Chasing a ‘Whale’ in Lake Placid

For
some reason, Fate has seemed determined to keep me from the Lake Placid Film Forum. I didn’t even
know about the first Forum, in 2000, until it ended. In 2001 I was all set to
go but got run over by a truck instead. Last year, the Forum ran opposite the
World Cup, and let’s be frank: The World Cup takes precedence over everything.

            I finally made it for the fourth
annual four-day Forum, which wrapped up this past Sunday after a few soggy days
of screenings, panels, discussions, and book signings. Here’s a quick recap of
how things went down in the Adirondacks:

Day one
(Thursday)

Arrived
in what appeared to be a ghost town at 3:30 a.m. and spent about 30 minutes
searching for my hotel while praying my bladder remained intact. Woke up in
time for the big opening night film, which may find its way to Rochester for
this fall’s ImageOut Fest. Camp, a strange blend of Wet Hot American Summer and But I’m a Cheerleader, is about a young
man (Daniel Letterle) who shakes things up at a summer camp for future Broadway
stars. In other words, he’s the only straight boy there (and the sports
counselor is very bored). A lot of
the show-tune references went way over my hetero head, and Camp ran long at nearly two hours. But Stephen Trask’s score here
was just as catchy as his work in Hedwig
and the Angry Inch.

            The only other screening on Thursday
turned out to be the best picture of the entire Forum (and just about everyone
else agreed, as it took home the Silver Deer for the audience’s favorite). Whale
Rider, which is scheduled to open at the Little Theatre the week of
Independence Day, is not only the most magical film since Amélie, but also the best water-related cinematic fable since The Secret of Roan Inish.

            Rider is set in New Zealand and follows the life of a young native girl (Keisha
Castle-Hughes) who would find herself in the unique position of being her
tribe’s next chief, if only she had the requisite outdoor plumbing. To make
matters worse, both her twin brother and mother died during the birth, and her
mourning father hit the road, leaving the poor thing to be raised by her
uncompromising grandfather. Perhaps the most beautiful picture of the year to
date, and definitely home to the finest performance by an unknown actress.

Day two
(Friday)

Warmed
up by screening three consecutive hour-long programs of shorts, including our
own Matthew Ehlers’ hysterical Autobank, which is a blast to watch
in a packed theatre when you already know the payoff. There was also one called
The
Long and Short of It, which Sean “Don’t Call Me Rudy” Astin
made while shooting The Lord of the Rings trilogy. You won’t see Gandalf or Smeagol, but astute eyes recognized
Oscar-winning cinematographer Andrew Lesnie as the lead, as well as Rings‘ director Peter Jackson, who
briefly appeared as a bus driver.

            Next up was The Heart of Me, a dreary
Brit romantic tragedy about two sisters (Helena Bonham Carter and Olivia
Williams) in love with the same lucky guy (Paul Bettany). Bonham Carter’s
presence brought to mind the far superior threesome pic Wings of the Dove, though I did appreciate this picture’s ability
to make its two naturally attractive actresses look considerably less so at
certain points during the topsy-turvy story. Based on Rosamond Lehmann’s novel.

            The Polish brothers’ ’50s-themed Northfork,
about a small Montana town being evacuated so the whole dusty place can be
turned into one big lake to drive up the property values, plays like a
lightweight movie by two better-known brothers (read: Coen). The flick is full
of zany characters, including a guy with an ark, a dog on stilts and a dying
orphan who might actually be an angel. Still, it’s way better to be a Coen
brothers knockoff than a sequel to The
Fast and the Furious.

            Bounce Ko Gals reminded me a lot of
a film I saw in Toronto a couple of years ago called Scout?Man, which was about the seedy profession of standing on a
busy street corner in Japan and conning innocent girls to do naughty things for
lots of money. Where Man was about
the men, Gals focuses on the girls
(duh!), who sell their soiled panties to dirty old men with lots of money. The
girls do a lot worse, too, which makes this film kind of depressing, even with
a surprisingly uplifting finale that gives viewers the impression Japan’s
underground sex industry is full of friendly do-gooders with hearts of gold.
And I’m pretty sure it ain’t.

            While many perverts at the Forum
went to the midnight screening of Larry Clark’s Ken Park (it’s art porn), this pervert opted for Takashi Miike’s
equally disturbing Visitor Q because I had already seen Ken Park. Anyone familiar with Miike (his Happiness of the Katakuris screened at our High Falls Film Festival
last fall) knows what to expect here. The titular Q brings order to a very dysfunctional family (by bashing the
patriarch in the head with a rock), which naturally leads to all the lactating
and necrophilia you can stand. Hopefully.

Day three
(Saturday)

I
had never heard of Southern author Larry Brown (he wrote the book that became
Forum feature Big Bad Love) and
didn’t really cotton to the idea of learning about him or dragging myself out
of bed to make the 10:30 a.m. start time of The Rough South of Larry Brown.
But I did it anyway, mostly because I had read that writer-director David
Gordon Green and cinematographer Tim Orr (All
the Real Girls) had something to do with it. They did, taking part in
shooting reenactments of three of Brown’s early short stories, and it was all
scored by Vic Chestnutt, too. Now I suddenly like this Larry Brown guy, even if
he won’t be coaching the ‘Sixers next year.

            Nosey Parker was one of those films
that sounded cheesy, fit really well into my schedule, and ended up being very
entertaining. It’s about a New Yorker who moves to Vermont, refurbishes a giant
old house, and becomes best friends with one of the gossipy locals, who looks
like one of the old ushers at Silver Stadium. Silver Deer Doc winner What
I Want My Words to Do to You, a documentary about a writing program at
a women’s prison, started out as a whiny blame session but eventually evolved
into a series of emotional stories. Well, mostly emotional — I’m still not buying
Pamela Smart’s tale.

            Shane Meadows’ Once Upon a Time in the Midlands,
the final picture in his Nottingham trilogy, was kind of disappointing, but it
did feature Robert Carlyle doing his full-on Scottish thing (though I think a
lot of his dialogue went flying over the heads of most audience members because
they weren’t laughing at the funny parts). He plays a lowlife who tries to get
his woman (Shirley Henderson) back after her new boyfriend (Rhys Ifans)
proposes to her on national television. Also, Ricky Tomlinson plays a country
music star called Charlie Nashville, so it’s still worth seeing if only for
that.

            And finally, German import Tattoo,
a weird hybrid of Silence of the Lambs,
Seven, and Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book, creeped everyone right
the hell out, and not just because the senior half of the veteran cop-rookie
cop tandem looked just like Daniel Benzali. Did you see The Pillow Book? It was about turning a dead guy’s tattooed skin
into a book, for chrissake. And this is even freakier. I’d tell you how, but
I’m out of space.

Interested
in raw, unsanitized movie ramblings from Jon? Visit his site, Planet Sick-Boy (www.sick-boy.com),
or listen to him on WBER’s Friday Morning Show.

This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2003.