Two more from Samir: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Drones By the time I sat down to see Drones on Saturday night, my anticipation was very high. Of course, I was excited for it weeks ago (it stars people whom I find very funny), but having already seen two films at the Festival, both of which feature an on-screen hanging, I was more than ready for something a little less heavy. The film begins with a motivational speech from office boss James Urbaniak about how the staff are like honeybees, and the office is their hive, and how they all must work together to produce the honey of productivity. As you can see, it was a tenuous metaphor at best, but the lengths to which he took it were very funny. Brian (Jonathan Woodward) sees himself as one of the drones, happy to continue in his cubicle, remaining in the same position he's had for six years, and just not offend anyone. Then, within the space of a few days, he discovers that his best friend, Clark, and his girlfriend, Amy, are both aliens. This changes things. That's basically all you need to know about the plot of Drones. It's pretty silly, but it's also pretty uncomplicated, and that is to its great credit. Its progression from office workers living their humdrum lives to holy-crap-the-world-is-about-to-be-destroyed farce is natural, unforced and very enjoyable. The film does really well at capturing the minutiae of relationships (Brian and Amy get together even though she uses capital letters in instant messages, and he's a strictly lower-case kind of guy) and office tedium. One of the recurring gags is that a client database has just shifted from chronological to alphabetical sorting order and of course this is THE WORST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED and everyone mad about it. Similarly, Urbaniak reprimands Brian after a staff meeting not for very publicly losing it and yelling at Amy, but for an even worse offense: putting on a Power Point presentation with only one slide. The dialogue between characters also manages to be appropriately banal, yet entirely entertaining. There's a rapid fire exchange near the beginning between Brian and Clark (in a great performance by Samm Levine), which is about nothing more exciting than staples, and yet manages to be funny, ending with both characters saying, but not actually slapping, "High five." The acting was strong all around, as you'd expect from established comic actors like Levine, Dave (Gruber) Allen and Urbaniak, plus the leads, Woodward and Angela Bettis. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Paul F. Tompkins, who appears in voice alone, as an alien communicating through a photocopier. Of course, it's hilarious, and he sounds exactly how PFT sounds regularly. It's a simple movie, made for very little, shot entirely on one location, but it's clever, funny and silly. Drones is well worth looking out for. Best Worst Movie Before I get to the main feature, I'd like to talk for a moment about the short documentary that preceded it. I'm always amazed at the range of subject matters than can be considered worthy of capturing in a doc, and this one, The S From Hell, was one of the oddest, most niche topics I've ever seen. It's about the eight-note jingle that used to accompany the Screen Gems logo at the end of episodes of Bewitched and The Flintstones. Apparently, some people were (and remain) really freaked out by that sound, a reversed violin tone followed by some notes on the Moog. The short was funny, irreverent, and featured a man getting bitten by a snake, so what's not to love? Then came Best Worst Movie, a doc that's been doing the festival rounds for about a year now but it's getting a limited theatrical push later this month, and since the reviews thus far been uniformly positive, I was looking forward to check it out. I must confess at this juncture. I've never seen Troll 2. I like "bad movies" to a point. For me, bad comedies are always the most interesting, because I like seeing dialogue and scenarios that were envisioned as being hilarious but end up falling far short of their target. I get a perverse thrill from watching films like Meet the Spartans or Epic Movie, though I fall far short of being a Seltzer/Freidberg devotee to match the way people absolutely adore Troll 2. It's a really interesting, heartfelt charming documentary about how people react to a movie they worked on a long time ago, one that they had worked hard to forget, that a select group of fans, worldwide, are now embracing. The main focus of the film is George Hardy, a more rugged looking Joe Biden, who is clearly the most affable man in Alabama. Seeing him at home, making a protein drink, driving his daughter to school, working at his dental practice, it's jarring to see that he played a leading role in the 1989 monster movie. Everyone close to him kind of sees that as a blip in his life, something we don't talk about anymore. One of the film's early moments of pure, unbridled joy (and there are many), occurs when George gets to the UCB Theatre in New York for a sold-out screening of the film and is given a hero's welcome. He's overwhelmed. It's a pleasure to see. The same thing happens in Toronto, Atlanta, all over the place. Other performers from the film get back in touch, and are all overwhelmed that their little movie has a following. The interviews with fans of the movie are especially sweet. These people are very articulate about what they love about it, and have built a real community around this obscure, shared interest. And, crucially, I think there's more to it than just "it's so bad that it's good". Fans have genuine affection for Troll 2. This isn't always the case, though - the team goes to a Convention in Birmingham, England, and are hit with some reality: their film really is obscure. Nobody stops at their table, and it's a dispiriting moment. You will get a real kick out of the film's director Claudio Fragasso, a heavily-accented Italian man who doesn't appreciate people saying he made a bad movie. He still sees it as an important parable and life lesson. Someone else says that its recent resurgence in popularity is due to the success of Harry Potter, while one of the actors likens it to Casablanca. I can't say that Best Worst Movie made me want to rush out and see Troll 2, although it is playing as a midnight movie at this festival, but I still thought it was terrific. Bonus nugget of trivia: one of the goblins in the original film was played by the guy from the current TLC show The Little Chocolatiers. Circles within circles.

Samir (who is also on Twitter) has checked in with some more reviews. Up next are Drones and Best Worst Movie, to be posted later today. I've been laid low by really terrible asthma attack (think Ernesto Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries) and need additional mandated rest. Here's Samir: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Remember all that stuff I said about Paper Man? About how it failed to establish a happy medium in voice between moments played for chuckles and really harrowing back stories, and how that left it muddled and unfocused? And also, remember how I mentioned that I really have trouble getting behind a character you're really supposed to root for, but they're kind of a creep? It is for those exact same reasons that I really didn't enjoy My Suicide. Only to the power of ten. On acid. In space. Archie is a high school student with very few social skills and even fewer friends, who's always carrying a video camera with him, filming everything going on around him. For a senior class project, he decides to film himself committing suicide. This, obviously, creates a bit of a stir, and people react to him in different ways. Many call him selfish and attention-seeking, others continue to just bully and harass, and most importantly, the prettiest girl in school suddenly takes interest in him. She has a horrible tragedy in her past that makes her suddenly empathize with Archie. As the film progresses, their bond strengthens, and the film does a good job of filling in back-story to flesh out these characters. Again, though, Archie never came across as sympathetic to me, so I could never get behind him as the viewer is supposed to. The most interesting thing about My Suicide is the way it's presented. Especially in the first half, there's a lot of animation, and some clever use of green-screens and stock newsreel footage. The techniques are all used effectively, but it does serve to make the story a lot less coherent. Towards the end of the film, as the drama heightens, there's less of these effects, and that is definitely a blessing. The tone of the "non-traditional" elements of the film were always pretty light hearted and funny, and, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, these didn't sit comfortably alongside the much darker nature of the plot. The show is stolen by Joe Mantegna, who plays a shrink who's seen it all before, and appears to be the first person to really "get" Archie. (Earlier, Archie sees another shrink, played by Tony Hale, who resolutely does not). There's a scene with Mantegna, which is animated, and features a lot of references to other movies, which kind of captured the problem with the film: lots of disparate ideas, not really all working together. The final act, though, is very powerful, as Archie finally realizes why his project might not be the coolest idea in the world. What will stick with me, though, is the appearance of David Carradine, who plays a writer that advocates death and its sweet release. His voice is used throughout, and he appears onscreen towards the end to talk with Archie. His character was a little too on-the-nose, and it was creepy and weird and sad to see him up there. Not the "hilarious comedy" it was billed as, My Suicide mostly just left me kinda bummed.

Guest writer Samir Mathur (follow him on "The Twitter" here) has checked in with some reviews, including a frank, honest look at the opening night film, Paper Man. I'll have some more of his writing in a bit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is it with Jeff Daniels playing troubled writers? After The Squid and the Whale and The Answer Man, Daniels returns in Paper Man as Richard, a novelist who's missing his mojo. He's set up with a typewriter at a remote little house in Montauk by his wife, played by Lisa Kudrow, a successful surgeon who works in NYC. Richard has trouble focusing on the task at hand, and is constantly arguing with his (imaginary) best friend, Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds). One day in town, Richard meets sadsack teenager Abbey (Emma Stone, in her most grown-up role to date), and hires her to come and babysit the child he doesn't have. For some reason, she isn't fazed by this, and from there, the two develop an unlikely friendship. I didn't much like Paper Man. The scenes with Captain Excellent are played for laughs, but don't really hit, and they still very heavily contrast with the rest of the film, which is very dark and sad. Richard's marriage is on the ropes, he can't get beyond the first sentence of his book, the furniture in the house is all ugly, and he doesn't quite understand his new relationship with Abbey. He has trouble relating with anyone, and that makes him increasingly difficult to be around. I know we're supposed to root for him, but I have real difficulty getting behind a lead character who's a jerk to everyone, especially when their primary motivation is merely "he's just lonely". His wife's weekly visits see her getting more and more freaked out by his erratic behavior, such as replacing the couch with one made entirely of unsold copies of his first book. The tone tries to stay balanced, with Reynolds' character showing up periodically to lighten the mood, but this just doesn't sit well next to the childhood tragedies that emerge, as well as some other very heavy, very serious imagery later in the film. Plus there's one of those always-excruciating scenes where an old, uncool dude tries to impress high-schoolers by throwing a party, and you can probably guess how that turns out. The performances are all fine - Stone, in particular, is very solid - but for me, the disparity of tone was hard to get past. Plus, we never really found out what Abbey and Richard see in one another - it can't just be that they're both kinda lonely, can it? Plus the soundtrack was all acoustic guitar-based stuff, which really grated after a while. This was a disappointing opening night selection.