2000 Cleveland International Film Festival

Films With Guns

Bobby G. Can’t Swim – A small-time Hell’s Kitchen drug dealer lands in a heap of trouble when he tries to peddle a kilo of cocaine.  The deal goes sour (do they ever go smoothly in the movies?) and Bobby G. takes drastic measures using – you guessed it – a gun.  Nothing new in this predictable flick, but it’s a fairly promising debut from first-timer John-Luke Montias, who wrote, directed, produced and stars.  He comes off as a strange cross between Ed Burns and Dean Winters (from OZ and Law & Order: SVU).  Montias was a bartender in Hell’s Kitchen and based most of his characters on the seedy regulars that he used to serve.

Wheels – A Yugoslavian film about a regular guy named Nemanya that gets stranded at a motel on the edge of Belgrade called The Wheel.  The place is packed full of suspicious-looking/acting people that mistake Nemanya for a local serial killer dubbed “The Laughing Monster,” after he innocently laughs at a bad joke told at the motel’s bar and accidentally drops his gun on the floor.  Nemanya or any one of the wacky co-stars could be the real murderer.  It’s pretty funny stuff, but I couldn’t help imagining the film remade into a really bad American picture, probably starring Lesley Anne Warren, Tim Curry and Martin Mull.  Wait – they already did that (Clue).

Pups – Two bored, thirteen-year-old suburban kids find a gun and decide to rob a bank on their way to school in this well-written, dialogue-driven film.  Stevie and Rocky (as in Racquel) are a clear-thinking, level-headed duo that know how to handle the situation from watching movies.  Toupe #6 co-stars as the hair on top of FBI negotiator Burt Reynolds’ head.  At first sight, the movie seems totally implausible, but as the film progresses, it becomes clearer that this kind of incident could happen anywhere at any time.  It’s a timely subject matter, likely to draw ire from both ends of the political spectrum if it ever makes it to the multiplexes.  Speaking of “timely,” the film also stars Adam Ferrar (Leonardo DiCaprio’s step-brother), who was recently charged with attempted murder.

Poor White Trash – Former Man Show writer Michael Addis wrote (with Tony Urban) and directed this tale of hillbilly miscreants in Sunrise, Illinois.  He does everything right that was done wrong in Drowning Mona.  The film doesn’t take itself too seriously, and Addis even mocked its lack of complexity in the Q&A session that followed the screening.  It’s not filled with stars, and it isn’t particularly well written or executed, but it’s still a pantload of fun.  Sean Young plays the slutty mother of college-bound Michael.  She’ll do anything (read: lie, cheat and steal) to make sure her boy makes it out of this dead-end town.

Films Where Characters Awkwardly Ask Other Characters On Dates

Crane World – If I hadn’t read the description before the screening, I would have sworn this Argentine film was a documentary.  It was filmed on 16mm black-and-white stock blown up to 35mm, which makes the picture really grainy.  Plus, director Pablo Trapero used a handheld camera to film Rulo (Luis Margani), a former bassist in a one-hit-wonder band several years back.  Now he’s overweight, unemployed and trying to land a job operating a crane at a construction site.  He asks out the owner of a struggling convenience store near his job site after agreeing to fix the shop’s blind.  I kind of wish that I had these ninety minutes of my life back.

Spring Forward – Most people don’t realize that R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe narrowly missed nabbing two Oscar nominations this year (for producing Best Picture candidate Being John Malkovich and Best Documentary hopeful American Movie).  Stipe also produced this drama, a mind-blowingly brilliant film from first-time director Tom Gilroy.  Gilroy, an indie actor (Claire Dolan), also wrote the script about two Parks & Recreation employees (Ned Beatty and Liev Schreiber) who discuss the meaning of life as they weed, paint and bond as the seasons change.  This amazing film shows that life is one big circle without being heavy-handed.  Oh, yeah – Schrieber’s character asks out a woman played by Peri Gilpin from Frasier.

Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire – Stars two real-life brothers (Derick and Steven Martini) whose part-Native American grandmother dubbed the two with nicknames that fit their infant personalities.  Chris (Goat on Fire) was an edgy, anxious baby, and Tony (Smiling Fish) was unconcerned and carefree.  These traits carry forward into their adult lives, where Chris hates his job and his girlfriend cries when they have sex, while the eternally childish Tony coasts through life doing whatever he wants – until he meets and asks out a single mom played by Christa Miller (The Drew Carey Show…what’s with the sitcom women doing indie film?).  The Martini brothers co-wrote the film with Kevin Jordan, who also served as director/producer in the low, low-budget piece that many are comparing to The Brothers McMullen.

1999 Madeleine – This film is supposed to be the first in a series of ten (yes, ten) pictures made by French director Laurent Bouhnik.  Each year, he plans to release a new film that will – from what I understand –consist of the same story told through the eyes of ten different characters.  This first installment is about Madeleine, a lonely dressmaker that tries to find love in the personal ads and fails miserably.  So then she goes after a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman.  Although this film isn’t too entertaining, give Bouhnik credit for undertaking such an ambitious project – the biggest since Krzysztof Kieslowski's ten-film Decalogue (that Lucas guy only planned nine…what a slacker).

Bleeder – A non-Dogme Danish film (they really exist?) about five characters that each have “L” names.  Two of them are about to have a baby (Leo and Louise), one is the uncle-to-be (Louis), one is a video store clerk (Lenny) and one is the bewitching girl that rented GoodFellas last week (Lea).  This entertaining thriller is also peppered with clips from a bunch of cult films, including Andy Warhol’s Flesh for Frankenstein and William Lustig’s Maniac and Vigilante.  A lot of the story revolves around guns, but I put it in this category because of the shy Lenny finally working up the nerve to ask out the beautiful Lea.  It could have gone in the next category as well, since Leo starts to beat the crap out of Louise about halfway through the film.

Films That Feature Physical Abuse

East is East – Set in North London during the early ‘70s, this film is about a Pakistani man named George Kahn that moved to England, married a local girl, opened a fish-and-chips shop and had seven kids that he desperately tries to raise to follow rigid Pakistani values and customs such as arranged marriages.  “Genghis” to his rebel children, George runs around the house calling his spawn “bastards” and threatening to bring his first wife to England to show his wife of twenty-five years what a real woman acts like.  As he feels his control beginning to slip away from his flock, George begins to beat the crap out of everybody.  Don’t let that scare you off – this is a very funny, very entertaining film based on a popular stage play.

The War Zone – Actor Tim Roth’s directorial debut is so dark and disturbing that it couldn’t get a proper U.S. distribution deal.  Too bad - the film is one of the year’s best, as well as the winner of three Sickie nominations (Best Picture and both Supporting Actor and Actress).  Based on Alexander Stuart's novel, the film tells the story of a British family that is being torn apart by incest after a move from London to isolated North Devon.  The two teens in the film (Freddie Cunliffe and Lara Belmont) had no acting experience prior to this and are simply amazing, as is the film.  Be prepared to grit your teeth – this movie is as brutal as they come.

Butterfly – Set during the political turmoil the followed Spain’s transformation from monarchy to republic, this fantastic-looking import is about the relationship between a young student and his elderly Galicia schoolteacher, Don Gregorio.  After hearing his older brother say that his teachers mercilessly beat him, the kid is terrified and wets his pants on the first day of school when Don Gregorio asks his name.  But the nature-loving pacifist Don Gregorio is a real softy, and the two form a sweet, unique bond.  The rubber-faced teacher looks like a gray-haired Walter Matthau but acts like the hippie teacher from Beavis & Butt-Head.

Bad Company – This French film was a last-second replacement in the festival, and it would have been better off staying on the bench.  It’s about a sweet, innocent girl that falls in with a bad crowd and ends up performing oral sex on four hundred guys so that her boyfriend can go to Jamaica.  You best believe that her dad beat the crap out of her.  The only redeeming quality of the film is Robinson Stévenin’s performance (he plays the boyfriend).  He’s a cool cross between a young River Phoenix and Christian Slater.  The soundtrack is pretty hip, too.

Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang – A Canadian kids’ film based on one in a series of four books about a boy named Jacob Two-Two.  He’s two-plus-two-plus-two years old and has to repeat himself whenever he talks because nobody in his family pays attention to him the first time.  In this installment, Jacob is sent away to a prison on Slimer’s Island, where the evil Hooded Fang (Gary Busey) torments him and all of the other kids.  Okay, there isn’t any physical abuse, but how many movies have you seen about children in prison?  And how many kiddie pics can boast a cast like this:  Miranda Richardson, Ice-T, Mark McKinney and Maury Chaykin?  Features fantastic songs by Tim Burns.  A must see, if it ever sees a release in the U.S.

Just, Melvin – People have made documentaries about their families before, and most are like Paul Buchman’s fictitious film that he made on Mad About You.  This picture starts off with its director (James Ronald Whitney) announcing that he lost his virginity in the second grade…to his four-year-old cousin…who had already had sex.  Got your attention?  Whitney’s film focuses on his grandfather, Melvin Just, who married into the family and sexually abused every kid in sight, including his own biological children.  As Whitney points the camera at aunts, uncles and cousins, you can see the dramatic effect that Melvin’s molestation had on his family’s remaining generations.  Powerful, honest and a little tough to watch.  And speaking of documentaries…

Documentary Films

Bus Riders Union – This documentary was filmed by legendary cinematographer (and two-time Oscar winner) Haskell Wexler, who points his camera at a grassroots movement at war with the Metro Transit Authority in Los Angeles.  It seems that the over-crowded, perpetually late buses receive only thirty percent of the MTA budget, despite the fact that only six percent use other means of public transportation.  The well-organized Bus Riders Union confronts the MTA at monthly board meetings, which are full of the most cornered-looking white guys this side of a Michael Moore project.  The film follows the BRU’s battle over several years.

Sound & Fury – If you had a deaf child, and there was a medical breakthrough that could allow them to hear, you would do it in a heartbeat, right?  That’s what I thought, but this wonderful picture shows the situation from a different perspective.  Using the deaf children of two brothers (one can hear and one can’t), this film does a wonderful job of portraying both sides of the argument over the use of cochlear implants, a device inserted deep into the skull that has an incredible success rate when implanted into young children.  The film opened my eyes to the monumental level of pride that exists in the deaf community.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg – There isn’t anything surprising in this biography of baseball legend Hank Greenberg.  But if you’re a baseball fan, you definitely don’t want to miss the story of the Moses of Baseball.  Greenberg wasn’t the first Jewish ballplayer, but he was certainly the best of his day, if not of all-time.  He was also one of the first to keep his un-Gentile-sounding name before going professional.  His reluctance to hide his religion became a constant source of pride within the Jewish community, and the slugger became their biggest role model.

Films from the Netherlands (or “This Wouldn’t Fit Anywhere Else”)

One Man and His Dog – Annette Apon directs this oddball story of a young man that doesn’t fit in at his bank job and makes up an exciting personal life to win over the hearts of his kooky co-workers.  He’s also a peeping Tom, roaming his neighborhood each night with a dog leash and no dog.  This way, when someone spots him, he just pretends that his dog got away, whistles and is on his way.  The peeping business is where he gets all of his imaginative ideas.  The entire film is told via flashbacks from prison, so you know something bad is going to happen.  Did I mention that the guy looks like street magician David Blaine?