Austin
Film Festival 2003 - Day 6 - October 14, 2003
At work, the guys who are supposed to be working on
my transmission on my car quoted me a price of $1600 to
fix it. I told him that was way out of line. I'm pretty
sure I'm going to buy another car now, maybe even a new
one. That Kia is looking pretty nice.
After work, I went home and changed and set a VCR to tape "Joe Schmo" on
Spike TV. This is one of my favorite shows right now.
At a little before 7, I headed down to the Paramount
for the screening of the Charlie
Chaplin documentary. The program said it was two
hours and five minutes, so I knew I would have to hurry
to make it to the Dobie by 9:30 for the screening of
"Love Object."
I thought about taking a picture of the Paramount
marquee but decided to wait until the end of the film.
I wasn't exactly sure how early I was. (Of course, I
forgot all about it after the movie). I also noticed
my friend Jett selling tickets. He told me a couple
weeks ago that he got a job at the Paramount box office.
I wanted to say hello to him but every time I walked
by his window, he had customers.
On the way into the Paramount, I saw Jan and said
a quick hello. I sat up front and the film started pretty
close to "on time." Phil Scanlon, the AFF film programmer
who lines up most of the advanced studio screenings
did a quick into. Phil is at least bright enough to
introduce himself. I wish that AFF would train their
people to do this. It's kind of a no- brainer. Phil
actually sounded a little nervous but maybe he was just
tired and trying to yell loud enough for everyone to
hear him and that made his voice a little shaky.
For some reason, the film started with, like, three
commercials for Bombay Sapphire, some sort of alcoholic
beverage. The ads were odd little short films, nothing
special. But three seemed a bit out of line. Then there
were two AFF trailers. I knew time was important and
was kind of upset that this waste of time was occurring.
Sure enough, when the Chaplin film ended, which, according
to the program should have been about 9:05, it was actually
9:26. There was no way I could make it to the Dobie
in four minutes. Also, there was no short in front of
"Love Object" (according to the program), so I knew
I couldn't make it on time.
I decided to go get some dinner at Wan Fu and head
back to my apartment and see the "Joe Schmo" I taped.
I watched it and thought it was going to be the final
episode but it actually ended with a cliffhanger and
a notice that the finale' wouldn't run for 2 weeks.
I was a bit pissed but I cannot wait for the final episode.
This is an amazing show. If they ever run a marathon
of the series, and I'm sure they will, you should check
it out. It's a fake reality show somewhat like the Truman
show. There's all these people in a house competing
for $100,000 and it's sort of like "Big Brother" and
"The Real World" and like some other reality shows,
someone is kicked off every week. The BIG difference
here is that all of the people on the show, even the
housemates, are actors, except one guy. His name is
Matt and he has no idea the show is all faked for him.
He's a great guy and has proved himself to be sweet,
caring, decent and fun. I fucking love this guy! The
show never makes him look like a fool. On the contrary,
every time they have set up something odd or absurd
to happen on the show, he has responded in a way that
is caring, classy and sweet. It's an amazing show and
one that really makes you think nicely of the world.
This guy should be lauded for how he has handled himself
during the show. The final episode, where he finds out
it's all been a rouse and (I'm sure he) wins the money
should be awesome.
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Ryan
Williams' "Confine"
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After this, I watched Ryan Williams' short
film "Confine." I was surprised when I saw on
the video's label that it was only six minutes
long. The film starts rather dully and typically
with a doctor looking in on what we presume is
a "mental" patient" via TV monitors. We see the
"confined" patient and he is drooling and messy.
We eventually see he has his hand in a can of
paint, which is by his side. For three or four
minutes, he splatters the paint against the walls
of his cell.
This looks cool but the film is really only
okay to view. The neatest thing is that Williams
lines the camera with some sort of protective
clear plastic so that the camera becomes a wall
and the paint is also splattered across our field
of vision. After much of this wild abandon, the
film cuts back to the sedate patient, seemingly
cleaned up, and we realize that the paint splattering
event has only occurred in his head.
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While this film seems rather typical,
Williams does do an adequate job filming it and does
set up some shots that seem new and interesting. This
is still, however, a rather archetypal student film
(perhaps even one to satisfy a particular assignment).
While I enjoyed the piece, I still expect far greater
and more original work from Williams in the future.
I ended my night by going, at midnight, to a special
private screening of "Mystic
River."
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