Here we are in Austin again for another South by Southwest Film Festival. I can’t believe it’s my fifth one. I started coming in 2010. This year, Bibbs is helping me out with the interview load so I may have time to see a few more films. I’m still doing back to back interviews Saturday and Sunday, but I still got to see three movies a day plus the ones I reviewed in full. Here’s the first recap in alphabetical order.
Break Point
Break Point is a solid underdog sports comedy. Nothing new or major, but really well done and effective, as any comeback story is if you don’t screw it up. Jeremy Sisto gets his Hugh Grant on as he plays a total A-hole has-been doubles player who reunites with his brother after a long ago disgrace for a comeback tour.
There you have it, that’s the basics of a good sports story. They have to train hard, and Jeremy Price (Sisto) is his own biggest hurdle to overcome. His brother Darren (David Walton) is the one who’s too nice for his own good, a little stunted because he won’t just go for things. It might be smart to release Break Point before Whiplash so people can see J.K. Simmons as a good father. Or maybe release it after Whiplash so people will like him again. Amy Smart works with Dad as a veterinarian, the woman for whom Darren has always pined.
The training, the comeback, the abrasive Jeremy sabotaging good opportunities and keeping it fun when things are going well, the girl-getting, these are all solid elements of a rousing sports movie and buddy comedy. Doubles tennis never got its Rocky. Wimbeldon was singles and it does add more drama to have players who have to work together. Now tennis doubles can marvel at their own training montages and going the distance!
The Heart Machine
The Heart Machine is Hitchcock meets Catfish. The woman is the same one in the picture, but she’s actually pretending she doesn’t live in the same city. Cody (John Gallagher Jr.) and Virginia (Kate Lyn Sheil) have an online relationship via Skype. She is doing an internship or semester or something in Germany, but he starts to put it together that she’s not in Germany at all.
You’ve got a compelling kind of stalker story where you’re rooting for the stalker, because he is actually the good guy. He’s having a sincere relationship and she’s being inconsistent. So the closer he gets to finding out where she lives in New York, the harder it gets to watch them play romantic scenes on their computer screens. We’re rooting for him to find her, but not so they can finally be together. Something’s up and we want to get to the bottom of it too. Long distance relationships are so hard. Why would someone fake one when they could be together?
Not that Virginia is the villain. She’s a sympathetic character and I feel we do come to understand why she made an unconventional decision. It’s a mistake, but people make mistakes. Gallagher and Sheil are great playing intimate scenes on a computer screen, and sympathetic in their individual scenes.
That Guy Dick Miller
That Guy Dick Miller may be the best Dick Miller movie ever by sheer volume of Dick Miller scenes. The character actor is best known for having memorable scenes in movies, but they’re small roles. This documentary gives him the spotlight and is full of awesome anecdotes, interviews and archival footage.
Soundbites of all the technobabble Miller spoke in Roger Corman movies are hilarious in and of themselves. The entire behind-the-scenes drama of The Terror has to be explained for the payoff of Miller’s plot summary scene to make sense. The interview segments give a sense of the real Dick Miller, as he jokes with his wife, and even pops in the frame to interrupt her solo interview.
There’s not much to explain about That Guy Dick Miller. It’s about that guy, Dick Miller, and delivers its promise. It’s a great documentary about a person who’s got stories to tell, and whose life is more interesting than most of the movies he’s been in. That’s a compliment. He’s been in The Terminator, Gremlins, After Hours and Gremlins 2: The New Batch. That Guy Dick Miller is right up there.
Kelly and Cal
Juliette Lewis IS Kelly and Jonny Weston IS Cal, and that joke IS NOT getting old. When a new mother befriends a teenager in a wheelchair, it helps her escape her insulated bubble and gives him someone who treats him like a person without pity. I’m always in favor of dramas where the characters confront difficult subjects with depth and humor.
Lewis is in top form and I’m thrilled to see her bring her edge to a maternal role. I hate saying that because the industry makes such a big deal about “older women” and “mature roles.” I’m just simply looking at a performer who has moved me as early as 1989 (guess which role!), and reality is it is now 2014 so she’s going to be playing moms at some point. Weston is sympathetic and dangerous as Cal in what could be one of his early defining roles.
Kelly is great character, dealing with a husband a bit too wrapped up in his professional life, but it is a single income family so that’s reality too. The tension of Cal’s attention and the line they both flirt with is the heart of the movie. As a teenager presented with a neighbor in the form of the awesome Juliette Lewis, Cal obviously hopes for something inappropriate to happen. That dilemma between the positive benefits of a friendship and pushing it to a point where it could be damaging to both parties and their families is the stuff of good drama and I really like the way Kelly and Cal handled it.
Space Station 76
I guess the point is everyone is miserable and lonely no matter how they copulate. Glenn (Wilson), the captain, is covering up something that happened with a previous officer. Ted (Bomer) is a father who wants to connect with his wife Misty (Marisa Coughlan) but she’s having an affair with the ship’s sleazeball Steve (Jerry O’Connell). Misty so evil she even passive-aggressively manipulates her daughter Sunshine (Kylie Rogers). The new scientist Jessica (Tyler) comes on board and tries to connect with people but they’re either closed off, stuck in bad relationships or manipulating her to seem like the bad guy to innocent little Summer.
That’s some heavy stuff I just described there. It all unfolds within a beautiful set of solid shapes and pastel colors. A lot of the comedy bits feel like improv exercises that never quite landed the joke, but it’s easy to sit through. If you, like me, cannot resist this cast on a ‘70s space station, you won’t find it a chore to watch Space Station 76.
13 Sins
Here’s another movie about desperate people being forced to do horrifying things, like Saw, Cheap Thrills or Would You Rather. 13 Sins is a good one, based on a 2006 Thai movie, so it was really on the early side of the movement.
13 Sins lays it on a bit thick at the beginning. Elliot (Mark Webber) is planning his wedding to his pregnant wife, and he gets fired by the insurance company he works for for being too honest and not forcing people to take policies they don’t need. This means he can’t afford his mentally challenged brother’s care and will have to institutionalize him, and let his racist father move in with him and his African-American wife because he can’t afford the retirement home either. So when a phone call says complete 13 tasks to win millions, and shows evidence they can deliver, he goes for it.
The first ones are easy, and only a little gross. First, kill a fly. Second, eat it. The third one is already messed up in terms of emotional torment, and Elliot’s fourth task already gets bigger than even the game masters intended. Also, he can’t just stop when he has enough money. It’s all 13 or nothing. Writer/director Daniel Stamm shoots the challenges well to reveal twists when they are most effective. If it’s most powerful to see it after the task is complete, then that’s when we see it. More importantly, Stamm can construct scenes to give us a false sense of security when the real payoff is still to come.
Breaking the rules and defying authority empowers Elliot at first, as rebellion tends to do. It’s a bit of a cliche but it’s a valid one. He also does his best to help repair the situations he caused without violating the rules of the game. They didn’t say anything about putting out the fire after he started it. It’s not a spoiler to suggest that the game eventually goes too far for Elliot to even play it off as positive rebellion. There are always some interesting wrinkles too. For example, consent. Is it really that bad if the victim insists on participating too?
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
