Campus MovieFest 2014
Universal Studios
DAY 3: The Films
I’ll let my brother John Brown handle this:
“So seven hours later 71 short films seen. Lots of laughs, incredible cinematography, great writing and story lines some touching moments and all with the best movie watcher in the world — my big bro!”
John Brown, left, and Marvin Brown at the 2014 Campus MovieFest at Universal Studios. Photo credit: John Brown
The Rover (2014)
Rated R
Porchlight Films
In some dystopian future, 10 years after the “collapse,” a man (Guy Pearce) sits in his car on a deserted Australian highway. As flies buzz around him and he stares into nothing as the sun beats down on his shaggy, haggard form, we notice the shot is held for quite a while. So long, in fact, we begin to wonder if the reel is stuck. The soundtrack punctuates the silence with atonal chords that seem louder than usual.
These things—the lingering shot, the abrasive sound—establish not simply tone, but theme. You’re going to be subjected to both for the rest of the film.
Pearce eventually gets out of the car and walks across dusty, sun-scorched road and into some kind of makeshift store. Its proprietors are silent, worn men and boys who can hardly be bothered by Pearce’s presence.
While he’s in the place, a carful of panicked thieves wreck nearby and steal Pearce’s car as a substitute. The rest of the film concerns Pearce’s pursuit of the thieves.
This is a strange, uncomfortable film that repeatedly uproots expectations. The more we learn about Pearce the less we like him; it’s probably for the best that he’s hardly defined. We know he’s handy with a gun and he doesn’t blink at shocking violence. He just wants his car back.
Aside from deliberately held shots and grating ambient score, David Michôd’s film builds a creepy undertone by presenting women as scarce, while shirtless boys hover in the corners of many scenes.
Pearce is united with the abandoned brother (Robert Pattinson of the Twilight series) of one of the thieves. He’s a “half wit” who can’t decide if he wants to reunite with his brother or kill him.
Pearce brings his dependable intensity to the proceedings. He’s so hard externally we don’t know what to make of his character when he sheds tears. Pattinson, nearly unrecognizable and intriguing with his mumbling accent and vacant stare, with this film and Cosmopolis (2013) firmly establishes capabilities beyond playing a brooding, glistening vampire.
The film is bleak and humorless, offering a convincing pull into its atmosphere. There’s a powerful scene of Pearce detailing the fate of his wife. And another in which a young girl becomes a causal victim of violence.
But you’ll wonder how, despite so much violence, death and a short runtime that it still feels like you’ve lived hours drifting in this dusty, dirty, sweaty, sticky off-beat film. I wanted to take a shower afterward.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Campus MovieFest 2014
Universal Studios
DAY 2: Bloodcast
Clarke Wolfe of Nerdist.com and Ryan Turek of ShockTillYouDrop.com participated in the Bloodcast workshop during the 2014 Campus MovieFest at Universal Studios.
The humorous duo can whip up engaging discussions out of thin air. That fact that they know their stuff, horror-wise, made this one of the best workshop sessions of the festival. Horror topics ran the gamut, from old school flicks to torture porn gross-outs to meta-rrific genre classics like Scream.
Great stuff.
Clarke Wolfe, left, of Nerdist.com and Ryan Turek of ShockTillYouDrop.com
Up next: Workshops
Me, with Tom Shadyac, director of Ace Ventura, The Nutty Professor, Patch Adams and Bruce Almighty.
Writer/director/producer Grant Heslov (Argo, The Monuments Men)
Film Review
Very Good Girls (2013)
Rated R
Groundswell Productions
Very Good Girls is an uneven coming-of-age drama featuring Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen (Godzilla, Martha Marcy May Marlene). The ingredients are here—two skilled actors, a summer of sexual awakening, a lovers’ triangle, a sudden death—but the film never gels.
Best friends, college-bound Lily (Fanning) and earth-child Gerry (Olsen), make a pact to lose their virginity before summer’s end. Things get complicated when they fall for the same fellow, David (Boyd Holbrook, looking indistinguishable from actor Charlie Hunnam).
The film immediately engages with an impressive cast, then, strangely, begins to falter, scene by scene. The problem, I think, resides at the screenplay level.
Writer/director Naomi Foner Gyllenhall’s secondary characters are wasted in snapshot scenes. Gerry’s Bohemian parents—Richard Dreyfus and Demi Moore—are the expected hippy-attired, folk-music-playing cutouts. Lily’s folks—Clark Gregg and Ellen Barkin—are standard middle-class, middle-aged, boozy professionals. To be fair, Gregg has a couple of father-daughter scenes he attempts wrangle from cliche.
Every time a scene arrives—a death, an infidelity—it’s blunted by pacing or odd character responses. One exception is a gentle first-time love-making scene that is effective in its use of music, framing, acting and tone.
The film might have held together better, been more impactful, if balance had been brought to the main characters. This is Fanning’s show, and she can act. But Olsen, who can also act, is wasted. If equal measure had been brought to each girl, the conflict—both girls falling for the same artsy bad boy—might have moved us.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Up first:
Very Good Girls, starring Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen.
John Brown at Universal Studios Cinema (Credit: Marvin Brown)
Universal Studios Cinemas
Next: Day2: Bloodcast
Campus MovieFest 2014
Universal Studios
Day 1: Setting Up
The CMF bills itself as the “world’s largest student film and music festival.” In its 13th year of doing what it does best, the event brought together college and university students from around the globe to screen their films, workshop and network with each other, and walk the Red Carpet for the culminating awards ceremony.
The affable cofounder and Vice President ViJay Makar and his skillful team undertook what must have been (but didn’t feel like) a daunting task of corralling hundred of students and managing dozens of workshop hosts, celebrity presenters and an untold number of film screening.
How this thing works: Students at participating colleges and universities are supplied with Apple laptops, Panasonic HD camcorders, and training–all for free. The students are given one week to create their own short movies, with each school hosting red carpet finales to showcase its top movies. The movies must be five minutes or less, and use music created by the students themselves or contributed by independent artists.
This thing can only get bigger by the year.
Campus MovieFest 2014
Universal Studios
Day 1
The palm trees, Universal Studios, an explosion of billboards and lights promoting coming attractions. Smells like movies out here. The 2014 CMF gets under way.
Next: Setting up
Off to the Campus MovieFest in Los Angeles.
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