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NOTE: This interview originally ran during Sundance 2007. We're running it again now because For the Bible Tells Me So opens October 5 in New York City, before going on to play in over 40 markets.
For the Bible Tells Me So, a documentary showing at the Sundance Film Festival, explores the issue of religion and homosexuality through personal interviews with five families whose spiritual lives collided with their real lives when they learned a loved one was gay. Director Daniel Karslake and Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man to be elected Bishop of the Episcopalian Church, were on-hand for the fest, and sat down with Cinematical for a chat about the film.
NOTE: This review originally ran during Sundance 2007. We're running it again now, because the film opens on Friday, October 5 in New York, before expanding through October and November to over 40 markets.
"The Bible is the word of God through the word of human beings, speaking in the idiom of their time,and the richness of the Bible comes from the fact that we don't take it as literally so that it was dictated by God." -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
The last few years have brought some important documentaries: Alex Gibney's Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room, Amy Berg's Deliver Us from Evil; and Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, just to name a few. 2007 is young, but Sundance is always a great opportunity to sample the documentary waters, and my favorite doc at Sundance this year was For the Bible Tells Me So, an exploration of the religious right's use of the Bible to justify shutting homosexuals out of the faiths in which they've grown up.
The Toronto International Film Festival is over, we have a couple months respite before Sundance, so naturally thoughts turn to the Oscar race. While I'm as curious as anyone else which films will end up garnering the big nod (and I will be really surprised if Juno doesn't get a few noms, especially for screenwriting), as an indie girl I'm most interested in the docs and foreigns. I'm a documentary dork, and one of the things I most look forward to covering at any given film fest is the doc slate -- which, as both David Poland and Anne Thompson have noted in post-Toronto columns, have been weak this year relative to the past couple years. No one really seems to be sure why this is, exactly, although the surprising success of March of the Penguins in 2005 fueled an interest in documentaries that led, perhaps, to a bit of a glut.
The trouble with documentaries is that, penguin love aside, docs are not something your average person is going to go out of their way to shell out ten bucks to see at a theater. Rent from the video store or add to your Netflix queue, perhaps, but when you're looking for a film to see on date night, the depressing topics that tend to make up much of the available documentary fare are not really the first thing that comes to mind. When's the last time you said, "Hey, honey, I know what to do tonight -- let's get dinner at that place over in Little Italy we like, and then let's go see that new Iraq war doc!" Given a choice between a bummer doc and, say, Superbad, most folks are going to opt for the laughs over the conscience-pricking dose of reality.
Although I didn't get to see the horror-comedy Teeth when it first premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival, I did get to experience the film while covering the Berlin International Film Festival back in February, as well as sit down for a little one-on-one time with the flick's star, Jess Weixler. For those who may have forgotten about Teeth, or never heard of it before, it's the one about the girl with teeth in her vagina. Yup, not joking. It's warped, it's bizarre, it's a tad nasty ... but it's so much fun to watch. Personally, I've been waiting a long time for this film to be released, and now Fangoria reports that Roadside Attractions will shovel it into theaters in New York and Los Angeles on November 30, with the film expanding nationwide in mid-December.
Directed by the very friendly (and talented) Mitchell Lichtenstein, Teeth follows Dawn (Weixler); a teen abstinence preacher who's always avoided sexual contact because of a little problem she has down there. Suffering from a rare case of "vagina dentata," Dawn goes about her business telling kids not to have sex, until she, herself, feels the need to start experimenting with a boy she's grown fond of. From there, let's just say all the guys in the audience might find it hard to watch the events unfold. I'm a big fan of actress Jess Weixler, who also starred in another little-seen indie gem, The Big Bad Swim, and look forward to seeing what future projects she takes on. But do yourself a favor and go see Teeth when it comes out. It's a fun film that deserves a little more attention. For more, check out Kim's review and Scott's review of the film from Sundance.
If there's one thing Michael Douglas does really well, it's crazy. In 1993, he did crazy to near-perfection as William "D-Fens" Foster in Joel Schumacher's Falling Down. I still think of Douglas's performance in that film 14 years later -- I ruminated on it most recently while stuck in traffic for 40 minutes due to road construction on my way to the Telluride Film Festival. Visions of Douglas wigging out and blowing up the construction site after he confronts the foreman and confirms his long-held suspicion that there was, in fact, no reason whatsoever for the construction that was tying up traffic danced in my head as I sat there whiling away the endless minutes. Douglas tackled a different kind of crazy in Wonder Boys, the film adaptation of one of my favorite novels, in which he perfectly embodied Professor Grady Tripp, who's gotten lost in a haze of pot smoke while having an affair with his boss's wife and endlessly writing a novel called Wonder Boys, which seems to have no end.
In King of California, which played at Sundance earlier this year and opens theatrically this weekend, Douglas tackles another kind of crazy as Charlie: long-haired, wild-eyed dad to a teenage daughter, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood, who's become rather the go-to girl of the moment for angsty teen girl roles). As we enter Charlie and Miranda's story, Charlie has just returned home after a relaxing two-year stay in a mental institution, during which the now 16-year-old Miranda has fended for herself, dropping out of school in order to hold down a crappy fast-food job to pay the bills and keep their dilapidated house, and even buy her own car. Miranda has achieved a measure of scrappy independence without Charlie in her life, and his reappearance is met with something less than the enthusiasm Charlie anticipated.
When I got my Entertainment Weekly Fall Movie Preview in the mail the other day, I was excited to see that Anthony Hopkins' Slipstreamwas to be released October 26. But the film, which is Hopkins' debut as a screenwriter (he has directed before), didn't seem to have a distributor. Well, now it has one, but it's a bit smaller than I would have expected or hoped. Strand Releasing picked up domestic rights and will give the film a limited release on the date given by EW. The real exposure will apparently come with video, as Sony will put out the DVD sometime (probably early) next year. Hopkins recently won directing and acting honors for Slipstream at the Locarno International Film Festival, but the film is supposedly not even worthy of theatrical distribution. Variety's review from Sundance says, "without the name of Hopkins and those of cast members mixing usually reliable stars and actors, project would be commercially DOA; only a minuscule theatrical window seems possible, with most curiosity seekers wading through the undoubtedly extras-filled DVD."
Well, call me one of the curiosity seekers. Slipstream, which co-stars Christian Slater, John Turturro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jeffrey Tambor and Camryn Manheim, is described by Hopkins as "a comedy of the absurd," and that is actually good enough for me. Of course, mainstream audiences don't share the same interest in weird stuff, so I guess the small release is fair. Another thing that doesn't really appeal to normal moviegoers is films about filmmaking, and Slipstream is set in the movie biz. It follows a screenwriter (Hopkins) working on a murder-mystery who has trouble discerning the difference between the real world and the one he's written. According to the Hollywood Reporter synopsis, "his brain begins to implode, captured in the film through a nonlinear, hallucinogenic narrative." I can't wait, even if it is as bad as they say.
The good folks over at The Weinstein Co. have provided Cinematical with an exclusive look at the first and final one-sheet for John Cusack's upcoming drama, Grace is Gone (click on the poster for a larger image). Not only have I heard that Cusack is exceptional (and perhaps Oscar-worthy) in his role, but the poster also confirms that Clint Eastwood, as previously rumored, did indeed re-score the film. Interesting. Grace is Gone follows a man (Cusack) who, after finding out his wife was killed in the Iraq war, decides to take his two daughters on a road trip to an amusement park because he can't quite figure out how to tell them their mother has passed on.
Our own James Rocchi reviewed the film when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and had this to say: "Grace is Gone has the look of life, and the glow of art. The film is as affecting -- and as ultimately human -- as one might hope, and it still brings home the ugly real fact that for too many Americans, the evening news isn't just background noise." Additionally, Cinematical'sScott Weinberg (who also caught the flick last winter) adds: "Melted the heart of this cynical jerk. Guaranteed to make my year-end Top 10." Grace is Gone arrives in theaters on October 5. Oh, and don't forget to bring those tissues -- I'm getting choked up just writing about it.
Imagine the kind of pressure one must face when their first film gets nominated for an Oscar. Writer-director Jeffrey Blitz, whose 2002 documentary Spellbound was nominated for a best documentary Oscar, decided to follow up his critically-acclaimed look at several kids vying to become the next national spelling bee champion with a straight fictional narrative about a stutterer who's love for a girl leads him to seek out the highly-competitive world of high school debating.
We already reviewed Rocket Science when it premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival, and I'll be filing another review within the next couple days. In the meantime, while you count the seconds until Rocket Science opens in theaters this weekend, be sure to check out the following interview with Blitz in which he talks about the aforementioned sophomore pressure, why he likes stories featuring high school kids squaring off against one another in academic competitions, how close Rocket Science is to his own life and -- get this -- you might actually learn a bit about high school debating at the same time. More bang for your buck -- that's my motto. Anyway, enjoy.
Cinematical: Your first film, Spellbound, gets nominated for an Oscar. Is there pressure to follow it up with another doc?
Jeffrey Blitz: No pressure from the outside world, but I loved making Spellbound. The process of it was very exciting, and not just because it ended up doing so well -- but actually being on the road where it's sort of you against the world, in a way. It's a really exciting way to do it. There aren't layers of people to go through, you don't need to articulate your vision for the film every day to different people -- I did almost all the shooting on Spellbound and Sean Welch, who was my producing partner, did sound recording. And for the most part, it was just the two of us on the movie. That's like a really exciting, fun way to make movies. So, I want to kind of hop-scotch back and forth between fiction feature films and documentaries, if I can -- if I'm so lucky as to go on and make more movies.
Back in January I sat next to Jam-Master Rocchi during a completely packed Sundance press & industry screening of a film called Grace Is Gone. Now, Jimmy Rock and I are perfectly manly men and I'd propose that it's tough to wring a tear or two from our eye sockets. A movie has to really earn that, you know? A lump in the throat or a slight eye-misting, sure, those are common enough -- but James Strouse'sGrace is Gone left me with one big goopy tear-drop that just rolled down my left check, and I didn't even care who noticed. (James chose to write the review; mine would have been too emotional.)
The film stars John Cusack as a father of two young daughters. After receiving the horrific news that his wife was killed while serving in Iraq, he's at a loss. He simply doesn't know how to tell the young girls the truth -- so he piles them into a car for a really wistfully amusing and entertaining road trip. That's all I'm saying, but Cusack is simply fantastic, the two young girls are pitch-perfect, and second-timer Strouse (after penning Lonesome Jim) manages a really tough balance between politics and emotion. I suppose this flick could be called "red state friendly," but I'm mostly a liberal-minded guy -- and still I wept. Just a little.
So (courtesy of The Envelope) here's some weird news: We already know that the Weinsteins bought the film at Sundance, and also that the film's been scheduled for an October 5 release date. But here's where it gets weird. Apparently Clint Eastwood saw the movie and was so impressed with it -- that he offered to write and record a whole new musical score! What the...? I mean, it's certainly not strange for Eastwood to score a movie -- he's done it for several of his own films, including Space Cowboys, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby -- but to step in and offer a new score to an up and coming indie-maker? I mean, it's very flattering and all but...
...what about the film's present score? The one that was recorded by newcomer Max Richter? (You've heard his work in Stranger Than Fiction and very little else thus far.) The Weinsteins and Strouse would probably be pretty foolish to turn down Mr. Eastwood's offer. The film is already positioned for a small award-season push, after all. (And man would I be thrilled to see Cusack nominated for this film. Not only is the guy fantastic in Grace, but hasn't Cusack earned at least one nom by now? Indeed he has, says I.) Tough situation for Mr. Richter, I'm sure. Although I don't mind saying I'm curious to see the movie again with Eastwood's new score.
One of my fave films at Sundance this year was For the Bible Tells Me So, a documentary exploring the disconnect between what most Christians believe about homosexuality versus what the Bible actually has to say on the subject and,in particular, the way the Christian right has used misinterpretation of the Biblical take on the issue to shut homosexuals out of their faiths.
Director Daniel Karslake scored some amazing interviews to flesh out the film, including Bishop Desmond Tutu, Rabbi Zachary Mayer, and, at the center of the film, Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man to be elected Bishop of that denomination. Robinson's election was controversial and divisive, and he and his partner received so many death threats that he had to wear a bullet-proof vest under his robes at his consecration (because Jesus was all about the death threats, right?)
Can't get enough of great docs? You may have missed these during their fest runs, but you can still catch them on DVD. Here are seven documentaries from the last couple years that are well worth seeing, if you haven't caught them yet ...
1) Deliver Us From Evil -- Amy Berg's wrenchingly painful documentary about Oliver O'Grady (pictured, above), a pedophile priest who was moved around from parish to parish to prey on unsuspecting families by his boss, Cardinal Roger Mahony , now Archbishop of Los Angeles (who just a couple days ago, announced a $660 million pre-trial settlement of sexual abuse cases involving other priests), in spite of Mahony's knowledge of O'Grady's penchant for raping children, is a must see, and frankly, I'm shocked that more people haven't seen this Oscar-nommed film. It was by far the most powerful film I saw at last year's Toronto International Film Festival last year. If you haven't seen this film, get it in your DVD rental queue post haste.
2) Jesus Camp -- Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing have kind of take the documentary world by storm the past couple of years, with two back-to-back years of being on the feature-length documentary Oscar short list (hey, it's only a matter of time before they win, trust me). In 2005 they made the excellent Boys of Baraka (also worth catching on DVD if you want to have yourself a Rachel-and-Heidi weekend), and then they hit the ball out of the park again with Jesus Camp, about which our own James Rocchi said, "The best horror film I've seen all year is a documentary."
Our pals over at Sony Pictures Classics just sent Cinematical a new poster for Interview, directed by Steve Buscemi and starring himself and Sienna Miller. The film is a remake of Dutch director Theo van Gogh's 2003 film of the same title, and is about a political journalist (Buscemi) who is forced by his boss to interview a popular but vapid soap star, played by Miller, even though there's a big White House scandal going on at the time that he'd rather be covering. Thus begins a sort of psychological duel between the two, but since I haven't seen the film yet, there's no more I can tell you. Those interested in learning more can check out Erik's Berlinale review of the film; Interview is opening in theaters on July 13.
Next week, Cinematical contributor Nick Schager will be bringing you a review of Waitress, a romantic comedy starring Keri Russell that's arriving in theaters on May 2 with a lot of unfortunate baggage. Waitress is of course the final film of indie actress and filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, who was murdered in her office apartment last November, reportedly before hearing that Sundance had accepted Waitress into its 2007 schedule. You may have seen her most recently as a player in Matt Dillon's much-liked barfly film Factotum, or you may remember her as the star of those Hal Hartley movies from way back at the dawn of indie wave, The Unbelievable Truth and Trust. If you want to read more about Shelly and her final film, you can pick up a copy of the spring issue of Filmmaker Magazine, which is featuring an article on that very subject.
The piece, which was penned by media blogfly and former Cinematical editor-in-chief Karina Longworth, is encapsulated thusly on the magazine's cover: "Premiering at Sundance following the sudden death of its writer-director, Adrienne Shelly's Waitress is a bittersweet success." I haven't read the article yet, since that would involve all kinds of complicated actions like leaving the house and catching a bus to the city, but if you're fortunate enough to live closer to a well-stocked newsstand than me, and you're looking for something interesting to read, you might want to go out and pick up a copy. Sarah Polley is the dressed-down cover girl, and the issue also contains articles on, among other things, Hostel: Part II and the Sundance films Once and Zoo.
I first had a chance to see Teeth when it premiered at this year's Berlinale (check out the mini video interview I did with the pic's star, Jess Weixler), but the film first caused waves when it screened at Sundance (check out Kim's review and Scott's review from the fest) a few months back. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, Teeth is an independent film directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein which centers on a wholesome, abstinence-preaching teenager who unfortunately discovers that she suffers from a rare case of vagina dentata -- meaning, she has a whole bunch of sharp teeth, um, down there. Needless to say, things don't go so well when it comes time for her to dabble in some sexual activities with the opposite sex.
Now, The Weinstein Co. picked up the film at Sundance, with plans to distribute it later this summer. Seeing as some of the pic's most graphic scenes involve -- how shall I say this -- shots of bloody, dismembered genitalia, one of the big questions was how the Weinsteins were going to get this film through the MPAA without walking away with an NC-17 rating. Well, I'm happy to report that Teeth was just issued an R rating (for disturbing sequences involving sexuality and violence, language and some drug use) from the MPAA, though I truly hope it made it through in the form that played both Sundance and Berlin. However, knowing those Weinstein boys and their undying need to chop the hell out of films, I'm almost scared to see which version of Teeth finally makes it into theaters. Currently, there's still no release date for the film (Weinstein Co. = I'm not surprised), but here's hoping you all get to see this by the time the summer is out. Teeth is one heckuva crowd pleaser -- the sold-out audience I watched it with were screaming and laughing throughout. I rarely go out of my way to push a film onto you folks, but Teeth is by far the best horror-comedy of 2007. When (and if) it ever gets released in theaters, you'll be thanking me for the recommendation.
Most of us who have grown up in America have a difficult time wrapping our minds around what it's like to live in a place where every day is a struggle between life and death, with death coming out on the winning side more often than not. If we lose power for a few days, or even a week or more, as happened in my neighborhood last year when a massive windstorm hit Seattle, we panic if the store runs out of firelogs and flashlights, and start to get testy after a few days without a hot shower.
For the children of the Acholi tribe living in Patonga Refugee Camp in war-torn northern Uganda, life as we know it is simply incomprensible. Most of them have never seen electricity, or running water, much less things like television and fast food, and have seen more death in their short lifetimes than we can imagine. Most of the kids of Patonga Camp have lost one or both parents to the violence that's been wreaked upon the Acholi by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, which has slaughtered, mutilated, raped and abducted the Acholi since its inception in 1987. Since 1996, tens of thousands of Acholi have been forced by the government to abandon their ancestral lands and live in "protected villages" – overcrowded, unsanitary refugee camps which, in spite of the protection of armed government forces, are still routinely attacked by the LRA.
War/Dance, directed by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix-Fine (who won a well-deserved directing award at Sundance for this film) take us into Patonga Camp, the most remote and desolate of the protected villages, to show us the story of a group of children living in the camp who have been invited to participate in the national music and dance competition at Kampala, the nation's capitol. This is the first time Patonga Grammar school has ever won the regional competition and been invited to Kampala -- an invitation that is considered a high honor. To win at Kampala is to bring pride and recognition to your tribe, something the Acholi people desperately need after two decades of war and terrorism.
Although I didn't get to see the horror-comedy 
When I got my Entertainment Weekly Fall Movie Preview in the mail the other day, I was excited to see that Anthony Hopkins' 
Back in January I sat next to Jam-Master Rocchi during a completely packed Sundance press & industry screening of a film called 
One of my fave films at Sundance this year was 
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Next week, Cinematical contributor Nick Schager will be bringing you a review of 
