The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival: The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Errol Morris's "The Thin Blue Line" was unlike anything else screened at film fest HQ this week.

The documentary feature detailed the farcical trial of Randall Dale Adams--who was so clearly wrongly accused of murdering a police officer in in 1976. Using interviews with Adams, the defense team, super-creepy and obvious murderer David Ray Harris, Morris lays out the case for Adams's innocence. But he doesn't do it in the Michael Moore style of, "can you believe this??? I can't believe this??? Can you???" He lets the characters speak for themselves, and uses moody and cinematic re-enactments to show how the murder might have occurred and how the witnesses may have been more than a little unreliable.

Above all, we at film fest HQ were astounded by the film's fascinatingly structured escalation, as the details of the case came more clearly into focus with each interview--even when the interviews didn't describe events in the same way.

"The Thin Blue Line" is about a justice system determined to close the case by the most expedient means necessary, and if an innocent man had to pay the price, then it was for the greater good of the justice system. To keep those monster truck wheels of justice rolling.

This was the first real, substantial film screened at The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival, and it may yet win the coveted Blazing Melonball Award for Best in Show.

Richard Oldstate adds, "this was not the delightful Rowan Atkinson romp I expected.
Three and one-eighth stars.

The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival: PTU: Police Tactical Unit (2003)

After the Batman wars, the only ethical choice was to look outside the country for cinema, and thus, when Johnny To's PTU: Police Tactical Unit appeared atop the spinner rack, we knew that we could find sanctuary.

Unfortunately, we at film fest HQ discovered that PTU was one of To's lesser-known works for a reason. While still hauntingly evocative and stylish, it's slow, dream-like unfolding is too subtle for most American audiences. Thirty seven participants fell asleep during the screening, and the remaining forty five spent the bulk of the movie pondering the post-Batman and Robin cinematic fate of Alicia Silverstone and Chris O'Donnell. Only Richard Oldstate remained actively engaged in the film, which slowly unfolds the tale of a police officer seeking his missing gun as the forces of crime and policing build to a Leone-esque confrontation in the final minutes.

Accustomed, as we were, to garish costumes, hilarious cold-related puns, and AWESOME VEHICLES, PTU suffered by comparison. It was a ponderous masterpiece, no doubt, but it lacked motorcycle stunts and Nicky Katt.

In the genre of cop-loses-gun, PTU doesn't even rank in the top three, falling just behind Kurosawa's Stray Dog, P.T. Anderson's Magnolia, and that sequence in season three of The Wire.

Says Richard Oldstate: "I found this feature film hilarious. I always enjoy a good farce, and this one was certainly up to snuff. Speaking of snuff, it reminds me of several snuff films I participated in during the '70s. They say it's easy to kill a man, but not when you use only a matchbook."

The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival: Batman and Robin (1997)

The only possible retaliation against Richard Oldstate's deployment of the Batman Forever gambit was to attack with what is considered the worst superhero movie in history: Batman and Robin. But here at film fest HQ, we didn't just want to watch the fantastical adventures of George Clooney and his band of merry men. We wanted to gain only the deepest insight into the creative process behind the film, so we turned to director Joel Schumacher--or to his commentary track.

Schumacher teaches us a few things about filmmaking, and here are the important lessons everyone should know:

1) Feign ignorance, or, if that fails, actually be ignorant. Schumacher acts surprised when he says people compared this movie to the Adam West television show, with its campy humor, bright colors, and cornball dialogue.

2) Don't be afraid to ask a six-year-old. Schumacher had no ideas for the sequel to his previous Bat-box office smash, so he asked his little godson which characters he liked, and that's why Mr. Freeze is in the movie, and Poison Ivy, and Bane. Even though there's no story that links them together at all logically.

3) Movies are for selling toys. Why all the silly vehicles and costume changes? Schumacher was told to have those things to make the movie more "toyetic."

4) Alicia Silverstone is a skilled actress. Who else can play a mildly retarded young woman with a puffy face and a speech impediment who's really good at computers. "I can do it. I'm a big girl!" she seems to say, in that Life Goes On way of hers.

5) Nicky Katt rides motorcycles.

As terrible as Batman and Robin truly is, we at film fest HQ found it far superior to Batman Forever, largely due to the math involved. While Jim Carrey = Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Tommy Lee Jones < style="font-style: italic;">Batman and Robin is a better looking movie than Batman Forever. And not having to listen to the dialogue while Schumacher droned on about how much contempt he has for the source material, "It's just a comic book movie," he repeatedly declared--well, that was painful gravy.

Richard Oldstate was unavailable for comment.

The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival: Batman Forever (1995)

None of us at film fest HQ had seen Batman Forever since its original theatrical release, but when it popped up on the spinner rack, in position #1... (okay, who am I kidding? It was the special selection of film fest founder and secretary Richard Oldstate. He of the tweed slacks and the seafoam ascot. One would think he'd be above such superhero spectacle, especially after the disappointment of Gotham Knight, but as he held the Batman Forever dvd in his meaty hands, he giggled like a seven-year-old who'd just found his father's stash of Gary Panter art books).

As we screened this film, we, at film fest HQ, wondered (vocally) why Batman and Robin was thought of as the film that killed the Batman franchise, when Batman Forever was clearly a work of utter horribleness. How the franchise survived this movie--how this movie earned hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide--we could not decipher, as we sat in loud silence watching Nicole Kidman throw herself at a pre-puffy Val Kilmer; as we watched Tommy Lee Jones take cinematic performance in a direction best left to lesser actors; as we watched Jim Carrey give one of the most grating acting lessons of his long and painful career; as we watched Chris O'Donnell do his laundry karate.

This is the worst movie in GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival history.

Jon Favreau's the best thing in this movie, and he has no lines. Somehow, he survived this monstrosity.

After mocking the crimes against theatricality perpetrated by Joel Schumacher and company, we knew there was only one way to redeem ourselves and save our film festival from the fate of its lesser competitors. We had to go the distance.

Next up: Batman and Robin (1997)

[Note: Richard Oldstate adds, "I am a fan of acting and a fan of the actor, and I chose this film because I so admire the nuances and restraint shown in the performances of Mr. James Carrey and Sir Thomas Lee Jones. I have no comment on Mr. Timothy Callahan's improper impression of the film. He was clearly watching a different movie.]

The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival: Shoot 'em Up (2007)

When Shoot 'em Up rotated to the front of the film fest HQ spinner rack, we knew we were in for a very special 86 minutes of cinematic profundity.

The title of the movie does not lie. There is shooting, and the shooting is...up. (Actually, I don't really know where the "up" comes in, but "Shoot 'em real good, a lot" isn't as catchy.)

Director Michael Davis has made other films, all of which I have neglected to see--even his screenwriting debut, Double Dragon, which sounds like something everyone would love since it features Alyssa Milano, Mark Dacascos, and The Lady and the Tramp II's Scott Wolf. And it's based on a video game. And there's kicking. But here at film fest HQ, we didn't watch that--we screened Davis's newest feature: Shoot 'em Up.

I took a bathroom break about 45 minutes into the movie, and when I came out: more shooting. I apparently missed the plot, which dealt with some baby harvesting/gun control hot button issues, during my little break. The five minutes of missed plot did not hamper my enjoyment of this movie, which is one ridiculous set piece after another. This movie is one scene after another about a badass holding a baby, shooting everything in sight while chomping carrots. That's it. It doesn't aspire to more. The baby is clearly a doll in several sequences, and the filmmakers don't seem to mind one bit. You have to admire their willingness to abandon any pretense at realism. This is a gleeful romp through the streets of violence, and it has no redeeming qualities other than its self-conscious joy.

Here at film fest HQ, we thought it was a terrible movie, but an entertaining one nonetheless. It cleansed our palatte for the next film. It prepared us for the immense epic of cinematic genius that would soon follow in The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival. We were ready.

Next up: Batman Forever (1995)

The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival: Inglorious Bastards (1978)

Here at film fest HQ, we have one rule and one rule only: put the dvds in the spinner rack, give it a whirl, and let God sort it out. Except when we break that rule by picking a lot of Batman-related movies. But in the case of 1978's Inglorious Bastards (a.k.a. Quel maledetto treno blindato), it was chance mixed with luck and a dash of karma that led to our screening of the film.

It's the film Quentin Tarantino would probably call, "the film I will loosely base my next project on, except I'm stealing the name, the concept, and many of the situations from it too. Because it's Italian and it's awesome."

Here at film fest HQ, we watched the film in various states of nervous disquiet, wondering if Fred The Hammer Williamson would help the film live up to the potential expressed in it's tagline: "Whatever the Dirty Dozen did, they do dirtier!" And the film is just like The Dirty Dozen, except with half the men, and significantly less awesomeness. It's a poster child for the notion that a cool idea does not a good movie make.

If you haven't seen the movie, and you probably haven't, then we at film fest HQ want you to know what you're missing. It's a rag-tag band of POWs who end up fighting on behalf of the VERY ARMY THAT WANTED THEM LOCKED UP. During WWII. And with naked girls shooting guns. And that's not all, because, unlike The Dirty Dozen, Inglorious Bastards does climax with the storming-the-castle sequence. The storming-the-castle is just the middle, as the team of sleazy misfits goes on to blow up a bridge, steal an evil weapon of evilness from a speeding train, and confront the nazis in a showdown of not-really-all-that-epic proportions.

If any of that sounds like it would make a good movie, you're 35% correct. The other 65% of the movie is filled with filler moments on par with some of the lesser episodes of Baywatch Nights. If you like your silences awkward and your character interactions lifeless, then Inglorious Bastards will tickle your satisfaction glands.

Here at film fest HQ, we like it for its concept, but we don't really feel the need to screen it anytime soon. Although the soon-to-be-released special edition dvd looks tempting.

Next up: Shoot 'em Up (2007)

The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival: Gotham Knight (2008)

It's a pretty exciting month. SDCC and The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival all happening within the same two weeks. Since I'll largely be reporting on Comic-Con events elsewhere, I'll provide exclusive coverage of the The First Annual GeniusboyFiremelon Bi-Coastal 24-Hour (Non-Consecutive) Film Festival here, on GeniusboyFiremelon.

The film festival began early Thursday morning, with a special screening of Gotham Knight the direct-to-dvd prelude to the theatrical release of The Dark Knight.

Here at film fest HQ, we were pretty excited about the direct-to-dvd Batman anthology, and eagerly anticipated the beautiful collision of anime and Bob Kane. I could write a long post explaining just what went wrong to shatter our illusions of straight-to-dvd bliss.

But Richard Oldstate and I already wrote about Gotham Knight HERE.

So, I'll let that post speak for all of us, here at film fest HQ.

Next up: Inglorious Bastards (1978)