OCEAN'S THIRTEEN

"There are people starving in the world," my mother would often say after encountering something trivial that a lot of resources have gone into.
The implication was that something more worthwhile could have been done with the resources of time and money.

That is certainly true of, and in many ways, the point of the latest Soderberg/Clooney excursion into the trivial, an ongoing hommage to the triviality of the Rat Pack's incessently narcissistic original OCEAN'S ll and ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS (which at least had the benefit of Edward G. Robinson).

Plot, theme and, in any reasonable sense, character, are utterly irrelevant. But this time, in this third installment amidst a summer of thirds (or are they turds), that there is an awareness that people are starving in the world is almost the point. At one point Clooney and Pitt cry at an episode of Oprah, and, at the end, the proceeds frm the heist backed by Andy Garcia, go to a charaty, with Garcia having to state n television his commitment to the cause. Noone wuld believe it in the context of this fluff. There's even a nod to Clooney's gaining weight for the politically committed SYRIANA,(also with Soderberg) and to Pitt's adapting third world children.

What were left with is a formula movie (like the DIE HARD franchise_ with which the audience is familiar - the characters, the Vegas locale, etc. There is n real attempt to involve the audience in the plot. We know they'll successd, so there is no suspense. Even the mechanations of the heist are glossed over and really hard to follow once the heist gets going. There is no attempt to get us to care about any of this. Clooney and Pitt don't even get their hair mussed.

All this wud be ok if it were at least funny. Sometimes, it's ok just to laugh, as Preston Sturges so exquisetely pointed out in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, and that message was impicit in the Coen brothera'OH BROTHER WHERE ARE THOW, which in some way was inspired by SULIVAN'S TRAVELS. But both those films were genuime;y funny amnd inspired. Here, the humor cmes frm famiiarity with the characters, the recogniztion of the in-jokes, including multipe references to THE GODFATHER.

The tone is casual. Some good things include the banter between Clooney and Pitt, where one cmpletes the sentences of the other. The overlapping dialogue almost invokes CITIZEN KANE. And Al Pacino's Donald Trump imitation is good, but there is no comic, let alone dramatic, impact in his ultimate comeuppance. It is a lazy movie. In short, in a summer of expensive but safe sequels, OCEAN'S THIRTEEN can entertain, but, maybe, as the film fades quickly as we go get a drink or an ice cream afterwards, the thought might cross, "There are people that are starving in the world"

BOSTON INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

With lettle publicity, running times that exceed alloted times, small audiences, few filmmakers in attendance, a brochure that thosn't give factual information about the films, lack of filmmaker attendance, etc, those well-meaning people who run BIFF ought to go to other festivals to see how they are run.

THE BOSTON INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Boston has more than enough film festivals, but none which draw national let alone international attention. Some of them, like the Boston Jewish Film Festival and the Gay and Lesbian Festival, festivals which target specific audiences, are very well done with exceptional programming. The smaller festivals, French, German, Iranian, Japanese - are well-programmed premieres of recently made films, but none have that essential 'festive"quality.

Enter the Boston International Film Festival, the youngest of the lot, but the one with the loftiest title. It needs to be seen in context

And the company it keeps is a varied one. Certainly the best is the five-year old Independent Film Festival of Boston. With well-selected films, several gala events, sold out audiences (some venues have 900 seats), and great attendance both by the filmmakers themselves and the Boston filmmaking community. It'a a mandatory schmooze-fest, which provides genuine joy in discovering new work, which between the venues themselves and the nearby cafes and bars, there's plenty of opportunity to share one's reaction. Interactivity is the key to any festival, and IFFB has plenty of it.

Next on the list is the Boston Underground Film Festival (full disclosure, I am the founder, and although I'm no longer admistratively, financially or programmitically involved, I remain as an advisor, sort of a hovering spirit or Holy Ghost, if you will) BUFF, now in its 10th year, has had an up and down history. Nevertheless, it has remained a consistent showcase for genuinely alternative visions. Provative and sometimes tastless, BUFF, now run by Anna Feder and Kevin Monahan, can cause controversy, but again, within a genuinely festive atmosphere.

Then there is the notorious Boston Film Festival, somehow surviving more than 25 years. Possibly the most loathed urban film festival in the country, it has run at the same time as the Toronto Film Festival, where everyone in the film community is in attendance; hence, no contact or interchange with the film commujnity. The filmmaking types who bother to attend, do so because they are in the Northeast for the Toronto fest, often on their way to the New York Film Festival. Most of the films already have distribution, so the nly advantage to the audience is the ability to say you've seen it first. And the distributors who allow their films to be shown, and most will appear in regular engagements within weeks) use the reviews to determine their advertising budgets. There is no effort to create a festive environment. What social events there are are by inhvition only or are too exclusive. Question and answer periods, the staple of any festival, are in the minority. I do hear however, that things are turning around. After the all time low of last year, under former Mass Film Office head Robin Dawson, who was responsibile for last year's disaster, the dates have been moved back so it doesn't start until the last weekend of Toronto, and they are pursuing some locally produced films. MILLION CALORIE MARCH, a documentary on a Woburn man's battle with obesity and his efforts to create eawareness, will have its world premiere at the Festival. The film may do more for the Festival than the Festival will do for it.

That brings us to the Boston Internatinal Film Festival, headquartered at the Boston Common Theatre. It is certainly ambitious (95 films from 24 countries, spread out over an 8 day period) And the staff is earnest. The volunteers are the most cheerful and helpful of any of the festivals. But... Has anyone associated with the festival ever been to another festival to see how things are done? There is a minimum of publicity. The program guide has no information about the director or the actors. The natinalities of the films can only be determined by recognizing the flag next to the title. When one can find a running time, one finds that the total time of the program exceeds the alloted time for showing it. On opening night, there were only 65 people in attendance in an auditoriuym that can seat 400. Maybe that was because the announced starting time was 5:45, an ok time for Sundance, where everyone is there to ingest films all day, but bad for the rest of us. Usually opening nights are among the biggest, with sponsors, filmmakers, film community types. With only 65 people there were no film types (I recognized only 2 other people), the filmmakers stayed behind in Germany. And the program started 45 minutes late, which caused some people to leave. It's also curious that the same film for Opening Night is being shown on Closing Night. It's called WHOLE TRAIN, and is about a group of punked-out, drug-driven urban types devoted to graffiti art. I've seen this kind of film before, way too many times on the indie-circuit, and it hardly warrants getting two screening, since all the rest have only one.

Many of the films are shown on weekday matinees (who's around?, and, on opening night, one of the festival staffers proudly stated they received slightly over 300 submissions, out of which whey're showing 95. Other festivals, even smaller ones, have between 400-600 ksubmissioins, and show maybe l2-20% of the films. And, much of their program is curated. Here, 5 of the 95 are made by the Festival Director himself.
At the party, there was little talk about the film.\. The Director left shortly after 10 pm. That's the only announced party until Closing Night. IFFB and BUFF has parties every night

"BUG"GING ME

Althougth I'm aware that there has been an erosion of civil liberties, increased surveillance, illegal detainment of suspects, and an overall disrespect for privacy, I don't yet feel I live in an Orwellian universe. But to look at the recent glut of recent films, there is a preoccupation with spying that borders on the paranoid. Indeed, just two weeks ago I waited in line to by tickets for the vastly popular Intrernational Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., which has been selling out for five years.

It began in February, with the carefully detailed biopic, BREACH, with the excellent Chris Cooper, playing an FBI agent selling secrets to Russians. Then there was the Academy Award Winning LIVES OF OTHERS, with its subject the East German spying operation, the Stasi. It crops up in the Dogme inspired Scottish film, RED ROAD, in which the heroine spends her days watching images filmed by surveillance cameras on banks of video monitors. Surveillance is even present in two thrilers set in the future, CHILDREN OF MEN and 28 WEEKS LATER.

A continuing theme in films that deal with spying is that one can't trust what one sees. That's true in Hitchock thrillers like THE 39 STEPS and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, through Coppola's THE CONVERSATION to the films of today. It's also a recurring theme at the Spy Museum, where, upon entering, one assumes a fake identity as one goes through the more than two hours of exhibits and interactive games.

Now comes 'BUG' an exercise in paranoid behavior from Academy Award winning director William Friedkin, whose filmmaking career has been largely dormant for over 25 years, with the exception of the highly underrated TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA. Even the ad for BUG is an exercise in deception. Although it announces the film is from the director of THE EXORCIST, anyone expecting that kind of thriller will be strongly disappointed. Instead, there wil find a claustrophobic, overly verbal drama (it was adapted from a stage play) with two of the most unpleasant, unsympathetic characters I've sat wsith for a long time. The play's three act structure is readily apparent, the characters give increasingly long paranoid rants, and, except for a 3-secnd shot after the characters make love, there aren't even any bugs. That's the point I guess, but while it's always nice to see Ashley Judd do her damsel-in-distress bit and, of course, see her in various stages of undress, sitting through this was close to unbearable. I've seen some hard to sit through film lately, like the beautifully acted DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT and STEPHANIE DALEY, which, by the way, had one of the tightest scripts I've seen lately, but these films, apart from being fresh and excellently directed, had characters one could feel for, and, an overal film we could admire for integrity and craft.

Not so with BUG. But, pehaps I too can't trust what I see, or perhaps my own judgment. For, lo and behold, critics actually liked BUG. In fact, the Boston Globe and Entertainment Weekly actually raved. They even found humor in the excelles of the paranoid ramblings. At least audiences have not been giving the film strong word of mouth, and the Rotten Tomatoes website only gives it a 61, sort of a "D", But the discrepancy between the film I was expecting to see from reviews and advertising has been increasing lately. It began with Miranda July's YOU AND ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, which I found derivitive from performance art and self-consciously quirky, as was THE GRADUATE rip-off GARDEN STATE. The same was true of BROKEN FLOWERS. Even the virtues of last year's award winning BABEL eluded me. To me, it was a rehash of the same devices of the same director's AMORES PERROS and 28 GRAMS, devices which became familiar in TRAFFIC and SYRIANA.

Although I can sympathyze with the characters in BUGF whose hysteria urges us not to trust what we see, for me it carries over to the adversiting and the too easy reviewing that goes on. But perhaps Big Brother is watching me after all.

ONCE...

ONCE is a glorious little film that restores one's faith in independent filmmaking. Although it is a musical and a love story, both genres I mostly dislike, both elements are done in a refreshingly original way. ONCE tells of two musicians who meet, play music together, make a CD, and perhaps fall in love sounds familiar, but wait until you experience the film.

Filmed in Dublin, one of the musicians is a busker, who plays covers in the strets during his lunch break and his own material when noone is around; the other is a sweet-faced Czech immigrant, a would be pianist who captures his original music.

Yes, it is a musical, but only most musicals, where the actors into song and dance at unnatural moments, every musical piece is performed directly from the story material. The two leads are mostly inarticulate, and they can only express themselves through the songs they compose. And, yes, it is a love story, but there a no falLing in love montage swquences, no self-conscious quirkIness that seems to be de riguer in most movies these days (E.G. GARDEN STATE). The would be lovers do come with emotional and physical baggage, but that serves less to enhance the melodrama than to serve the impact of the discovery of one another that makes their love so heartachingly real.

Apart from the integration of the music into the narrative, what makes ONCE different is its narrative. Most dramatic structures are filled with discovery and reversal. ONCE is a story almost entirely structured on discoery, as the two characters's stories unfold and their relationship develops. There have been many favorable comparisons to RENT, which, in fact, is simarilarly set in Bohemian life (the inspiration for RENT was the Paris set opera LA BOHEME). But I'm reminded of another French play inspired musical THE FANTASTICS,based on a play by Edmond Rostand, whose CYRANO DE BERGERAC is a classic of unrequited love. In its day, THE FANTISTICS was popular because it was a refreshing antithesis to the over-produced Broadway musicals. Like THE FANTASTICS, the leads in ONCE have no names, only, in the credits "the Boy" and "The Girl" Their lack of specificity and the way the story unfolds gives the film an almost fable like quality, or perhaps something of a fairy tale. That allows us to take delight in their visit to the loan officer who is a frustrated would be rocker, or to the jaded tech person at the studio, who gets perhaps too suddenly caught up in the music he hears.

Just as the story is one of discovery and unfolding, so is the experience of watching ONCE. Not nly is it wondrously underproduced, it is also less than an hour and a half. You won't want it to end, and the music and the faces of the boy and the girl will stay with you for days.

"12" STEPS TOWARD BUILDING A BOSTON FILM COMMUNITY

Vitality in film production activity in the newly rejuvenated Boston is taking many forms. There's the revived Massachusetts Film Office under the knowing leadership of Nick Paleologos; there's the emergence of Beanywood, with young energy devoted to unififying and promoting the film community; there's Paul Sherman's book covering the history of filmmaking in the area; and now there's "12", a twelve-part film showcasing the work of some of Boston's most accomplished filmmakers.

Organized by filmmakers Scott Masterson and Vladimir Manuti, who have participated in a great number of film projects in the region, "12" is a project that involves the talents of twelve area filmmakers. Structured around the twelve months of the year, each director takes a month and develops a story in which the month is important. Furthermore, it must be shot during the designated month. For example, one of the directors, Garth Donovan, shot his April story the last weekend of April.

Although the directors have free reign over their projects, there are frequent meetings of all the participants. Also, there are overlapping characters and motifs, and a couple of constants that must appear in each episode. This is not as rigorous as the Dogma 95 progeny that inspired the Scottish film RED ROAD, a feature film where the same characters will appear in two other completely different films by different directors. But, Masterson insists, "12" will stand alone as a film worth watching.


The purpose of the project is to draw attention the the talent that is in the area, a talent that has been dormant since the days of NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, almost ten years ago. The participants, for the most part, work on commercials and get assignments, often through Central Booking, on feature films like FEVER PITCH, or the series THE BROTHERHOOD, being shot in Rhode Island. They are all industry professionals. Of the group, Donovan is the most improvisatinal, and even he wrote a scrit and used a tripod for his segment.

The organizers hope for a limited theatrical release. Whatever happens it is an ampibious and worthwhile project that can be a valueble part of the Renaissance in filmmaking in Massachusetts.