Dallas IFF 2012 Dispatch: Uptown Saturday Night

Saturday was my first full day at Dallas International Film Festival. I started it with a perfect breakfast at my fancy hotel. This is the only place in Texas apart from the Steeping Room -- possibly the only other place in this country -- where I've had hot tea properly prepared. They put tea leaves in a teapot and brought it to the table, instead of giving me a tea bag and some lukewarm water in a container meant for cream. (Even the best Austin coffeehouses and restaurants do this, I am sorry to say.) I also had nice crispy bacon and steel-cut oatmeal with caramelized apples, much better than I can make myself.

I know, you don't want to hear about my breakfast, so let's talk about the movies. I walked over to the Angelika Film Center for my first film, or rather, collection of films.

Shorts 1 Program

The Shorts 1 Program at Dallas IFF included seven films, all of which were entertaining -- not a slow film or dud in the lot. Many of them had Texas connections, too.

• Playtime (Spielzeit)-- An amusing short that shifts from subject to subject around a German town, including a standout sequence with a child in a cemetery. I understood the plot structure a lot better when Houston filmmaker Lucas Mireles explained that this short was a re-imagination of Billy Wilder's 1930 film People on Sunday.
• Another Bullet Dodged -- This film is about the biggest jerk in the universe. I'll say no more.
• '92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card -- Two brothers reunite -- not quite peacefully -- at their dad's funeral. The brothers reminded me very much of characters in John Bryant's The Overbrook Brothers. The scenes in this short were taken from a feature-film script that I hope  filmmaker Todd Sklar ends up shooting. An Austin connection: Sklar has a small role in Harmony and Me.
• Perfect Fit (La Medida Exacta) -- A low-key short from Mexico about a man who works in a parking-lot booth ... and his shoes. Nice payoff.
• Hellion -- At last I've seen Austin filmmaker Kat Candler's latest short, which premiered at Sundance and screened at SXSW. I liked this vignette about two out-of-control boys and their youngest brother, and the results of an especially rebellious afternoon. Candler is currently writing a feature screenplay based on the short. Actor Jonny Mars wasn't at the screening because he was in the theater next door with his own documentary, America's Parking Lot.
• Doubles with Slight Pepper -- This Trinidad-set film won a Genie Award last year for best live-action short drama. It's about a young man scraping a living selling "doubles" (a popular fast-food sandwich) on the street, and what happens when his father unexpectedly returns home after years in Canada.
• Bear -- Oh. Oh, my. This Australian film by Nash Edgerton was a truly fitting end to the shorts collection. It's about a couple who ... oh, I can't tell you. I hope you get to see it someday. Note to Fantastic Fest shorts programmers: Please find and include this film in 2012.

After the shorts ended and I said hi to Kat Candler, I had a quick bite to eat in a terrible Italian place in Mockingbird Station, surrounded by what I later expected was a teen girls' volleyball team. I then caught a shuttle to the Magnolia. I had the same shuttle driver as Friday afternoon, the cheerful Joyce. As usual, she got me to the theater in plenty of time for my next movie. I want to take a minute here and say how wonderful the Dallas IFF shuttle service was -- I felt like I had my own private car service. The drivers were all nice and helpful and the cars, from Boardwalk Volkswagon, were new and comfy.

Vito (dir. Jeffrey Schwarz)

I really like (and own) the book The Celluloid Closet, a history of the portrayal of gay characters in film, so I was intrigued by this documentary about its author, Vito Russo. I knew nothing about Russo except that he'd authored the book, gave lectures on the subject, and died of complications from AIDS.

I had no idea that Russo was a prominent gay-rights activist starting in the 1970s, who was one of the founders of both GLAAD and ACT UP. Jeffrey Schwarz has pieced together archived video interviews with Russo, as well as more recent interviews from his contemporaries, to give us a very inspiring picture of Russo. His goal was to introduce a new generation both to The Celluloid Closet and to its author, and he does so admirably. It turned out not many people in the audience had read the book (or seen the 1996 documentary based on it) and were eager to track it down and read it after seeing Vito.

The documentary not only details Russo's life both as an activist and a film historian intent on publicly highlighting gay stereotypes in Hollywood movies, but also includes some of the film clips that Russo often showed to audiences as part of this film history. It's a taste of what you'd get from reading or watching The Celluloid Closet. Schwarz told us afterwards that they invoked the fair use clause in copyright law to use the clips, instead of trying to secure (and pay for) rights to use them from the studios. I didn't realize that big distributors like HBO were relying on fair use, which I think is great and I hope continues for indie and studio films.

HBO will be airing Vito this summer, starting in June. Find someone with cable and check it out.

I had a break before the next movie and worked on finding somewhere in the West Village area for dinner. You have to realize that West Village out-Domains The Domain -- Austinites understand me -- and it was difficult to find somewhere that wasn't trendy and loud. I found a nice burger joint finally. Most people were enjoying the lovely weather and dining outdoors, making it fairly peaceful inside until another giant crowd of teen-girl athletes invaded the place. There must have been some kind of major girls' volleyball tournament in the area that day. I escaped and headed back to the Magnolia for one more film.

Satellite of Love (dir. Will James Moore, wr. Moore and Jonathan Case)

I finished the day with an Austin movie, Satellite of Love. I didn't know any of the cast and crew except for one man I recognized immediately just by his height: Turk Pipkin, who has a small role in the film. Although this was an evening film, the vibe in the theater felt much more Austin-y than the previous night's movie; the guy two seats down from me had his bare feet up on the rail in front of him, which was gross but not Dallas-chic by any means.

Satellite of Love is about a love triangle, sort of a Lone Star Jules and Jim but more realistic. Catherine (Shannon Lucio) has married and settled down with Blake (Zachary Knighton), a hard-working restaurant owner. Their good friend Sam (Nathan Phillips) appears in town after years of traveling around the world as a musician, and invites them to spend a week with him and his girlfriend Michelle (Janina Gavankar) at a friend's home in a vineyard.

This is a lovely, breezy movie about relationships that doesn't get too angsty or melodramatic, with a fantastic cast who all work together beautifully. They're helped by a gorgeous setting -- someone asked in the Q&A if it was Napa, but it was shot in Central Texas. I also liked the score, and since I was dumb enough not to write down the composer I can't tell you who was responsible, although I think it was Jonathan Case. (Was this the film that thanked Brian Satterwhite for mentoring the music process? I didn't write that down either, damn it.)

Austin connections: Will James Moore and Jonathan Case are UT Austin grads. The film was shot in Hays County ... and Blake's restaurant is Justine's here in Austin.

After the Satellite of Love Q&A, I flagged down another handy shuttle, this time sharing it with some Korean filmmakers in town for their film Let Me Out. Since it was screening after I left town, they gave me a DVD to watch. I got back to my hotel room and started to plan a Sunday schedule entirely at the Angelika ... I had enough of West Village.