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Projection, where the machine of the media uses light and shadow to transmit the message. |
Every year, hundreds of cinematographers and thousands of cinema buffs converge on Birmingham, Alabama to participate in the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival. This blog contains my reflections on the 2006 or 8th run of this festival.
I am not a big fan of this genre. I was pretty lukewarm with Napoleon Dynamite and The Benchwarmers. In those movies, there is a gross-out scene aproximately every 3 minutes. They are over the top. In The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang, there are about three gross-out scenes in the entire film. The rest of the film was filled with a genuinely funny and heart warming account of the trials and tribulations of pre-teen life.
In the other films that I have seen of this genre, there is always this misfits versus the cool conflict. In this film, everyone is a misfit. The conflict is between the bullies and those that get picked on by bullies.
The real story, however, is a love story. The girl works at the local video store and pretends to be interested in his video selections. On their first date, he shows her how to fight with plastic swords. She is struggling with fears of being overweight because her mother is overweight and because she wants to date but is unsure of herself in that arena. His struggle is how to face up to the bullies in the neighborhood. It is a classic coming of age tale.
"Follow your dreams" is the simple message of this documentary which captures the 109 day cross country trip of this guy riding 10 MPH on a Segway from Seattle, Washington to the Segway plant in Bedford, New Hampshire. For some reason, these two young guys quit their job in a software house in Seattle (not MSFT as they were using Mac laptops) to follow this dream which, frankly, looks more like a road trip.
The editing is quite good considering that this is basically cross country vacation footage that they are dealing with. The story telling is also sound. One of the major themes is the economic trials and tribulations they went through to "follow their dreams." I am sure that they did this to add an element of tension to the film, however, it makes them look pretty financially incompetent. Two guys in the software industry during boom times could not save the 20G needed so they put it all on credit cards then take a trip that is over 3 months long without any source of income. I guess that these dreamers are not so good with the spreadsheet, eh?
Do not get me wrong. I think that following your dreams is great. I think that innovation and vision are what makes America a world leader. I am all for it. However, the chances of you actually being able to realize those dreams will be far greater with a budget and a schedule. Sure, it takes charisma to attract investors, however, they will not write the check if you do not know your IRR from your NPV or your TCO.
Along the way, they meet and interview lots of other folks who are following their dreams too, mostly good natured great American heartland folks. They ride the Segway through desert, rain, a lightning storm, snow. Some police would laugh at them and some scolded them. They got a police escort in one town (they had their own Segways) and was almost arrested in another.
One of their entourage gets a kidney stone along the way. A baby is born. One biker breaks their Segway and another fixes it. The final scene is a speech by the inventor of the Segway. 100 years ago, cars could go about 10 MPH and would not be considered safe for cross country travel. I guess that the take away here is that the Segway will one day be as ubiquitous as the automobile is today.
These guys are enamored with the Segway because the company had some pretty innovative marketing when they introduced it some years ago. I recently rode one. It is cool but not worth the 5G that it costs. I believe that it does fill a need in industry where workers daily have to travel long distances like in an airport, factory, or amusement park. It will not be able to fill the need for urban transport until it becomes cheaper than a scooter. A Segway can only go on flat, even ground. It cannot ride on stairs or steep hills. It takes almost no effort to ride a Segway which is a minus in America where there is a rampent epidemic of obesity. If the Segway is the future, then the future is very bleak.
This film centers around the hydrophobic students of an adult swimming class and their depressed teacher. I will not bother to describe the plot of the film as you can read about that elsewhere. I was disapointed that they felt like they had to cast a fairly young and attractive actress for the part of a teacher who is going through a mid-life crisis. She is most probably only 5 years older than the fellow swimming student that she befriends who is barely out of high school and who is also a sex worker. There is an interesting scene where the teacher finds the sex worker a position as a hostess in an upscale restaurant. The sex worker is offended.
The acting, direction, cinematography, etc, were all top notch. A story about people overcoming their fears is always a feel good. Great flick!
This documentary is about a group of expatriates as they visit their original home island Funafuti which is the capital of Tuvalu. It does an excellent job of putting a face on what An Inconvenient Truth is describing with facts and figures.
When capitalism first came to the island, its indigenous peoples did not know what to do with it. They let them come and build tourist attractions. Now, the islanders must work for the foreigners in order to buy these imported goods. Unlike fish and coconuts, these goods are not biodegradable so the island is becomming a huge landfill.
But that is not the worst part. Global warming is causing the sea level to rise. Much of the islands are already under water. The prediction is that the entire island nation of Tuvalu will one day be swallowed up by the seas.
Here comes the weird twist. In addition to COM, EDU, and GOV, ICANN also assigns top level domains to each nation based on their initials. So, the United States gets US and the United Kingdom gets UK. Guess which top level domain Tuvalu got? That is right, TV. Some mega media company paid the islanders $50M for those two letters. Amazing, no? I am sure that those islanders are amazed since they have no Internet access.
This documentary is about shape note singers. Their style of music is the earliest North American, Christian form. It gained popularity back in the day because it is easy to learn. There are not many notes and each note has a different shape for the head.
It is called Sacred Harp singing because that is the name of their music book. Did you know that is where the hymn Amazing Grace comes from? Shape note singing lost popularity amoungst the church going set to gospel and hymnals because the harmonies of shape note singers is much rougher. It is not pretty, folks, and it is loud.
This festival also serves up a very healthy dose of short films too. Here are some of my favorites. Words fail me when I try to describe Copenhagen Cycles so I will simply plagerize a description of the film when it was shown in another festival. A bicyclist travels through a fantastical, collaged reconstruction of capital city of Denmark. Dyer combines the pre-cinema zoetrope with high-definition digital video technology to explore the kinetics of Copenhagen.
Another neat short is Last Minute Thrown Together Low Brow Nonsense. The title is accurate. What else can I say? It is a cartoon. It is absurd. Words fail me here too. Apparently, when it comes to shorts, I like films that defy explanation.
