TNMC

Last day of the 2010 FilmColumbia film festival.  And boy is my ass tired.  21 movies in five days on not the greatest theater seats in the world is pretty punishing to a rear end.  The photo today is from a Q&A between actor Stephen Lang and author Peter Biskind.  Lang is best known at this moment for being the villain of that little film Avatar.  He had two movies at this festival, Christina and White Irish Drinkers.  I recommend both movies but my favorite of the pair was White Irish Drinkers. It's an excellent movie still in need of a distributor, so if you get a chance to see it, don't miss it.

Starting off the day was the drama Rabbit Hole.  It stars Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart.  It's a brilliantly acted and written movie that is emotionally devastating.  I think I hated it.  Not really, but it is the sort of movie that I'll probably only watch once, simply because I don't want to drag myself through that again.

Next was Biutiful, from director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, working for the first time without screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga.  This is a tough movie to judge.  Maybe exhaustion was setting in but I dozed off a couple times in this.  It is long at a run time of 138 minutes.  But I had a hard time with the main character, played by Javier Bardem.  Too many different and sometimes conflicting elements went into him for me to deal with well.  This could be my personality though.  As a born skeptic, I had trouble with some supernatural elements that weren't established clearly enough for me to accept.  I have no problem with supernatural movies but in this case I could never be sure if it was real or the character, and that kept me emotionally distant from him.  It might work for others though.

Up next was Miral, Julian Schnabel's follow up to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  It's a good movie but more than a bit flawed.  The structure is odd and the title character quite passive.  I was much more interested in the figure of Hind Husseini, a true life figure who seems more than a bit extraordinary.  Miral was a product of Hind's work, but not nearly as interesting as Hind herself.

Christina is a small movie, just three characters in one room.  But it is very well written and slowly drips out a horrific story that gets more tense and unsettling as the movie progresses.  Good stuff and well worth seeing.  Had a bit of a TV feel to it though, which made me wonder if it was video shot at 30fps instead of the film standard of 24fps.

Next was a brutal stylish revenge film called Red Hill.  This sort of movie we don't see much anymore.  It's tough, bloody and nasty and the crowd ate it up.  Kind of an Australian take on Sergio Leone.  Pretty high praise I think.  Check it out.

Finally, closing the festival was The King's Speech.  This stars Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth and tells the story of the succession to the throne of King George VI.  This movie is nothing short of brilliant.  The acting, cinematography, script and direction are all top notch.  This is going to pick up a lot of awards.  I don't want to say much more than that because I knew nothing about it going in and was delighted with discovering it that way.  Go see it.

That's it for this year's festival.  As always it was great fun and highly informative.  I can't wait for next year.  Although my ass is grateful for the break.