Merrick here...
MiraJeff and Grandmaster B sent in some reviews from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. They wrote quite a bit, which is pretty cool, so I won’t bore you with one of my overly long introductions.
First up: here’s Grandmaster B with a look at SCI FI BOYS. I’m really looking forward to this one; anything regarding Forest Ackerman immediately gets my interest – my parents’ wedding reception was held in his house back in the ‘50s.
And, Grandmaster B is right: understanding Ackerman’s work would certainly bring context to the stuff we do here at AICN.
Here’s Grandmaster B…
SCI FI BOYS
I am “that” guy - the one who friends and family look towards when trying to figure out what movie to see and find out what’s going on in the cinematic world. I am by NO means a film historian, just a guy who has been in love with the silver screen since as long as he can remember and plans to make a career out of it. As a result, people always ask me what my favorite movie is.
Enough years have gone by that I’ve wised up and actually decided to narrow it down to two choices: Big and Jurassic Park. The first because I’m a kid at heart. The second because I’m a kid at heart and dinosaurs kick ass! (No disrespect to sharks) Well, actually, on top of that, Jurassic Park was the first movie that flat-out said, “anything you can dream up, we can put on the screen.” Which leads me to Sci-Fi Boys.
Sci-Fi Boys is a documentary by Paul Davids, who really only needs to be known as being associated with The Transformers TV show and animated movie to be considered as having street cred. A framed The Transformers: The Movie (the) poster isn’t hanging in my living room for nothing. It’s not an overly dramatic or hard-hitting documentary like Murderball or Supersize Me. It’s simply a celebration of the men that inspired the innovators of today and, honestly, a perfectly tailored introduction to the Tribeca Film Fest for a guy like me.
Steven Spielberg. George Lucas. Peter Jackson. John Landis. Joe Dante. Rick Baker. Ray Harryhausen. Ray Bradbury. George Pal. Don Glut. William Castle. Forrest Ackerman. Maybe I lost some of you on those last few. That’s exactly why it’s a joy to have a documentary like this. It’s essentially a condensed history lesson, narrated via interviews with several of the filmmakers previously mentioned, for those that aren’t currently sipping hamburgers through a straw or are too lazy to do some book-learnin’ on their own. In a nutshell, it could also be called “From King Kong (’33) to King Kong (’05)”.
Older films like King Kong and Plan 9 (there’s two you don’t see in the same sentence that often) were inspiration enough for aspiring filmmakers, but interest in fantastic monsters of all shapes and sizes hit a boiling point with the creation of Monsters of Filmland (MF), a fan magazine created and edited by one Forest Ackerman. Finally, horror hounds and monster maniacs had a place they could call home within the pages of MF. Producers, directors, even make-up artists and animators, were for the first time getting their due respect as they were profiled in the magazine with Ackerman’s goofy sense of humor and bad puns in tow.
The documentary touches on a multitude of subjects throughout its running time, but the longest stretch seemed to be devoted to Ackerman and MF. As stated in the film, he made a way of life out of being a fan, which no doubt paved the way for the aintitcoolnews and CHUDs of the world. I imagine few people (relative to the general population; not the kind talkbackers, of course) realize that Ackerman is actually credited with coining the term “sci-fi” after having heard the term “hi-fi” on the radio and letting his natural love of science-fiction do the rest. Our favorite directors, writers, and special effects artists sing Ackerman’s praises while giving us their own take on the magazine and what it brought to their never-ending childhood.
Rather than recount the entire documentary section by section, I’ll simply mention one other fun aspect of it: the amateur films. I’m sure some of these have been released in some fashion or another on various special edition DVDs, but seeing the first ever works of a young Peter Jackson, Rick Baker, Steve Johnson and their ilk brought a big smile to my face. What’s really incredible is how innovative these literal boys (some of these 8mm films were made when they were as young as nine years old) were. They pulled off complicated effects shots using stop-motion animation (with no mechanism to click a single frame at a time), hand-drawn animation, forced perspective, and split-screen using their own ingenuity. There weren’t exactly a lot of “how to” books available on the subjects they wanted to study at the time of their upbringing, so invention was the order of the day, just like the Harryhausens and O’Briens before them.
The remainder of the film covers the innovation of George Pal, insanity of Ed Wood, showmanship of William Castle, and much more. There is a brief segment where CGI is discussed as being a complement to and, in many cases, replacement for practical make-up and in-camera effects. For the most part, it is mentioned as being the natural evolution of things, but one can’t help feeling a bit saddened as Rick Baker and Steve Johnson discuss its negative impact on the make-up and practical effects world, taking away business and ultimately spoiling viewers to the point of their assuming everything is CG, even when it isn’t. In the end, though, that sort of discussion at length is best saved for another time and another documentary.
For now, Sci-Fi Boys is an enjoyable film that only expects to honor the creators that can never be honored enough. I may be misquoting here from a speech shown in the film, but I believe it was Ray Bradbury, in speaking of his good friend Ray Harryhausen, that said when the two were young, they made a “promise to grow old together, but never grow up.” Not such a bad motto to live by.
Now, here’s MiraJeff with a look at AIR GUITAR NATION and THE BRIDGE…
Greetings AICN, MiraJeff here reporting from the Tribeca Film Festival where I have just witnessed two very different, equally awesome documentaries, Air Guitar Nation and The Bridge. The first is a celebration of life and all things airness. The second is a tragic, harrowing look at suicide and the impact it has on family and friends.
AIR GUITAR NATION
“The Axes Are Fake. The Chops Are For Real.”
When I was nine years old I had a babysitter named Natalie who was made me Metallica mix tapes. I remember jumping on my bed to “Master of Puppets” and spazzing out during singdowns at summer camp to the end of “One” when the shit hits the fan in that song. I thrashed a mean air guitar and threw chairs, food trays and a Kiddush Cup too. Yeah, what’s up now? Needless to say, I won that night.
Now I almost didn’t go see the midnight screening of Air Guitar Nation but I’m sure as shit glad I did. First of all, I walked into the theater and they saw the Aint It Cool News badge and it was like respect was immediately granted. They gave me a kickass arm band and a signed lighter before I was ushered to the taped off section of seats where you can put your feet up on the wall that divides you from “the public.” It was about halfway through the film that I realized I was sitting right in front of David Jung and Dan Crane. Who the hell are those guys you ask? They are C-Diddy and Bjorn Turoque, respectively, air guitarists extraordinaire. Bjorn, a funny little fucker who looks a lot like Casey Affleck, kicks out the jams with this choice quote- “To air is human, to air guitar is divine.” Spoken like a true prophet. Director Alexandra Lipsitz captures all the action as the United States joins the fray and for the first time, enters the World Air Guitar Championship in Oulu, Finland, where the whole competition originally started as a joke. Since then, it’s clearly evolved into something a bit more serious, if that’s the right word.
First, let me explain the rules of competition. Each performance is one minute long, and every competition has two rounds. The first is freestyle and you can choose the song, and the second round is compulsory, which means you all have to do the same mystery song, although it kinda sucks for the audience, who has to listen to the same song ten times or whatever, and gives definite advantage to whatever air guitarist goes last because he gets time to plan what he’s going to do, although sometimes spontaneity does help. The “airsicians” are judged on a scale from 4.0 to 6.0, but it’s understood that a 6.0 in air guitar is almost unheard of. Almost…
Back in 2003, the Pussycat Lounge in New York City braced itself for hardcore rocking when Howard Stern devoted a half-hour of his morning radio show to the contest, which was looking for an East Coast champion. Enter actor/comedian Jung and his unique brand of red capes, elasticized facial expressions, and requisite Hello Kitty breast plate. C-Diddy ends up taking the NYC prize, forever stamping his dominance on perennial second-placer Bjorn, but the next day both of them are all over TV. “Young,” as C-Diddy’s name is misspelled on his dressing room, goes on Jimmy Kimmel as a guest announcer and performer, while Bjorn goes to rival late night host Carson Daly to revel in being second best.
There’s even a clip on CNN whose anchor calls it “one of the single dumbest things he’s ever seen.” From the headlines, we follow these guys as they make their way to The Roxy in LA where a US Champion will be named. In LA, they encounter some fierce competition in people like Air Raid, Nikki Tits, and The Magnet, although it’s a young Billy Joe Armstrong look-a-like named Kry Tuff who steals the spotlight. When all is said and done and the fake smoke clears midway through, Lipsitz takes it up a notch and moves the film to Finland where we meet all the international heroes of air guitar, including The Red Plectrum (Britain), Mike the Judge (Austria), and Roxy McSwagger (Australia), who looks like the offspring of Alexi Lalas and Ronald McDonald. One contestant from Belgium warns the American(s) to “keep it real. Don’t go out there and make a fool of yourself,” before doing just that in a tacky silver Euro-trash outfit. Another guy performs naked and yanks on his penis.
The film focuses on Bjorn and C-Diddy who has a bold, brash style and has a tongue that moves almost as fast as his fingers. C-Diddy says he was raised to be very “serious and studious” but in childhood pictures, he couldn’t look more like the class clown, and C-Diddy allows him to do all the things he’s always wanted to do. Though his old Korean parents have some C-Diddy in them, they were hoping their son would go into medicine. C-Diddy might be a fake rock star, but he’s the real deal in LA, which welcomes him with posters labeled “He Is Coming.” Out west, C-Diddy fulfills his promise to bring the Asian Fury and vows to out-weird the world in Finland. Once there, he certainly keeps the international guys on their toes when he busts out a solo at a reception for the Oulu mayor. With regard to Bjorn Turoque he says, “I respect him but I don’t fear him… Two words come to mind; Sore loser.”
Bjorn is the funniest guy in the movie. He seems like the real-life version of Brodie in Mallrats. Seriously, give this guy his own sitcom or something. Bjorn is very pro air guitar and pro-peace. He urges us to “make air, not war,” and “find your inner peace and love everyone. If everyone played air guitar at once, no one would be able to hold a gun or a rifle.” He likes air guitar because “You can’t steal something that’s invisible,” and later after the screening, “you can’t deflate an air guitar.” How true. Hell, guys in jail cells can play air guitar if they want, and what could be more freeing than that? Since his career began, Bjorn has entered 10 competitions and come in 2nd in 5 of them.
You gotta respect the fight in this kid though. He must’ve gotten it from the rockin’ Nana who we meet in the film. At one point, after wowing a judge who was a former world champion, he is christened “the future of air guitar.” After dominating the preliminary round, we see Bjorn with three blondes on his arm and every guy in the audience can be seen nodding in agreement when he says “Finland Rocks!” “I can’t handle the pressure, although I can, really. I want to push the craft to the edge.” When asked what exactly the craft is, Bjorn replies, “It’s airness and you can’t really explain that.” Well said my friend, but you still could’ve picked a better song for the finale than The Libertines’ “I Get Along.” Come on, bro. Bjorn assured the crowd after the screening that yes, air guitarists do get laid more.
So where are they now? C-Diddy and Bjorn Turoque have retired from playing, although Bjorn’s life mission is be an “ambassador of air.” C-Diddy says “the warrior inside has taken some toll.” He now sells Pooper Scoopers with his Dad and is married to his childhood sweetheart Kim Shapiro, making one of the happiest, cutest couples I think I’ve ever seen. He remains grounded, but that’s because he’s got no place else to put his feet, and when one audience member asked C-Diddy to bust out a new move, he refused because “there aren’t enough fire engines around.” Since the 2003 World Championship, his protégé, a Gogo Yubari-type named Sonyk Rok has won the title and performed on Conan O’Brien. Meanwhile, Kry Tuff is running for a minor political office in Wisconsin. There are now competitions in NY, LA, and Denver, and no there are no other air instrument contests, although the producer said that an air drummer nearly won one year due to a loophole in the US rules, but that a drummer would never fly in Oulu.
Air Guitar Nation is one of the most fun documentaries I suspect will ever be seen. It is overflowing with energy and had the whole crowd headbanging and playing air guitar in their seats. I couldn’t stop drumming my pen against the arm rest, especially during the Van Halen and Smashing Pumpkins songs. It’s a movie that rock and roll fans can’t afford to miss. If you can, try and see it with an audience that can appreciate its awesomeness. The crowd I saw it with was cheering before the opening credits even rolled, and it’s no surprise that the film won the Audience Award at SXSW. If you’re at Tribeca this week, do yourself a favor and see it, and if you aren’t lucky enough to be in NYC, Air Guitar Nation will almost certainly get theatrical release so make a mental air note of it and ROCK ON!
THE BRIDGE
I first heard about this documentary about San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge about a year ago but I kind of forgot all about it. It almost slipped past my radar again this year, but my friend Max, a volunteer at the fest, had some free time and since I can go to basically any movie anytime I want with my kickass Hudson Pass, we decided to check out what was playing around the corner at the Battery Park theater. You could say we lucked out with catching The Bridge, because it is one film you’d be sorry to miss.
Filmmaker Eric Steel and a crew of dedicated cameramen filmed the Golden Gate Bridge for the better part of every day for an entire year. One stationary camera maintained a wide-lens shot of the entire structure, and it was up to the handheld crew’s discretion to decide who to videotape along the bridge, which is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. As cameras rolled throughout 2004, Steel captured more than twenty actual suicides, many of which we see in the film, which is comprised of bridge footage and interviews with the friends and family of victims. Several stories are highlighted and while their families deal with the news in different ways, almost every victim’s life is the same sad story. That could not be made clearer by the story of Kevin Hines, a mentally ill young man who hurled himself off the Golden Gate Bridge in 2000… and became the 26th recorded person ever to survive. Kevin’s lower lumbar vertebrae basically shattered on impact and the fragments were shot into his organs. Miraculously he survived. And when Kevin took the microphone at the Q+A after the screening, you couldn’t tell Kevin had ever been in a coma, or even been suicidal in the first place. He and his father now focus their tireless efforts on suicide prevention.
Steel devotes the majority of screen time to remembering “Gene,” a long-haired rocker who constantly joked about killing himself to his friends and family, who obviously didn’t find it very funny. Kevin explains that suicidal people have “tunnel vision.” They can only see inside their own little box, and inside that box they are nothing. They are bad people. Then there’s Lisa, who was never as outgoing as her sister or her brother, who personally believes that Lisa did not kill herself, there must have been someone who encouraged her to jump, because suicide is a sin. The final 20 minutes introduces us to Ruby, a middle-aged gentleman who says he feels “tired.”
The film isn’t completely perfect. It does introduce new victims a bit too late in the game, when we’ve already invested ourselves in other stories. I feel awful saying this but I think the film would have been better served if it had not spent so much time on Lisa’s mother and sister, the parents with the dog, and Gene fixing his hair. And while I didn’t think much of it at the time and didn’t miss it much, but I think Steel could have interviewed medical experts who could’ve shed some light on the clinical signs of depression and suicidal thoughts, or tried to explain how someone who is suicidal or bipolar, thinks about things. That’s why the segment with Kevin is so incredibly emotional. Here’s this kid who looks like he has everything going for him in life and it’s sad to think that he got to the point where he would rather die and give it all up than deal with the pain of everyday. Steel also avoids investigating suicides of people who were terminally ill, which is a different issue for another film.
The Bridge is a film that might make some people feel uncomfortable. It is morbid and full of grief and some people might even say it feels like a snuff film or something like “Faces of Death,” but I know it was made with the best of intentions. Steel’s motivation was to educate people about suicide and about this phenomenon at the Golden Gate Bridge, the most popular place in the world to kill yourself. He has been trying to get the city of San Francisco to put up a barricade so people can’t climb over the railings and onto the ledge, or close down the public walkway to limit people’s access to the bridge and deter them from jumping. He also took painstaking efforts to keep his film secret, for fears of attracting people who wished to have their deaths immortalized on film. The Bridge is a powerful documentary with a message. Every problem has a solution, and suicide is not the answer. Life is too precious to throw away.
That’s all for now, folks. I’ll be sending in reviews every day this week as I take on Tribeca, as well as some other regular releases. Tribeca folks, keep your eye out for reviews of Farewell Bender, Hatchet, loudQUIETloud, I’m Reed Fish, Marvelous, and Blue Blood. Everyone else, I’ll have reviews of An American Haunting and Down in the Valley for ya. Tonight I’m seeing the Vincent Vega/Tony Soprano flick Lonely Hearts, and Tuesday is Tommy Cruise’s big night, for me anyways.
This is MiraJeff, signing off…
