ELVIS!!!
Saturday
Day 4 started all intellectual-like and then moved on to heavy partying. That, my friends, is a GOOD day.
We started at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art for a couple of panels and a screening. The first panel was called “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Make My Movie.” This turned out to be a lucky panel to be on. Three of the four panelists, Jack Roberts, Adam Beatty, and Mark Potts, won awards later that night. Unfortunately, Lagueria Davis was not as lucky. Still the panel was very interesting and all four contributors offered up interesting thoughts (all you need to get in the writing groove is tea, an iTunes playlist, and a candle). With budgets ranging from near a million down to $300 for a feature, all of the panelists were inspiring. This was the moment in the festival that I had my annual bout of wanting to be a filmmaker myself.
After that first panel, the documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Criticism was screened. I absolutely love film criticism. There’s a real art to good criticism. I hope one day to have a fraction of the skill of some of my favorite critics. The documentary was interesting, but having read Phillip Lopate’s book American Movie Critics it wasn’t all that eye-opening for me. It could have benefited from being made a couple years later than it was. There has been so much change–so many critics losing their jobs–that many of the subject identifications were way out of date.
The film then lead into the “Critics Panel” which was moderated by OKCMOA’s Brian Hearn. The panelists included Gerald Peary (critic and director of For the Love of Movies), Pete Vonder Haar (of FilmThreat), and Elvis “Shake It, Don’t Break It” Mitchell of KCRW’s The Treatment. Again, I just love the art of film criticism so this was very interesting for me. Like the movie, I’m not sure that a general audience would have enjoyed it quite as much. Also, the movie and the second panel would’ve benefited from a talented and respected film blogger. The movie briefly featured Karina Longworth (formerly of spout), but that was about it aside from Harry Knowles (Aint It Cool News). As it stands, it was hardly even accepted that a good critic could be had from someone who hadn’t at some point held a position with a print publication. They are out there. My RSS feed is full of them. Still, it was a lot of fun and made we want to get a book of Pauline Kael’s criticism.
So after the panel it was over to IAO for the Mixtape shorts program. Bicycle Cowboy was a fun silent-y film that made what it could out of its conceit. Mr. Hypnotism was good, even if I was never quite sure if Dr. Dante was real or if this was actually just a mockumentary. feMC was somewhat interesting, if incomplete. Cinder I just didn’t get or care for. Seltzer Works was a beautiful short documentary that surprisingly captured my interest. And my most anticapted short, Blastula: The Making of Embryonic, was mostly nice to look at but lacked any context. I’m a huge Flaming Lips fan and I’ve listened to their Embryonic album. So, I could tell what was going on. But the documentary short barely even identified the band members, much less any context for the band or the album as a whole. It would make for a fairly pretty DVD extra or something, but didn’t really stand on its own. At any rate, we had to leave before the last film in order to make it to our next film.
I hadn’t planned on seeing Justin Monroe’s The Rock ‘n Roll Dreams of Duncan Christopher when the festival began. But the non-stop promotion of the film by Simply Irresistible was enough to make me change around my schedule. And, I was certainly rewarded. Great direction, hilarious moments, solid performances, beautifully shot, and with a wonderful soundtrack. Very solid AND an Oklahoma film. My only problems came in the last few moments of the film. But I can certainly allow them a brief hiccup.
We made it over to the Cosmic Art Jubilee in time for the Awards Ceremony. Then it was off to a bite to eat before the Block Party on 9th Street (Iguana once again). After that wound down and I finally managed to shake Elvis Mitchell’s hand, we ended up meeting a few friends elsewhere and partying even longer into the night. It was a long day. And nearly the end of the festival. But so, so wonderful.
