list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around The Dungeon Masters on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/The_Dungeon_Masters/389198/default.aspx Title: The Dungeon Masters
Year: 2008
Plot: An evil drow elf is displaced by Hurricane Katrina. A sanitation worker lures friends into a Sphere of Annihilation. A failed supervillian starts a cable-access show involving ninjas, puppets, and a cooking segment. These are the characters, real and imagined, of The Dungeon Masters: Against the backdrop of crumbling middle-class America, two men and one woman devote their lives to Dungeons and Dragons, the storied role-playing game, and its various descendants. As their baroque fantasies clash with mundane real lives, the characters find it increasingly difficult to allay their fear, loneliness, and disappointment with the game's imaginary triumphs. Soon the true heroic act of each character's real life emerges, and the film follows each as he or she summons the courage to face it. Along the way, The Dungeon Masters reimagines the tropes of classic heroic cinema, creating an intimate portrait of minor struggles and triumphs writ large.
Times Tagged: 6
Number of Lists: 2
Number of blog posts: 4
]]>Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:34:23 GMTThe Dungeon Masters2008An evil drow elf is displaced by Hurricane Katrina. A sanitation worker lures friends into a Sphere of Annihilation. A failed supervillian starts a cable-access show involving ninjas, puppets, and a cooking segment. These are the characters, real and imagined, of The Dungeon Masters: Against the backdrop of crumbling middle-class America, two men and one woman devote their lives to Dungeons and Dragons, the storied role-playing game, and its various descendants. As their baroque fantasies clash with mundane real lives, the characters find it increasingly difficult to allay their fear, loneliness, and disappointment with the game's imaginary triumphs. Soon the true heroic act of each character's real life emerges, and the film follows each as he or she summons the courage to face it. Along the way, The Dungeon Masters reimagines the tropes of classic heroic cinema, creating an intimate portrait of minor struggles and triumphs writ large.6Taggedy Taggged (6-10)24http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s389198.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/The_Dungeon_Masters/389198/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/15/35166.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/15/2008 4:01:58 PM
Body: Keven McAlester’s second documentary The Dungeon Masters, which takes a look at three people who run Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, was at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. It could have easily been a comedic film, poking fun at people who are generally called geeks or nerds, but it ends up becoming an intimate glimpse of personalities and situations that are often touching and tragic. I sat down with Keven and talked to him about how he set about making this movie, how he got into documentary filmmaking and working with Lee Daniel, and how he was able to put together such a good look into the D&D lifestyle, despite having never played the game. Read on after the break for the interview. So, I watched the film last night. And the first thing I was struck with was I read the notes and noticed you’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons. How did this movie happen? Well, two things. One, the producers approached me and said they wanted to make a film, I think originally they had conceived it more as a history of D&D. You mean Hay and Manfredi? Yeah. And, we sort of threw the idea around and eventually realized it would be much more interesting to do it about people who play the game  not so much about the game itself, but sort of the fancy lives they create compared with their real lives. And then, what it ultimately came to was trying to triangulate the gestures in real life, however small they may be. I think, that’s what really interested me is sort of the idea of creating a fantasy world or a virtual self. Obviously, it’s become a cultural currency. Or the idea has become much more prevalent in the past ten or fifteen years, starting with Snow Crash, and then moving on to like now, Second Life and World of Warcraft. We also talked about maybe doing one about one of those games, but it seemed like it would be more visually interesting. And also, since D&D, people still play it rabidly. And there’s crossover between Warcraft, as you saw in the movie. That would be nice to sort of go back to the source. And then, I thought for myself in terms of not having played before, I thought it would help in a way just to explain it to someone who had no idea, because I had no idea. I knew that they rolled dice, but I didn’t even know what that was for. I didn’t know any of the terminology and stuff. I thought would help to sort of explain it quickly to the lay person at the beginning. Yeah. The good thing is, you didn’t get bogged down in that. You could have easily had 30 minutes about the history of D&D, and what it is to play, and what you do when you create a character, and that would have been I kind of boring I think. Instead you gave a pretty good set of layman’s notes for someone who has no idea about D&D. Well, I’m glad that happened, because there were versions of the film where there was 30 minutes. Like, “When you roll the dice…” and it just didn’t work. How did you find these people? Right when we started we decided to make it about gamers rather than the game itself, we went to GenCon and found Richard and Elizabeth. And then, Scott lived in California. We found him at another convention there. We basically went to conventions and watched people. We didn’t really ask people to be in the movie, we interviewed maybe 25 people, just to get a basic digital video, just trying to cast about. We didn’t ask them too many questions about their personal lives. We didn’t know any of that stuff that ended up happening in the film. Basically, we were looking for people who were passionate about the game and could talk about it clearly and interestingly. So, those were the three that really stuck out for us. How many do you think you talked to? I would guess 20 to 25. There was a fourth character that we had loved, who we had much less material on that we were sort of trying to fit in, and that didn’t quite work. When you started was GenCon the first place you went to sort of explore the subject matter? Yeah. You don’t come from that world of gaming, so were you just blown away once you got there, or did you kind of know what to expect? No, I didn’t know what to expect. I was excited, first of all, that that many people were, because with D&D, it’s an old game, and there’s so many iterations and sort of new versions of it, and Magic, and different kinds of games people are into, so first of all, I was excited that that many people were still into it. And also, I was excited that we would have, you know, such a vast set of potential subjects for the film. So, it was overwhelming once we started doing it, because we were like, we could interview everyone here. We might be missing the perfect person, but ultimately, the people in the film are the first few people we interviewed. Did you just approach people, or did the word kind of spread that oh, there’s these filmmakers talking to people… The spreading the word thing didn’t work at all. We had to approach them and kind of say, would you come meet us at three o’clock, and you know, a lot of times I talked to them before the camera was rolling, and just, it was, again, they were skeptical, as anyone would be. I can’t blame them. I’m not quite sure how to word this question. A strange thing for me recently, I was at a party with a lot of younger people that were in their early twenties. I have some friends that work at a university in LA, and I go to their parties sometimes. And this guy and I bonded. He’s probably in his really early twenties, and we had a similar sense of humor, similar movie tastes, stuff like that. So, about all that, he adds me on Facebook and then, he sends me this email, he’s like, “Hey man, just wondering if you’d be interested in this. I dungeon master a D&D game one Saturday a month. We’re just getting started, and we’d love to add another character.” And I was just like, what? I have not played since junior high school, which was a long time ago. And even then I barely played. I knew how the game worked, but we’d get together and kind of goof around, and not really play. So, I was like all right. So, I started going. And everyone in this group is pretty nonstereotypical players. There’s an attractive girl who’s not crazy, not to call Elizabeth in the film crazy, but are you worried that, because you focus on these three people, that they sort of seem like the stereotypical D&D player? I don’t know how nonplayers see it, but, was there ever a moment where you were like, ok, let’s find people who don’t fit this mold. Or were these just people you found so interesting, and you though this is the story we need to tell? I know what you’re saying. I don’t think we ever really thought of it in those terms. I’m not even sure what a stereotypical gamer or not is. But, for instance, the guy who was in the army and has a day job and a wife and everything, that seemed like just a relatively normal life. I think, anybody that you dig into their lives, it becomes atypical, which I think is what’s great about making documentaries. There was a time where we considered finding famous people who played, things like that. But again, we felt like it would detract from the sort of like small victories that these people… Well, you thank Patton Oswalt in the credits. And he’s kind of famously into this realm of gaming and D&D. How was he involved? I know, him in LA, and we’ve talked extensively about the film, because he has a weekly D&D game. And he’s been encouraging the project from the very beginning. So that was really his involvement. Have you shown it to him yet? He was there at the premiere. Oh, he was? Did he like it? Yeah, he loved it. At what point did it possibly come up, because like you said when you interview these people, you don’t find out everything about them. You’re only talking with them for a few minutes before you decide to focus on them. So, you’re in these people’s lives for a period of time. At what point does Richard say, “Oh, I’m a nudist, by the way.” [laughs] That was… how did that come up? I don’t really remember when that came up. But, the great thing about him, is there’s so many different seemingly incongruous facets to his character. All of them interesting. I don’t remember when it came up, but I found it very surprising, in a way that I hope is accurately conveyed in the film. Did you encounter any resistance in this, like, oh, you’re just going to do a piece showing us to be goofballs or something? Absolutely. I think, pretty much every gamer is suspicious of any kind of media, and the older gamers especially because in the 80s, there was so much portrayal of D&D as like this satanic cult that would drive your kids to suicide and heavy metal. And so, they were definitely suspicious, but once I sort of… Especially, obviously, with the main characters, but even, once you sort of sit down with them and talk to them and the questions you ask, once they sort of see what you’re asking and you’re not asking those sort of, like, you know, “What does your church think of this?” Or whatever, then they’re pretty open. Scott really seems to go through the biggest emotional arc in the film. How did that come about? Well, also, for me, you know, I identified so much with his character in certain ways just because of the struggle of making something, and also, I think that, ultimately, that because he was in California, we had the most access to him, so we were able to sort of like build the film around that stuff. I imagine the editing process took awhile for this. Was there stuff you had to, well, you said you had to lose one character. Was there other stuff with the characters that we do see in the film that you had to lose, that you had to cut out? There was some great stuff, but all of it was essentially sort of tangential storytelling. There were no important character details or anything like that. Most of what was cut out that I would love to see in it is just Scott sort of telling stories about his life, because he has a way of telling almost any story like pretty hilariously, so, there were stories about him, you know, getting a vasectomy, and it was just the funniest recounting of that experience that you can imagine. But, other than that, at the end of the day, you sort of, like you watch a two and a half hour cut and you’re thinking, “I can never take anything out of this!” And then, you know, an hour of cuts later, you don’t even remember what was in there. Were there moments where, you know, every documentary filmmaker I’ve talked to has always said there’s moments where they’re like, this is the dumbest idea I ever had, and no one’s going to want to watch this. And then there are those moments where you’re like, lightning strikes, and you’re just like, “Oh my god. Please tell me the camera was rolling on that.” Did you have any moments like that on either side? Well, I think, in terms of the… like no one’s ever going to want to watch this, as you know, a game of D&D itself, very slow, and really, essentially, boring to watch. And we had to film an eight hour game just to get the 30 seconds that we use, so there were probably three or four of those shoots where Lee, or if it was, you know, occasionally we had like a second unit DP, they’d be like, “What are we doing?” I trust you, but I have no idea how you’re going to make this into a movie. And then, in terms of the camera rolling, I would have been bummed if almost anything in the movie hadn’t turned out to be it. I don’t remember anything specifically that couldn’t have been portrayed in some other way, but let me think. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything that stuck out for me more than anything else. I mean, obviously, if the premiere of Scott’s show had not come out, it would have been a real tragedy. Because that’s really, to me, the emotional peak of the movie. Have any of the subjects seen the film? Have you sent them the film? Well, that’s a good question. I sort of feel like it’s a documentarian’s responsibility to show it to subjects first. Unfortunately, I finished the sound on maybe Tuesday of last week, Wednesday of last week. So, I didn’t have a chance to show it to them yet, but I’m actually going to do that next week. I feel, I mean, it sucks, but it’s only three screenings. It’s not the end of the world, but I do feel like these people have trusted you and you want to have their reaction first. So, I regret that that had to turn out that way, but you know, it’s better than showing it to them without sound. Do you think they’re going to like it? I think so. I mean, I don’t there’s anything in there that will be surprising to them or that they’ll feel inaccurately portrayed. It’s always hard to see yourself on camera. And we spent such a long time with them that I’m sure there’ll be points where they’re like, “That happened, really?” But, I think, the totality of the film portrays them in an accurate and, I hope, sort of conveys my affection/identification with them. This is your second film with cinematographer Lee Daniel, who is kind of an Austin legend. How did you meet him and start working with him? It was essentially because he was a huge Roky Erickson fan, who’s the subject of my first documentary. And we had talked to the Erickson family, and had agreed to do it, and we raised the money to do it, and we were like, who’ll we get to shoot this? It was my first film; I had no experience. I was a total idiot. And our producer was like, “Why don’t we try Lee Daniel?” and I was like, “No way. He’ll never do it. Are you kidding?” So, I met with him, and he was totally into it and totally generous about the fact that I had no clue what I was doing. That’s actually why that film took so long, is because I was going to film school, because I had to screw everything up a couple of times before I even got it close to right. And then, we enjoyed working together, we worked on a couple of music videos, and I’d work with him on everything. He agreed to do this. There are so many times the camera held for several beats after a line and that made so many of the scenes have much more impact. Like the only I can, I know there are many, but the only one I can think of right now is when Elizabeth is talking with her, I guess, boyfriend at the table, and he says, “Unless we break up,” and she’s like, “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to happen.” And then it’s silence, silence… Heartbreaking. And then, she looks up at him, and he’s not saying anything, and you’re just like, ouch. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s heartbreaking. There are a lot of moments like that. Is that more Lee’s style, or yours, like keep the camera rolling for, you know, or does that just come out in editing? We shot it on HD, so you have much more flexibility in terms of just like letting stuff go, letting the camera roll and roll and roll, which is both an asset and a liability because, we shot You’re Gonna Miss Me on super 16, and so we had to be very careful about what we did. And here, you end up with a lot of options, but you also end up with 200 hours of footage, you know. But, it’s definitely like, for me, I love to have stuff, a lot of times the most important moments are when no one’s saying anything and when nothing seems to be happening, you know? And I also tend to like stuff that kind of sits on something longer, as you pointed out. I think, it was the combination of both of us, like Lee, it may be, also, that I’ve only, essentially, worked with Lee, mostly, in terms of documentary features, and that’s part of his style, too. So, you grew up in Dallas. Went to Harvard and studied film there? History and literature. Oh, wow. At what point did you get into filmmaking and move to Los Angeles? After college, I… You know, history and literature is the least practical major in the world, so I had no clue what I wanted to do. I went back to Dallas and worked as a music writer for a while. And then, I went to L.A. and did the same thing. And then, that period was essentially, you know, getting up the courage to start making a film or figure out how I was going to do that. And it occurred to me that the best, the simplest way to convince people that I could make a movie was to have it be a documentary about a musician. And also, I was obsessed with Roky Erickson, and I thought it would be, I was shocked that it a film hadn’t been made about it before. That was sort of the path into it, and again, I had a very naive and stupid view of making a documentary. I was like, well, you just shoot a bunch of stuff, and you edit it, and it’s, you know, and so it took quite awhile to get my head out of my ass. Not that I have it out now, but it’s a little further out than it was. How did you learn about editing? Essentially, I shot a bunch of stuff with Lee for You’re Gonna Miss Me. We had an editor, God bless him, who was there editing. And I was like, this is not, “You’re a terrible editor! Get out of here!” And then, I learned the software myself, and I realized, no, he’s not a terrible editor, I’m a terrible director. So, it was in that, and that process of learning how to edit really was where you sort of start to grasp the idea of what it means to be a director, because you don’t have any sense of how it’s going to fit together or how it might fit together until you’ve tried to go and do it yourself. So, it’s essentially in the six months after the first summer of shooting You’re Gonna Miss Me. Do you know what you’re going to be working on next, or have you thought that far ahead? I don’t. I’m doing a short film on a totally different tangent. I’m doing a short for an art exhibit in Berlin about, basically, homeland security. I don’t know what I’m going to do for that. But, I have to figure that out pretty quickly. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:01:58 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/15/2008 4:01:58 PM Keven McAlester’s second documentary The Dungeon Masters, which takes a look at three people who run Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, was at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. It could have easily been a comedic film, poking fun at people who are generally called geeks or nerds, but it ends up becoming an intimate glimpse of personalities and situations that are often touching and tragic. I sat down with Keven and talked to him about how he set about making this movie, how he got into documentary filmmaking and working with Lee Daniel, and how he was able to put together such a good look into the D&D lifestyle, despite having never played the game. Read on after the break for the interview. So, I watched the film last night. And the first thing I was struck with was I read the notes and noticed you’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons. How did this movie happen? Well, two things. One, the producers approached me and said they wanted to make a film, I think originally they had conceived it more as a history of D&D. You mean Hay and Manfredi? Yeah. And, we sort of threw the idea around and eventually realized it would be much more interesting to do it about people who play the game  not so much about the game itself, but sort of the fancy lives they create compared with their real lives. And then, what it ultimately came to was trying to triangulate the gestures in real life, however small they may be. I think, that’s what really interested me is sort of the idea of creating a fantasy world or a virtual self. Obviously, it’s become a cultural currency. Or the idea has become much more prevalent in the past ten or fifteen years, starting with Snow Crash, and then moving on to like now, Second Life and World of Warcraft. We also talked about maybe doing one about one of those games, but it seemed like it would be more visually interesting. And also, since D&D, people still play it rabidly. And there’s crossover between Warcraft, as you saw in the movie. That would be nice to sort of go back to the source. And then, I thought for myself in terms of not having played before, I thought it would help in a way just to explain it to someone who had no idea, because I had no idea. I knew that they rolled dice, but I didn’t even know what that was for. I didn’t know any of the terminology and stuff. I thought would help to sort of explain it quickly to the lay person at the beginning. Yeah. The good thing is, you didn’t get bogged down in that. You could have easily had 30 minutes about the history of D&D, and what it is to play, and what you do when you create a character, and that would have been I kind of boring I think. Instead you gave a pretty good set of layman’s notes for someone who has no idea about D&D. Well, I’m glad that happened, because there were versions of the film where there was 30 minutes. Like, “When you roll the dice…” and it just didn’t work. How did you find these people? Right when we started we decided to make it about gamers rather than the game itself, we went to GenCon and found Richard and Elizabeth. And then, Scott lived in California. We found him at another convention there. We basically went to conventions and watched people. We didn’t really ask people to be in the movie, we interviewed maybe 25 people, just to get a basic digital video, just trying to cast about. We didn’t ask them too many questions about their personal lives. We didn’t know any of that stuff that ended up happening in the film. Basically, we were looking for people who were passionate about the game and could talk about it clearly and interestingly. So, those were the three that really stuck out for us. How many do you think you talked to? I would guess 20 to 25. There was a fourth character that we had loved, who we had much less material on that we were sort of trying to fit in, and that didn’t quite work. When you started was GenCon the first place you went to sort of explore the subject matter? Yeah. You don’t come from that world of gaming, so were you just blown away once you got there, or did you kind of know what to expect? No, I didn’t know what to expect. I was excited, first of all, that that many people were, because with D&D, it’s an old game, and there’s so many iterations and sort of new versions of it, and Magic, and different kinds of games people are into, so first of all, I was excited that that many people were still into it. And also, I was excited that we would have, you know, such a vast set of potential subjects for the film. So, it was overwhelming once we started doing it, because we were like, we could interview everyone here. We might be missing the perfect person, but ultimately, the people in the film are the first few people we interviewed. Did you just approach people, or did the word kind of spread that oh, there’s these filmmakers talking to people… The spreading the word thing didn’t work at all. We had to approach them and kind of say, would you come meet us at three o’clock, and you know, a lot of times I talked to them before the camera was rolling, and just, it was, again, they were skeptical, as anyone would be. I can’t blame them. I’m not quite sure how to word this question. A strange thing for me recently, I was at a party with a lot of younger people that were in their early twenties. I have some friends that work at a university in LA, and I go to their parties sometimes. And this guy and I bonded. He’s probably in his really early twenties, and we had a similar sense of humor, similar movie tastes, stuff like that. So, about all that, he adds me on Facebook and then, he sends me this email, he’s like, “Hey man, just wondering if you’d be interested in this. I dungeon master a D&D game one Saturday a month. We’re just getting started, and we’d love to add another character.” And I was just like, what? I have not played since junior high school, which was a long time ago. And even then I barely played. I knew how the game worked, but we’d get together and kind of goof around, and not really play. So, I was like all right. So, I started going. And everyone in this group is pretty nonstereotypical players. There’s an attractive girl who’s not crazy, not to call Elizabeth in the film crazy, but are you worried that, because you focus on these three people, that they sort of seem like the stereotypical D&D player? I don’t know how nonplayers see it, but, was there ever a moment where you were like, ok, let’s find people who don’t fit this mold. Or were these just people you found so interesting, and you though this is the story we need to tell? I know what you’re saying. I don’t think we ever really thought of it in those terms. I’m not even sure what a stereotypical gamer or not is. But, for instance, the guy who was in the army and has a day job and a wife and everything, that seemed like just a relatively normal life. I think, anybody that you dig into their lives, it becomes atypical, which I think is what’s great about making documentaries. There was a time where we considered finding famous people who played, things like that. But again, we felt like it would detract from the sort of like small victories that these people… Well, you thank Patton Oswalt in the credits. And he’s kind of famously into this realm of gaming and D&D. How was he involved? I know, him in LA, and we’ve talked extensively about the film, because he has a weekly D&D game. And he’s been encouraging the project from the very beginning. So that was really his involvement. Have you shown it to him yet? He was there at the premiere. Oh, he was? Did he like it? Yeah, he loved it. At what point did it possibly come up, because like you said when you interview these people, you don’t find out everything about them. You’re only talking with them for a few minutes before you decide to focus on them. So, you’re in these people’s lives for a period of time. At what point does Richard say, “Oh, I’m a nudist, by the way.” [laughs] That was… how did that come up? I don’t really remember when that came up. But, the great thing about him, is there’s so many different seemingly incongruous facets to his character. All of them interesting. I don’t remember when it came up, but I found it very surprising, in a way that I hope is accurately conveyed in the film. Did you encounter any resistance in this, like, oh, you’re just going to do a piece showing us to be goofballs or something? Absolutely. I think, pretty much every gamer is suspicious of any kind of media, and the older gamers especially because in the 80s, there was so much portrayal of D&D as like this satanic cult that would drive your kids to suicide and heavy metal. And so, they were definitely suspicious, but once I sort of… Especially, obviously, with the main characters, but even, once you sort of sit down with them and talk to them and the questions you ask, once they sort of see what you’re asking and you’re not asking those sort of, like, you know, “What does your church think of this?” Or whatever, then they’re pretty open. Scott really seems to go through the biggest emotional arc in the film. How did that come about? Well, also, for me, you know, I identified so much with his character in certain ways just because of the struggle of making something, and also, I think that, ultimately, that because he was in California, we had the most access to him, so we were able to sort of like build the film around that stuff. I imagine the editing process took awhile for this. Was there stuff you had to, well, you said you had to lose one character. Was there other stuff with the characters that we do see in the film that you had to lose, that you had to cut out? There was some great stuff, but all of it was essentially sort of tangential storytelling. There were no important character details or anything like that. Most of what was cut out that I would love to see in it is just Scott sort of telling stories about his life, because he has a way of telling almost any story like pretty hilariously, so, there were stories about him, you know, getting a vasectomy, and it was just the funniest recounting of that experience that you can imagine. But, other than that, at the end of the day, you sort of, like you watch a two and a half hour cut and you’re thinking, “I can never take anything out of this!” And then, you know, an hour of cuts later, you don’t even remember what was in there. Were there moments where, you know, every documentary filmmaker I’ve talked to has always said there’s moments where they’re like, this is the dumbest idea I ever had, and no one’s going to want to watch this. And then there are those moments where you’re like, lightning strikes, and you’re just like, “Oh my god. Please tell me the camera was rolling on that.” Did you have any moments like that on either side? Well, I think, in terms of the… like no one’s ever going to want to watch this, as you know, a game of D&D itself, very slow, and really, essentially, boring to watch. And we had to film an eight hour game just to get the 30 seconds that we use, so there were probably three or four of those shoots where Lee, or if it was, you know, occasionally we had like a second unit DP, they’d be like, “What are we doing?” I trust you, but I have no idea how you’re going to make this into a movie. And then, in terms of the camera rolling, I would have been bummed if almost anything in the movie hadn’t turned out to be it. I don’t remember anything specifically that couldn’t have been portrayed in some other way, but let me think. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything that stuck out for me more than anything else. I mean, obviously, if the premiere of Scott’s show had not come out, it would have been a real tragedy. Because that’s really, to me, the emotional peak of the movie. Have any of the subjects seen the film? Have you sent them the film? Well, that’s a good question. I sort of feel like it’s a documentarian’s responsibility to show it to subjects first. Unfortunately, I finished the sound on maybe Tuesday of last week, Wednesday of last week. So, I didn’t have a chance to show it to them yet, but I’m actually going to do that next week. I feel, I mean, it sucks, but it’s only three screenings. It’s not the end of the world, but I do feel like these people have trusted you and you want to have their reaction first. So, I regret that that had to turn out that way, but you know, it’s better than showing it to them without sound. Do you think they’re going to like it? I think so. I mean, I don’t there’s anything in there that will be surprising to them or that they’ll feel inaccurately portrayed. It’s always hard to see yourself on camera. And we spent such a long time with them that I’m sure there’ll be points where they’re like, “That happened, really?” But, I think, the totality of the film portrays them in an accurate and, I hope, sort of conveys my affection/identification with them. This is your second film with cinematographer Lee Daniel, who is kind of an Austin legend. How did you meet him and start working with him? It was essentially because he was a huge Roky Erickson fan, who’s the subject of my first documentary. And we had talked to the Erickson family, and had agreed to do it, and we raised the money to do it, and we were like, who’ll we get to shoot this? It was my first film; I had no experience. I was a total idiot. And our producer was like, “Why don’t we try Lee Daniel?” and I was like, “No way. He’ll never do it. Are you kidding?” So, I met with him, and he was totally into it and totally generous about the fact that I had no clue what I was doing. That’s actually why that film took so long, is because I was going to film school, because I had to screw everything up a couple of times before I even got it close to right. And then, we enjoyed working together, we worked on a couple of music videos, and I’d work with him on everything. He agreed to do this. There are so many times the camera held for several beats after a line and that made so many of the scenes have much more impact. Like the only I can, I know there are many, but the only one I can think of right now is when Elizabeth is talking with her, I guess, boyfriend at the table, and he says, “Unless we break up,” and she’s like, “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to happen.” And then it’s silence, silence… Heartbreaking. And then, she looks up at him, and he’s not saying anything, and you’re just like, ouch. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s heartbreaking. There are a lot of moments like that. Is that more Lee’s style, or yours, like keep the camera rolling for, you know, or does that just come out in editing? We shot it on HD, so you have much more flexibility in terms of just like letting stuff go, letting the camera roll and roll and roll, which is both an asset and a liability because, we shot You’re Gonna Miss Me on super 16, and so we had to be very careful about what we did. And here, you end up with a lot of options, but you also end up with 200 hours of footage, you know. But, it’s definitely like, for me, I love to have stuff, a lot of times the most important moments are when no one’s saying anything and when nothing seems to be happening, you know? And I also tend to like stuff that kind of sits on something longer, as you pointed out. I think, it was the combination of both of us, like Lee, it may be, also, that I’ve only, essentially, worked with Lee, mostly, in terms of documentary features, and that’s part of his style, too. So, you grew up in Dallas. Went to Harvard and studied film there? History and literature. Oh, wow. At what point did you get into filmmaking and move to Los Angeles? After college, I… You know, history and literature is the least practical major in the world, so I had no clue what I wanted to do. I went back to Dallas and worked as a music writer for a while. And then, I went to L.A. and did the same thing. And then, that period was essentially, you know, getting up the courage to start making a film or figure out how I was going to do that. And it occurred to me that the best, the simplest way to convince people that I could make a movie was to have it be a documentary about a musician. And also, I was obsessed with Roky Erickson, and I thought it would be, I was shocked that it a film hadn’t been made about it before. That was sort of the path into it, and again, I had a very naive and stupid view of making a documentary. I was like, well, you just shoot a bunch of stuff, and you edit it, and it’s, you know, and so it took quite awhile to get my head out of my ass. Not that I have it out now, but it’s a little further out than it was. How did you learn about editing? Essentially, I shot a bunch of stuff with Lee for You’re Gonna Miss Me. We had an editor, God bless him, who was there editing. And I was like, this is not, “You’re a terrible editor! Get out of here!” And then, I learned the software myself, and I realized, no, he’s not a terrible editor, I’m a terrible director. So, it was in that, and that process of learning how to edit really was where you sort of start to grasp the idea of what it means to be a director, because you don’t have any sense of how it’s going to fit together or how it might fit together until you’ve tried to go and do it yourself. So, it’s essentially in the six months after the first summer of shooting You’re Gonna Miss Me. Do you know what you’re going to be working on next, or have you thought that far ahead? I don’t. I’m doing a short film on a totally different tangent. I’m doing a short for an art exhibit in Berlin about, basically, homeland security. I don’t know what I’m going to do for that. But, I have to figure that out pretty quickly. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/15/35145.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/15/2008 11:00:43 AM
Body: One of my favorite things about film festivals is the chance you’ll have at seeing something that you’d probably never come across otherwise when you visit the multiplex or browse your rental queue. When the Toronto International Film Festival schedule was released last month and I saw Keven McMcAlester’s documentary about Dungeons & Dragons gamemasters, The Dungeon Masters, listed, I knew I had to see it. It wasn’t that I’d seen Keven’s earlier documentary about Roky Erickson, You’re Gonna Miss Me, and wanted to see this, nor did I want to see what fine cinematography Lee Daniel had crafted for the movie. No, I wanted to see this one for the geek in me. Heck, it even made Karina’s list of Films We’re Betting On for TIFF, and she doesn’t dole out the nerd love lightly. Although Dungeons & Dragons came out in 1974, the game is still played across the world, and has directly contributed to the creation and success of online sword and sorcery games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest. Almost everyone you as about the game knows that there’s a certain nerdy/geeky vibe associated with it, although most people probably couldn’t tell you anything else about it. The Dungeons Masters attempts to show you the personalities behind the dice-rolling by taking intimate looks inside the lives of three different dungeon masters who, in effect, become the game themselves. Dungeons & Dragons isn’t like Monopoly or Scrabble in the way that you play until you win. The game relies on a clever dungeon master to create roles, make up stories, plan encounters, and basically run the game as long as people want to keep playing. At face value, you’re role-playing in this game, telling the dungeon master what your character is doing at each step along the way. I’ll never forget when I was in junior high school and my best friend handed me a set of poorly photocopied instruction manuals for the game. I was instantly hooked in the lore of the game, but never became much of a player. Keven McAlester was lucky enough to find people who make running these games a big part of their lives. The three subjects of the film are Richard, Scott, and Elizabeth and at face value, they all seem to be cut from the stereotypical images of D&D players. Richard and Scott seem like clones of the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, while Elizabeth is bit closer to Thora Birch in Ghost World with a few extra doses of geek thrown into the mix. Although they are spread out in California, Lousiana and Florida, they share similar experiences. If you break them down to the simplest levels, Elizabeth is the heroine of the story, going from an abusive relationship to one that doesn’t work, to yet another one by the end of the film. By her own admission, “I don’t want to date children anymore, I just want to be happy.” She uses gaming as an outlet by playing (and dressing up as) a female Drow elf, because in their society women have all the power and can have men executed if they desire. Besides dungeon mastering, she also LARPs (live action role plays) as her elf character Richard portrays the antagonist’s role, and even has a villainous mustache to match. He relishes destroying and killing his players, and you can see the naked glee on his face as he begins picking them apart. He’s also serving in the U.S. Army reserves, has a family he served as a father figure for that he’s now somewhat alienated from, and is married to a woman who doesn’t have a problem with his gaming, as long as she doesn’t know anything about it. “That’s just one of the things we do… separately.” Scott serves as the tragic figure: an unemployed self-described writer who can’t find work as a hypnotherapist, and who realized you had to have money to make money as a financial advisor. He suffered a blow when he was a geeky kid at a new school and realized he could reinvent himself, and told the teacher he wanted to be called Sherlock. “My social life didn’t recover for a very long time.” Although he seemingly lays around the house all day, sometimes tinkering with his novel and playing video games rather than looking for work or helping his wife with their apartment manager position, you still pull for him to succeed. Each time Scott meets with his literary agent, you hope she’ll tell him the book has sold, and when Scott starts writing and starring in a public cable access show called “Uncle Drac’s Magical Clubhouse,” you actually want something to happen with it. Despite everything else, Scott’s a gifted storyteller in search of an outlet, which is why he says “If I could do anything, I’d want to be a paid game master.” The film could have easily taken these characters and just made fun of them, but once you get past the geek factor, it remains a portrait of three very different individuals, and you get an intimate look into their lives. The gaming almost becomes peripheral as you find out who these people are and what drives they are like at home, at work, and in their own worlds. The cinematography by Lee Daniel is, as expected, extremely beautiful. Blonde Redhead provides a musical score that is at times sad and melancholy, and other times is grand and cinematic, which is often juxtaposed by what you see on screen. Coming on the heels of a year of geek films behind Second Skin, Nerdcore Rising, Reformat the Planet, and We Are Wizards, The Dungeon Masters is a well-crafted film that peeks behind the curtain of role-playing games and gives you an unflinching look at three people who have made gaming one of their creative outlets. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:00:43 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/15/2008 11:00:43 AM One of my favorite things about film festivals is the chance you’ll have at seeing something that you’d probably never come across otherwise when you visit the multiplex or browse your rental queue. When the Toronto International Film Festival schedule was released last month and I saw Keven McMcAlester’s documentary about Dungeons & Dragons gamemasters, The Dungeon Masters, listed, I knew I had to see it. It wasn’t that I’d seen Keven’s earlier documentary about Roky Erickson, You’re Gonna Miss Me, and wanted to see this, nor did I want to see what fine cinematography Lee Daniel had crafted for the movie. No, I wanted to see this one for the geek in me. Heck, it even made Karina’s list of Films We’re Betting On for TIFF, and she doesn’t dole out the nerd love lightly. Although Dungeons & Dragons came out in 1974, the game is still played across the world, and has directly contributed to the creation and success of online sword and sorcery games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest. Almost everyone you as about the game knows that there’s a certain nerdy/geeky vibe associated with it, although most people probably couldn’t tell you anything else about it. The Dungeons Masters attempts to show you the personalities behind the dice-rolling by taking intimate looks inside the lives of three different dungeon masters who, in effect, become the game themselves. Dungeons & Dragons isn’t like Monopoly or Scrabble in the way that you play until you win. The game relies on a clever dungeon master to create roles, make up stories, plan encounters, and basically run the game as long as people want to keep playing. At face value, you’re role-playing in this game, telling the dungeon master what your character is doing at each step along the way. I’ll never forget when I was in junior high school and my best friend handed me a set of poorly photocopied instruction manuals for the game. I was instantly hooked in the lore of the game, but never became much of a player. Keven McAlester was lucky enough to find people who make running these games a big part of their lives. The three subjects of the film are Richard, Scott, and Elizabeth and at face value, they all seem to be cut from the stereotypical images of D&D players. Richard and Scott seem like clones of the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, while Elizabeth is bit closer to Thora Birch in Ghost World with a few extra doses of geek thrown into the mix. Although they are spread out in California, Lousiana and Florida, they share similar experiences. If you break them down to the simplest levels, Elizabeth is the heroine of the story, going from an abusive relationship to one that doesn’t work, to yet another one by the end of the film. By her own admission, “I don’t want to date children anymore, I just want to be happy.” She uses gaming as an outlet by playing (and dressing up as) a female Drow elf, because in their society women have all the power and can have men executed if they desire. Besides dungeon mastering, she also LARPs (live action role plays) as her elf character Richard portrays the antagonist’s role, and even has a villainous mustache to match. He relishes destroying and killing his players, and you can see the naked glee on his face as he begins picking them apart. He’s also serving in the U.S. Army reserves, has a family he served as a father figure for that he’s now somewhat alienated from, and is married to a woman who doesn’t have a problem with his gaming, as long as she doesn’t know anything about it. “That’s just one of the things we do… separately.” Scott serves as the tragic figure: an unemployed self-described writer who can’t find work as a hypnotherapist, and who realized you had to have money to make money as a financial advisor. He suffered a blow when he was a geeky kid at a new school and realized he could reinvent himself, and told the teacher he wanted to be called Sherlock. “My social life didn’t recover for a very long time.” Although he seemingly lays around the house all day, sometimes tinkering with his novel and playing video games rather than looking for work or helping his wife with their apartment manager position, you still pull for him to succeed. Each time Scott meets with his literary agent, you hope she’ll tell him the book has sold, and when Scott starts writing and starring in a public cable access show called “Uncle Drac’s Magical Clubhouse,” you actually want something to happen with it. Despite everything else, Scott’s a gifted storyteller in search of an outlet, which is why he says “If I could do anything, I’d want to be a paid game master.” The film could have easily taken these characters and just made fun of them, but once you get past the geek factor, it remains a portrait of three very different individuals, and you get an intimate look into their lives. The gaming almost becomes peripheral as you find out who these people are and what drives they are like at home, at work, and in their own worlds. The cinematography by Lee Daniel is, as expected, extremely beautiful. Blonde Redhead provides a musical score that is at times sad and melancholy, and other times is grand and cinematic, which is often juxtaposed by what you see on screen. Coming on the heels of a year of geek films behind Second Skin, Nerdcore Rising, Reformat the Planet, and We Are Wizards, The Dungeon Masters is a well-crafted film that peeks behind the curtain of role-playing games and gives you an unflinching look at three people who have made gaming one of their creative outlets. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/9/4/34742.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 9/4/2008 12:01:36 PM
Body: The 2008 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival begins today, and Kevin Kelly and I will be there for the next ten days reporting back. What follows is not exactly an iron-clad preview of our Toronto coverage––in addition to some of the films below, I’m definitely planning to see new works by Claire Denis, Agnes Varda, Jonathan Demme and Richard Linklater, and would of course recommend that anyone on the ground see some of my favorites from past festivals, including Medicine for Melancholy and A Christmas Tale. This is more of a list of predictions of what everyone else is going to be talking about, while I’m pushing my glasses up my nose and rushing to to the next screening of the a South Korean movie about drunken lonliness. Enjoy! If you have your own predictions for what will catch fire in Ontario, let us know in the comments. 1. Zach and Miri Make a Porno (TIFF screening info) Obviously, anything with “porno” in the title has a certain automatic contingent (hello, Google searchers! Sorry to disappoint!) But then, so does anything with the credit “written and directed by Kevin Smith.” And then there’s the leading man. Some perspective: Smith’s last three films have grossed an average of $26 million each; the last three films starring Seth Rogen have grossed an average of $117 million each. With Jay and Silent Bob finally retired (we think/hope), and Rogen in tow for the usual, MPAA-baiting Smithism, Porno could––however ironically––become what Jersey Girl was supposed to be: the tipping point that expands the Smith fan base beyond the longtime Clerks faithful. 2. Slumdog Millionaire (TIFF screening info) Crowdpleasers make me itch. But then, to borrow a line from David Fincher, I’m an asshole. Assuming you are not, you might be interested to know that Slumdog Millionaire shows all the symptoms of becoming The Next Juno. Like Juno, Slumdog premiered in a TBA slot at Telluride, where reaction from all but our own Kevin Buist was enthusiastic, even hyperbolically so. Also ike Juno, it’s a music-fueled piece of pop art in which young love results from unlikely circumstances. And, thanks to Warner Brothers’ loss of faith in this tier of the distribution market, it’s now being distributed by Fox Searchlight––just like Juno. If looking for The Next Juno is now part of our jobs, at least Searchlight is taking all the arduous work out of it. 3. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (TIFF screening info) Speaking of two devils…Michael Cera, of course, had a pretty great 2007 as an associate of both Judd Apatow and Diablo Cody, and  I think at this point, he’s star enough to guarantee some festival buzz on his own. But even more interesting is his paring in Nick and Norah with Kat Dennings, the actress who played Catherine Keener’s daughter in the 40 Year-Old Virgin, who is quickly becoming a target of fan worship on YouTube. In a video called Kat Dennings sexiest woman alive, YouTube user concedes that inkamagonkhpjacki Dennings might actually be second to Angelina Jolie, which is fitting; like the young Jolie, Dennings is a little busty, a little reckless-looking, maybe even a little goth, but––and this is *not* like the sometime Gia impersonator––at the same time kind of goofy and totally unintimidating. In the most recent video on her own YouTube channel, she puts a blanket on her head, wraps stuffed animals around her shoulders like a fur stole, then grabs a guitar and shrugs: “I don’t know, I like reading.” More, please. Also: I’m pretending like the character names (based on a book of the same name) are a Thin Man reference. 4. The Dungeon Masters (TIFF screening info) The pedigree: Director Keven McAlester, whose last film was the festival hit Roky Erickson doc, You’re Gonna Miss Me; and Lee Daniel, the cinematographer of Miss Me as well as much of Richard Linklater’s filmography. The hook: a year-long glimpse into the lives of three adults who are really into Dungeons and Dragons. The verdict: irresistible bait for both indie film nerds and nerd nerds, and, if McAlester’s previous work is any indication, likely more probing and sensitive a portrait than the logline might at first glance indicate. 5. Pedro (TIFF screening info) Produced by Wash Westmoreland (whose Quincinera won the grand prize at Sundance in 2006), Nick Oceano’s first feature is an examination of the birth of reality TV as factory for both new celebrities and cultural attitudes, via the life and early death of Pedro Zamora, AIDS activist and cast member of the Real World San Francisco, The Movie. Which sounds very important, as does the fact that this is (I believe) the first fictional film that will ostensibly reenact moments from reality TV. But we’ll excuse you if you read the above and thought only, “OMG, Puck! OMG, the peanut butter fight!!!” 6.  Religulous (TIFF screening info) Why anyone takes Bill Maher’s Borscht Belt-to-Venice Beach schtick seriously I don’t know (I suspect that if he didn’t have a Bush Jr to play off, his primary cause would be Legalizing It), but Religulous hardly needs to convert me, or anyone else. In a year in which Ben Stein’s Expelled has become the top grossing non-fiction film––beating Martin Scorsese and the Stones––by playing in non-traditional venues and appealing strictly to an audience already in its “give intelligent design a chance” wheelhouse, and in which a Republican presidential candidate picks a running mate whose conservative social politics seem like bait for the neo-conservative party wing said presidential candidate used to claim he wasn’t beholden to, it seems clear that faith is the sleeper issue of the day. I may take issue with his cringey jokes, but I still see no reason to underestimate the impact Maher and his Religulous director/savvier comic provacateur Larry Charles will have on the large portion of the typical film festival audience with which their choir overlaps. 7.  Valentino: The Last Emperor (TIFF screening info) Reviews out of Venice grumbled about a lack of depth in Valentino’s setting but offered praise for the poignancy of the characters. For those of us who have been longing for a fully-realized epic fashion doc since Unzipped––or, a semi-serious, semi-guilty pleasure celebrity doc full of cheap but completely satisfying La Dolce Vita references since Truth or Dare––Valentino, directed by Vanity Fair reporter Matt Tyrnauer, shouldn’t disappoint. 8.  Che (TIFF screening info) Steven Soderbergh’s troubled epic might have placed higher on the list had its once-dire distribution situation not recently began to look up, but it’s still by all means impossible to argue against its status as a must-see. Che will have one screening in Toronto in its 262 minute incarnation; Parts 1 and 2 will then screen twice on their own. Just having the ability to Choose Your Che should cause a certain amount of chatter. I’m imagining (and sort of fearing) the arguments from Che completists over The Right Way To See It as we speak. 9.  The Hurt Locker (TIFF screening info) One of a number of films at TIFF dealing with soldiers either in, just returned from, or on their way to Iraq (see also 3 Blind Mice, Lucky Ones). The Hurt Locker has an obvious advantage within a micro-genre of films that have tended to fall pretty flat with both audiences and critics: it’s essentially a big-budget action thriller. And it’s directed by Kathryn Bigelow of Strange Days and Point Break fame, so it’s got a good chance of putting action above ideology without being totally brainless. 10.  Paris, Not France (TIFF Screening info) As Charles Aaron used to say, I give. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:01:36 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog9/4/2008 12:01:36 PMThe 2008 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival begins today, and Kevin Kelly and I will be there for the next ten days reporting back. What follows is not exactly an iron-clad preview of our Toronto coverage––in addition to some of the films below, I’m definitely planning to see new works by Claire Denis, Agnes Varda, Jonathan Demme and Richard Linklater, and would of course recommend that anyone on the ground see some of my favorites from past festivals, including Medicine for Melancholy and A Christmas Tale. This is more of a list of predictions of what everyone else is going to be talking about, while I’m pushing my glasses up my nose and rushing to to the next screening of the a South Korean movie about drunken lonliness. Enjoy! If you have your own predictions for what will catch fire in Ontario, let us know in the comments. 1. Zach and Miri Make a Porno (TIFF screening info) Obviously, anything with “porno” in the title has a certain automatic contingent (hello, Google searchers! Sorry to disappoint!) But then, so does anything with the credit “written and directed by Kevin Smith.” And then there’s the leading man. Some perspective: Smith’s last three films have grossed an average of $26 million each; the last three films starring Seth Rogen have grossed an average of $117 million each. With Jay and Silent Bob finally retired (we think/hope), and Rogen in tow for the usual, MPAA-baiting Smithism, Porno could––however ironically––become what Jersey Girl was supposed to be: the tipping point that expands the Smith fan base beyond the longtime Clerks faithful. 2. Slumdog Millionaire (TIFF screening info) Crowdpleasers make me itch. But then, to borrow a line from David Fincher, I’m an asshole. Assuming you are not, you might be interested to know that Slumdog Millionaire shows all the symptoms of becoming The Next Juno. Like Juno, Slumdog premiered in a TBA slot at Telluride, where reaction from all but our own Kevin Buist was enthusiastic, even hyperbolically so. Also ike Juno, it’s a music-fueled piece of pop art in which young love results from unlikely circumstances. And, thanks to Warner Brothers’ loss of faith in this tier of the distribution market, it’s now being distributed by Fox Searchlight––just like Juno. If looking for The Next Juno is now part of our jobs, at least Searchlight is taking all the arduous work out of it. 3. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (TIFF screening info) Speaking of two devils…Michael Cera, of course, had a pretty great 2007 as an associate of both Judd Apatow and Diablo Cody, and  I think at this point, he’s star enough to guarantee some festival buzz on his own. But even more interesting is his paring in Nick and Norah with Kat Dennings, the actress who played Catherine Keener’s daughter in the 40 Year-Old Virgin, who is quickly becoming a target of fan worship on YouTube. In a video called Kat Dennings sexiest woman alive, YouTube user concedes that inkamagonkhpjacki Dennings might actually be second to Angelina Jolie, which is fitting; like the young Jolie, Dennings is a little busty, a little reckless-looking, maybe even a little goth, but––and this is *not* like the sometime Gia impersonator––at the same time kind of goofy and totally unintimidating. In the most recent video on her own YouTube channel, she puts a blanket on her head, wraps stuffed animals around her shoulders like a fur stole, then grabs a guitar and shrugs: “I don’t know, I like reading.” More, please. Also: I’m pretending like the character names (based on a book of the same name) are a Thin Man reference. 4. The Dungeon Masters (TIFF screening info) The pedigree: Director Keven McAlester, whose last film was the festival hit Roky Erickson doc, You’re Gonna Miss Me; and Lee Daniel, the cinematographer of Miss Me as well as much of Richard Linklater’s filmography. The hook: a year-long glimpse into the lives of three adults who are really into Dungeons and Dragons. The verdict: irresistible bait for both indie film nerds and nerd nerds, and, if McAlester’s previous work is any indication, likely more probing and sensitive a portrait than the logline might at first glance indicate. 5. Pedro (TIFF screening info) Produced by Wash Westmoreland (whose Quincinera won the grand prize at Sundance in 2006), Nick Oceano’s first feature is an examination of the birth of reality TV as factory for both new celebrities and cultural attitudes, via the life and early death of Pedro Zamora, AIDS activist and cast member of the Real World San Francisco, The Movie. Which sounds very important, as does the fact that this is (I believe) the first fictional film that will ostensibly reenact moments from reality TV. But we’ll excuse you if you read the above and thought only, “OMG, Puck! OMG, the peanut butter fight!!!” 6.  Religulous (TIFF screening info) Why anyone takes Bill Maher’s Borscht Belt-to-Venice Beach schtick seriously I don’t know (I suspect that if he didn’t have a Bush Jr to play off, his primary cause would be Legalizing It), but Religulous hardly needs to convert me, or anyone else. In a year in which Ben Stein’s Expelled has become the top grossing non-fiction film––beating Martin Scorsese and the Stones––by playing in non-traditional venues and appealing strictly to an audience already in its “give intelligent design a chance” wheelhouse, and in which a Republican presidential candidate picks a running mate whose conservative social politics seem like bait for the neo-conservative party wing said presidential candidate used to claim he wasn’t beholden to, it seems clear that faith is the sleeper issue of the day. I may take issue with his cringey jokes, but I still see no reason to underestimate the impact Maher and his Religulous director/savvier comic provacateur Larry Charles will have on the large portion of the typical film festival audience with which their choir overlaps. 7.  Valentino: The Last Emperor (TIFF screening info) Reviews out of Venice grumbled about a lack of depth in Valentino’s setting but offered praise for the poignancy of the characters. For those of us who have been longing for a fully-realized epic fashion doc since Unzipped––or, a semi-serious, semi-guilty pleasure celebrity doc full of cheap but completely satisfying La Dolce Vita references since Truth or Dare––Valentino, directed by Vanity Fair reporter Matt Tyrnauer, shouldn’t disappoint. 8.  Che (TIFF screening info) Steven Soderbergh’s troubled epic might have placed higher on the list had its once-dire distribution situation not recently began to look up, but it’s still by all means impossible to argue against its status as a must-see. Che will have one screening in Toronto in its 262 minute incarnation; Parts 1 and 2 will then screen twice on their own. Just having the ability to Choose Your Che should cause a certain amount of chatter. I’m imagining (and sort of fearing) the arguments from Che completists over The Right Way To See It as we speak. 9.  The Hurt Locker (TIFF screening info) One of a number of films at TIFF dealing with soldiers either in, just returned from, or on their way to Iraq (see also 3 Blind Mice, Lucky Ones). The Hurt Locker has an obvious advantage within a micro-genre of films that have tended to fall pretty flat with both audiences and critics: it’s essentially a big-budget action thriller. And it’s directed by Kathryn Bigelow of Strange Days and Point Break fame, so it’s got a good chance of putting action above ideology without being totally brainless. 10.  Paris, Not France (TIFF Screening info) As Charles Aaron used to say, I give. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/4/34741.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/4/2008 12:01:21 PM
Body: The 2008 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival begins today, and Kevin Kelly and I will be there for the next ten days reporting back. What follows is not exactly an iron-clad preview of our Toronto coverage––in addition to some of the films below, I’m definitely planning to see new works by Claire Denis, Agnes Varda, Jonathan Demme and Richard Linklater, and would of course recommend that anyone on the ground see some of my favorites from past festivals, including Medicine for Melancholy and A Christmas Tale. This is more of a list of predictions of what everyone else is going to be talking about, while I’m pushing my glasses up my nose and rushing to to the next screening of the a South Korean movie about drunken lonliness. Enjoy! If you have your own predictions for what will catch fire in Ontario, let us know in the comments. 1. Zach and Miri Make a Porno (TIFF screening info) Obviously, anything with “porno” in the title has a certain automatic contingent (hello, Google searchers! Sorry to disappoint!) But then, so does anything with the credit “written and directed by Kevin Smith.” And then there’s the leading man. Some perspective: Smith’s last three films have grossed an average of $26 million each; the last three films starring Seth Rogen have grossed an average of $117 million each. With Jay and Silent Bob finally retired (we think/hope), and Rogen in tow for the usual, MPAA-baiting Smithism, Porno could––however ironically––become what Jersey Girl was supposed to be: the tipping point that expands the Smith fan base beyond the longtime Clerks faithful. 2. Slumdog Millionaire (TIFF screening info) Crowdpleasers make me itch. But then, to borrow a line from David Fincher, I’m an asshole. Assuming you are not, you might be interested to know that Slumdog Millionaire shows all the symptoms of becoming The Next Juno. Like Juno, Slumdog premiered in a TBA slot at Telluride, where reaction from all but our own Kevin Buist was enthusiastic, even hyperbolically so. Also ike Juno, it’s a music-fueled piece of pop art in which young love results from unlikely circumstances. And, thanks to Warner Brothers’ loss of faith in this tier of the distribution market, it’s now being distributed by Fox Searchlight––just like Juno. If looking for The Next Juno is now part of our jobs, at least Searchlight is taking all the arduous work out of it. 3. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (TIFF screening info) Speaking of two devils…Michael Cera, of course, had a pretty great 2007 as an associate of both Judd Apatow and Diablo Cody, and  I think at this point, he’s star enough to guarantee some festival buzz on his own. But even more interesting is his paring in Nick and Norah with Kat Dennings, the actress who played Catherine Keener’s daughter in the 40 Year-Old Virgin, who is quickly becoming a target of fan worship on YouTube. In a video called Kat Dennings sexiest woman alive, YouTube user concedes that inkamagonkhpjacki Dennings might actually be second to Angelina Jolie, which is fitting; like the young Jolie, Dennings is a little busty, a little reckless-looking, maybe even a little goth, but––and this is *not* like the sometime Gia impersonator––at the same time kind of goofy and totally unintimidating. In the most recent video on her own YouTube channel, she puts a blanket on her head, wraps stuffed animals around her shoulders like a fur stole, then grabs a guitar and shrugs: “I don’t know, I like reading.” More, please. Also: I’m pretending like the character names (based on a book of the same name) are a Thin Man reference. 4. The Dungeon Masters (TIFF screening info) The pedigree: Director Keven McAlester, whose last film was the festival hit Roky Erickson doc, You’re Gonna Miss Me; and Lee Daniel, the cinematographer of Miss Me as well as much of Richard Linklater’s filmography. The hook: a year-long glimpse into the lives of three adults who are really into Dungeons and Dragons. The verdict: irresistible bait for both indie film nerds and nerd nerds, and, if McAlester’s previous work is any indication, likely more probing and sensitive a portrait than the logline might at first glance indicate. 5. Pedro (TIFF screening info) Produced by Wash Westmoreland (whose Quincinera won the grand prize at Sundance in 2006), Nick Oceano’s first feature is an examination of the birth of reality TV as factory for both new celebrities and cultural attitudes, via the life and early death of Pedro Zamora, AIDS activist and cast member of the Real World San Francisco, The Movie. Which sounds very important, as does the fact that this is (I believe) the first fictional film that will ostensibly reenact moments from reality TV. But we’ll excuse you if you read the above and thought only, “OMG, Puck! OMG, the peanut butter fight!!!” 6.  Religulous (TIFF screening info) Why anyone takes Bill Maher’s Borscht Belt-to-Venice Beach schtick seriously I don’t know (I suspect that if he didn’t have a Bush Jr to play off, his primary cause would be Legalizing It), but Religulous hardly needs to convert me, or anyone else. In a year in which Ben Stein’s Expelled has become the top grossing non-fiction film––beating Martin Scorsese and the Stones––by playing in non-traditional venues and appealing strictly to an audience already in its “give intelligent design a chance” wheelhouse, and in which a Republican presidential candidate picks a running mate whose conservative social politics seem like bait for the neo-conservative party wing said presidential candidate used to claim he wasn’t beholden to, it seems clear that faith is the sleeper issue of the day. I may take issue with his cringey jokes, but I still see no reason to underestimate the impact Maher and his Religulous director/savvier comic provacateur Larry Charles will have on the large portion of the typical film festival audience with which their choir overlaps. 7.  Valentino: The Last Emperor (TIFF screening info) Reviews out of Venice grumbled about a lack of depth in Valentino’s setting but offered praise for the poignancy of the characters. For those of us who have been longing for a fully-realized epic fashion doc since Unzipped––or, a semi-serious, semi-guilty pleasure celebrity doc full of cheap but completely satisfying La Dolce Vita references since Truth or Dare––Valentino, directed by Vanity Fair reporter Matt Tyrnauer, shouldn’t disappoint. 8.  Che (TIFF screening info) Steven Soderbergh’s troubled epic might have placed higher on the list had its once-dire distribution situation not recently began to look up, but it’s still by all means impossible to argue against its status as a must-see. Che will have one screening in Toronto in its 262 minute incarnation; Parts 1 and 2 will then screen twice on their own. Just having the ability to Choose Your Che should cause a certain amount of chatter. I’m imagining (and sort of fearing) the arguments from Che completists over The Right Way To See It as we speak. 9.  The Hurt Locker (TIFF screening info) One of a number of films at TIFF dealing with soldiers either in, just returned from, or on their way to Iraq (see also 3 Blind Mice, Lucky Ones). The Hurt Locker has an obvious advantage within a micro-genre of films that have tended to fall pretty flat with both audiences and critics: it’s essentially a big-budget action thriller. And it’s directed by Kathryn Bigelow of Strange Days and Point Break fame, so it’s got a good chance of putting action above ideology without being totally brainless. 10.  Paris, Not France (TIFF Screening info) As Charles Aaron used to say, I give. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:01:21 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/4/2008 12:01:21 PMThe 2008 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival begins today, and Kevin Kelly and I will be there for the next ten days reporting back. What follows is not exactly an iron-clad preview of our Toronto coverage––in addition to some of the films below, I’m definitely planning to see new works by Claire Denis, Agnes Varda, Jonathan Demme and Richard Linklater, and would of course recommend that anyone on the ground see some of my favorites from past festivals, including Medicine for Melancholy and A Christmas Tale. This is more of a list of predictions of what everyone else is going to be talking about, while I’m pushing my glasses up my nose and rushing to to the next screening of the a South Korean movie about drunken lonliness. Enjoy! If you have your own predictions for what will catch fire in Ontario, let us know in the comments. 1. Zach and Miri Make a Porno (TIFF screening info) Obviously, anything with “porno” in the title has a certain automatic contingent (hello, Google searchers! Sorry to disappoint!) But then, so does anything with the credit “written and directed by Kevin Smith.” And then there’s the leading man. Some perspective: Smith’s last three films have grossed an average of $26 million each; the last three films starring Seth Rogen have grossed an average of $117 million each. With Jay and Silent Bob finally retired (we think/hope), and Rogen in tow for the usual, MPAA-baiting Smithism, Porno could––however ironically––become what Jersey Girl was supposed to be: the tipping point that expands the Smith fan base beyond the longtime Clerks faithful. 2. Slumdog Millionaire (TIFF screening info) Crowdpleasers make me itch. But then, to borrow a line from David Fincher, I’m an asshole. Assuming you are not, you might be interested to know that Slumdog Millionaire shows all the symptoms of becoming The Next Juno. Like Juno, Slumdog premiered in a TBA slot at Telluride, where reaction from all but our own Kevin Buist was enthusiastic, even hyperbolically so. Also ike Juno, it’s a music-fueled piece of pop art in which young love results from unlikely circumstances. And, thanks to Warner Brothers’ loss of faith in this tier of the distribution market, it’s now being distributed by Fox Searchlight––just like Juno. If looking for The Next Juno is now part of our jobs, at least Searchlight is taking all the arduous work out of it. 3. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (TIFF screening info) Speaking of two devils…Michael Cera, of course, had a pretty great 2007 as an associate of both Judd Apatow and Diablo Cody, and  I think at this point, he’s star enough to guarantee some festival buzz on his own. But even more interesting is his paring in Nick and Norah with Kat Dennings, the actress who played Catherine Keener’s daughter in the 40 Year-Old Virgin, who is quickly becoming a target of fan worship on YouTube. In a video called Kat Dennings sexiest woman alive, YouTube user concedes that inkamagonkhpjacki Dennings might actually be second to Angelina Jolie, which is fitting; like the young Jolie, Dennings is a little busty, a little reckless-looking, maybe even a little goth, but––and this is *not* like the sometime Gia impersonator––at the same time kind of goofy and totally unintimidating. In the most recent video on her own YouTube channel, she puts a blanket on her head, wraps stuffed animals around her shoulders like a fur stole, then grabs a guitar and shrugs: “I don’t know, I like reading.” More, please. Also: I’m pretending like the character names (based on a book of the same name) are a Thin Man reference. 4. The Dungeon Masters (TIFF screening info) The pedigree: Director Keven McAlester, whose last film was the festival hit Roky Erickson doc, You’re Gonna Miss Me; and Lee Daniel, the cinematographer of Miss Me as well as much of Richard Linklater’s filmography. The hook: a year-long glimpse into the lives of three adults who are really into Dungeons and Dragons. The verdict: irresistible bait for both indie film nerds and nerd nerds, and, if McAlester’s previous work is any indication, likely more probing and sensitive a portrait than the logline might at first glance indicate. 5. Pedro (TIFF screening info) Produced by Wash Westmoreland (whose Quincinera won the grand prize at Sundance in 2006), Nick Oceano’s first feature is an examination of the birth of reality TV as factory for both new celebrities and cultural attitudes, via the life and early death of Pedro Zamora, AIDS activist and cast member of the Real World San Francisco, The Movie. Which sounds very important, as does the fact that this is (I believe) the first fictional film that will ostensibly reenact moments from reality TV. But we’ll excuse you if you read the above and thought only, “OMG, Puck! OMG, the peanut butter fight!!!” 6.  Religulous (TIFF screening info) Why anyone takes Bill Maher’s Borscht Belt-to-Venice Beach schtick seriously I don’t know (I suspect that if he didn’t have a Bush Jr to play off, his primary cause would be Legalizing It), but Religulous hardly needs to convert me, or anyone else. In a year in which Ben Stein’s Expelled has become the top grossing non-fiction film––beating Martin Scorsese and the Stones––by playing in non-traditional venues and appealing strictly to an audience already in its “give intelligent design a chance” wheelhouse, and in which a Republican presidential candidate picks a running mate whose conservative social politics seem like bait for the neo-conservative party wing said presidential candidate used to claim he wasn’t beholden to, it seems clear that faith is the sleeper issue of the day. I may take issue with his cringey jokes, but I still see no reason to underestimate the impact Maher and his Religulous director/savvier comic provacateur Larry Charles will have on the large portion of the typical film festival audience with which their choir overlaps. 7.  Valentino: The Last Emperor (TIFF screening info) Reviews out of Venice grumbled about a lack of depth in Valentino’s setting but offered praise for the poignancy of the characters. For those of us who have been longing for a fully-realized epic fashion doc since Unzipped––or, a semi-serious, semi-guilty pleasure celebrity doc full of cheap but completely satisfying La Dolce Vita references since Truth or Dare––Valentino, directed by Vanity Fair reporter Matt Tyrnauer, shouldn’t disappoint. 8.  Che (TIFF screening info) Steven Soderbergh’s troubled epic might have placed higher on the list had its once-dire distribution situation not recently began to look up, but it’s still by all means impossible to argue against its status as a must-see. Che will have one screening in Toronto in its 262 minute incarnation; Parts 1 and 2 will then screen twice on their own. Just having the ability to Choose Your Che should cause a certain amount of chatter. I’m imagining (and sort of fearing) the arguments from Che completists over The Right Way To See It as we speak. 9.  The Hurt Locker (TIFF screening info) One of a number of films at TIFF dealing with soldiers either in, just returned from, or on their way to Iraq (see also 3 Blind Mice, Lucky Ones). The Hurt Locker has an obvious advantage within a micro-genre of films that have tended to fall pretty flat with both audiences and critics: it’s essentially a big-budget action thriller. And it’s directed by Kathryn Bigelow of Strange Days and Point Break fame, so it’s got a good chance of putting action above ideology without being totally brainless. 10.  Paris, Not France (TIFF Screening info) As Charles Aaron used to say, I give. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/documentary/MemberTagFilms.aspxdocumentary
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