Z At the Movies 05.23.06: The Tribeca Film Festival
Posted by Jacob Ziegler on 05.23.2006
Check out what I saw!
This is a very special edition of Z At the Movies, in which I will discuss the films I saw during my recent visit to New York City for the Tribeca Film Festival. Let me say that I'm not at all impressed with the organization of the Festival. One night my sister and I stood in line for over two hours and were very close to the front of the line. We were waiting to see "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With." We were informed that door tickets were available, and would start selling around 7:00 o'clock. We were in the top 10 in line, so we thought we had a good shot. At 7:45, someone came out and told us it was sold out, despite no one in our line getting a ticket. Why say you have door tickets available if you really don't? Anyway, here's a rundown of what I did get to see.
UNITED 93
I've spoken about this film at length with people who haven't seen and who refuse to for one reason or another. When I saw this film I was shaking through most of it and sobbing through the rest. Paul Greengrass managed to create a film that exists entirely within its own universe. There are no Hollywood conventions here, no moments of cinematic heroism, no faux emotion. This is a remarkably absorbing film, and will most certainly end up on my top 10 list at the end of the year.
Rating: 10.0
NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY
This is a collection of six short films, five of which are very good. These are the films –
"K-7," directed by Christopher Leone, 9.0
"Euthanasia," directed by Adrian Greiner, 7.0
"Lure," directed by Mark Mollenkamp, 8.5
"The Offshore Reserves," directed by Jamie Bradshaw and Alexander Doulerain, 3.0
"The Package," directed by B. Radical, 7.5
"Paradox," directed by Jeremy Haccoun, 8.0
To learn more about these films, check out this site.
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
This actually wasn't a part of the festival, but we watched it on one of the nights we got shut out. We were already at the theater and figured we should see something, and neither of us had seen this yet. The movie was good, as I'm already a big fan of Aaron Eckhart, but the most interesting part of the night was before this. To get to this theater we had to walk right by the Ground Zero area. This was my first time in New York City since November of 2000, when the towers were still standing. It was very surreal to walk by that gigantic hole in the ground and think about what had happened there. Anyway, I really enjoyed the movie, but in the end it didn't real mean a hell of a lot, but it was very entertaining and pretty clever.
Rating: 7.5
THE CASE OF THE GRINNING CAT
I'm not ashamed to admit that I did not understand this movie at all. Although I did have a moment of personal pride when the guy introducing the film asked if anyone had seen a film by director Chris Marker before, and no one had. Then he mentioned that one of his films is "La Jetée," which I saw in a film class taught by Steve Lipkin. That made me feel good, to be the only one to see a rare film in a New York audience. The film itself focused on finding images of a grinning cat amidst scenes of political and international events of the last several years. The film was actually completed a long time ago and has just made its way to the United States. It's interesting but extremely abstract.
Rating: 6.5
ONE LAST THING…
Director Alex Steyermark's second film (after 2003's "Prey for Rock & Roll") dangerously flirted with after-school-special territory, but manages to be an emotionally capable film with a great performance from Michael Angarano. He plays a dying boy who changes his last wish from a fishing trip with his favorite football player to a weekend with his favorite supermodel. It's an interesting setup, and despite some schmaltz it's mostly effective.
Rating: 7.5
There you have it. Hopefully next year I'll be able to get into some higher profile stuff now that I know my way around the festival a little bit more. Later this summer I'll also be covering the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, Mich., and the Traverse City Film Festival in northern Mich. Hope to see you there!
