How to make this weekend nearly perfect (i.e. Still Walking)

If you have a cable system that has IFC in Theaters VOD, then you have the opportunity to make this a great weekend. One of my favorite directors has made one of my favorite films of 2009. Indeed, I highly suspect that it will find a place very, very close to the top of my year-end list.

Hirokazu Kore-eda's Still Walkingis a rare jewel of a film. It depicts family life in as honest a way as I've ever seen it portrayed in cinema. There's such simplicity to Kore-eda's filmmaking and such sublime subtlety to the performances that you may believe that the whole incident was some sort of happy accident. Indeed, Sam Adams, at The Onion's AV Club says, "The movie seems like a perfect found object, as if it had always existed and was just waiting to be uncovered."

Kore-eda is best known in the States for his films After Life and the brilliant 2005 drama Nobody Knows, about a young boy keeping his siblings together after their flighty mother abandons them. Still Walking fits more into the Nobody Knows camp, but unlike that film - where a sense of dread seemed to soak every event, even the joyous ones - the family in Still Walking is trying to find joy in the wake of tragedy.

I don't want to get plot heavy at all when talking about this film. I'll simply leave it to this: three generations of a family gather on the 14th anniversary of the death of the eldest brother in the middle generation. The event still haunts each member of the two older generations in unique ways. Don't dare imagine that you completely understand the motivations behind any of the characters - just as humans do in real life, these characters will surprise you with their compassion and with their anger.

The final scene is likely to draw a tear from your eye, and like the characters and their motivations, the tear may surprise you. Is it a tear of joy? A tear of knowing sadness? Is it that rare tear that is brought forth only by those works of art that approach perfection? Or is it all three. I'm going with the final choice.

Do yourself a favor and spend a Sunday afternoon with this joyously dysfunctional family. Still Walking will leave a lasting impression on you. And you'll thank for the recommendation.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, it was only after about two dozen emails and phone calls that I finally had to cave in and accept that I wasn't going to be able to program this film for the 2009 Nashville Film Festival (the US premiere was already promised to Tribeca one week later).

Here's a trailer.

Vote For NaFF!

You can help the festival by taking a few minutes to complete the Nashville Scene's Best Of Poll.

We are encouraging our supporters to vote for the Nashville Film Festival in two categories:

Best Festival
and Best Place to Spot Nicole Kidman

You can toss us in anywhere else you think appropriate, too, if you'd like.

Also, please support NaFF Sponsors in the appropriate fields as well. They'll certainly appreciate it! And make sure to let them know you voted for them because they support the festival...that will help us in continuing to maintain the grow sponsorship support (absolutely vital to pulling of the festival every year).

But, please, follow this link and vote for us.

More 2009 NaFF films to hit theaters

There were some films that played the 2009 Nashville Film Festival that we all knew were moving on to theatrical release: (500 Days of Summer), Big Man Japan, and I'm Gonna Explode to name a few.

But nearly all the competition films were accepted with no distribution deal in hand. Since then, quite a few have made their way into theaters or are getting ready to.

Both Weather Girl and Pressure Cooker had picked up deals between acceptance and screening at the fest and have since made their way to the big screen (Pressure Cooker has already played again in Nashville). No word yet if Weather Girl will arrive in town before its television debut on Lifetime later this year.

Since then, several others have been announced.

This Friday, We Live in Public begins a national tour at the IFC Theater in New York.

Later, narrative competition entries Afterschool (distributed by IFC) and Kisses will make their public debuts.

Here's the complete list of films to get US theatrical or TV (these are marked TV or VOD) distribution deals since the festival.

Narrative Competition:

The Baby Formula
Kisses
Mothers & Daughters (IFC Festival Direct VOD)
The Narrows
Weather Girl

Documentary Competition:

Ask Not (PBS - TV)
Crude
Garbage Dreams
Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes (PBS - TV)
Living in Emergency
Pressure Cooker
An Unlikely Weapon
We Live in Public

Music Films / Music City:

Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
Rock Prophecies
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

That's a total of 16 films that have gone onto some form of national release!

So, if you missed these films, there are more chances to check them out.

Basterds!

So, last night I was fortunate enough to attend the Red Carpet screening of Quentin Tarantino's latest film Inglorious Basterds. In attendance were Al Gore (host of the event), producer Lawrence Bender, Eli Roth (actor in this case, director usually), and French actress Melanie Laurent (more on her later). The red carpet also included some local luminaries - Sheryl Crow, Kathy Mattea, Mindy Smith, Rep. Jim Cooper - but the star of the evening was clearly Quentin Tarantino (even though he was in Los Angeles).

Inglorious Basterds is an audacious, outrageous jaw-dropper of a movie. Will it piss some people off? Most definitely. It will likely leave some scratching their heads. What makes the movie so fascinating in the end is that it is ultimately a movie about World War 2 movies. There are so many movies about the war that many people alive today only know it as an experience viewed on the screen. Hell, one of my classes was solely devoted to the films of WWII. Obviously, Tarantino is one of those people who really only knew the war as a big-screen fantasia. In that light, is his revenge fantasy really any different than say, Saving Private Ryan? The answer is a definite yes. But is it worth of some of the claims of insensitivity that have been levied against the film? No. Not really. Tarantino's band of angry American Jews (the Basterds of the title) are really nothing more than a variation on the Dirty Dozen (and are really only a small part of the film). And if that's not reference enough, there are at least a couple hundred more references to previous films and directors.

If there is a criticism to be levied against the film it's that it really isn't terribly emotionally involving. The whole thing is such an intellectual exercise that it comes off a bit cold. Where it does get truly engaging is when the true stars of the film get to play off one another. Austrian actor Christoph Walz bounds from obscurity to international superstar with his turn as the charming and vicious Hans Landa (nicknamed the Jew Hunter). Even when given pieces of dialogue that border on stereotype, he dances through the lines with such effortlessness that he creates a character that one might believe based on reality (as Ralph Fiennes' Amon Goethe was).

Also bursting through to stardom is French actress Melanie Laurent. As Shosanna Dreyfus, the one surviving member of a family of Jewish dairy farmers massacred by Walz's soldiers in the opening scene, Laurent plays the revenge-minded femme fatale. The varying degrees of sadness, fear, and righteous anger play across her face with such grace. It's actually somewhat amazing that this performance hasn't gained more award traction.

Walz, Laurent, Michael Fassbender, and Diane Kruger are proof of Tarantino's best instincts. Let's face it, Tarantino can get just about anyone he wants. Instead of casting big-time A-listers, he chose French and German actors to play French and German characters. The finest parts of the film come from that very choice.

Finally, without giving any plot away - only Tarantino would and/or could end a film with "I think this may be my masterpiece." That is probably an overstatement. But it's a ripping good time if you're prepared for it.