for a week, catching all of the strange, the challenging, and the Oscar-worthy films of the future right here in the cold as hell country of Fritz Lang, Werner Herzog and Uwe Boll. That’s right sports fans, it’s the Berlin International Film Festival (also affectionately known as the Berlinale).

It’s my first time, so we might all feel a little pinch, but I go undaunted into the morass of venues, celebrity sightings and movies in search of the flicks that demand to be cheered and shared. Coverage starts Thursday and will head on into next week.

Berlin! It’s like Cannes except colder and more Prussian! Aren’t you glad you can experience it from home?

As mentioned in my interview with Franz the Bear, this year’s Sundance Film Festival not only featured films, documentaries, shorts, and memorable performances from established talent (John Hawkes) to breakout stars (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), it also brought an interactive element to Park City, UT. Bear 71 explored the line between technology and nature by looking to not only show people a documentary, but actually bring them into the experience. This was achieved through an interactive installation at the New Frontier that ran during the festival and not only utilized film and pictures, but also combined the use of webcams and social media to bring viewers into the world of Bear 71.

Bridging that gap between the standard practice of being told and shown something through a film, Bear 71 allowed viewers to actually go into the experience. Rather than just watching a documentary about a female grizzly bear (Bear 71) in her natural environment, the installation took things a step further and truly showed viewers how we coexist with wildlife in this day and age as our continued advances in technology actually allow us to distance ourselves from it.
For those unable to check it out at Sundance, you can now get a virtual walk-through of the installation and what it was like by checking out the new video after the break.

Installations like these show how Sundance is continuing to work at bringing festival goers a unique and inventive experience from filmmakers also working to the push boundaries of “normal” filmmaking. And if you find yourself in Salt Lake City between now and May 19th, you can experience the installation in person at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art.

Snuggle up with the rest of our Sundance 2012 coverage

I love sushi. Not just the taste, but the overall experience. For me, sushi is an event – there is ceremony, pageantry, and tradition that I love and respect but know is beyond me historically. It is the only eating experience that, when I receive what will always be a rather expensive bill, I’m not even sort of guilty. To me, that would be the equivalent of feeling bad for paying to see fine art, or an amazing live show.

In many ways I consider myself a sushi purist; I avoid rolls with sauces and tempura-covered-whatever, and you can kindly spare me the cream cheese. Nigiri and sashimi are my presentations of choice, and I never stray. One of the vital things, to me, about the sushi experience is giving deference to the sushi chef. When I was in Japan many years ago in a hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant with six seats, I was set straight by the not-so-jolly chef behind the immaculately clean counter. Everything was made clear via pantomime, but I gathered quickly what sushi etiquette was all about. He did not offer soy sauce, or wasabi, and I wasn’t allowed to point at anything  in request. He took my cash before seating me, and began serving whatever he so desired – and it was heavenly. Before I stood to leave he raised his eyebrows inquisitively – I enthusiastically nodded my thanks, at which point he produced a barely-friendly grunt and stepped away through the kitchen door.

A master sushi chef reads you, and deciphers your palate. He knows just how much salt, sweet, and hot to combine in that small, single-bite piece of art. To me, there is no greater experience in cuisine – and Jiro Ono is the pinnacle of what that experience can be. David Gelb‘s Jiro Dreams of Sushi is much more than a documentary about food – it is the story of a deeply cherished career that colors a generation of men in one family, with the uneasy prospect that our treatment of the finite resource that is fish may ensure that the tradition of creating shokunin (the master sushi chef) will die with the dwindling catches.

Jiro Ono is eighty-five, the oldest chef to have been awarded the coveted Michelin Guide’s three star rating, all from his simple, ten seat sushi restaurant in a Tokyo subway station. In a career where apprenticeships commonly last many decades and competition between restaurants is fierce, Jiro’s seventy-five year legacy of striving for perfection is impressive. In the long shadow of Jiro stands his eldest son, Yoshikazu. While his younger brother, Takashi, was able to depart Tokyo and start his own sushi restaurant, tradition dictates that Yoshikazu succeed his father and carry on his legacy – a legacy which Jiro feels he still has much to improve upon.

The care shown the food, from close relationships with expert vendors in the famous Japanese fish markets, to Jiro’s precise instructions and preparation once the ingredients have reached his kitchen, are interesting on their own. This very well could simply be a film about the delicacy and expertise with which Jiro, his son, and the young apprentices that work for them prepare what is considered the best sushi in the world. What elevates the film, however, is what his passion meant in the scheme of his relationships, and the source of his drive. Jiro departed home at nine, developing a fierce drive to succeed and a love for his craft. This love made him a stranger to the two boys that would eventually follow in their father’s footsteps.

Yoshikazu and Jiro have a very unique dynamic; one that plays out on the screen in subtle but powerful ways. A self-admitted absentee father, there are small cracks of what seem like regret dominated by a clear pride in what he built, and his expectations of what Yoshikazu will accomplish once he is gone. Yoshikazu clearly respects and reveres his father, but there is a looming cloud in what Jiro’s passing might mean for his future. Many Japanese restaurants live and die by the reputation and presence of their founders; it is established early on that not only will Yoshikazu be expected to hold to the exceptionally high standards of his father, but greatly surpass his skills to create a name for himself. It’s almost sad as a viewer knowing that the fifty-plus year old Yoshikazu would have to prove himself at all, being every bit the master sushi chef himself.

Touched on in a delicate but firm manner, is the subject of over-fishing. The family reflects on the worrisome changes in the commercialization of the fishing industry, and the diminishing returns they are seeing in their own as a result. While the Japanese are often painted as indifferent and often aggressive  with their relationship to the sea and its resources, Jiro, his sons, and the vendors they entrust with their reputation for greatness all communicate a sense of urgency in promoting moderation and sustainable fishing practices.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi sits atop my viewing list thus far here at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. It’s beautiful, insightful, will absolutely make you hungry, and has a a depth and character that is undeniable. David Gelb has a winner.

The Upside: Visually pleasing, very personal, and well edited – Gelb lets Jiro and those around him tell the story with their craft as much as their words.

The Downside: It’s highly unlikely I’ll be in Ginza anytime soon. This is an incredible bummer.

On the Side: The greatest drunken (legal) crime you can commit, past perhaps taking your pants off and crying at a party, is eating convenience store sushi. Be kind to yourself.

Dustin Hucks writes for Film School Rejects, has written for Ain’t it Cool News, Hit Fix, and can additionally be found at the Metacafe Entertainment Network.

SXSW 2012 is just over five weeks away, and I haven’t bought my plane ticket yet. But I will, especially now that I’ve seen today’s official announcement of the features (narrative and documentary) playing at this year’s fest. FSR will be on the ground in Austin in the form of Kate Erbland, Jack Giroux, Neil Miller, and myself, and we look forward to seeing as many of the films below as our eyeballs can stomach. I know what you’re thinking, but gastronomical biology really does work differently within the confines of Austin.

We’ll offer up some films we’re looking forward to closer to the fest, but it should come as no surprise that some of my most anticipated include The Raid, The Cabin In the Woods, The Hunter, Thale, and the documentary Seeking Asian Female. (Don’t judge.)

Check out the complete (as of now) listing below of the feature films playing at SXSW 2012!

NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION

Booster
Director/Screenwriter: Matt Ruskin
When Simon’s brother is arrested for armed robbery, he is asked to commit a string of similar crimes in an attempt to get his brother acquitted.
Cast: Nico Stone, Adam DuPaul, Seymour Cassel, Kristin Dougherty, Brian McGrail (World Premiere)

Eden
Director: Megan Griffiths, Screenwriters: Richard B. Phillips, Megan Griffiths, Story by: Richard B. Phillips & Chong Kim
A young Korean-American girl, abducted and forced into prostitution by domestic human traffickers, joins forces with her captors in a desperate plea to survive. Cast: Jamie Chung, Matt O’Leary, Beau Bridges, Jeanine Monterroza, Scott Mechlowicz (World Premiere)

Gayby
Director/Screenwriter: Jonathan Lisecki
Jenn and Matt, best friends since college who are now in their thirties, decide to have a child together, the old-fashioned way – even though Matt is gay and Jenn is straight. Cast: Jenn Harris, Matthew Wilkas, Mike Doyle, Anna Margaret Hollyman, Jack Ferver (World Premiere)

Gimme the Loot
Director/Screenwriter: Adam Leon
When Malcolm and Sofia’s latest graffiti masterpiece is buffed by a rival gang, these two determined Bronx teens must hustle, steal, and scheme to get spectacular revenge and become the biggest writers in the City. Cast: Tashiana Washington, Ty Hickson, Meeko, Zoe Lescaze, Sam Soghor (World Premiere)

Los Chidos (Germany / Mexico / USA)
Director/Screenwriter: Omar Rodriguez Lopez
The Gonzales family tries hard to hold on to their beautiful Latino traditions of misogyny and homophobia when a tall, white, industrialist stranger appears, challenging their place in the exploitative food chain. Cast: Kim Stodel, María De Jesús Canales Ramírez, Manuel Ramos, Cecillia Gutiérrez, (World Premiere)

Pilgrim Song
Director: Martha Stephens, Screenwriters: Martha Stephens, Karrie Crouse
A pink-slipped music teacher ponders his stalled relationship and place in the world during an arduous trek across Kentucky’s Sheltowee Trace Trail. Cast: Timothy Morton, Bryan Marshall, Karrie Crouse, Harrison Cole, Michael Abbott Jr. (World Premiere)

Starlet
Director: Sean Baker, Screenwriters: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch
The film explores the unlikely friendship between 21-year-old Jane (Dree Hemingway), and 85 year-old Sadie (Besedka Johnson), two women whose worlds collide in California’s San Fernando Valley. Cast: Dree Hemingway, Besedka Johnson, Stella Maeve, James Ransone, Karren Karagulian (World Premiere)

The Taiwan Oyster
Director: Mark Jarrett, Screenwriters: Mark Jarrett, Jordan Heimer, Mitchell Jarrett
Two Ex-Pat Kindergarten teachers in Taiwan embark on a quixotic odyssey to bury a fellow countryman. Cast: Billy Harvey, Jeff Palmiotti, Leonora Lim (World Premiere)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION

Bay of All Saints
Director: Annie Eastman
As the last of the notorious water slums is demolished in Bahia, Brazil, will three single mothers face homelessness or rally for a better life? (World Premiere)

Beware of Mr. Baker
Director: Jay Bulger
Ginger Baker is the original rock ‘n roll madman junkie drummer superstar who everyone thought was dead but somehow survived 50+ years of heroin abuse, disastrous experiments and 5 marriages on 4 continents. (World Premiere)

The Central Park Effect
Director: Jeffrey Kimball
The film reveals the extraordinary array of wild birds who grace Manhattan’s celebrated patch of green, and the equally colorful, full-of-attitude New Yorkers who schedule their lives around the rhythms of migration. (World Premiere)

Jeff
Director: Chris James Thompson
A documentary about the people around Jeffrey Dahmer during the 1991 summer of his arrest for the murder of 17 people in Milwaukee. (World Premiere)

Seeking Asian Female
Director: Debbie Lum
When an American man with “yellow fever” meets a Chinese woman half his age online, documenting their attempt to build a marriage from scratch reveals hilarious and troubling complications for the couple and the filmmaker. (World Premiere)

The Sheik and I
Director: Caveh Zahedi
Commissioned by a Middle Eastern Biennial to make a film on the theme of “art as a subversive act,” independent filmmaker Caveh Zahedi (I am a Sex Addict) is threatened with a fatwa. (World Premiere)

The Source
Directors: Jodi Wille, Maria Demopoulos
The Source Family was a radical experiment in ’70s utopian living. Their popular restaurant, rock band, and beautiful women made them the darlings of Hollywood; but their outsider ideals led to their dramatic undoing. (World Premiere)

Welcome To The Machine
Director: Avi Zev Weider
Upon fathering triplets, filmmaker Avi Zev Weider explores the nature of technology, seeking answers about what it means to be human. (World Premiere)

HEADLINERS

21 Jump Street
Directed by: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, Screenplay by: Michael Bacall, Story by: Michael Bacall & Jonah Hill
Police officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) get sent back to high school as undercover cops in the action-comedy 21 Jump Street. Cast: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Brie Larson, Dave Franco, Rob Riggle, with Ice Cube (World Premiere)

BIG EASY EXPRESS
Director: Emmett Malloy
Emmett Malloy’s latest film invites us aboard a train ride unlike any other with Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros and Old Crow Medicine Show. (World Premiere)

The Cabin in the Woods
Director: Drew Goddard, Screenwriters: Joss Whedon & Drew Goddard
Five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods. Bad things happen. If you think you know this story, think again.  From fan favorites Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard comes The Cabin in the Woods, a mind-blowing horror film that turns the genre inside out. Cast: Kristen Connolly, Fran Kranz, Anna Hutchison, Chris Hemsworth, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, and Bradley Whitford (World Premiere)

Decoding Deepak
Director: Gotham Chopra
Filmmaker Gotham Chopra spends a year on the road decoding his father and spiritual icon Deepak Chopra. (World Premiere)

Girls
Director/Screenwriter: Lena Dunham
Created by and starring Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture), the HBO show is a comic look at the assorted humiliations and rare triumphs of a group of girls in their early 20s. Cast: Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, Adam Driver (World Premiere)

The Hunter (Australia)
Director: Daniel Nettheim, Screenplay by: Alice Addison, Novel by: Julia Leigh, Original Adaptation by: Wain Fimeri
A mercenary is dispatched from Europe to the Tasmanian wilderness by a mysterious biotech company to search for the last surviving Tasmanian tiger. Cast: Willem Dafoe, Frances O’Connor, Sam Neill (U.S. Premiere)

Killer Joe
Director: William Friedkin, Screenwriter: Tracy Letts
A garish, Southwestern tale – a violent black comedy about a desperate Texas debtor (Hirsch) who plots to kill his mother with help of his family (Haden Church, Gershon).  They hire a crazy Dallas cop who moonlights as a contract killer (McConaughey) to do the job, but Killer Joe asks for their teenage daughter (Temple) as a retainer. The film is based on Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts’ (August: Osage County) award winning play. Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Gina Gershon, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church (U.S. Premiere)

MARLEY (UK / USA)
Director: Kevin Macdonald
The definitive life story of Bob Marley – musician, revolutionary, legend – from his early days to his rise to international superstardom. Made with the support of the Marley family, the film features rare footage, incredible performances and revelatory interviews with the people that knew him best. Directed by Academy-Award-Winner Kevin Macdonald. (North American Premiere)

NARRATIVE SPOTLIGHT

The Babymakers
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar, Screenwriters: Peter Gaulke, Gerry Swallow
Unable to impregnate his wife, Tommy and friends rob a sperm bank – to get Tommy’s long-ago donated sperm back. The crazy plan goes hilariously awry and shows how far a couple will go to create a new life. Cast: Paul Schneider, Olivia Munn, Kevin Heffernan, Wood Harris, Nat Faxon (World Premiere)

Crazy Eyes
Director: Adam Sherman, Screenwriters: Adam Sherman, Dave Reeves & Rachel Hardisty
Just another story about love. Cast: Lukas Haas, Madeline Zima, Jake Busey, Tania Raymonde, Regine Nehy (World Premiere)

Do-Deca-Pentathalon
Director/Screenwriter: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Two brothers compete in their own private 25-event Olympics. Cast: Mark Kelly, Steve Zissis, Elton LeBlanc (World Premiere)

Fat Kid Rules The World
Director: Matthew Lillard, Screenwriters: Michael M.B. Galvin, Peter Speakman
Troy, a depressed overweight teenager, gets sucked into the punk rock world by Marcus, a charming street musician. But when Troy discovers Marcus’ drug addiction, he suddenly must figure out the true boundaries of friendship. Cast: Jacob Wysocki, Matt O’Leary, Billy Campbell, Lilli Simmons, Dylan Arnold (World Premiere)

frankie go boom
Director/Screenwriter: Jordan Roberts
a flick by bruce about his little brother frank who’s a crybaby fuck who shouldn’t do lame-ass embarrassing shit if he dozn’t want people 2 see it Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Chris O’Dowd, Lizzy Caplan, Ron Perlman, Chris Noth (World Premiere)

Hunky Dory (UK)
Director: Marc Evans, Screenwriter: Laurence Coriat
From the producer of Billy Elliot comes this funny, coming of age film featuring songs from artists such as David Bowie, Lou Reed, The Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, Dusty Springfield and Electric Light Orchestra. Cast: Minnie Driver, Aneurin Barnard, Danielle Branch, Robert Pugh, Haydn Gwynne (North American Premiere)

In Our Nature
Director/Screenwriter: Brian Savelson
Taking place over a single weekend, an estranged father and son accidentally end up in the same country house with their two girlfriends. Cast: Zach Gilford, Jena Malone, John Slattery, Gabrielle Union (World Premiere)

Keyhole (Canada)
Director: Guy Maddin, Screenwriters: Guy Maddin, George Toles
I’m only a ghost… but a ghost isn’t nothing. Cast: Isabella Rossellini, Jason Patric, Udo Kier, Kevin McDonald, Tattiawna Jones (U.S. Premiere)

See Girl Run
Director/Screenwriter: Nate Meyer
What happens when a 30-something woman allows life’s “what ifs” to overwhelm her appreciation for what life actually is. Disregarding her current obligations, she digs into her romantic past in hopes of invigorating her present. Cast: Robin Tunney, Adam Scott, Jeremy Strong, William Sadler, Josh Hamilton (World Premiere)

Small Apartments
Director: Jonas Åkerlund, Screenwriter: Chris Millis
When Franklin Franklin accidentally kills his landlord, he must hide the body; but, the wisdom of his beloved brother and the quirks of his neighbors, force him on a journey where a fortune awaits him. Cast: Matt Lucas, Billy Crystal, James Caan, Johnny Knoxville, Juno Temple (World Premiere)

Somebody Up There Likes Me
Director/Screenwriter: Bob Byington
Time flies for everyone:  Thirty-five years in the life of Max, his best friend Sal, and a woman they both adore.  A deadpan fable about time sneaking up on and swerving right around us.
Cast: Keith Poulson, Nick Offerman, Jess Weixler, Stephanie Hunt, Kevin Corrigan (World Premiere)

DOCUMENTARY SPOTLIGHT

$ELLEBRITY
Director: Kevin Mazur
Renowned celebrity photographer, Kevin Mazur, gives us an all access pass to the life behind the velvet rope and in front of the camera.  Candid, revealing and bold interviews with Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jennifer Lopez, Elton John and more, take us inside the blurred lines of privacy, pliable journalism, celebrity, fame and what it feels like to be consumed. (World Premiere)

America’s Parking Lot
Director: Jonny Mars
Pull up a front row seat as two die-hard fans of ‘America’s Team’ spend their last season with the Dallas Cowboys at historic Texas Stadium, and scramble to preserve their place in America’s Parking Lot. (World Premiere)

The Announcement
Director: Nelson George
On Thursday, November 7, 1991, Earvin “Magic” Johnson made the stunning announcement that he was HIV-positive and would be retiring from basketball immediately. The Announcement gets to the core of Magic’s incredible personal journey. (World Premiere)

Beauty Is Embarrassing
Director: Neil Berkeley
A funny, irreverent and inspirational look into the life and times of one of America’s most important artists, Wayne White. (World Premiere)

Brooklyn Castle
Director: Katie Dellamaggiore
Amidst financial crises and unprecedented public school budget cuts, Brooklyn Castle takes an intimate look at the challenges and triumphs facing members of a junior high school’s champion chess team. (World Premiere)

Code of the West
Director: Rebecca Richman Cohen
Frames a high stakes showdown in the halls of the Montana State Legislature.  The future of medical marijuana is at stake. (World Premiere)

Degenerate Art: The Art and Culture of Glass Pipes.
Director: M. Slinger
A true document of the art and culture of glass pipe-making. It is the first film to ever bring to light this invisible sub-culture in a comprehensive and well-informed format. (World Premiere)

Girl Model
Directors: A. Sabin, David Redmon
Young Russian girls join a modeling agency to seek work in Japan, but get caught up in an unregulated system that reveals an unseemly side of the fashion industry. (U.S. Premiere)

Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters
Director: Ben Shapiro
Acclaimed photographer Gregory Crewdson’s 10-year quest to create a series of haunting, surreal, and stunningly elaborate portraits of small-town American life — filmed with unprecedented access as he makes perfect renderings of a disturbing, imperfect world. (World Premiere)

Just Like Being There
Director: Scout Shannon
Through the eyes of Daniel Danger, Jay Ryan, and the gig poster community, Just Like Being There focuses on poster artists, the music they commemorate, MONDO film posters, fans, bloggers, galleries, collectors and everything in between. (World Premiere)

Scarlet Road (Australia)
Director: Catherine Scott
The film follows the extraordinary work of Australian sex worker, Rachel Wotton. Impassioned about freedom of sexual expression and the rights of sex workers, she specializes in a long over-looked clientele – people with disability. (North American Premiere)

Trash Dance
Director: Andrew Garrison
A choreographer finds beauty and grace in garbage trucks, and against the odds, rallies reluctant city trash collectors to perform an extraordinary dance spectacle. On an abandoned airport runway, two dozen sanitation workers — and their trucks — inspire an audience of thousands. (World Premiere)

Waiting For Lightning
Director: Jacob Rosenberg
From the producers of Step into Liquid, comes the story of visionary skateboarder Danny Way, who jumped China’s Great Wall and created a new movement in sport. (World Premiere)

Wikileaks: Secrets & Lies (UK)
Director: Patrick Forbes
The in-depth story of Wikileaks told by all the key players. Sulphurous, personal and moving, it documents history in the making at the lawless frontier of new technology and mainstream media. (North American Premiere)

WONDER WOMEN! The Untold Story of American Superheroines
Director: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan
This documentary examines the fascinating evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman and introduces audiences to a dynamic group of real life superheroes who continue to fight the good fight both on and off the screen. (World Premiere)

EMERGING VISIONS

Black Pond (UK)
Directors: Tom Kingsley, Will Sharpe, Screenwriter: Will Sharpe
An ordinary family is accused of murder when a stranger dies at their dinner table. Stars BAFTA-winner Chris Langham and British Comedy Award Winner Simon Amstell. Cast: Chris Langham, Simon Amstell, Amanda Hadingue, Colin Hurley, Will Sharpe (North American Premiere)

Dollhouse (Ireland)
Director/Screenwriter: Kirsten Sheridan
Five street teens break into a house in a rich Dublin suburb for a night of partying. But games are twisted into something more emotional and ultimately out of control through a series of surprising revelations. Cast: Seana Kerslake, Johnny Ward, Kate Stanley Brennan, Shane Curry, Ciaran McCabe (North American Premiere)

Eating Alabama
Director: Andrew Beck Grace
A quest to eat locally becomes a meditation on community, the South and sustainability. Eating Alabama is a story about why food matters. (World Premiere)

Electrick Children
Director/Screenwriter: Rebecca Thomas
Rachel, a 15-year-old fundamentalist Mormon, believes she’s had an immaculate conception by listening to rock and roll. She flees to Las Vegas to escape an arranged marriage, seeking answers to her mysterious pregnancy. Cast: Julia Garner, Rory Culkin, Liam Aiken, Billy Zane (North American Premiere)

Extracted
Director/Screenwriter: Nir Paniry
A scientist is trapped in the memories of a criminal and must solve a crime in order to get back home to his family. Cast: Sasha Roiz, Dominic Bogart, Jenny Mollen, Nick Jameson, Brad Culver (World Premiere)

Francine (Canada / USA)
Director/Screenwriter: Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky
Academy-Award-winner, Melissa Leo, plays Francine, a woman struggling to find her place in a downtrodden lakeside town after leaving behind a life in prison. Cast: Melissa Leo, Keith Leonard, Victoria Charkut (North American Premiere)

Funeral Kings
Director/Screenwriter: Kevin Mcmanus, Matthew Mcmanus
For three 14-year-old boys at St. Mark’s Middle School, it’s always a good day for a funeral. Cast: Dylan Hartigan, Alex Maizus, Jordan Puzzo, Charles Odei, Kevin Corrigan (World Premiere)

Hard Labor (Brazil)
Director/Screenwriter: Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra
Helena prepares to open her own business: a neighborhood grocery store. She hires a maid. But when her husband Octavio is suddenly fired from his job, Helena is left to support the family alone. Cast: Helena Albergaria, Marat Descartes, Naloana Lima, Marina Flores (U.S. Premiere)

La Camioneta – The Journey of One American School Bus
Director: Mark Kendall
On a 3,000-mile adventure across the borders between the Americas, La Camioneta follows the journey of one out-of-service American school bus as it is repaired, repainted and resurrected into a Guatemalan camioneta. (World Premiere)

The Last Fall
Director/Screenwriter: Matthew A. Cherry
An NFL journeyman struggles to deal with life’s complexities after his professional career is over at age 25. Cast: Lance Gross, Nicole Beharie, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Harry Lennix, Keith David (World Premiere)

Leave Me Like You Found Me
Director/Screenwriter: Adele Romanski
Big trees, broken hearts. The story of a lovesick couple’s breakup & makeup while camping in the wilds of California. Cast: Megan Boone, David Nordstrom (World Premiere)

PAVILION
Director/Screenwriter: Tim Sutton
Max, a quietly troubled 15-year-old, leaves his lakeside town to live with his father on the sun-blasted fringe of suburban Arizona.  What begins in a calm and lush environment ends in a drastic, frayed confusion. Cast: Max Schaffner, Zach Cali, Cody Hamric, Addie Barlett, Aaron Buyea (World Premiere)

Sun Don’t Shine
Director/Screenwriter: Amy Seimetz
Two lovers, on the back roads of Florida, do very bad things. Cast: Kate Lyn Sheil, Kentucker Audley, AJ Bowen, Kit Gwinn, Mark Reeb (World Premiere)

Sunset Stories
Directors: Silas Howard, Ernesto Foronda, Screenwriter: Valerie Stadler
When May returns to LA and runs smack into JP, the man she left behind, past and present collide sending them on a twenty-four hour journey in search of what they lost. Cast: Monique Curnen, Sung Kang, Joshua Leonard, Mousa Kraish, Michelle Krusiec (World Premiere)

Tchoupitoulas
Director: Bill Ross, Turner Ross
Three young brothers’ immersive journey into the sensory wonders of the New Orleans night. (World Premiere)

Thale (Norway)
Director/Screenwriter: Aleksander L. Nordaas
The film revolves around huldra, a mythical, tailed creature, found by two crime scene cleaners in a concealed cellar.  Someone’s been keeping her down here for decades, for reasons soon to surface. Cast: Silje Reinåmo, Jon Sigve Skard, Erlend Nervold, Morten Andresen (North American Premiere)

Wildness
Director/Screenwriter: Wu Tsang
A magical-realist portrait of the Silver Platter, a historic bar in Los Angeles that provides a safe space for Latin/LGBT immigrant and queer art communities to come together in love and conflict.

WOLF
Director/Screenwriter: Ya’ke Smith
A family is shaken to the core when they discover their son has been molested. As they struggle to deal with the betrayal, their son heads towards a total mental collapse. Cast: Irma P. Hall, Mikala Gibson, Jordan Cooper, Shelton Jolivette, Eugene Lee (World Premiere)

24 BEATS PER SECOND

Amor Cronico (Cuba / USA)
Director: Jorge Perugorria
Weaving footage of singer Cucu Diamantes’ Cuban tour into a fictional love story.  The result is an energetic display of her glamorous and infectious performance style and a fascinating portrait of Cuba today. Cast: Cucu Diamantes, Adela Legra, Liosky Clavero, Andres Levin, Jorge Perugorria (World Premiere)

Bad Brains: Band in DC
Directors: Mandy Stein, Benjamen Logan
How four young men from DC changed music forever. (World Premiere)

Charles Bradley: Soul of America
Director: Poull Brien
The incredible late-in-life rise of 62-year-old aspiring soul singer Charles Bradley, whose debut album rocketed him from a hard life in the projects to Rolling Stone magazine’s top 50 albums of 2011. (World Premiere)

Daylight Savings
Director: Dave Boyle, Screenwriters: Dave Boyle, Michael Lerman, Joel Clark, Goh Nakamura
After a devastating breakup, musician Goh Nakamura hits the road with his irresponsible cousin to pursue a promising rebound with fellow musician Yea-Ming Chen.
Cast: Goh Nakamura, Michael Aki, Yea-Ming Chen, Lynn Chen, Ayako Fujitani (World Premiere)

Grandma Lo-fi: The Basement Tapes of Sigrídur Níelsdóttir (Iceland / Denmark)
Director: Kristín Björk Kristjánsdóttir
At the tender age of 70 she started making music – and then she couldn’t stop! A tribute to the Danish/Icelandic artist and late bloomer Sigrídur Níelsdóttir.

Paul Williams Still Alive
Director: Stephen Kessler
A documentary filmmaker tracks down actor/singer/songwriter Paul Williams in an attempt to find out what happened to his idol. (U.S. Premiere)

Rock ‘N’ Roll Exposed: The Photography of Bob Gruen (UK)
Director: Don Letts
Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Yoko Ono, Alice Cooper, Billie Joe Armstrong and others discuss the incredible life and work of the world’s foremost rock ‘n’ roll photographer, Bob Gruen.
(North American Premiere)

Sunset Strip
Director/Screenwriter: Hans Fjellestad
The 100-year history of the loudest street on the planet, The Sunset Strip. (World Premiere)

Under African Skies
Director: Joe Berlinger
Paul Simon returns to South Africa to explore the incredible journey of his historic Graceland album, including the political backlash he received for allegedly breaking the UN cultural boycott of South Africa designed to end the Apartheid regime.

Uprising: Hip Hop & The LA Riots
Director: Mark Ford
20 years after riots ripped through Los Angeles, Uprising documents how hip hop forecasted – and some say ignited – the worst civil unrest of the 20th century. (World Premiere)

SX GLOBAL

BIJUKA (India)
Director: Ashtar Sayed, Screenwriter: Dr. Mahendra Purohit
Inspired by a true event. Scarecrow tells the true story of a young woman who is attempting to escape from an abusive arranged marriage. Cast: Arti Rautela, Amit Purohit (North American Premiere)

Crulic – The Path to Beyond (Romania / Poland)
Director: Anca Damian
The animated documentary feature-length “Crulic – The Path to Beyond” tells the story of the life of Crulic, the 33-year-old Romanian who died in a Polish prison while on hunger strike.

Cubaton – El Medico Story (Estonia / Sweden)
Director: Daniel Fridell
El Medico – a Cuban house doctor who wants to become a cubaton star – is facing a serious choice between serving the state and becoming a popstar. (North American Premiere)

Her Master’s Voice (UK)
Director: Nina Conti
Watching someone talk to themselves has never been so interesting. (World Premiere)

ITALY LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT (Italy / Germany)
Directors: Gustav Hofer, Luca Ragazzi
Gustav and Luca, two Italians, have to decide: Should they stay in Italy, or leave it? (North American Premiere)

Mustafa’s Sweet Dreams (Greece / UK)
Director: Angelos Abazoglou
Mustafa, a 16-year-old pastry shop apprentice dreams of becoming a famous baklava chef in Istanbul. (North American Premiere)

Pompeya (Argentina)
Director: Tamae Garateguy, Screenwriters: Tamae Garateguy, Diego A. Fleischer
When a film director hires two screenwriters to make a gangster movie, a fiction feast starts: femmes fatales, mobs fighting for the same neighborhood and a limitless hero who defies every movie concept. Cast: José Luciano González, Joel Drut, Chang Sung Kim, Vladimir Yuravel, Miguel Forza de Paul (U.S. Premiere)

¡Vivan las Antipodas! (Germany / The Netherlands / Argentina / Chile)
Director: Victor Kossakovsky
Haven’t we all wondered at some point what was happening just at this moment beneath our very feet at the other side of the planet?

FESTIVAL FAVORITES

Beast (Denmark)
Director/Screenwriter: Christoffer Boe
How long will you go, to hold on to the person you love? Cast: Nicolas Bro, Marijana Jankovic, Nikolaj Lie Kaas

The Comedy
Director: Rick Alverson, Screenwriters: Robert Donne, Colm O’Leary
Indifferent even to the prospects of inheriting his father’s estate, Swanson (Tim Heidecker), a desensitized, aging Brooklyn hipster, strays into a series of reckless situations that may offer the promise of redemption or the threat of retribution. Cast: Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, James Murphy, Kate Lyn-Sheil, Alexia Rassmusen

Dreams of a Life (UK / Ireland)
Director: Carol Morley
An imaginative quest to go beyond the newspaper reports and solve the mystery of who thirty-eight year old Joyce Vincent was and why she lay undiscovered for three years after her death in one of the busiest parts of London. (North American Premiere)

God Bless America
Director/Screenwriter: Bobcat Goldthwait
Loveless, jobless, possibly terminally ill, Frank has had enough of the downward spiral of America.  With nothing left to lose, Frank takes his gun and offs the stupidest, cruelest, and most repellent members of society. Cast: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr (U.S. Premiere)

The Imposter (UK)
Director: Bart Layton
In 1994 a 13-year-old disappears without trace in Texas. Three years later he resurfaces in Spain with accounts of a horrifying kidnap. His family is overjoyed – but all is not as it seems.

Indie Game: The Movie (Canada)
Directors: Lisanne Pajot, James Swirsky
With the twenty-first century comes a new breed of artist: the indie game designer. These innovators design and program their distinctly personal games in the hope that they may find connection and success.

KID-THING
Director/Screenwriter: David Zellner
A fever-dream fable about Annie, a rebellious girl devoid of parental guidance or a moral compass.  She roams the countryside looking for adventure, and finds it one day in the form of an abandoned well. Cast: Sydney Aguirre, Susan Tyrrell, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner, David Wingo

Last Call at the Oasis
Director: Jessica Yu
A powerful argument for why the global water crisis will be the central issue facing our world this century.

Lovely Molly
Director: Eduardo Sanchez, Screenwriters: Eduardo Sanchez, Jamie Nash
Exploring the parallels between psychosis, addiction and demonic possession, Lovely Molly tells the story of what really happens before the exorcist arrives. Cast: Gretchen Lodge, Johnny Lewis, Alexandra Holden (U.S. Premiere)

The Raid (Indonesia)
Director/Screenwriter: Gareth Huw Evans
Rama and his special forces team fight their way through a rundown apartment block with a mission to remove its owner, a notorious drug lord. Cast: Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Doni Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno

WE ARE LEGION: The Story of the Hacktivists
Director: Brian Knappenberger
We Are Legion takes us inside the world of Anonymous, the radical “hacktivist” collective that has redefined civil disobedience for the digital age.

SXSW 2012 runs March 9th to the 17th in Austin, TX.

If you’re the sort of person who loves conspiracy theories, hidden meanings, codes, ciphers, clues, and other mysteries that bear unraveling, then Room 237 is right up your alley. Director Rodney Ascher has put together a fascinating movie that will most likely change the way you watch Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining forever, or will at least make you search out some of the things that are discussed in this documentary.

Ascher, the director of the hilarious (and creepy) short from The S From Hell about the Screen Gems logo that was shown at Sundance 2010, is behind this clever documentary that mostly uses footage from Stanley Kubrick’s films (including The Shining, of course) to tell the stories of several different interview subjects: who each have a different view of the secret meanings of The Shining.

Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks, Juli Kearns, John Fell Ryan, and Jay Weidner all believe that Kubrick’s 1980 film (based on Stephen King’s 1977 novel of the same name) is not just about a writer to takes his wife and young son to become the off-season caretakers at a remote hotel before he succumbs to the spirits that haunt the place. To each one of them, the film represents something different, ranging from Kubrick’s take on the Holocaust, to the plight of Native Americans who had everything taken away as the United States claimed the continent.

Blakemore, a longtime journalist, claims the Native American imagery throughout the film (rugs, portraits on the walls, even cans of Calumet baking powder with artwork of an Indian on the side) combined with the absence of any actual Native Americans in the film point to the fact that we have driven them entirely from their land and taken it over.

Cocks claims that the film is about the Holocaust, because Kubrick had always wanted to make a film about that event, but couldn’t figure out how to approach it. In his mind, Kubrick used this unique story to channel the Holocaust, particularly in the scenes where Danny has visions of past violence in the hotel, and the scene where the elevators spill forth gallons of blood.

Kearns believe that the film is meant to link to the Greek myth about the Minotaur at the middle of the labyrinth, which is why Kubrick included a large hedge maze which was not in the novel. She also claims that a poster in the game room advertising skiing at Monarch is meant to resemble a Minotaur, and is a clue due to the fact that the manager at the hotel explains to Jack why there is no skiing in the area. So why have a poster for skiing?

Other theories speculate that the movie is meant to explain that we never landed on the moon (the carpet pattern that Danny plays with his cars on is eerily similar to the design of Apollo 11 launch pad 39A), and these interview subjects can show you everything in the film from blatant erections, to piles of luggage meant to represent the suitcases Jews were forced to abandon in concentration camps, and the seemingly bizarre architecture of the Overlook Hotel.

While most of this sounds like an enormous load of horse manure (and it could be for all we know, given that Kubrick himself can’t exactly comment on these theories), Room 237 is an extremely fascinating film to watch whether you believe it or not. You will see things in The Shining that you never noticed before, and thanks to Carlos Ramos’ design and animation, you’ll be able to go inside the Overlook as never before.

By the time you get John Fell Ryan showing The Shining forwards and backwards at the same time while superimposed on itself, you’ll definitely find it interesting even if you are a skeptic, which I remain after seeing this film. Still, it is a highly enjoyable movie, and students of cinema should consider watching this just for the symbolism and imagery alone. I imagine double features of this movie follow by The Shining itself will become popular late-night showings at colleges around the nation. In fact, I’m going to fire up the movie right now and see if they can make a believer out of me.

The Upside: This movie will force you to see The Shining differently, whether you like it or not. It will also give you a deeper appreciation of Kubrick’s films, including (oddly enough), Eyes Wide Shut.

The Downside: It’s hard to buy all of these theories on face value, and since they can’t all be correct, you come away skeptical of everything.

On the Side: Rodney Ascher funded this film through Kickstarter, which is entirely awesome. He went over his goal of raising $5,000, and now his film has just premiered at Sundance. Pretty slick!

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Snuggle up with the rest of our Sundance 2012 coverage

The opening night film at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival has always been a walk-away; generally an under-cooked indie with no distribution and little shot at getting into general theaters. So why kick a film when it’s down? There’s not a lot of value in heaping negative criticism on a new filmmaker who will likely go on to bigger and better things with more experience.

That said, the 27th year of Santa Barbara’s festival brought a heavyweight opening night player in writer/director/producer Lawrence Kasdan, and his Sony Pictures Classics distributed Darling Companion.

Basically, fair game.

Darling Companion is the story of Beth Winters (Diane Keaton), her spine surgeon husband Joseph (Kevin Kline), and the dog that  brings them together. Or at least, it tries to be about them while clumsily pulling viewers into unnecessary side stories that aren’t particularly interesting. The film suffers on every level, but prominent among its faults is an odd pace that steals away any reason to invest in any of the characters, the spotty narrative, or the wholly expected and unsatisfying ending.

Beth is an emotional wreck that is supposedly maligned by the very busy Joseph. In a quick sequence in the first twenty minutes of the film, we’re introduced to Kline’s character, the Winter’s daughter Grace (Elisabeth Moss), their nephew Bryan (Mark Duplass), and the dog that is central to the film, Freeway. We have little time to care for anyone or their quirks in the short time we spend with them before Kasdan one-year-laters us into the wedding of Grace at the Winter’s summer home in Colorado. Grace departs for her honeymoon, Joseph loses the dog, and thus begins the slog to emotional resolution between husband and wife.

From here the story deviates to include a series of mostly forgettable characters. We’re never given any indication early on that Bryan is a vital part of this story; when he begins falling for Carmen (Ayelet Zurer), the psychic gypsy caretaker of the Winter’s cabin and official dog-whisperer of the movie, its narratively confounding. The story would have been infinitely more interesting had it been theirs rather than an extended sidebar to a grumpy aging couple’s petty struggles. Zurer and Duplass are pleasant together when they’re alone on camera, and completely swallowed up in the rest of the cast when sharing screen time.

Said remainder of cast consists of Dianne Wiest as Penny, Bryan’s mother and Joseph’s sister, and her boyfriend Russell (Richard Jenkins), who is actually one of the few highlights of Kasdan’s film. They all have their angles — Russell appears to be a mooch in the business of getting Penny to dump her own cash into a spotty business venture. Bryan and Joseph do not approve, and we of course move toward discovery and resolution.

Through all of this we have Beth and Joseph blowing whistles and screaming a dog’s name, all while working through what appears to be a one-sided problem. Beth feels that Joseph cares more for his work as a surgeon than he does for his family — Joseph feels Beth is too emotionally high-strung and cares more for the dog than she does for him. Only one position is supported by Lawrence and Meg Kasdan‘s screenwriting.

Joseph is a busy man in a high-stress, competitive field — but his children clearly love him, and he’s generally sympathetic throughout the film in spite of his wife declaring otherwise. Keaton is emotionally all over the place, inexplicably rueful of Joseph, and has an irrational fixation on Freeway. This movie isn’t about men and women — it’s about believability. Kline comes off as a stand-up guy that simply has little patience for odd behavior. Keaton’s Beth gives the impression of needing a visit to a therapist who’ll give her some perspective. She never gets said perspective, and Joseph ends up biting the bullet and taking blame for behavior that appears to be nonexistent during the film.

All of this is really secondary, however, to the poor writing in general, and the failed premise. Much of the film is a trip down the road of realization that the two main characters are aging. That’s fantastic source material if you have a decent hook to make it matter, but this is no On Golden Pond. We’re supposed to care about a wealthy couple knocking on the door of senior citizenship having a series of spats brought to a head over the loss of a dog. I understand that there is a universe outside of the hour or so that we are in the presence of the characters, but the only thing that the Kasdan’s writing suggests is that Beth and Joseph are bored and nit-picky. Not exactly high drama.

In the end, this is a film by an amazing writer and director that clearly is not hungry anymore. Granted, he doesn’t really have to be. With classic cinema offerings like Body Heat, The Accidental Tourist, and The Big Chill among others — he’s honestly nothing to prove.

That said, the above is no excuse for flavorless, phoned-in vanity projects. Before the film, Lawrence noted that the screenplay was semi-autobiographical, based around he and his wife Meg’s loss of a dog. Among screenwriter circles you always hear that it’s important not to put too much of yourself in a script, lest you end up writing to satisfy yourself rather than your prospective audience. Somewhere early on in Darling Companion, Kasdan went off the rails — and it shows.

On the Upside: Mark Duplass needs to do more films; he’s engaging and easy on camera, and had excellent chemistry with Ayelet Zurer. Richard Jenkins is one of the only bright spots in the film; the scenes between he and Duplass bring some of the only real laughs of the movie.

On the Downside: Old folks biting at each other’s ankles over the loss of a dog does not an hour plus movie make.

On the Side: I could have done without the Russel handling Penny like a bowling ball bedroom scene. Thanks.

Dustin Hucks works for Film School Rejects, has written for Ain’t it Cool News, Hit Fix, and can additionally be found at the Metacafe Entertainment Network.

Here’s all you really need to know – after last night’s Closing Night Party, also known as Nerd Prom, your intrepid Lady Rejects caught three hours of sleep before we had to be up, about, and on a shuttle to the Salt Lake City airport. Ugly? You can’t even imagine how ugly. But, somehow, we made it, despite chatty shuttle drivers, breakfast sandwiches from Quizno’s, yet another tiny plane, and Allison eventually resting her body on the floor of the American Airliness terminal at LAX.

I’ve spent the day resting, eating a burrito (who knew that good Mexican food was so hard to find in Park City? I did. I knew.), hanging out with my cats, and wrapping up the rest of our festival coverage. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t already miss it, and I can only hope that you dear readers enjoyed following along with us, reading our reviews, and wondering just how the hell we landed all those sweet interviews.

Thank you to everyone who made our Sundance experience so wonderful, amusing, and productive – if your name popped up in any of our daily diaries, this thank you goes doubly for you. Special mention must be made to our wonderful condo-mates: William Goss, Eric Snider, Jordan Raup, Dan Mecca, Raffi Asdourian, and Rudie Obias. If you need still more Sundance coverage, I’ll direct you to their various outlets: MSN Movies, Film.com, The Film Stage, and Shock Ya. Pay them a visit. And, if you’ve got the time, check out some of our other pals over at /Film, Movies.com, Cinema Blend, Movieline, Collider, and The Playlist.

But, of course, the biggest thank you of all goes out to our very own Neil Miller and Cole Abaius for sending us, and for Robert Levin and Kevin Kelly for adding immeasurably to our coverage. Let’s do it again next year.

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Picking up a few years where her 2 Days in Paris left off, Julie Delpy‘s 2 Days in New York has moved the sometimes-messy life of Marion (Delpy) to Gotham. Marion has now taken up with Mingus (Chris Rock, playing a pitch-perfect straight man), a former co-worker who offered dry humor and personal understanding when her previous relationship crumbled. The pair now live together in a cozy and artistic apartment, joined by Marion’s young son Lulu (Owen Shipman) and Mingus’ daughter Willow (Talen Ruth Riley). As calm and lovely as their life together seems, everything is about to be tested over a two-day period, marked by the arrival of Marion’s insane family, the opening of an important gallery exhibition of Marion’s photos, and the unspoken pressure that one of Marion’s other artistic endeavors is putting her under.

Like everyone’s family, Marion’s family (all reprising their roles from Paris) is nuts – her father Jeannot (played by Delpy’s actual father, Albert Delpy) is shiftless in the wake of his wife’s death, her sister Rose (Alexia Landeau) is a boundary-less recovering nymphomaniac, and Rose’s boyfriend Manu (Alexandre Nahon) orders up marijuana to their apartment in the middle of a family meal. While all that dysfunction may sound heavy, 2 Days in New York is actually an enormously entertaining and relatable family farce. Highly energetic and often very amusing, Delpy’s latest is a fizzy little outing that will delight audiences seeking classic humor in a modern setting. Packed with constantly evolving relationships, clever little sight gags, and an always-amusing language barrier, the film was an unexpected anecdote to Sundance’s often heavy fare.

While the farcical elements of 2 Days in New York are a delight, Delpy often makes the mistake of shuffling some overly stylistic elements into the narrative that break up the ease of the film. While Marion’s diary-like voiceover narration of the film makes it feel even more accessible and engaging, stuff like quick-cut “history lessons” by way of montage, a scene told entirely in photos, and a wacky dream sequence draw attention away from Delpy’s adeptness at crafting the sort of farce that would make her countrymen proud. However, those bits all away in the second half of the film, and it clips along in an amusing and satisfying way, one of the true gems of Sundance.

The Upside: When the film is playing out like a classic French farce, it’s light and fluffy and incredibly fun. The entire cast has tremendous chemistry and are a joy to watch interact together. Despite how wacky the film might feel at times, it’s quite relatable material for anyone who has a family (read: everyone).

The Downside: Delpy tries to pack in too many stylistic choices that tend to take away from the rest of the film’s particular brand of fizzy entertainment.

On the Side: Non-spoiler alert – there are no Adam Goldberg cameos.

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Documentarian Eugene Jarecki‘s latest film, The House I Live In, ponders the implications and elements of the United States’ woefully misdirected “War on Drugs,” but Jarecki’s interest in the subject is surprisingly personal. As the film opens, Jarecki explains that his subject matter is dear to him for two reasons – because the Jarecki family as a whole believes it is their responsibility to help others who are suffering from injustice (the Jarecki parents escaped certain death under Nazi regimes) and because Jarecki’s own beloved childhood nanny, Nanny Jetter, lost a child to drugs. But while the film is of personal importance to its director, an overabundance of information often robs the film from leaving a lasting emotional mark.

Jarecki’s film is comprised of a bevy of facts and figures about the War on Drugs that will likely surprise viewers, along with a hefty number of interviews that cross people, professions, and whole states. Jarecki’s subjects include users, dealers, cops, judges, professors, prisoners, wardens, friends, and family, and much of his access is quite impressive (Jarecki’s ride-alongs with a New York City dealer are especially interesting). It’s a truly informative documentary, though it sags on occasion, and feels much longer than its 110-minute runtime.

The House I Live In easily breaks down why the War on Drugs is so shockingly misguided – for reasons such as the disparities between different races arrested and imprisoned for drugs (overwhelmingly African-American and lower class), the prevalence of cops arresting for the more simple non-violent drug crimes (leaving more dangerous criminals out on the street), and the insanity of minimum sentencing laws (including a previous statute that essentially made crack cocaine punishments one hundred times worse than cocaine punishments). David Simon, creator of The Wire, who weighs in throughout the film, describes the situation in simply, and powerful terms: ”What drugs haven’t destroyed, the war against them has.”

Viewers of the film will likely be left with the sinking feeling that we’ve all been lied to about the War on Drugs – and we have, because it hasn’t worked and Jarecki has absolutely no problem outlining the myriad ways it is so. But while the film makes certain things plain, it doesn’t offer solutions, and its attempts to synthesize the crusade in other, more meaningful ways (such as a fascinating comparison to the Holocaust) don’t get the time and attention they need. It’s a good start, but it’s just that – a start.

The Upside: The House I Live In doesn’t need to employ any tricks or twists to tell a compelling story, and Jarecki’s film is packed with information and insight that should leave audiences both informed and aghast.

The Downside: Jarecki’s film aims to cover perhaps too much information, making its personal impact feel significantly diminished. An intriguing theory that is introduced in the film’s final act would have served the production much better had Jarecki used it to frame up the entire film.

On the Side: The film, Jarecki’s seventh documentary, won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at the festival.

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It is hard enough to be a single father, but when you are trying to juggle those responsibilities along with pursuing your dream of being an actor, things are made all the more complicated. The End of Love opens with Mark (Mark Webber) and his son, Isaac (played by Webber’s real-life son), waking up. The camera focuses in on Isaac and sets up the focus of the film on the little boy in the first few frames. As Mark and Isaac start their day, the absence of a mother (or a partner) in Mark’s life becomes clear, with Mark having to take Isaac with him on a big audition.

While the casting director seems understanding about Isaac’s presence in the room, the actress Mark is reading against, Amanda Seyfried (playing herself), seems less than pleased and it quickly becomes clear that Mark’s dreams of becoming an actor may be over. Losing roles no longer just means Mark may not get a good part, it means he is losing money to support himself and Isaac. Although Mark lives with two roommates (who seem more than understanding about living with a two-year-old), he is not pulling his weight in rent, which sends Mark asking one of his friends (yet another “cameo” by Jason Ritter) for help.

After stopping at a kid’s play place, Mark meets the owner, Lydia (Shannyn Sossamon), and the two seem to hit it off, bonding over their kids. As the narrative winds on, it becomes clear that both Mark and Isaac are missing something. Mark is longing for affection while Isaac is longing for a mother. While on a “date” with Lydia, as soon as things start to escalate, Mark begins telling her he loves her. The same thing happens while hooking up with one of his exes as a party. Although intoxicated each time, we start to realize that Mark is desperate for affection. Isaac, on the other hand, starts calling Lydia “mommy” and when Mark buys him a goldfish, Isaac settles on the name “mommy” for the fish as well.

When Mark’s money troubles have him facing eviction, he seems to hit rock bottom and in what seems like a cruel moment of inflicting the pain he is feeling on an innocent creature, Mark turns it into an opportunity to teach Isaac about the difference between life and death and how it will always affect their life. With The End of Love, Webber creates a moving story of what it means to live after loss and how even in the face of such a tragedy, you must keep moving forward and hopefully learn something in the process.

The Upside: Since Webber and Isaac are actually father and son, their comfortable rapport shines on screen and while Webber turns in a strong performance here, it is Isaac who steals all the scenes he is in whether he is talking or simply looking at the camera with his big blue eyes.

The Downside: The slightly random “Hollywood” party Mark attends seemed out of place and the actors and actresses that filled it (including Michael Cera, Aubrey Plaza, and Sarah Ramos) were distracting and did not seem to fit the otherwise solemn feeling of the story.

On the Side: The home video footage of a younger Isaac and his mom called back on a happier time and not only gave us a glimpse into their life before her accident, but also showed how Mark may not have been fully ready to be a dad. If Isaac’s birth didn’t push him to grow up, having to now raise Isaac on his own certainly did.

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When Amy Berg‘s West of Memphis held its first Sundance screening on only the second day of the festival, audience members walked out stunned – not just because of the film’s emotional material, its often graphic crime scenes and autopsy photos and videos, or even because of how it squarely points to a singular perpetrator (one who is, of course, not part of the West Memphis 3), but because the film was undeniably fresh. So fresh, in fact, that two interviews that pop up in the film’s final third both came complete with a time stamp that indicated that they had been conducted the week before the film bowed at the fest – eight days before its opening. While the West Memphis 3 (Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley) were freed in August of last year, their nearly twenty-year ordeal remains almost frighteningly of the moment.

Berg uses a number of documentary filmmaking techniques to present the story – all are exceedingly well-executed and, despite the film’s vast number of players and Berg’s decision to flit back and forth between time periods, it’s both easy to follow and to engage with. Berg uses timelines, news footage, and interviews to lay out the crime and the case in an informative manner, but she sticks to unsettling and moving pieces like graphic photos and videos from the crime scene and the three autopsies, trial footage, and the reading of personal letters and emails to make sure the film has the necessary emotional push. West of Memphis is both affecting and infuriating, the kind of story and film that all but guarantees that audience members will gasp, scoff, laugh, jeer, and cry throughout its two-and-a-half-hour runtime (which flies by).

The film also features copious interviews, with particular attention paid to Echols, his wife Lorri Davis, and Pam Hobbs, the mother of one of the victims. Other players in the case who weigh in include Peter Jackson (who produced the film along with wife Fran Walsh), Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, lawyer Dennis Riordan, Dr. Vincent Di Maio, along with other lawyers, prosecutors, judges, politicians, activists, and family members. While Berg’s subjects provide sizable information, such a heavy emphasis on the main three (with special attention paid to the personal relationship between Davis and Walsh) does make it obvious that similar depth with regards to Baldwin and Misskelley is lacking. While we meet both men along the way, along with some of their friends and family members, the film is decidedly focused on Echols.

The story of the West Memphis 3 has been chronicled before, most notably by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky with their trilogy of Paradise Lost films (which are often pointed to as crucial element in rallying support for the men), but West of Memphis proves that the ordeal is more than worthy of multiple investigations and films. Berg’s film is but a piece of the entire story, but it’s an essential entry into the horrifying true life tale.

The Upside: West of Memphis serves as an illuminating look inside the entire West Memphis 3 ordeal, from crime to trial to freedom, and all of the infuriating twists and turns in between. It’s an emotional journey, one that will alternately rile and move its audience. Berg’s access to people and evidence positively crams the film with new interviews and material that will stun even those previously educated about the case.

The Downside: Despite the Berg and producers Jackson and Walsh’s ability to get amazing new footage and evidence, the film lacks equal attention to some of its subjects – Echols, Davis, and Pam Hobbs are the central figures in the film, but more footage and interviews with Misskelley, Baldwin, and the other parents would have rounded things out. Of course, the subject is a delicate one and it’s possible that such access was not even an option, but the inclusion of so many personal pieces (particularly emails between Davis and Walsh) occasionally feel like filler to make up for those gaps.

On the Side: Reese Witherspoon is set to play Pam Hobbs in the film adaptation of the book “Devil’s Knot” by Mara Leveritt (who appears in the film).

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What starts off as a seemingly innocent conversation between two people in a hotel restaurant quickly devolves into those people (played by Chris Messina and Marin Ireland) falling into bed together. It is not a new idea – two people, away from home, deciding to vacate their real lives for a night of anonymous pleasure, but director/screenwriter Matt Ross’ 28 Hotel Rooms begins to paint two characters who are a bit more interesting and become increasingly so as their relationship twists and turns.

After their first night together, Ireland’s character is revealed to be a newlywed and while Messina’s character does not seem thrown by that fact, it also makes you wonder why someone so new to her marriage would be willing to cheat on it. It is revealed that Ireland is less than comfortable with the indiscretion she just gave in to and one would think things would end here, but despite her tears and seeming regret, this does not end up being the last time these two reach out to each other.

As their affair continues from hotel room to hotel room, Messina works to get to know Ireland a bit better while Ireland would rather keep their relationship purely physical. Their relationship remains fairly fun and playful, but as their affair spans the years, things go from flirtatious to serious to silent with Ross never shying away from the quiet moments that naturally come up in any relationship. And despite the changes that occur in each other their lives (Ireland getting pregnant, Messina getting married), the two cannot seem to stay away from one another.

Ross never reveals his character’s names, working to keep the audience at bay as much as Ireland and Messina try and do with one another at first. As the film’s title indicates, we never leave the different hotel rooms and Ross uses this limited viewpoint keeps us from knowing what these characters are like away from one another and in their “real lives,” confining us in the affair right alongside them.

28 Hotel Rooms is an intense and interesting look at what it means to be in an affair and, while the immediate chemistry between Messina and Ireland is palpable on screen, watching that initial fire give way to the possibility of something more keeps us willingly trapped in each room with them. The film is almost claustrophobic and, even when the audience knows the affair should end, each time Messina and Ireland are back on screen together, the chemistry and pull that they themselves cannot seem to break away from has us falling right back into bed with them as well.

The Upside: Stunning performances from Messina and Ireland make it possible to be limited to the confined space of twenty-eight different hotel rooms.

The Downside: If you are looking for a more standard narrative, you may be frustrated here as the story stays confined to the hotel rooms, never giving or allowing for outside perspective on either character.

On the Side: Small touches like Ireland’s changing hair color or Messina’s facial hair worked to help note the passage of time in a subtle, but affecting way.

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Documentary director Lauren Greenfield (Thin) returned to Sundance with another fascinating slice of American life – the winner of this year’s U.S. Directing Award for Documentary features, The Queen of Versailles is an unexpectedly amusing tale of delusion and disgusting wealth, toplined by a couple of American originals who prove to be wackily riveting. The film chronicles Jackie and David Siegel, incredibly wealthy Floridians best known for their attempt to build the United States’ largest single family residence, one they modeled after equal parts the Palace of Versailles and the top three floors of the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. There is perhaps no other sentence that could so accurately describe what kind of people the Siegels are.

Greenfield initially began documenting the lives of the Siegels when they were at the top of their game – David is founder, owner, president, and chief executive officer of Westgate Resorts, one of the world’s largest real estate and timeshare companies. Jackie, thirty years his junior, has a busy life, complete with caring for their eight kids and running various charitable endeavors. The new home – known just as Versailles – was something that they deserved. Versailles would have more than tripled their living space – upping the Siegels from a 26,000 square foot house to a jaw-dropping 90,000 foot home, complete with children’s wing, ballroom, movie theater, ice/roller rink, and so much more. But when the financial market dropped out in 2008, Westgate’s business (and, in particular, its crown jewel timeshare property in Las Vegas) crumbled and the Siegels were left to pick up the (gilded) pieces.

The Siegels are faced with numerous economic challenges – they cut back on domestic help, switch the kids to public school, and Jackie bemoans that they kids “might have to go to college now” – but they remain quite firmly one-percenters. Jackie is colorful and gaudy and hilarious, though she maintains that she’s just a normal mom. Yet, as someone who has not one, but two stuffed dogs adorning their house and who tosses off statements like “this is the staircase I would come up if I was visiting the children,” Jackie is anything but normal. David is also a different sort of man – in the delusional sense – as he talks about things like being personally responsible for the election of George W. Bush and for the Iraq War, while also proclaiming that he’s “saving lives” with his work (again, as the head of a timeshare company) and working to resuscitate, of all things, the Miss America pageant. The Siegels are, of course, hilarious to watch.

The audience’s assessment of the Siegels would seem to be a bit of a no-brainer – how the heck could anyone relate to these people? But when their version of hard times strike the family, charming Jackie makes an almost convincing plea for pity – stocking up on Christmas presents at the local Wal-Mart, picking up board games so that the family can use their gifts together, a weirdly normal moment in the Siegels’ otherwise extraordinary existence. But those moments of pity are short-lived and fleeting, as Jackie’s Wal-Mart run involves numerous cars, kids, and domestic help along to haul in her wares, a shopping trip that ends with a nanny wheeling in a new bike for one of the Siegel sons – a new bike that is added to a pile of at least twenty other unused bikes in the garage, carelessly tossed aside, no matter how new and shiny it is.

Queen of Versailles ticks along at a brisk and enjoyable pace, with Greenfield gracefully shifting the film and its focuses as the fortunes of the Siegels change. She approaches her subjects without judgment, a crucial move in documentary filmmaking, allowing her audience to make their judgments on their own. The film is often quite deeply funny, as Greenfield is adept at chronicling lives and feelings while also picking out weirdly prescient sight gags and random amusements. As successful has her portrayal of the Siegels and their lifestyle is, Greenfield’s film is left without any true sense of closure. After following Jackie and David for years, we are left without knowing what happened (or even will happen) next, instead getting a messy and sudden end to a captivating story.

The Upside: Illuminating, oddly hilarious, ceaselessly watchable, Greenfield stumbled on to some fascinating subjects and subject matter with her film. The Queen of Versailles will likely go down as a classic slice of documentary Americana, fascinating as both a cautionary tale and as a microcosm of excess and wealth gone bad.

The Downside: The film feels a bit unfinished – as if its been made without a third act.

On the Side: David Siegel sued Sundance, Greenfield, and the film’s producer Frank Evers (also Greenfield’s husband) before the film even premiered, saying that the film’s description was defamatory.

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