Speedway Junkie This is probably the funniest film in the festival, and unintentionally so: It's just hard to stifle a laugh--a guffaw might be more appropriate--whenever former Home Improvement star Jonathan Taylor Thomas opens his mouth and starts talking about how he'll fuck man or woman for a little spare scratch. The little tyke's all grown up (sort of) and is cruising the Las Vegas strip, with pals Johnny (Jesse Bradford) and Eric (Jordan Brewer), for pocket change in this movie about the seedy side of the seediest city in America; smells like direct-to-video on this end. Exec-produced by Gus Van Sant, this is what happens when good intentions collide with bad execution; around the time Daryl Hannah shows up as a streetwise hooker, sporting a black eye and solemn war stories, you'll wonder how this movie escaped from Showtime. Also starring Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Patsy Kensit, and Warren G. November 17, 7 p.m., Expo Lounge. (RW)
Spring Forward Director-writer Tom Gilroy's film will challenge all but the most stoic of audiences; be warned, children of MTV, Jerry Bruckheimer, and the remote control. Liev Schreiber and Ned Beatty, as two men who work for the parks department in a Connecticut town, spend the entirety of the film doing little more than talking and driving and talking and...uh, talking. They talk about prison (Schreiber's character, Paul, has just been released after serving time for robbing a Dunkin' Donuts), about women, about growing old (Beatty's Murph, a 30-year vet, is on the verge of retirement), about anything and everything to while away the hours. They're total opposites--Paul's the crude-on-the-outside-brilliant-on-the-inside type, while Murph's an uptight old man with a son dying of AIDS--united only by their dislike for Campbell Scott (aren't we all) and their shared boredom. Spring Forward looks as though it were filmed on a stage; it's essentially one long scene, save for shots of the changing of seasons as the year progresses (yellow leaves, white snow, green grass). Paul wants only to get by, loosen up Murph (with a little dope), and, just maybe, fall in love; Peri Gilpen's Georgia, a lonely keeper of stray dogs, is willing to accommodate him. Nothing happens, but everything is revealed in Spring Forward; it's a poem read quietly, one that demands you be still, open your ears and your heart, and pay attention. You will rewarded for your patience. November 17, 8:30 p.m., Lakewood. Gilroy will attend. (RW)
John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe take a bite out of cinema in E. Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire.
Griffin Dunne's latest film, Famous, will screen at the DEFF as part of a Dunne retrospective.
Details
November 16-19. The opening-night film, Shadow of the Vampire, screens at 7 p.m. at the Lakewood Theater, 1825 Abrams Parkway, with a cash-bar party afterward; tickets are $15. Screenings will take place at the Lakewood, Club Dada, Club Clearview, Main Street Internet Café, Expo Lounge, and Deep Ellum Live. A VIP pass is available for $125 and is good for all events, except a dinner for Griffin Dunne; a film pass is available for $75; a student pass is available for $50. Dinner with Dunne takes place Saturday night at the Old Mill Inn in Fair Park; tickets are $50 per person.
Related Content
More About
You Can Count on Me The moods of writer-director Kenneth Lonergan's film are so artfully mingled that it's difficult to get a fix on this highly personal independent feature. Set in a quiet little town in upstate New York's lovely Catskill Mountains, it is at once a drama about the unresolved traumas of childhood and a sly comedy about how sibling conflict tests the limits of family love. Don't worry about defining categories or genres too precisely, though: Lonergan comes at you on his own terms, and that's his strength. Made on a tiny budget, Count is Exhibit A for this year's defense of well-written, richly nuanced movies that value human behavior more than 30-car smashups, gratuitous sex, and all the other Hollywood evils about which presidential candidates like to moralize. If you have an IQ above room temp, you may find this gem irresistible. The pooh-bahs at the Sundance Film Festival certainly did: Lonergan was co-winner of this year's grand jury prize. The principals include The Truman Show's Laura Linney as a wounded single mother, Sammy Prescott, who's trying to build a respectable life for herself and her 8-year-old son, Rudy (Rory Culkin), in sleepy Scottsville; and appealing newcomer Mark Ruffalo as Sammy's wayward brother, Terry, who comes home to visit with a résumé featuring odd jobs in half a dozen states, a fistful of broken romances, and a stint in jail. Superficially, Sammy and Terry are opposites; the tightly wound homebody seems to have nothing in common with the charming drifter. But below the surface lies a far more complex and intriguing relationship, born of tragedy yet buoyed by wit. The family dynamics here are not just complicated, they are touchingly funny. As teenagers, the two were numbed by their parents' deaths in a car accident, and we become present witnesses to the toll of that terrible hurt. Sammy has tried to take refuge in hearth and home, Terry in running away. But now that they are reunited in their dead parents' house, something has to give. Happily, Lonergan knows just what it is--the emotional logjam that has imprisoned Sammy and Terry all these years. To his credit, this canny moviemaker doesn't inflict any easy answers (or happy endings) on his characters. Instead, he explores the constant messiness of life and the little victories it reluctantly yields. November 18, 8:30 p.m., Lakewood. (Bill Gallo)
