Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Road (top); Brian Geraghty in Easier with Practice (bottom)
Tonight, Wed., Nov. 4, at AFI FEST 2009 in Hollywood:
- The Road has been getting a lot of Oscar buzz for star Viggo Mortensen, director John Hillcoat, and for the film itself, a futuristic father-son adventure drama set in a post-apocalyptic world.
- In Eduardo Coutinho's documentary Moscow, the director of a theater group in Brazil's third largest city sets out to stage a production of Chekhov's Three Sisters.
- Kyle Patrick Alvarez's Easier with Practice sounds like an unusual road movie, one in which a book author (Brian Geraghty) traveling with his brother (Kel O'Neill) becomes emotionally attached to a sexy voice on the phone. Could his brother have something to do with that what-are-you-wearing caller, or …?
- I don't recall hearing of Japanese director Sabu (the only Sabu I know of is the one from Jungle Book and Elephant Boy), but "Sergei Eisenstein put into a blender with Busby Berkeley"? That turns Sabu's manga-inspired Kanikosen into a must-see
Film schedule and information from the AFI FEST website:
The Road
Graumann's Chinese Theater – 7:00 p.m.
After an unspecified calamity, the world has been destroyed, leaving nothing but shells of cities—and the road. A father and son walk through an ash-grey landscape, surrounded by death, ducking the ever-present, terrifying threat posed by other survivors. One of the year’s most highly anticipated films, this astonishing adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel strips away the pretension and artifice of science fiction-style apocalypse, presenting a story about simple survival: a waiting game played by a father who loves his son. The fidelity with which John Hillcoat brings the end of the world to the screen is a wonder to behold. –Lane Kneedler
Moscow
Mann Chinese Theater 1 – 10:00 pm
Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil’s premier documentary filmmaker, reaches new heights with this surprising, even mysterious account of the Galpão Theater Company in Belo Horizonte. Coutinho and his crew are invited to record the process as the troupe creates a new, emotionally charged production of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. Stage director Enrique Diaz and his company treat Chekhov as if he were a living, contemporary playwright, and Coutinho participates in his own way in his discovery of the play’s meaning. As he achieved in his previous doc PLAYING, Coutinho traces the thin and fascinating line between the actual lives of the actors and the roles they take on, how one influences the other, and how performance bleeds into reality. Certainly one of the most distinctive works in recent Brazilian cinema, MOSCOW is a film that celebrates theater’s alchemical qualities. –Robert Koehler
Easier with Practice
Mann Chinese Theater 6 – 10:00 pm
Based on David Rothbart’s autobiographical article for GQ magazine, Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s debut feature follows young author Davy (an excellent Brian Geraghty) as he embarks, skeptical brother in tow, on a book tour for his self-published collection of short stories. In a motel one night, he receives a call from a complete stranger. What begins as kinky, anonymous phone sex morphs into something that feels like a romance, and as Davy navigates tricky new emotional landscapes, he begins damaging other key relationships. Alvarez has created a film that’s innovative and striking both visually and structurally. From its opening scene—a montage of romance novel covers—to its startling conclusion, this determinedly independent film defies our expectations, carrying us along on a surprising exploration of the universal need for love, and the difficulties some of us have finding it. –Lane Kneedler
Kanikosen
Mann Chinese Theater 3 – 10:00 pm
Though famed at home for his wacky comedies, the 45-year-old Japanese actor/director Sabu remains virtually unknown in the US. His latest, inspired by a 1929 left-wing agitprop novel that became sensationally popular after being translated into Manga genre graphic fiction, veers in striking, politically motivated new directions while retaining moments of his outlandish brand of humor. The film follows the workers on a crab-canning ship who are brutally, mercilessly exploited by callous corporate bosses. Shiro, an enigma among them, doesn’t complain or lament, but he does suggest they regain their dignity. First, he proposes mass suicide (in a scene that Sabu, amazingly, manages to mutate into slapstick comedy). After Shiro and a buddy are rescued at sea by a Russian ship, Sabu choreographs an astonishing dance sequence. How to describe KANIKOSEN’s strange splendors? Imagine Sergei Eisenstein put into a blender with Busby Berkeley. –Rose Kuo
