Portrait: Lacey

Thanks to Lacey for sharing her story; I hope the sensation comes back.

Zombie Girl screening

http://www.austinfilm.org/Page.aspx?pid=785&cid=4&ceid=633&cerid=0&cdt=3%2f2%2f2010

Tue, 2 Mar, 2010 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
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Please join us on for a screening of the documentary feature film, Zombie Girl, followed by a Q&A with local filmmaker Aaron Marshall on Tuesday March 2 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30p.m. at the Windsor Park Branch, 5833 Westminster Dr. The screening is free and open to the public.

Zombie Girl chronicles the creative passion of Emily Hagins, an extraordinary pre-teen girl following her filmmaking dreams. Most twelve-year-olds are busy with friends, homework, and online chatting. So is Emily, but she found time to write and direct a feature-length zombie movie as well. Zombie Girl documents the exhilarating and heartbreaking two years it took her to make it. With the help of her mother as agent, crew, and biggest fan, Emily launches an epic adventure in genre filmmaking, battling everything from budget shortfalls to self-doubt, all while coming of age as a teenager.

Outside Event: 'Along Came Kinky'

Along Came Kinky (2009), dir. David Hartstein
It’s been a while, but I remember being phenomenally bored by The War Room, a documentary chronicling the 1992 presidential election. So the idea of a film by a first-time documentarian focusing on a campaign of a much smaller scale, the 2006 Texas gubernatorial campaign, did not fill me with confidence. I ended up being hugely and pleasantly surprised.
The film does take a while to get started. The beginning is mostly just Friedman spouting one-liners while his supporters sing his praises. There is no one with a negative word about Friedman and it seems impossible to imagine him losing. The whole thing feels like a political ad. However, the beginning is charming enough, because Friedman is such a fun character. And the rosy opening, although it goes on too long, effectively gets you into the mindset of a Friedman supporter. It also makes it that much more shocking when the edges begin to fray during the campaign. The real turning point comes during a press conference, when Friedman refers to Katrina evacuees in Houston as “crack heads.” It is a shockingly real moment in what has, up until that point, felt like a very calculated show. After that, the film is really in full swing and massively entertaining.
There are some intriguing elements in the second half of the film that feel like they are short changed by the length of the lighter opening. I wish the film could have delved a little deeper into Friedman’s persona. It only lightly touches on the fact that, in many ways, his folksy stand up routine is just a variation of the stiff politicians who refuse to get off their talking points. I also would have liked it if the film had spent some more time following Chris Bell, the Democratic candidate. He is a great character, very low key and funny. As it is, the moments with him are great, but feel like sidetracks from the main story. Still, it is a strong film. It is a testament to its strength that, although the outcome is already known, it is still engaging, suspenseful, and, at the end, heartbreaking. Whatever my skepticism about Friedman, I really felt for him and his supporters as they tore down his banners to the tune of “Sold American.”

Sold American - Kinky Friedman

Screening Reaction: 'Blue Vinyl'

Blue Vinyl (2002), dir. Judith Helfand and Daniel B Gold
Blue Vinyl is not a bad film. It’s actually got a lot of very strong stuff in it. It is an interesting expose of the vinyl industry and makes a very convincing case against it. Helfand manages to avoid bogging the film down in chemistry and legal wrangling by keeping a firm focus on the human element of the issue. It is Helfand’s extreme luck that a number of the key players in the story are engaging characters. She also makes the great decision to keep in small details that are not relevant to the issue at hand, but give a wonderful sense of who these people are. Two of these moments are actually my favorite parts of the film: one where the lawyer fighting the vinyl industry describes the beauty of the plant at night, and another where an Italian scientist very strictly lays down how Helfand should go about interviewing him. In a film filled with great characters, it is ironic that the film is hurt so much by its main character: Judith Helfand.
Helfand makes a big miscalculation by featuring herself so prominently in the film. Her gimmick in the film is that she goes everywhere with a little section of vinyl from her parent’s house. I found it to be an unbearably obnoxious decision. Whenever I was getting into the film, Helfand would appear with that piece of plastic and I would get mad. My main complaint is that it feels self-aggrandizing. She chronicles many amazing people who are trying to fight these corporate giants, but she cannot resist reminding us (in the most twee way possible) of her presence and actions. She certainly deserves credit for shining a light on this issue, but to credit herself so obviously and persistently becomes grating.
I understand why Helfand includes herself: her narrative is the only one in the film with any hopes of being resolved in a satisfying manner. The whole film is framed as a quest to find out the truth about her parent’s vinyl siding and to get them to replace it. The conclusion she builds the audience up for is that she will find a cost effective solution and a sensible way of discarding the vinyl. If she had managed to do that, I could have forgiven her heavy inclusion of herself. However, she manages to achieve neither goal. Her parents reject the solutions she comes up with, driving her to an option that is, by her own admission, prohibitively expensive. Her solution to disposing of the vinyl is a silly crafts project that essentially pawns the material onto other people. It is a sloppy, dull, overly long, and unsatisfying conclusion to an interesting documentary, and it unfortunately taints the whole film.

SXSW ‘10; Fest Competition Rosters Unveiled

http://www.indiewire.com/article/sxsw_film_festival_lineup/P0/

A ton of good documentaries in the line-up, and a lot of opportunities to see director Q&As. You might want to consider spending spring break at sxsw, especially if you're never attended before. See link above for indiewire article that includes the various category rosters.

-Diane

ALONG CAME KiNKY

FILMMAKER IN ATTENDANCE!

Where: UT CMB Building - Studio 4D at the corner of Dean Keeton and Guadalupe Street
When: Feb 3rd 2010 at 7pm


In sticking with the political theme, the film will be preceded by a short called, Great Grandma for Obama. Following the screening we'll have a panel discussion featuring me, Laura Stromberg from Kinky's 2006 campaign and Jason Stanford from Chris Bell's 2006 campaign. Jason recently announced that he's now working on Kinky's current campaign for Agriculture Commissioner so it should be interesting. The panel will be moderated by Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune and Texas Monthly Talks fame.

O AMOR NATURAL!

O AMOR NATURAL is a documentary film about the erotic poetry of one of the greatest Latin American poets of the 20th century, the Brazilian Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987).

The erotic poems of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, a household name in Brazil, remained unpublished during his lifetime, as he feared they would be deemed pornographic. In this celebration of his poetry and sensual vision, elderly residents of Rio read his poems and comment on their graphic, voluptuous imagery with tremendous candor and enthusiasm. "We're old. We're not dead!" interjects one reader, as memories of stolen pleasures and bittersweet melancholy unfold. Says filmmaker Heddy Honigmann: "The poems sometimes functioned as a kind of corkscrew, sometimes as a glass of water, sometimes as a glass of brandy."

SCREENING INFO

Wednesday, February 10 at 7 PM
The Alamo Downtown (320 E 6th St)
$4 AFS Members & Students / $6 General Public