Well, now. The summer is almost over, and it's time to get serious about the fall film festival lineup. I know that many of you will be spending your Labor Day weekend taking in the last breaths of the summer season by grilling at the barbeque or by attending a party, while another lucky few will be headed to Colorado for the annual cinematic feast that is the Telluride Film Festival. I, ever the vigilant planner, am hoping to instead spend my weekend doing research and more research in the never ending quest to find some diamonds in the rough; films floating under the radar at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival (nice new website, FSLC!).

As a programmer, I am always in a weird position at these festivals. On the one hand, there are the movies that I will try to find that somehow, at this early stage, seem destined for a late spring release (if they are released at all); this would allow me to make an invitation for inclusion in the Sarasota Film Festival line-up, March 31-April 9, 2006. On the other hand, those dates are so far away, I am sometimes drawn to catching advance screenings that I am really excited to see but which showcase films that will be released well before the SFF window. I consider it a test of will; can I resist the draw of big art house films in order to take a chance on an undiscovered gem?

This year, the dilemma has been made much easier by the fact that many of the films I am really dying to see will be playing at both Toronto and New York, which really liberates the Toronto line-up for me, allowing me the opportunity to find some of the films that, simply seeing listed as a title in the line-up, I would never have considered if pitted against some of the big names on display in both festivals. Last year, my first in Toronto, the line-up was so front-loaded (meaning all of the films I really wanted to see were all pitted against each other in the first five days or so of the festival) that I missed a ton of films and scrambled the rest of the year to get caught up. This year, with one TIFF under my belt, I am using the end of summer to get ready.

This is the challenge; despite finding and being able to program some wonderful films from Toronto (Ra'up McGee's excellent Autumn, Velcrow Ripper's amazing ScaredSacred, Arnaud Desplechin's Rois et reine, Jia Zhangke's The World, and many more), there were several other films I really loved that, because of the climate in the foreign film market, I missed out on, including Frédéric Fonteyne's haunting La Femme de Gilles, and Jessica Hausner;s über-creepy Hotel; films that I would have loved to help get some domestic attention by showing them at the SFF. This year, I am hopeful of meeting some of the foreign sales agents and really getting to know them and their goals so we can share some of these undistributed films with our audience in Sarasota.

Still, there are plenty of films out there I am soooo giddy to see. As I happily bid summer adieu by throwing my arms around fall (my favorite season), The Back Row Manifesto presents a list of the films I am most interested in seeing at this year's fall festivals.

1.Caché by Michael Haneke

Go and tell Veronica, it's time to celebrate Haneke! (sorry, I had to!)
In all seriousness, this is the one film I am simply dying to see. I only discovered Michael Haneke's work when I saw The Piano Teacher a few years back. Since that time, I have devoured everything that I can find and he has risen near the top of my personal list of favorite directors. There is no doubt that he is one of our greatest living filmmakers. In film after film, Haneke breaks apart the cavalier entitlements of modern bourgeoisie life and dissects (sometimes literally) the self-image of the Western world. I can't imagine an American artist making a film like Code Inconnu, let alone the vastly under-regarded Le Temps du Loup. Whereas American artists seem to be stuck in a rut of celebrating navel-gazing whiners who derive credibility from their self-imposed outsider status, who among them has offered a cultural and social critique in a fiction film that has one ounce of the courage on display in Code Inconnu? From all accounts at Cannes, Caché is as an intense and excoriating experience as Haneke's previous work, and that is all the endorsement I need to keep me restless for the screening at the closing night of this year's NYFF.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that this will not end well: Auteuil and Binoche in Haneke's Caché

2.The Wayward Cloud by Tsai Ming-Liang

I consider it a minor scandal that this film, directed by critical favorite Tsai Ming-Liang, has been excluded from the New York Film Festival. From the reports I have read on the film, the issue of pornographic exploitation takes center stage in the film, but I can only assume that graphic sexuality had little to do with the committee's choice; the NYFF has long supported provocative sexuality in film, from Bertolucci's Last Tango In Paris to Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl. I am pretty sure I can guess which stalwart Tsai advocate may not have appreciated this film's theme (coughphilliplopatecough). So, there either has to be something seriously fucked up happening in The Wayward Cloud or the movie is simply not very good for Tsai not to make the NYFF line-up. Either way, the mere idea of watching Tsai's take on intimacy, sexuality, and exploitation is more than enough for me to be captivated by the idea of the film, especially when you consider that the film is a sequel of sorts to the wonderful What Time Is It There?. Is this Tsai's A Hole In My Heart? As gentle, humble and generous an artist as is working today, Tsai seems like a natural to take on the physical alienation at play in sexual exploitation. I am looking forward to making up my own mind in Toronto.

From Master to Outcast?: Tsai's The Wayward Cloud

I have been in cinematic hibernation for the past month or so... The summer has seen me do some travelling and having some fun, but I haven't been to many films at all. With the fall film festival season about to kick off in Telluride this weekend (sadly, I won't be there), I am gearing up for a long two months of spending my days with my ass in a movie seat. I don't know about you, but the film festival circuit REALLY takes it out of me. My life becomes a singular mission, to see as many movies as I can while simultaneously absorbing as much drunken revelry and as many mind-bending hangovers as my body will allow. Then, I come home from a festival, try to get to the gym and work off the beer gut, lather, rinse, and repeat. It ain't pretty.

So, I have to say, I have enjoyed and NEEDED the break. I know that my blog has suffered as a result, but I promise that I am getting back into the swing of things and I will return to bringing you the same opinionated drivel you've come to expect from The Back Row Manifesto. In the meantime, here are some pictures from some of my recent adventures....

Home To Michigan

Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) needs to get lucky. A stock room employee at a Los Angeles electronics chain store and collector of action figures (in their original packaging), Andy is 40 years old and has never enjoyed the pleasures of intimate relations with a woman. During a late night poker game with his braggart co-workers, Andy confesses his inexperience and his friends decide to teach him the rules of seduction. After a series of failed attempts at scoring, Andy falls in love with Trish (Catherine Keener), the owner of a store that sells items on eBay, and the pair decides to hold off sex while their relationship develops. Will the couple come together and end Andy’s reign as the oldest man in Los Angeles never to have “done the deed”? Will fate keep them apart and cement Andy’s destiny as the world’s loneliest loser? Who cares? By now, many of you reading this article have plopped down your $10.00 and have found out the predictable answer to Andy’s dilemma by watching the “Number One Movie in America!!”, Judd Apatow’s mediocre The 40 Year Old Virgin. Strangely, Apatow and Carell’s story of the virgin with a heart of gold has garnered favorable reviews from critics who admire the film’s dirty-mouthed approach to the clichéd love story at the film’s heart. Despite the film’s good-natured approach to Andy’s dilemma, showcasing the very funny Carell as the film’s most stable character (despite his numerous ‘nerdy’ shortcomings), the movie is just the sort of middle of the road character comedy that passes for box-office gold these days. With films like Anchorman, The Wedding Crashers and Old School, films that have lined the pockets of studio executives across Los Angeles, Apatow and his cadre of like-minded Hollywood golden boys have created a new American comedy trope; Assholes in Love. If you listen closely, late at night, you can hear the sound of Ernst Lubitch, Billy Wilder and Preston Sturgis turning over in their graves.

The heyday of the well plotted, wit-soaked American comedy is well behind us, but as Hollywood continues to pander to the lowest common denominator in the audience, the opportunity to praise American comedy has come so infrequently, a mediocre gag-fest like The 40 Year Old Virgin receives critical praise for having the decency to respect its naïve protagonist. But this is nothing more than sleight of hand. The formula is a simple one; While audiences root for characters like Andy Stitzer and Old School’s Mitch Martin (Luke Wilson) to overcome their rejection at the hands women of all shapes and sizes, the new American comedy surrounds its heroes with asshole friends who provide the nasty id to the protagonist’s ego. This new comic Iago has found its apotheosis in the personage of Vince Vaughn, a very funny, affable actor who has made a career out of playing the wisecracking hustler who just wants to have a good time in spite of his friend’s reasonable apprehensions. In film after film, Vaughn reprises his breakthrough role in Doug Lyman’s Swingers; the asshole buddy who, in an eternal quest for fun, invariably leads our hero into trouble. In The 40 Year Old Virgin, the Vince Vaughn role is played by not one actor, but three; Paul Rudd (David), Romany Malco (Jay), and Seth Rogen (Cal), a triple-headed hydra of bad advice, thrill-seeking, and offensive behavior. This allows the audience to identify with Andy’s quest for sex and love while laughing at the bland, unfunny and obvious jokes left for the “buddies”. How unfunny and obvious? At the screening I attended, when Andy’s Pakistani co-workers drop the throw away line “Why, do you think we’re Al Qaeda?”, it drew a huge laugh. In that moment, when a terribly badly written joke is dropped for no reason other than its simple recognition among the masses and its appeal to the racial profiling simplifications of the Fox News crowd, the whole premise of the film’s comic goals are laid bare. Yes America, you may think you’re a nice guy like Andy Stitzler, but at heart, you’re the asshole friend.

While identification with a naïve protagonist is a smokescreen for mediocre comedy in The 40 Year Old Virgin, in Werner Herzog’s documentary masterpiece Grizzly Man (currently playing in Ann Arbor), the same identification brings revelation. In 1990, Timothy Treadwell, an out of work actor and recovering addict, left California in order to spend his summer living in the Alaskan wilderness among the grizzly bears. For thirteen summers, Treadwell lived in the same community of bears, learning about their habits and seeking to protect them from poachers. In October of 2003, while staying in the “grizzly maze” a few weeks beyond his usual departure date, a rogue grizzly devoured Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard. Treadwell, having documented his summer forays into Alaska on videotape since 1998, had his camera rolling during the attack (with the lens cap on) and unwittingly recorded his own gristly death. Herzog was invited to review Treadwell’s footage and, enhancing it with his own interviews and footage, went on to create the film primarily from Treadwell’s images.

Timothy Treadwell explores the un'bear'able lightness of being? No? Grinning and 'bear'ing it? Treadwell 'bears' his soul to the camera? Hmmm. Insert your own pun here...

If Grizzly Man were simply a documentary built with found footage about a naïve environmental advocate who died in the wild because he over estimated his personal connection to nature, the film would still be an extremely moving experience because of Treadwell’s passion for the bears, foxes, and the stunning landscape of the Alaskan wilderness. This is, however, a Werner Herzog film. Instead of relying on the traditional documentary form, there are dueling viewpoints at play in the film, and Herzog creates a powerful tension by pitting Treadwell’s innocent yet misunderstanding love of the natural world against the director’s own recognition of the violent indifference of nature toward human empathy with it.

As with his series of recent documentary features, Herzog seems to be exploring ideas about the world that are at loggerheads with his own icy rationalism. What Grizzly Man (and Wheel of Time and The White Diamond before it) shows us about the world is not an objective representation of its subject’s experience, but a battle taking place within Herzog himself as he seeks to reconcile his own fearful desire to embrace and harness natural beauty with his logical understanding of the folly in attempting to do so. In this way, Herzog’s latest triptych of documentaries is a logical extension of his work as a fiction filmmaker. In films like Aguirre: Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, Herzog exposed the ludicrous expectations of the colonial project and its misapplication of rational ideals. Sure, human intention and big ideas are the stuff of mankind’s greatest accomplishments, but nine times out of ten, they are instead the source of incredible human disaster. While many optimistic audience members may find the worldview on display in Grizzly Man to be cynical, there is no doubting Herzog’s deep devotion to humanism and idealism. There is nothing but admiration from the filmmaker as, in film after film, he shows the odds stacked against us, and the inevitability of our failure. Herzog seems eternally captivated by the beauty of man’s folly as well as his own understanding that, like everything else in nature, human nature is inescapable and leads to nothing but trouble. It is the purpose of art to expose us to ourselves, and Grizzly Man captures the dangerous naiveté in the American myth, a part of our character so often misunderstood and celebrated as pluck and moxie, with an intellectual rigor and an artistry that is sorely needed on the movie screen right now.

Longtime readers of this blog will know of my love of the game of football (or, if you must, soccer). I have been a follower of Liverpool FC of the English Premier League for close to a decade and the allure of football culture, from the pace and exhilaration of a match against bitter rivals to the songs, chants, and pageantry of the supporters themselves, has become an important part of my life. I probably spend more hours a week watching matches and reading about football than I do any other activity. One of the first lessons a new Liverpool fan learns is the story of two disasters brought on by fan violence, and how the club, the most successful in the history of English football, was banned from European competition for five years (along with all English football clubs).

On May 29, 1985 Liverpool played Juventus is the European Cup final in Heysel, Belgium. After a group of Liverpool fans began to clash with Juventus fans, disaster struck, and the retaining walls fencing in the mostly Italian fans gave way, leading to 39 people being crushed or trampled to death. After Heysel, all English football clubs were banned from European competition for five years. In 1989, still in the under the ban, Liverpool was once again involved in a tragedy when playing an FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest F.C. at Hillsborough . When a wave of supporters swamped the small stadium, police routed the Liverpool supporters into a section of the ground far too small for the number of people arriving, crushing 96 Liverpool fans to death against a retaining fence.

As a supporter of Liverpool, one must instantly come to grips with the impact of fan violence (in the case of Heysel) and of the importance of managing the supporters (in the case of Hillsborough). Of course, Liverpool are not alone. Nowhere near. In his amazing book Among The Thugs, the author Bill Buford outlines his own adventures among the rumbling, rioting supporters of Manchester United. Buford's gripping account of the Man U 'firms' (the name for the gangs of supporters that identify themselves with their favorite football clubs) running riot in the streets of Italy is a must read. But the issue of fan violence and abuse is by no means a tale set solely in the 1980's, and is by no means only an English problem. Just yesterday, in Sofia, Bulgaria, CSKA Sofia fans shouted racist abuse at Liverpool striker Djibril Cisse.

On the other hand, there is a strange romance associated with football violence. As stupid as that sentence sounds when pitted against the reality of fan violence and the impact it has had on the lives of those affected by it, the game of football has embraced the reality of a subculture of drunken, rough and tumble supporters brawling with one another. Call it tough love, but in terms of romance, Lexi Alexander's SXSW winning film Green Street Hooligans goes as far as anything to embracing the passionate appeal of fan violence.

Odds and Sods: The GSE, Ready To Rumble

A former member of the City Boys firm of Mannheim, Germany, Alexander is a second-degree black belt who has apparantly seen her share of football brawling. In her director's statement on the film, Alexander discusses her own attraction to the lifestyle of the firm:

"Contrary to common belief, most of us went to the best schools, had money and lived in big houses. What we didn't have were available parents. What we missed at home, we found in each other, in our firm. The riots were about proving our love, because obviously a bunch of guys don't walk around telling each other 'I love you man'� If only ten people decide to add loyalty, reliability, consistency, and protectiveness to their character attributes, I'll be a happy filmmaker."

If you want a primer on the allure of the mob, you won't do much better than Green Street Hooligans. The film idealizes the ideal of being a 'mate' (friend) and the addictive power of violence. Like a cross between David Fincher's Fight Club (without the schizophrenic mindfuck or the satire) and the mod culture classic Quadrophenia , Hooligans embraces the code of masculinity by attaching it to the individual immersion in a subculture of group violence. An American journalism student expelled from Harvard for a crime he didn't commit, Matt (Elijah Wood) heads to London to visit his ex-pat sister, Shannon (Claire Forlani) and her husband Steve (Marc Warren). Matt meets Pete (Charlie Hunnam, a star in the making), Steve's younger brother, who is forced to take Matt to a football match between Birmingham and Pete's favorite team, West Ham United. Favorite is a massive understatement; Pete, it turns out, is in charge of the GSE (Green Street Elite), West Ham's very own firm. After the match, Matt decides to avoid trouble and begins to walk home alone when members of the Birmingham firm jump him. Pete and the GSE come to the rescue and soon an all out brawl ensues, with Matt taking a punch and surprisingly holding his own. Matt wins the respect of the GSE and begins to embrace his own inner thug. For Matt, the attraction of violence becomes overwhelming "once you take a punch and realize you aren't made of glass."

Who Are Ya?: The GSE Taunt Man U Supporters (then again, who doesn't?)

Alexander does an excellent job of filming the brawls and fighting, but the film itself has an unfortunate tendency to slip into heavy melodrama, which is never too far removed from most sports films. In this case, the film's main plot conflict revolves around Matt's journalistic credentials (members of the firms don't trust journalists) and a surprise revelation. In the final fight sequence, Alexander loses the adrenaline and instead surrenders the film to a heavy-handed resolution that, despite paying off the dodgy plot, simply doesn't satisfy because it seeks to turn the film into a cautionary tale. As a Hollywood calling card, this may not be a bad thing, as Alexander proves she can kick ass with the best of them while delivering just the sort of moralizing the studio suits love to lap up. The film is by no means a call to arms or an incitement, but I have to admit, walking out of the theater, my chest was puffed up and I was full of adrenaline; I felt almost invincible. Only when I put the violence in its proper context was I able to see that the film was more than just an entertaining couple of hours in the lives and deaths of the football gangs, it was a celebration of the mob.

Full Time Report: Millwall 1-0 West Ham

But maybe that is too much responsibility to place on the film. In the context of international violence on the whole, as depicted in film after film glorifying violence in war, law enforcement, and organized crime, what's a little brawl between football fans? Instead, I wish Alexander had stuck to her guns and celebrated the culture she so clearly loves, without the melodramatic hooks. The reality is, the film, like its characters, only comes alive when it is breaking bottles on skulls and throwing blood-soaked punches. Alexander's decision to martyr her characters in the name of caution is a responsible choice given the morbid history of football violence, but artistically, it is clear her heart doesn't beat for the ramifications of violence; only for its thrills. In her statement, Alexander proves that she adores the code of the firm, that she celebrates the ideals of the gang, regardless of the violence to which those ideals invariably lead. In the film, as in real life, the code of the firm leads directly to tragedy. If only Alexander felt the loss as deeply as she felt the thrills of the battle, Green Street Holligans might have been great. As it stands, the film is a fun look at a violent subculture (I'm no prude), but delivers the titilation of violence without an honest sense of outrage.

In the late 1960's/ early 1970's, a small band of artists and musicians came together in San Francisco to form what stands as the most important multimedia avant-garde rock and roll group of all time; The Residents. After decades of bizarre albums and live pieces, in the 1990's the band released two CD-ROM games which really brought animation and music together in a very interesting way; so much so that they won awards from Entertainment Weekly magazine for top computer entertainment software with 1995's Freak Show CD-ROM and 1996's Bad Day on the Midway CD-ROM (remember CD-ROMs? sigh.). Their early short films are held in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection here in NYC and a couple of them were featured a few years back in the MoMA's music video retrospective series. The band's live shows were legendary experiences, with the band peforming in their trademark tuxedos and giant eyeball costumes (which have since been retired). Despite a website not quite up to their typically quirky standards, the band still exist today having recently toured with their shows Wormwood, Icky Flix, and Demons Dance Alone.

The Residents have always held a special place in my heart; the perfect antidote to the grandiose 'art rock' show. Instead, The Residents were more circus, carnival, and punk rock experience at the same time. I haven't seen them in years, but over the past few months, via a series of web animations, I think I have found their heir; Weebl.

The first time I saw his work was the famous Badgers animation, sent via e-mail by my friend Mark. The music is clearaly a direct descendent of The Residents work; obsessively bizarre, and somehow, utterly addictive. Of course, Weebl is using the internet as his forum (instead of creating albums and concerts). His music and collaborative flash animations are absolutely mad and have rooted themselves into my brain forever.

But something is missing; it is the great disappointment of the digital age that artistic collaborations like Weebl and his gang (who appear to be from England) are making aren't translating awesome digital art like this into a live, human experience. There is so much here that would transform itself into an amazing live show! I, for one, would pay top dollar to see what an artist like Weebl and his gang could do with a song like Strawberry Pancakes in a live setting; I have a feeling my head might explode. There is so much rich potential here for an exceptional human interaction and experience. Just look at the fan video of Kenya; Ok, it's a bit underachieving, but proof of possibilities. Of course, the fact that I am devoted to Weebl's work on-line (where it is available for free) is, in itself revolutionary. In the 1980's, people like me would dig for 45's and albums in our local record stores, often a terribly frustrating experience. I would read about a record in a magazine like the controversial Maximum Rock N' Roll and then try desperately to get your hands on a copy weeks, sometimes months later. Now, the instantaneous nature of the internet has changed distribution altogether. In the past, there was always a physical, human payoff; I could always go to my local punk rock show. I still can (and do), but the breadth of work available on-line has created a new frustration, a desire to connect to virtual art on a human level.

No matter what records I bought, I would still go to see local and national bands playing :30 second songs at shows in my town. There was always a local scene in the 80's; most communities had a place for bands and artists to create and perform, no matter how small the venue. But what has happened to 'the local scene' in an on-line context? Weebl's work is both an extension of and challenge to that idea of the punk rock song; each idea lasts under a minute or so, but it is looped in a never-ending format that pushes the listener's endurance. In a live setting, a song like aaaaaaaaaaaaahaha might cause a riot. Oh, how I long for a good punk rock riot. The internet and web art are a wonderful extension of the creative experience, but I still crave the flawed, wonderfully human experience of seeing a live performance. Even if, like a Residents show, it was as wild and bizarre as could be imagined. C'mon Weebl. Let's see what you're made of.

Weebl's Greatest Hits

Badgers
Advent Calendar
Strawberry Pancakes
Choccy
Magical Trevor
Magical Trevor 2
Kenya
Bonjour
aaaaaaaaaaaaahaha