CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 6/26/09

Paper Men and Big Fans:
The 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival

CS Weekly's Adam Stovall and Jenelle Riley report in from the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival in part one of our two-part coverage.

The 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival kicked off on June 18 with a statement of hope and purpose. In her opening night address, Film Independent Executive Director Dawn Hudson reminded us that even in most desperate times, people turn to film for entertainment and camaraderie. In that spirit, we were treated to Paper Man, an independent film still (at the time of publication) looking for distribution. It's a touching tale about the tendency to imagine friends and problems when the real ones don't suffice, and the inevitable clash when reality can no longer be ignored. First-time directors Michele and Kieran Mulroney wrote a very solid script, which helped the audience gloss over some of the freshman mistakes in the direction. They are definitely artists that will be fun to watch in years to come.

In the Narrative competition, some real highlights have surfaced. Dear Lemon Lima follows a 14-year-old girl through her first year as the only minority at an elite private school in Alaska. Writer-director Suzi Yoonessi was inspired while reading through her old diaries, and she walks the very fine line of including both the subjectivity that exists in the moment, and the objectivity that comes with time. It is never arch. It is never ironic. It is always genuine, and a real treasure that hopefully will find its audience.

Passenger Side tells the story of two brothers driving around Los Angeles looking for one's ex-girlfriend. It's a simple film, largely resting on the two leads, Adam Scott and Joel Bissonnette, and their easy chemistry. Matthew Bissonnette, writer and director of the film (and Joel's brother), uses the idiosyncrasies of the various L.A. neighborhoods as both background and accompaniment, as well as a wonderful soundtrack that is never obtrusive.

When speaking of soundtracks, Bob Byington's Harmony & Me, a simple story of a young man dealing with an incredibly broken heart and the friends and neighbors who try to get him over it, bears a mention. While not the strongest film in competition, it has moments of life that jump off the screen. The cast is filled with musicians and artists of all types, from fellow film artists to musicians—including the titular role of Harmony, played by Justin Rice, lead singer of the band Bishop Allen—and the film is most alive when capturing these artists in the act of creating.

Not in competition, but definitely generating conversation at the festival, is Big Fan, the directorial debut of Robert Siegel, writer of last year's The Wrestler. The film centers on Paul Aufiero, a self-proclaimed super-fan of the New York Giants football team. Just as he did with his previous script, Siegel creates an environment alive with all the right details, and then sets in motion a story that never strays from its own logic, no matter how damning that may be. After the screening, Patton Oswalt, who plays Paul Aufiero (the titular Big Fan), did a brief Q&A in which he discussed relishing the opportunity to be in a film that respected the audience enough to not bail out with a "happy" ending that would have felt anathema to the rest of the film. He also spoke of the lack of football knowledge that he and his costar Kevin Corrigan had going in, and how they used their fanhood for other mediums, be it comic books or film, to convey the passion that poured from their characters.

On Sunday, the W Hotel hosted a series of panels with directors, actors, composers, and writers. The Directors Panel consisted of Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking), Todd Phillips (Old School), and Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction), and a collegial air due to their familiarity with each other. Much was made of Todd being mentored by Ivan Reitman, Jason's dad, leading one to one of the best moments of the fest. Todd Phillips talked about being put through "Ivan Reitman Boot Camp" on his first couple of features, to which Jason responded, "I was in Ivan Reitman Boot Camp for life!" When asked about their process for writing and directing (all three are writer-directors), they all agreed that, especially when writing comedy, the only barometer you can really go by is if the scene is honest—because the audience has the last word on whether something is funny, and the thing they find the least funny is being lied to.

After the directors, Alex Tse (Watchmen), Nick Kazan (Enough), and Robin Swicord (Memoirs of a Geisha) took the stage for the Writers Panel. Swicord spoke of watching movies with the sound off, so as to focus on the direction in a script; as well as discussing projects with executives as much as possible, in order to address their anxieties. Tse shared that he felt you must suffer for your art, you must raise your personal stakes, or you're not truly devoted to it—a belief shared by many fellow filmmakers. And Kazan, he left us with the wisdom to "be conscious of the marketplace, but bold in choices. You can be artful in dialogue, but you should be precise in direction. Of course, there really is no one way to write…"

A critical favorite from this year's Sundance Film Festival and still a huge crowd pleaser in the sunnier climate of L.A., Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer stars two of the best young actors working today, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, in one of the most original works of the year. An omniscient narrator warns us up front that while "this is a story of boy meets girl, it is not a love story." And so begins the bittersweet tale of greeting card writer Tom (Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Deschanel), the girl he loves, loathes, and obsesses over. Rather than telling their story in chronological order, the screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber ingeniously juxtaposes different moments in the relationship over the course of 500 days. So, moments after seeing a blissfully happy couple on, say, day 93, the narrative jumps ahead to day 200 to show a pair falling apart. It's both amusing to see how things have changed, and heartbreaking to know this promising couple will unravel.

Neustadter and Weber have a keen ear for dialogue, and even though Deschanel is playing another variation on the lovable quirky girl, this time it's a perfect match. She is nicely balanced by Gordon-Levitt, who has started to physically resemble the late Heath Ledger and who continues to grow as an actor with every appearance. Gordon-Levitt makes Tom's hopeless romanticism both real and endearing. When Tom asks Summer about love and she snorts, "You believe in that?" he simply replies, "It's love, not Santa Claus." Fox Searchlight picked up the film at Sundance, and it's scheduled for release in July, so here's hoping it reaches a wider audience looking for a smart, funny romantic comedy.

Another clever script is on display in the political comedy In the Loop, which comes to us from jolly old England, where it originated as a series called The Thick of It on the BBC. This adaptation finds bumbling Secretary of State for International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander ) going on TV and accidentally backing a war in the Middle East. He then becomes a popular pawn in a complicated game run by U.S. officials such as James Gandolfini's General Miller. His only aide is Toby (Chris Addison), who is more interested in chasing an intern played by former My Girl star Anna Chlumsky. Though the film has an improvisational feel to it, with overlapping and naturalistic dialogue, the film boasts five screenwriters: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Ian Martin, and director Armando Iannucci. Admittedly, it can be hard to keep up with the breakneck pace of the plot, and viewers can be forgiven for being lost by some of the English expressions and colloquialisms. Then again, lines like, "I can't stand to see a woman bleed from the mouth. It reminds me of that country and western music, which I cannot abide," are fairly universal.

Another foreign affair can be found in the gentle and charming love story Turistas, not be confused with the 2006 horror film of the same name. Chilean writer-director Alicia Scherson's sweet tale centers on Carla (Aline Kupperheim) and Joel (Marcelo Alonso), a couple setting out on a romantic vacation that is quickly derailed when Carla makes a sudden confession. Joel abandons her, but she opts to continue her holiday and soon meets a myriad of characters, including a Norwegian backpacker named Ulrik (Diego Noguera). Carla, a passive woman, tends to answer questions with: "Yes. No. I don't know," but soon she is awakening, and Kupperheim takes what could have been an infuriating character and imbues her with warmth and charm. The relationship between Carla and Ulrik never feels completely convincing and some may be put off by the deliberate pacing of the film, but others will find Scherson has produced a picturesque charmer.

Check back next week for part two of our Los Angeles Film Festival coverage!



Jenelle Riley and Adam Stovall contributed to this article.

Paper Man, (500) Days of Summer courtesy L.A. Film Festival

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