Palm Springs FilmFest 2019

     I love movies. I always have. Its probably because my parents did too. That was one of the few things they could agree to do as a family. In fact, my name, Alan, came from my mother's adoration of the actor Alan Ladd. When I met the infamous Scotty Bowers last month, the pimp for the stars, he noted that Ladd had a place out here in Palm Springs. I didn't know that nor did I ask if Ladd was Gay too.

     I grew up in the golden era of film. Stars like Grace Kelley, Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Esther Williams, Ethel Merman, John Wayne, Gary Cooper and so many more graced the screen every week as I grew up. I can still remember crying as the Titanic slipped below the waves in "A Night To Remember," or the screams of two college boys in one of the slash scenes in "Psycho." I couldn't go upstairs into my dark bedroom without every light on for months!

     Movies, even though we know are manmade, designed if you will by scriptwriters, cinematographers, actors, directors and editors have the power to move us and in some cases move a nation to action.

     For Christmas this year friends gave me tickets to two Chinese movies from the list of over 230 movies shown at Palm Springs 2019 FilmFest. Curious about other films that would be playing I grabbed the schedule from a booth at the Thursday Palm Springs Village Fest and looked it over. There were some interesting films so I went online and went from two movies to ten. Over a period of 11 days a movie a day would fit in. Here is what I saw from best to worst with some strange and confusing films in-between. Festivals like this are driven by critics, people I generally feel have pretty poor judgement ... you know, who died and made them king or queen? Here's my critique:

THE GUILTY

    THE GUILTY. Rarely does a film have the kind of power to hold you where you see the actor in every frame and those he is talking to are never seen. Directed by first movie ever Director Gustav Möller, its a thriller that starts sarcastically when a disgraced cop has been grounded in a 911 like call center. When an apparent abduction happens this film never, ever lets you go. Möller was there to discuss the film afterwards and few left after this exhausting film. At a crucial moment in the film when its apparent what's happened the woman next to me yelled, "No, NO" and was echoed by many others.

 This Danish film is a good contender for a nomination for the Oscars Best Foreign Film. See it, it's that powerful.

    CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME, an American film starring Melissa McCarthy is the story about the fall and disgrace of author Lee Israel, a noted biographer on hard times. A chance letter found in a book about Fanny Brice starts a new career of fake letters from the stars. McCarthy is perfect in the role, smart, sharp tongued and believable. Rarely has the fall from grace been captured so well.

  BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee's latest and I think best, tells the story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the first African-American policeman hired to the Colorado Springs, CO police force. It relates how in a moment of daring he responds to an ad in the local paper looking for new recruits for the KKK. He speaks with the local leader and when a meeting is required uses a white, Jewish cop (Adam Driver) as his surrogate. The film succeeds because in 50 years not all that much has changed. The filth and venom David Duke and his fellow followers spew here has not changed much or maybe at all. Echoes of Charlottesville from the past and times that we thought were gone are not. What made the film even more interesting was Stallworth was there after the movie for Q & A and noted that he carries his KKK card to this day as a reminder.

Winogrand on the street

   GARRY WINOGRAND: ALL THINGS ARE PHOTOGRAPHABLE brought to mind this noted image maker and the reasons I didn't like his photography.

    I got my first camera at age 5. Somewhere are photos of me taking photos with an old Agfa box camera my father brought back from Germany after the war. In high school I took photo class and in fact printed many of the photos used in the yearbook I was editor of. 

    I never liked his, to me, discordant images, tilted in strange angles and views. Yet, I also realized that his photos are a time capsule of the past. He captures people and trends many younger viewers had never seen. I'm glad I saw this documentary but you won't find a book of his photos in my library.

Dumping DEAD PIGS

     DEAD PIGS sounds like a strange title for a movie but this Chinese movie of greed and corruption is actually quite good. It relates the tale of a brother and sister who struggle to get ahead in modern day Shanghai, China. Having recently been there, I recognized many of the places.

   The brother borrows money to make an investment is a shady brokerage firm and loses everything. Then his and everyones pigs start dying so he can't sell them to pay his bookie. His sister, sitting in the last raining house of a planned new development, that is worth millions of yuan, won't help. The tale spins deeper and darker until near the end it all becomes clear. Pay close attention as all the clues are there only it took a day of reflection for me to realize what had happened and when.

     Now we enter the questionable:

Our hero? and his evil twin sisters

      DIAMANTINO was a Portuguese entry about a famous soccer player that was lovely eye candy with twin evil sisters and, for me, not much else. The critics may have loved this film but I and others who talked about it waiting in line for movies were as confused as me. All I got out of it was the sisters were greedy.

     ASH IS PUREST WHITE was another Chinese entry about a local thug and his girlfriends fall from grace. Using a gun to save her thug boyfriend from serious harm, she spends five years in jail (no private citizen in China is allowed to own a gun) and when she gets out, the man she saved has moved on, well, until he hasn't. None of the characters are sympathetic or likable. Interesting view of criminal justice in China.

Guns in China are a BIG no-no!

FAST COLOR, another American film, tells the story of a Gaia type character who is chased by the government to harness her powers to change the earth. It never explains how and why and echoes too many other movies and books with similar themes. It isn't nice to fool Mother Nature.

It was a very, VERY Long Day here!

  LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT may have won awards in Cannes, China and elsewhere but soon after it started the exodus began. I brought a Chinese friend who made it thorough 70 minutes of this 140 minute film, leaving just before the 3D portion began. 3D didn't make it any better. The main character, to me, wandered in search of a film. We watched and wondered the same thing. 

     I hated DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE. In fact I felt that I too had been dragged. How this Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn film had even been made is a mystery to me. The tale is about a recently released prisoner hired to take part in a gold bullion heist and two disgraced cops planning the same thing had all the senseless violence you could ever ask for. ALL of the characters were despicable and that the original criminal survives and get most of the gold and lives in the lap of luxury sends the message that crime is good, why work when you can steal? Play your cards right and you can live like me. That the actor, who portrays the character that survived, could barely speak before this evening film, set the tone. I hope it never makes it the mainstream theaters. 

Crime pays in DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE

     It was fun though 10 movies is a lot. A friend here saw 21, almost 2 a day. I saw two back to back and was wiped out. The overriding question though, to me, was, after talking to others that saw their fair share of films, who are these critics? How did these films get so many awards? As a close follower of Rotten Tomatoes, I've noticed an uptick of films that critics love and the audience hates, movies the audience loves is often hated by the critics. It appears that, just like current politics, there is a definite discordance from the self declared "pros" and the public.

     I feel a movie should stand on its own, that the story it has to tell should be unique. Festivals such as this at least give us a chance to see what other cultures, countries are saying. I, and many of my friends are tired of ROCKY 253, of the fourth iteration of A STAR IS BORN as good or bad as it may be. Even the movies I couldn't understand were at least born of new ideas, new thought. The worst were old themes or played to audiences that didn't need to be shown that sloth is good because they had already settled on that.

     I will say one thing though, now that I have dipped my toe into the waters, I can't wait for the next round of films!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!