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Rochester
takes center stage with High Falls Film Festival
It's almost
here --- the first annual High Falls Film Festival. From
October 17 to 21, Rochester will become the focal point of the
film industry, hosting gala events and the latest projects to
showcase women both in front of and behind the cameras. Screenings
will take place at the Little Theatre, the Cinema, and the Dryden
and Curtis Theatres at the George Eastman House, but events will
occur at various locations throughout the city. So remember, that
guy at the bar might not just look like Taye Diggs --- it probably
is.
Tickets are
available right now through Ticket Express (100 East Avenue,
222-5000), Kaufmann's Ticketmaster outlets or online through
Ticketmaster for $7.50 a pop, but your cost
per film can be greatly reduced by purchasing a Take Ten ($60.00)
or I Want It All ($275.00, also giving you access to every
Festival event) pass directly from the information line at
258-0401. For more information, check out the official site.
This preview
will cover the films playing in the Festival's first three days,
but we'll be back next week to talk about the remaining
screenings, as well as provide important information about the
parties, various shorts programs and the Festival's impressive
collection of film-related seminars. We'll also have interviews
with Festival Artistic Director Catherine Wyler and everyone's
favorite Sheba (Baby), Pam Grier, who will be in town to accept
the Susan B. Anthony "Failure Is Impossible" Award.
But, now,
onto the films:
The
Business of Strangers
(Patrick Stettner, USA, 84
minutes) - 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, October 17, Dryden Theatre
A cutthroat,
middle-aged executive (Stockard Channing) thinks she's about to be
fired by her CEO and, in a momentary lapse of judgment and
misplaced rage, lashes out and fires a young, idealistic underling
(Julia Stiles). The two cross paths later at an airport hotel and
bond over drinks as they complain about being trapped for the
evening. Then things turn into an odd blend of a tamer Baise-moi
and a female version of In the Company of Men, which is
either really disturbing or really cool, depending on how you look
at it.
La
Bûche
(Danièle Thompson, France,
107 minutes) - 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday October 17, Little Theatre 1
Set in Paris
during the days leading up to Christmas, this dark comedy is about
a dysfunctional family incapable of maintaining any type of normal
relationship with the opposite sex. Most of the action focuses on
the three daughters --- Louba has been carrying on a 12-year
affair with a married man who has no intention of leaving his
wife; Sonia (Mission: Impossible cutie Emmanuelle Béart)
is a self-absorbed princess who married into money but is now
trapped in a loveless relationship with a cheating husband; and
Milla hates the holidays because they remind her of how frigging
lonely she is. Bûche, which is a little like Hannah and
her Sisters, is Thompson's directorial debut, but she's the
veteran of dozens of screenplays (including Queen Margot).
Christmas
in the Clouds
(Kate Montgomery, USA, 90
minutes) - 9:30 p.m. Wednesday October 17, Little Theatre 2
In another
directorial debut and Christmas setting, this warm romantic comedy
from the Sundance Festival is set at a ski resort located on a
Native-American reservation. Conflict comes courtesy of a lack of
snow, the impending arrival of a national travel guidebook critic,
and a romance between the hotel's manager and one of its guests.
It all starts when young widow Tina Little Hawk starts a pen-pal
relationship with resort chief Joe Clouds on Fire, who assumes
Tina, like himself, is a senior citizen. But when Tina arrives at
the lodge, she falls for Joe's son Ray, who thinks she's the
reviewer. It's like a cross between a Three's Company
episode and Waiting for Godot, and although the film is as
predictable as Serendipity, it's much, much more enjoyable.
The
Hidden Half
(Tahmineh Milani, Iran, 103
minutes) - 2:30 p.m. Thursday October 18, Dryden Theatre
Anybody who
has just recently learned about the treatment of women in the
Middle East from either the non-stop television coverage of
"America's New War" or Jafar Panahi's The
Circle might be surprised to know there are some female
directors operating in Islamic countries...but nobody would be
shocked to learn Milani was locked up for making this film.
Approaching her 40th birthday, Fereshteh is a wife and mother who
has hidden her radical past from husband Khosro, a high-ranking
judge. When Khosro leaves town to hear the case of a woman facing
execution in Tehran, Fereshteh slips him a note pleading with him
to actually listen to the detainee's story by telling him her own.
La
Ciénaga
(Lucrecia Martel,
Argentina, 103 minutes) - 5:00 p.m. Thursday October 18, Dryden
Theatre
Argentine
legend Graciela Borges plays the matriarch of an accident-prone
family who get together for a few days during Carnival when a
relative injures herself at a pool party. The cramped quarters,
hot weather and free-flowing alcohol don't exactly help the
situation. It takes a while to sort out the dozen or so characters
(some of whom look a lot alike), but once you've settled into the
story, viewers will be treated to a simple but accomplished Dogme
95-ish tale populated by people without any acting experience.
Martel's terrific direction plops you right into the story, giving
the film a fly-on-the-wall feel.
No
Man’s Land
(Danis Tanovic,
France/Italy/Belgium/ United Kingdom/Slovenia, 98 minutes) - 6:20
p.m. Thursday October 18, Little Theatre 2
If you
crossed the absurd war humor of Three
Kings with that episode of The Simpsons where an
avalanche trapped Homer and Mr. Burns in a secluded cabin, you'd
have something like Tanovic's film, which won the top screenplay
award at Cannes earlier this year. It's about two soldiers --- one
Serb and one Croat --- who wind up in a landmine-plagued trench
between the two countries' front lines. In addition to dealing
with each other and the mine, the men must also contend with an
annoying news reporter and a United Nations peacekeeping force
that doesn't want to get too involved in the situation.
The
Truth About Tully
(Hilary Birmingham, USA,
102 minutes) - 6:30 p.m. Thursday October 18, Little Theatre 1
Writer-director-producer
Birmingham's directorial debut (she was an intern on Abel
Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant) is a deliciously slow tale that
unfolds with the tenderness of Ulee's Gold. Anson Mount
plays Tully Coats, Jr., the son of a Nebraska farmer who can land
any woman with the snap of his fingers. Tired of nailing a local
stripper, he decides to snuggle up with a friend of his younger
brother. Ella (beautifully played by the talented Julianne
Nicholson) is a plain Jane, but she shoots down Tully's advances,
confusing the man who's used to getting what he wants. But he
doesn't give up easily. After all, why would you settle for a
Buffy when there's a Willow out there?
Southern
Comfort
(Kate Davis, USA, 90
minutes) - 7:15 p.m. Thursday October 18, Dryden Theatre
Winner of the
Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Fest, this documentary
follows nearly a year in the life of Robert Eads, a 52-year-old
hillbilly from Taccoa, Georgia (or "Bubba-land," as he
calls it) with a girlfriend named Lola. Sounds pretty
unremarkable, but Robert is really an FTM (which is a
female-to-male transgendered person) and Lola is an MTF (which is,
uh, the other way around). The film shows Robert, who is dying
from ovarian and cervical cancer, unsuccessfully seeking treatment
from ignorant backwoods doctors while attempting to overcome his
failing health in hopes of making one last trip to Atlanta's
Southern Comfort Conference to address a crowd of other
transgendered folks.
Independent
Spirits (Sybil
DelGaudio, USA, 57 minutes) - 8:30 p.m. Thursday October 18,
Little Theatre 2
The best
documentaries (at least the ones that don't make fun of people)
are often about folks you've never heard of before, and that's
just the case with this film about Faith and John Hubley. John was
one of Disney's original animators, and his wife Faith started
helping him make shorts when he founded his own independent
studio. After becoming the first indie producers to win an Oscar
for Best Short, Faith overcame John's death to begin making her
own personal films. You can see some of these shorts as part of
the festival on Friday night, and if you keep your ticket stub for
Spirits, you get into Faith's Animation Workshop Sunday
afternoon.
Grateful
Dawg (Gillian
Grisman, USA, 81 minutes) - 9:00 p.m. Thursday October 18, Little
Theatre 1
You
probably don't know director Gillian Grisman, and there's a pretty
decent chance a lot of you have never heard of her
mandolin-playing father David, but if the name Jerry Garcia
doesn't ring a bell, then, brother, you've got problems. This
documentary doesn't have anything to do with that awful stoner
music, but it does focus on the incredible bluegrass sounds Garcia
and Grisman created over four decades. The film includes rare live
footage, home jam sessions and a previously unreleased video for
their blistering version of "The Thrill is Gone."
Daresalem
(Issa Serge Coelo,
France/Burkina Faso, 103 minutes) - 9:30 p.m. Thursday October 18,
Dryden Theatre
Galbal, Chad
is in the house for this import that's a bit of an update on the
tale of Cain and Abel. Djimi is a shy young man and his best
friend Koni is a fun-loving practical joker. But when the
government increases taxes on their millet crops and demands they
pay money into a national loan system, the two join the Socialist
rebel forces to battle the fat cats that won't even bother
learning how to speak their language. In addition to being pretty
and thought-provoking, the film does a great job at portraying war
as a never-ending, vicious circle of violence (and ends with a
birth to drive the point home).
Amy’s
Orgasm (Julie
Davis, USA, 85 minutes) - 10:45 p.m. Thursday October 18, Little
Theatre 2
Amy (played
by filmmaker Davis) is a 29-year-old, Ivy-League-educated, Jewish
self-help author who hit it big with her book "Why Love
Doesn't Work," and she has just been asked to participate in
the Women of the Millennium March. But she also hasn't had a
relationship in years and, in a horny rage, starts to fall for a
Catholic priest before tumbling head-over-heels for a Howard
Stern-like radio shock jock. The Woody Allen-ish comedy is
surprisingly insightful and features a lot of both inner
monologues delivered right into the camera and masturbation scenes
(so there's something for everyone). Davis' previous film, All
Over the Guy, plays this Friday night at the ImageOut
Festival.
Foxy
Brown
(Jack Hill, USA, 94
minutes) - 11:00 p.m. Thursday October 18, The Cinema
Pam Grier's
fourth and final collaboration with writer/director Hill
(following The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage and
Coffy) is perhaps the queen mother of all blaxploitation
flicks. Grier plays the titular Ms. Brown, whose drug-dealing
brother sells out her ex-federal agent boyfriend after he
undergoes extensive plastic surgery to change his appearance.
Hijinks involve hiding a gun in her afro, uttering classic lines
like, "I've got a black belt in barstools," and
generally kicking everybody's ass.
Hard,
Fast and Beautiful
(Ida Lupino, USA, 78
minutes) - 3:00 p.m. Friday October 19, Dryden Theatre
Lupino, who
won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for The Hard Way
in 1943, tried her luck behind the camera to become one rare
commodity --- a female director in post World War II cinema. Her
low-budget noir films often dealt with controversial subject
matter, like rape and bigamy. This film (the first of two from
Lupino in this Festival) is about a young tennis prodigy (Sally
Forrest) who falls for a fellow player (Robert Clarke) but must
constantly battle her overbearing, domineering coach of a mother
(Claire Trevor).
Life
and Debt (Stephanie
Black, USA, 86 minutes) - 4:00 p.m. Friday October 19, Little
Theatre 1
Proponents of
NAFTA and the International Monetary Fund should check out this
documentary about the side of Jamaica your friendly tour guide
doesn't show you during vacation. The narration is angry and
accusatory, and why shouldn't it be? The film is a shocking look
at a country plagued by a devalued dollar (courtesy of the IMF)
and a market flooded by cheap American goods (courtesy of NAFTA).
Black splices images of fat, dumb, white people at luxury hotels
into the mix to drive the point home. And you wonder why you get
attitude when you complain about the amount of ice in your rum and
Coke.
Dinner
and a Movie
(Lisa Kors, USA, 85
minutes) - 5:15 p.m. Friday October 19, Dryden Theatre
Aspiring
filmmaker Katie dreams of finding someone to finance her nine-part
documentary on Alexander Solzhenitsyn (the guy credited with
peacefully putting the kibosh on Communism), but until that
happens, she is destined to spend her life performing at
children's birthday parties. A big break comes as she's pitching
her idea to a local PBS station, but the television producer, who
will do anything to lower their musty age demographic, wants Katie
to make a documentary about the current state of dating. So Katie
finds a slimy Neanderthal to film on a series of unsuccessful
dates. Movie is kind of like Bridget Jones's Documentary,
in that she's really cute and falls for the wrong guy.
Very
Annie-Mary
(Sara Sugarman, UK, 105
minutes) - 5:15 p.m. Friday October 19, Little Theatre 2
If you needed
more proof Six Feet Under's Rachel Griffiths is the new
Meryl Streep, look no further than this dramedy in which she plays
a clumsy, child-like 29-year-old with an angelic voice (not to
mention Princess Leia buns) who doesn't appear to have aged
mentally since her mother died 14 years ago. To make matters
worse, her father (Jonathan Pryce) is a strict baker who treats
her badly and buys her a head of cabbage for her birthday. But
when her dad is hit with a stroke, Annie-Mary gets to grow up a
little bit as she deals with crazy South Wales locals like the two
gay shopkeepers, her dying best friend and the vicar with the
scratch 'n' sniff bibles.
Anita
Takes a Chance
(Ventura Pons, Spain, 89
minutes) - 7:30 p.m. Friday October 19, Dryden Theatre
50-something
Anita (Rosa María Sardà, who played Penélope Cruz's mom in All
About My Mother) has been working at the box office of her
local theatre for dozens of years, but the building is about to be
torn down to make way for a new googleplex, whose new owners say
she's too old to keep working there. With nothing else to do,
Anita wanders back to the empty site and ends up falling in love
with a married bulldozer operator (why are all the good bulldozer
operators always taken?).
Prison
Song
(Darnell Martin, USA, 90
minutes) - 8:30 p.m. Friday October 19, Little Theatre 1
If you've
ever said to yourself, "Gee, I wish somebody would make a
ghetto musical," then it's your lucky day. Song is a
biting film about black people continually being shafted by the
Man in various ways. It focuses on young Elijah, whose father was
murdered by the same police who unjustly locked up his stepfather,
which led to the institutionalization of his mother. Elijah, who
was always a good kid, graduates from foster home to prison,
missing out on a photography scholarship. The real drawing card
here seems to be the cast, which includes Mary J. Blige, Elvis
Costello, Fat Joe and Q-Tip, who co-wrote the screenplay.
Fashion
Victim: The Killing of Gianni Versace
(James
Kent, USA, 77 minutes) -
9:30 p.m. Friday October 19, Little Theatre 2
Perhaps
you're the sort of person who doesn't like their documentaries
about interesting people (like Faith Hubley or Robert Eads) or the
downtrodden (like the Jamaicans in Life and Debt. Maybe
something about fashion designers is more your speed. Then step
right up for this look at the rise of Gianni Versace cut with the
disturbing tale of Andrew Cunanan, culminating in the murder of
the former by the latter in 1997. There are interviews with
fashion mavens, and questions about Versace's health and finances
are raised but never answered.
Without
a Trace (María
Novaro, Mexico, 105 minutes) - 9:45
p.m. Friday October 19, Dryden Theatre
There was a
documentary at the Toronto Film Fest called Missing Young Women,
which dealt with the disappearance of about 200 women (usually
thin, attractive, long-haired factory workers) from Ciudad Juárez,
a Mexican border town. Trace is about a thin, attractive,
long-haired woman named Aurelia who is too scared to return to her
factory job after maternity leave. So she hits the road and
eventually meets up with beautiful Mayan artifact smuggler Ana,
who is on the run from a crazy cop with an astute sense of smell.
Yeah, it might sound like Thelma & Louise, but it's
cooler because those pansy American broads never used diapers to
soak up a pool of blood.
Acts
of Worship (Rosemary
Rodriguez, USA, 94 minutes) - 9:45 p.m. Friday October 19, Little
Theatre 3
You'd be
hard-pressed to find a better movie about addiction than this
debut from writer/director Rodriquez. In addition to a blistering
performance by Ana Reader (who plays Alix, a homeless crackhead
cut off from her middle-class parents), the film features the best
overdose scene since Trainspotting and the finest portrayal
of drug-fueled desperation since HBO's The Corner. It all
starts with a searing 15-minute look at what Alix needs to do to
get her hands on some stuff each day. Eventually, she overdoses
and is taken in by a neighbor, who is both an aspiring
photographer and an ex-addict. Gritty, dingy, very real and very,
very good.
Jackie
Brown
(Quentin
Tarantino, USA, 151
minutes) - 11:00 p.m. Friday October 19, The Cinema
If you're all
jazzed up about Pam Grier coming to town and you haven't seen the
film that earned the actress nominations from the Golden Globes,
Golden Satellites, NAACP Image and Screen Actors Guild, then shame
on you. Grier logs her best performance since Fort Apache the
Bronx as a flight attendant who gets nabbed transporting
illegal amounts of cash into the country. Soon enough, she's being
hunted down by a crazed gun dealer (Samuel L. Jackson) and finds
protection in the oddest place --- a bail bondsman played by
Rochester's own Oscar nominee, Robert Forster.
Click here
for Part II.
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