aGLIFF

What a great day at Austin Asian American Film Festival.  I managed to see four features despite a migraine, because the last film was the one film I absolutely had to see (and it didn't disappoint). 

The day started with People in the Shadows, a documentary on people in the streets of Tehran. It was more verite, and not enough cinema for me (specifically, not enough context). 

But then there was White on Rice, with a quick introduction by co-star Lynn Chen. Hiroshi Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima) plays Jimmy, who, despite being in his forties, is still relying on other people to get by -- currently his sister, nephew, and long suffering brother-in-law. When his brother-in-law's niece Ramona (Chen) comes to stay, Jimmy becomes obsessed.  Look for a supporting role by James Kyson Lee (Heroes), including an unexpected breakfast-cereal-related costume scene.  It's funny, and a crowd pleaser, which is good, because it was another sold-out crowd.

I'm no longer an aGLIFF newbie, especially after 9 features and 13 shorts in 6 days. It's hard to pick a favorite film, so I'll list a few that are still rolling around my mind.

For comedy, the feature The Baby Formula and the short Boycrazy, along with the gut-busting documentary The Long Haul, which just happens to be made by local filmmaker Liz Welch Tirrell. For more serious fare, the Queer Youth Media Project doc,  That's So Gay, which really needs to be expanded into a feature, and the animated short Dear Dad, Love Maria. After that, it's really hard to pick even one more that is more outstanding than the rest. It was a diverse, provocative and all-around entertaining program. And I wasn't the only one who thought so, apparenlty; most of the screenings I attended were near or at capacity. 

Socially, I'm really regretting missing the centerpiece party at Frank, and the Antique-themed dessert; people were raving about it the next day. I equally regret not spending all of Saturday at the Alamo South and aGLIFF just to watch Sharon Gless entertain the crowd during the blackout.  But I didn't miss the Hannah Free Q&A, and my video is embedded after the jump. Yes, Sharon Gless loved the Alamo Drafthouse popcorn. And she answers that pesky question about her orientation.

aGLIFF ended on a high note yesterday, complete with a rainbow in the sky over South Austin.  I only made it to two of the screenings, though. 

Waxie Moon is the eponymous documentary about boylesque performer Marc "Waxie Moon" Kenison (the middleman in the photo at right). While the explanation of burlesque is overlong, it serves to introduce female burlesque performers and put the Waxie's gender-obliterating performances into perspective. The screening was followed by a live performance of the "handcuff dance" which wowed the very enthusiastic audience, further whipped into a frenzy with the bond like song about Waxie on the closing credits. All week people have been talking about Waxie Moon, and every interview in the film talking about Waxie Moon was effusive. After meeting Marc/Waxie, I understand now; he's one of the sweetest, friendliest people I've ever met. 

Waxie Moon was receded by the short A Drag King Extravaganza, about drag kings and the drag king community.  While overlong, many of the interviews about intentional gender and how, for some, gender is fluid, not fixed, was thought-provoking. 

The final screening of the night was a pairing of gay musicals, the first being the short Boycrazy, in which boy-crazy Corey decides to look for true love, and suddenly choices aren't so easy.  The tagline is perfect, "A boy meets boy meets boy meets... musical."  The songs are funny and insightful, and the soundtrack deserves a release.

Yesterday was exhausting; I only made it to three screenings, and late for one at that, so I missed an unexpected highlight. That torrential rain that hit Austin finally pushed the electrical grid too far and caused a blackout for 78704, which cause a disruption of aGLIFF. Incredibly, it only caused one film to be cancelled, one to be shifted to this morning, and only a 45-minute delay for the rest of the evening.

The first round of screenings included a children's program that had a pre-show with Underdog and Muppet Show clips, and an optional cereal bar. The shorts included Buddy G, My Two Moms And Me: The Lost Rings, Tomboy, and Dottie's Magic Pockets: Doing the Flower. While the latter was too trite for my taste, the others were engaging, with Buddy G something that could easily be a kids' morning TV show.  Tomboy, which focuses on a little girl who isn't interested in girly things, is a lesson in diversity.  

That was before the weather got heavy. Sharon Gless, at the festival to support her new film, Hannah Free, declined the offer to go back to her hotel during the blackout. Instead, she worked the lines, talking with people and making the most of it. Once the screening started, even being late and rainy, it was almost at capacity. 

aGLIFF smartly programmed only one feature/short screening for the Centerpiece night: Dear Dad, Love Maria and Antique.

Vince Mascoli's short, Dear Dad, Love Maria, is a poignant animated imaging of a letter to a parent. This hand-drawn, semi-autobiographical short may last only five minutes, but it was powerful enough to win aGLIFF's nomination for the Iris Prize, the largest award for a gay and lesbian short film in the world -- valued at £25,000 (approximately $41,000). 

The theme of longing for connection and acceptance while determined to be true to oneself also fills Antique, a Korean live-action film based on a Japanese manga by Fumi Yoshinaga. A wealthy young man who hates cake, Jin-hyeok (Joo Ji-hoon), decides to open a bakery, and ends up hiring an a master patissier who proves to be not only a "Gay of Demonic Charm," but an old classmate. Seon-woo (Kim Jae-wook) has long forgotten a humiliation he suffered at the hands of Jin-hyeok, who hasn't. 

But Jin-hyeok has more than one memory haunting him, which becomes a major plot point as staff are added at the bakery, which becomes a sensation. A mix of comedy, drama, with a few dollops of fantasy sequences, Antique is a deceptively light film with some heavy themes that had the crowd sighing at times, both at the characters and at the sumptuous confections being created.

Thursday night's festival choices were difficult but I opted for a pair of serious docs, followed by two travel docs.

Claiming the Title: Gay Olympics on Trial and Training Rules both dealt with anti-gay bias in the athletic world. Claiming the Title focuses specifically on the U.S. Olympic committee's homophobic lawsuit claiming trademark infringement against the Gay Olympics. It starts awkwardly, but the interviews are riveting, especially Chai Feldblum, a former Supreme Court clerk.  

Training Rules, however, gets bogged down in redundant imagery, and stretches out the story of Rene Portland's anti-lesbian policy for the Penn State women's basketball team. Portland actively persecuted players who even "associated" with anyone she suspected of being lesbian and as a result, nearly ruined the lives of many promising athletes. The film could have easily been half the time and had more impact. The material is very important, but is diluted by the repetition.

The next two films were the polar opposite, and a perfect way to end the evening. Both filmmakers were present, as pictured above. Austin-based filmmaker Liz Welch Tirrell's The Long Haul is very likely to be the audience favorite, with everyone laughing so hard that the movie got three rounds of applause during the credits. Martha and Lavonne have been together 19 years, and know each other's every quirk. When they move from New Jersey to California, they decide to take the long way. But it's never so simple. The mere act of packing was so funny, I laughed until my face hurt.  Martha and Lavonne could be any couple, but they're just the right kind of feisty, making even the stressful moments entertaining. 

Despite only having two theaters and two time slots  on the weeknights, aGLIFF is certainly making the most of the night. Last night I caught The Baby Formula and Hollywood, Je T'aime.

The Baby Formula is a surprisingly poignant and consistently funny comedy about two women who have their own child. Without male sperm. Through the miracle of stem cell research, they're able to make their first child without anything from a man other than the science to create "womanly sperm."

A documentary crew follows the two women around in a humorous expose of relationships, between lovers and family, as well as exploring the first child experience and the tensions it can create, including some insight into extended family dynamics, as the two women are from very different backgrounds. 

Megan Fahlenbock (Resident Evil: Apocalypse) and Angela Vint (Lars and the Real Girl) as Lillith and Athena have a chemistry that makes them seem so much like a real couple, at times it seemed like a true documentary.  Jessica Booker is a scene stealer, though, as the fiesty Grandma Kate.

Writer Richard Beattie captures an extended family with all the love, longing, and dysfunction involved.  Director Alison Reid could shave about 5-10 minutes off it, especially at the end, but overall achieve consistent pacing that keeps the audience engaged, frequently laughing, with a few tears.  If you get a chance to see it, don't stop watching til the credits end, the "my hump" video during the credits is hysterical.  Now I want to see the short that inspired the feature. 

The next three film festivals in Austin -- aGLIFF, Fantastic Fest and Austin Film Festival -- all use B-Side's web application for their scheduling. If you're attending any of these festivals, you'll want to take full advantage of the B-Side Festival Guide to build a schedule, rate a film, and see what other people are watching and rating.

Just one account will work to build schedules for all festivals that utlilize B-Side, and there are many, all around the country. The B-Side scheduler includes lots of nifty features, from creating personal schedules to running the Festival Genius, which can help optimize your schedule. 

The B-Side application is integrated into each festival's website; you can access it directly from the festival site, see when and where each film is playing, and add the films to your calendar. Each film has a page with a synopsis, date(s), venue(s), photos, trailers, category, notes about whether anyone involved in the film will attend, and statistics.

The Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival (aGLIFF) opened Monday with Shamim Sarif's directorial debut, I Can't Think Straight. The romantic comedy based on Sarif's eponymous book plays surprisingly light despite potentially heavy subject matter. When a mutual friend introduces introverted Leyla (Sheetal Sheth) and outspoken Tala (Lisa Ray), sparks fly.

Muslim Indian Leyla has been dating Ali for years, while Tala, a Christian Palestinian dividing her time between London and Jordan, is on her fourth engagement.  As the two women get to know each other, it's clear it's more than a friendship forming, but both women are reluctant to admit their attraction and follow their hearts in more ways than one. 

The film stays firmly in the realm of rom-com, with occassional teases into erotica, but never really crosses that particular border. Even the family conflict stay light, with somewhat understanding if perplexed fathers, and caricature mothers. Sheth and Ray have sparkling chemistry, which makes the film a sweet confection, instead of a heavy drama.

There's a musical quality, hinting at Bollywood, and with an ultimate happy ending, which makes the film an excellent choice for the start of aGLIFF.

Is it fall, yet? It certainly feels cooler, and just in time for the final holiday of the season.  This Labor Day weekend, there aren't a whole lot of new movies coming out in town, but that doesn't mean there aren't options. 

Opening this Week

Extract is Mike Judge's companion film to Office Space, only this time the sane guy is the boss, with some loveable but unruly wokers.  Just like Office Space, you will recognize most of these people, especially David Koechner as the most annoying neighbor in the world.  Check out my review and interview with Mike Judge later today on Slackerwood, and Jette's interview and review on Cinematical. 

Humpday is Lynn Shelton's latest is the bromance fave from SXSW 2009.  Starring former Austinite Mark Duplass and Houstonite Joshua Leonard as two friends who take their competitive tendencies to the limit when they decide to make porn for a film competition.  This isn't mumblecore; slow at times, but the chemistry is great, and it's worth it just for the, eh, climactic scene.