Austin
Film Festival 2005 - Day 7 - Wednesday, October 26th
Came home from work and watched "Boston Legal," which
I had taped last night but hadn't had a chance to watch
yet. Checked my e-mail to find that a friend of a friend
who has a friend at Sony told him that the run time for
"Rent" was about 130 minutes, which leads me to believe
that all of the songs from the musical cannot possibly
be in the film. The musical itself, without dialogue,
seems to run about two and a half hours, so if you put
dialogue in the damn thing, it would have to run about
three hours to include all the songs from the stage show.
If you're going to do a film version of "Rent," why in
the fuck would you not do it as an entire musical? Jesus.
I'm still pissed.
Went to the Paramount for a screening of "Transamerica"
and Lars Von Trier's new film "Manderlay,"
the second in his "Americas" trilogy after "Dogville."
I was expecting it to be as awful, spiteful and anti-American
as the first film and I was not disappointed.
Phil Scanlan came out and introduced Duncan Tucker,
the writer director of "Transamerica" who greeted the
audience from the stage at the Paramount holding a glass
of scotch. He thanks all of us for skipping the Astros
World Series game to come to his film. He told us he
would be back for a Q&A afterwards and mentioned that
when he got funding for the film, he approached Felicity
Huffman who agreed to do the film, "after I shoot this
pilot." That, of course, became "Desperate Housewifes.
During the Q&A, Tucker told us that William H.
Macy, who is listed as an Executive Producer and who
is married to Huffman saw the film and wanted to do
anything he could to help get it seen. He invited Harvey
Weinstein to the Tribecca Film Festival screening and
got him to attend. Weinstein picked up the film for
his new label, Weinstein Films, and it became the first
new film they had acquired rather than produced in quite
some time.
He also told us the film was shot on Super 16 with
all the shots being handheld. When asked why he cast
a woman in the role of a male on the verge of having
a sex change to female, Tucker replied, "I wanted to
honor where Bree was going and not leave her behind."
The Q&A was emceed by Phil Scanlan who continued
his hemming and hawing and rambling ways which irritated
most of the audience.
On the way out of the theater, I saw John Pierson,
film producer, local UT film professor, former TV star
and focus of the film "Reel
Paradise." I checked my voicemail and John had left
a message saying he was coming to "Manderlay." I saw
him outside about the time I heard his message. There
were lots of attractive young guys about but not much
of a line for the film. I remembered that last year
Austin filmmaker Kyle Henry ("Room")
and I got into an argument after "Dogville." I looked
around for him but didn't see him. He's such a hotshot
now that his film has played Sundance and Cannes that
he probably doesn't go to Austin film festivals anymore.
And why didn't "Room" show at SXSW or AFF?
Scanlan came to the front of the theater and, without
a mic, introduced "Manderlay." He called Von Trier "a
filmmaker I love and hate."
About an hour or so into the film, which ran way
over two hours, John whispered in my ear, "Tell me how
it ends," and got up and left. I stuck it out until
the end of the film which makes me wonder: Who is the
bigger idiot? Von Trier or someone who actually sits
through this film?
Lodger @ AFF2005
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