TNMC

No, this isn't criticism. Laurence Kardish, film curator at the Museum of Modern Art, introduces the vampire rock comedy Suck to the crowd at the 2010 FilmColumbia festival.

This was a damn busy day at the festival.  I caught another five movies today, bringing my three day total to thirteen.  Yes, my ass is getting tired.

Up first was The Illusionist.  No, not the Edward Norton movie.  This one is animated by Sylvain Chomet, who previously brought us the brilliant Triplets of Belleville.  This time he's a lot less weird but a lot more emotional.  It's a sad tale of a small time magician, traveling the land looking for work.  Indirectly it shows the slow sad death of variety acts as the world moves on to TV and movies.

Next was Tiny Furniture.  Now, I was excited to see this one because it was shot with a Canon 7D DSLR camera, which uses the exact same sensor as my Canon T2i.  I was dying to see just how well that can translate to the big screen.  And the answer is pretty damn well.  Producer Kyle Martin was on hand to answer questions, so I made a point of picking his brain on how they dealt with shooting on a DSLR.  As for the film itself, it is great and funny as hell.  Writer/director Lena Dunham does a brilliant job of tackling the little humiliations of life, particularly for someone with a less than perfect body.  It is well worth your time to check out.

White Irish Drinkers was the third movie.  Written and directed by John Gray, it's a coming of age story set in Brooklyn in the mid 70s.  And it is a hell of a film.  This wasn't on my radar at all but it's a really solid movie with some great moments.  Gray and actors Peter Riegert (Animal House) and Stephen Lang (Avatar) showed up to take questions from the crowd.  I was pretty pleased to note that Lang, a monstrous bad ass in Avatar, stands no taller than I do.

Fourth on the dance card was Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer.  This documentary was made by Alex Gibney, who picked up an Oscar a couple years ago for Taxi to the Dark Side.  I'm a little torn on this one.  From a critical standpoint, it's a solidly made documentary.  Gibney makes one really bold choice that pays off pretty well.  But as a resident of New York, and a pretty political guy, I had some problems with it.  Most notably, I could feel Mr. Gibney's political leanings coming through.  There is the distinct sense that Spitzer was the subject of a political hit, and quite a lot of the movie is devoted to that idea.  Spitzer certainly had enemies but the problem with a conspiracy story is that Spitzer is guilty of breaking the law and incredible hypocrisy.  But that doesn't seem to matter to some folks.  When given the chance to ask questions after the movie, a string of people stepped up to complain that a variety of alternate conspiracy theories hadn't been analyzed in the movie.  Maybe it's just me.  I have zero respect for the Republican and Democratic parties.  So when one of them turns out to be crooked, I'm very comfortable ditching them.  For devotees of those parties, that doesn't seem to be the case.  Puzzling.  Anyway, if the subject interests you, check it out.  Gibney's a good filmmaker, even if he can't completely set aside his biases.

Finally came Suck.  This is a comedy about a struggling rock band that finds its fortunes turning after the bass player is turned into a vampire.  It's a very funny movie with a host of great cameos by the likes of Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Malcolm McDowell and Dave Foley.  I dug it a lot but wished the crowd was bigger.  This is definitely the sort of movie that will feed of a big audience in the mood for fun.