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Posted on 09.29.05 by Pete @ 1:50 pm
Runtime: 91 minutes Reviewed by: Peter C. Bowen Barry Dingle is directed by Barry Shurchin who was at the screening for a Q & A at the Rome International Film Festival. The Barry in the movie is a complete schmuck and so is the real life Barry. I found out from my brother that Shurchin was caught stuffing the ballot boxes in order to win the audience choice award and was disqualified from competition. This is not at all surprising seeing as how he kept telling us that he just wanted to win so that when the distributor (he’s sold the movie and it will get a 2006 theatrical release) makes promotion posters they can put “Winner of the Audience Choice Award: Rome International Film Festival.” He was quick to point out that, “nobody will think it’s Rome, Georgia! I mean, c’mon, they’ll totally think it’s Rome, Italy and that will look awesome!” Shurchin didn’t seem to notice that he was insulting the home town of most of his audience. In his defense, they didn’t seem to mind. Of course the crowd was mostly people he had pulled out of the bars near the venue, so they were too drunk to care. So you’d think I hated this movie right? Well I loved it. I really don’t even think Shurchin would mind being called a complete bastard. He made a point of telling everyone that he was well aware that his film is unredeemably offensive and that if we hated him he didn’t mind if we told him so. He was 100% ready to defend his film, if not his morality. I kind of admired his, “I’m an a$$hole, that’s just kinda my style” approach to things. Also, I was ready to see some trash after all the art films I’d taken in over the weekend. (Click Here To Read More…) Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Pete and Rating: Good ★★★ and Film Festivals: News and Film Festivals: Rome International Film Festival 2005 Comments: None |
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Posted on 09.23.05 by Pete @ 11:14 am
Rome International Film Festival Reviewed by: Peter C. Bowen Fall to Grace is another one of those movies that, to me at least, should be a major drag to sit through, one of those “eat your vegetables” kind of films. The RIFF’s description makes it sound like the film is about a bunch of Russian immigrant girls and their various hang-ups. Add this to the whole living in poverty thing the parents are dealing with and you would not expect fun from your movie-going experience. Luckily RIFF is not very accurate in their descriptions. (Click Here To Read More…) Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Pete and Rating: Good ★★★ and Film Festivals: News and Film Festivals: Rome International Film Festival 2005 Comments: 2 Comments |
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Posted on 09.21.05 by Pete @ 8:06 pm
Rome International Film Festival Reviewed by: Peter C. Bowen
Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Pete and Rating: Poor ★ and Film Festivals: News and Film Festivals: Rome International Film Festival 2005 Comments: None |
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Posted on 09.20.05 by Pete @ 4:52 pm
a.k.a. Shinjuuereji Reviewed by: Peter C. Bowen
Double Suicide Elegy (www.fullmedia.co.jp/elegy) was easily one of the best films shown at the Rome International Film Festival. On our way to the screening I was trying to explain to my brother what I thought the movie would be like based on the short synopsis in the RIFF program. I mean the name of the movie is Double Suicide Elegy! It has to be a total bummer right? Well this is a Japanese movie. They tend to look at death and suicide a bit differently from us. I still thought it was going to be painful to watch. But I could not have been more wrong. I really thoroughly enjoyed this film. (Click Here To Read More…) Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Contributors: Pete and Rating: Good ★★★ and Film Festivals: News and Film Festivals: Rome International Film Festival 2005 Comments: None |
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Posted on 09.15.05 by Pete @ 4:30 pm
Runtime 57 min. Reviewed by: Peter C. Bowen
The story starts out with D and Anjo in a restaurant. Anjo is pitching him on the Friendship Insurance her company specializes in. Friendship Insurance makes it possible to name any of your friends as the beneficiary if you die suddenly. Suicide is covered under the policy so you can easily see the mischief that this can cause. (Click Here To Read More…) Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Contributors: Pete and Rating: Good ★★★ and Film Festivals: News and Film Festivals: Rome International Film Festival 2005 Comments: None |
With [D] I finally got into the good stuff at the Rome International Film Festival. This short (57 minutes) feature crams so many plot twists and whodunit turns that you need to take notes to keep track of who is who and what everyone is doing to everyone else. I did and it still got too twisted to know for sure. The great thing about the film is that it’s such a fun ride and everyone is so bizarre that you can just let it wash over you and somehow you still pretty much know what’s going on. |
Posted on 09.15.05 by Pete @ 8:45 am
Runtime 28 min. Reviewed by: Peter C. Bowen
Apparently able bodied men are all subject to the military summons unless they have a degree. As Pawel’s friend Jan explains this we learn that Pawel has actually dropped out of school in the US, he says, because he misses his girl Agata. In a double whammy for Pawel, Agata has moved on and doesn’t really have time for him. Pawel doesn’t really spend anytime worrying over Agata though because he is being pursued by government agents to make sure he reports for duty. Pawel’s solution to this problem is to burn his identity papers. End of story. (Click Here To Read More…) Filed under: Movie Reviews and Contributors: Pete and Movie Reviews: Europe and Rating: Average ★★ and Film Festivals: News and Film Festivals: Rome International Film Festival 2005 Comments: None |
Holiday was the first film I attended at the |
Posted on 09.13.05 by Pete @ 3:19 pm
Rome is a small city (around 35,000 people) but there are three colleges so the hipster quotient is fairly high. I had the bad luck to live in nearby Dalton during high school and have some fond memories of escaping down to Rome to see cool bands and be around people other than the yokels back home. Downtown Rome is home to several bars and a classic old style theater, The DeSoto, which also happens to be the headquarters of the Rome International Film Festival. The festival’s title is no joke there are movies from all over the world from Japan, Poland, Switzerland, Belarus, Sweden, New Zealand, Nepal and others . One gets the impression that the founders of this festival got tired of driving to Atlanta to see out of the way movies and decided, “Hey, we’ve got tons of college students and faculty! Let’s put on a film festival so we can see some cools stuff!” It’s worked out pretty well. This is the second year of the festival and judging from the support from the city of Rome and the state of Georgia it should survive well into the future. It doesn’t hurt that the festival has found quality films. Also the directors, actors and producers of many of them traveled to Rome to promote their work and schmooze with other film makers and obscure internet journalists like yours truly. [Editor’s Note: If you check the RIFF film listings you’ll see that I barely made a dent in the programming. There were three different screenings going on simultaneously throughout the weekend so I tried to focus on the narrative features. The films I actually did see were as follows: Holiday, [D], Double Suicide Elegy, Mirage, Fall to Grace, Barry Dingle. I will be posting full reviews of these movies over the next couple of days. ] Filed under: Movie News and Contributors: Pete and Film Festivals: News and Film Festivals: Rome International Film Festival 2005 Comments: None |
No this is not Rome, Italy unfortunately for me. But fortunately for you and me both Rome, Georgia has put on a very respectable festival. Visit their website 
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