SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Goddamn this was a good film festival! (Note swearing to emphasize that point.) There was only one movie in the whole festival that really got on my `nads; and that’s a rare batting average festival-y speaking. Mixed with great live events, tributes, workshops, not to mention parties, the SFIFF is one top-notch international film festival.

With all the pundit muck-racking and political mud-slinging, you forget how damn funny Al Franken actually is. Before he was political Al Franken, you got to remember he was one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live, penning sketches for the likes of John Belushi and Bill Murray. Al Franken God Spoke (directed by Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob) is a great portrait of the man behind Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coultier’s worst nightmare. The film follows the frenzied action as it trails Franken around the country on his 2004 book tour. Brought to the screen by the same team who did The War Room, Al Franken God Spoke has that same marvelous approach of simply being a fly-on-the-wall, where it avoids having the camera being the most important thing on the room. There’s no candid talking head shots to explain the narrative; the directorial team has a style where the camera seems to disappear in order to see the true essence of a very interesting, intelligent, and really funny character. Major laugh-out-loud moments with Franken entertaining troops in Iraq on an USO tour portraying a Saddam Hussein character. Along with a classic on-stage debate with Ann Coultier, where in response to her declaring Eugene McCarthy as the person she’d like to be from history, Franken responds to the same question with Adolph Hitler. Touché!

When I saw the trailers for Art School Confidential (directed by Terry Zwigoff), I got a full-on cinefile woody. I spent a semester in art school, and all the ridiculousness of the institution was projected in that three-minute trailer. That’s why this film was such a huuuuuge disappointment for me. The film (written by Ghost World collaborator Dan Clowes) starts out good, knocking down the stereotypes of art school cliches with a mighty stroke to the canvas. Then the plot seems to succumb to becoming a cliché. At times, the script is a mess, and starts going down the wrong path with the major plot point of a campus, art school strangler. We meet, what seem to be major characters, who suddenly pop out of the story without any resolution. In some scenes characters are invented for the sole purpose of clunky expository narrative (“That building burnt down and killed everyone inside. I heard it was caused by a cigarette.”) which brings a lot of attention to that script-device fact. Character relationships between main protagonists seem forced, thus the climax of the movie also seems forced and lacking an impact. A dark change in the main characters is shown by the fact that later in the script he now smokes cigarettes. Movies like John Water’s Pecker have touched upon the same overall message about the commercialization of the art world, with a more solid script. Art School Confidential doesn’t completely suck; it’s just very disappointing due to my high expectations of what it could’ve been.

My favorite Charles Bukowski book is Factotum (one who has many jobs). To me, the book is a comic masterpiece with moments of down-and-out, seedy beauty. The film version (directed by Bent Hamer) does a great job of capturing the droll, dark humor of the book. It would be very easy to muck up a Bukowski adaptation. Without showing the intelligence, humor, and talent behind the character, it would be like watching the zany misadventures of a drunken alcoholic. The film version manages to blend moments of tenderness in the main character’s (surprisingly portrayed with great, gritty finesse by Matt Dillon) turmoil relationship, with sparingly utilizing voice over narrative to convey Bukowski’s skid row poetry. Plus, I think it’s such a funny story; a man goes from one bad job to another—all of which he gets fired from—in order to make enough money to keep him in whiskey and writing. Factotum would have been an easy movie to turn into a cliché, but instead captures the essence of the book marked with great performances.

One of the high points of the San Francisco International Film Festival is the amazing tributes. This year hosted honors to Werner Hertzog and Ed Harris, who is a darn, funny man. Much like a live version of Inside the Actor’s Studio, Harris was interviewed live on stage at the Castro Theater, sharing quips about his illustrious career and referring to such people as Robert DeNiro as “Bob.” During the q&a portion, I was very tempted to ask him to do my favorite line from A History of Violence (“Mrs. Stahl, don’t forget your shoes!”).

My favorite event had to be The Heart of Maddin—A Tribute to Guy Maddin. Winning this year’s POV Award, the Canadian director was on hand for another onstage interview, as well as a screening of some of his classic shorts, many which utilize the gritty beauty of Super 8. With a style often imitated by bad art school students, I love his respectful nod to Einstein and the silent film era within his films, encompassing a cinematic style that embraces expressionism and strange neuroses that could only be manufactured from the hinterland habitat of Winnipeg Canada. Maddin, who is also a very funny man, told great tales on stage, such as the origin of his classic, frenzied film short Sissy Boy Slap Fight, a short that was filmed solely on the creation of the title first.