They say the average nightly sack time for a serious SXSW attendee is usually around four and half hours. For most people, it’s probably because of the parties. I have a sack full of invites to drunken galas all over town, but no time for any of them. For me it’s too many movies. Midnight screenings keep me out till 2am and then up till 4am writing. Morning screenings have me up by 8 or nine and out the door.
The partiers got a rest on Sunday when a big thunderstorm rolled in and drenched downtown in rain. The booze may have temporarily washed away, but the movies didn’t. I’ve got to keep on going.
Diggers
After suffering through The Ten a few days before, it was nice to see Paul Rudd and Ken Marino rebound with something good. Their second movie at SXSW 2007 is Diggers, starring Rudd, written by and co-starring Marino. Actually, The Ten and Diggers have one thing common. Neither is funny. But then Diggers isn’t supposed to be.
Diggers is a smart, and warm 70’s period drama about blue collar working joe’s in a small town. Paul Rudd stars as Hunt, a clamdigger. Clamdigging is a vanishing profession, as small time independent operators are driven out of business by big corporations. But the film doesn’t get caught up in big money bashing. It stays intimate, zeroed on Hunt’s personal struggle after the death of his father and on the problems of his family and friends. Maura Tierney co-stars as his sister Gina, while Marino, Ron Eldard, Django Gilligan, and Josh Hamilton play his struggling clamdigger buddies.
For me, what makes this movie so refreshing is that it’s about normal people. Filmmakers often get so caught up in telling the stories of artists, writers, and the filmmaking process that they forget about what’s it’s like for the average guy out there scrounging to make a living. Those that do attempt usually get it wrong. Diggers gets it right, and presents a realistic and earnest portrayal of dudes doing what dudes do: Getting up, getting by, and doing it again tomorrow.
Perhaps even more importantly, the movie manages to be entertaining while still engaging in an awful lot of soul searching. A lot of the credit for that has to go to Rudd. He’s naturally charming, and whether doing comedy or drama he ends up being the kind of guy it’s easy to latch onto Marino’s script is good too, an authentic feeling portrayal of life as a Long Island clamdigger but mixed with a wry and charming sensibility. Diggers is a cozy, smart little movie that dodges the pitfalls of getting to schmaltzy while remaining heartfelt and focused.
Diggers Director, Writer, Actor Q&A
After Saturday’s troubled viewing schedule I was so relieved to see something good I stuck around for the post-film Q&A. Saturday I spent a lot of time dodging those because, well, it gets kind of uncomfortable to sit there staring the filmmakers in the face while you think about how much their movie sucks. But Diggers was good, so I hung around to see what director Katherine Dieckman, writer Ken Marino, and star Paul Rudd had to say for themselves. As usual, there’s no way to record these things in a big theater so here’s what ended up on my notepad:
The characters in Diggers do a lot of smoking, and the first question anyone asked was whether or not they chain smoked real death sticks on the set. The answer to that was a resounding yes. Later, when I saw Paul Rudd puffing away outside the theater, I understood why. The guy is a chimney.
The question of Ken’s fabulous, Earl-like mustache came up. He said it took him four months to grow. Rudd volunteered that he grew his every day during breakfast.
One of the most interesting things about Diggers for me is where the story came from. Ken explained that he grew up on the Long Island shore. His father was a clamdigger, and his grandfather before him. Though the profession died out in the 70s and 80s, most of his friends are still part-time clamdiggers who do other odd jobs in addition to make ends meet.
When asked how he developed his character for the movie, Paul Rudd seemed to think it was all about his hair. He had extensions added on to his head to give it some extra length, and wore a hat on screen as much as possible to make the added hair look more real. He also admitted he had a little trouble with the dialect. At the beginning of the film he thinks he sounds like he’s doing a Jerry Stiller impression.
Potheads will be happy to know that the boys smoke pot out of a clam in the movie. Ken confirmed that the clam pipe is actually functional. It’s something they came up with on the fly, but now they’re considering making it the focus of the poster. Personally, I hope he’s joking about the poster. Diggers deserves better than to be pigeonholed as a stoner movie. Drugs are only a very minor part of the story.
When asked if he writes with specific actors in mind, Ken said no, except for the role Cons. Cons is Rudd’s stoner buddy, and Ken claims he originally wrote the role for brilliant but diminutive actor Peter Dinklage. The part ended up going to Josh Hamilton, who’s a guy of average height.
That’s it for Diggers. The film gets a 20 city release on April 27th. Keep an eye out for it.
Eagle vs. Shark
New Zealander director Taika Waita’s movie is the story of romance between two oddballs. Lily (Loren Horsley) is a shy, underappreciated cashier at a fast-food restaurant, and she’s got a crush on an electronic store clerk named Jarrod (Jermaine Clement). Lily gets up the courage to show up at Jarrod’s house for a “come as your favorite animal” dress up party on the day she’s fired from her job. Sparks fly between the couple, launching them on a quirky and moving romantic journey to Jarrod’s home town, where he plans to face down an old nemesis.
Eagle vs Shark has some of the same awkward style that made Napoleon Dynamite so popular, but the big difference is that where Napoleon treats its characters as objects of derision, Waita’s movie understands and sympathize with Lilly and Jarrod. The result is a beautiful and delicate film about awkward people looking for someone. It’s the performance of Loren Horsley that really carries it. Lily is a completely magical character. Shy and uncomplaining, Lily says little but somehow says everything. Horsley makes her incredibly alive for a woman of so few words. On the outside she’s a façade of almost painfully shy reserve, on the inside she burns with passion and bravery unmatched by any woman you’re likely to see in any other film this year. I fell head over heels, completely in love with Lily.
If there’s a problem with the film, it’s Waita’s tendency to get too gimmicky with it. Lily and Jarrod’s best moments are often interrupted by strange, stop-motion bookends which, while sort of cute, aren’t needed. When you’re getting performances this strong, the camera should be on the actors giving them, not on claymation figures re-enacting what we just saw with half-eaten apples. Loren Horsley is so brilliant, that the rest of the film need only line up behind her.
With or without stylistic gimmicks, Eagle vs. Shark is a wonderfully moving, entertaining, unconventional film. It’s exactly the kind of little indie gem you show up to festivals like this one hoping to see. I’m glad I found it; it’s one of the best of SXSW.
After Eagle vs. Shark I raced out of the theater, leapt in my car, and tore ass back to my hotel for a good 60 minutes of blank staring at the ceiling. Don’t tell me that’s not exciting. I was ecstatic. After three days of limited sleep and full-tilt festivaling SXSW was riding me, and riding me hard. It was my first real break since getting here on Friday, and with a midnight screening and an early morning ahead of me I needed it. Unfortunately for the guy sitting next to me in a few hours, time for a shower wasn’t in the cards.
The Signal
The Signal is the perfect movie for viewing after midnight, assuming of course you have no interest in going to sleep when you get home. It’s a horror movie, and the type of horror movie that’s likely to leave you freaked the hell out.
Writer/directors David Bruckner, Dan Bush, and Jacob Gentry have crafted a film that has a lot in common with zombie movies. Except the zombies aren’t dead, they aren’t slow, and they aren’t dumb. That’s always been my big problem with the zombie genre, zombies just aren’t much of a threat. If zombies are the equivalent of being mowed down by a bicycle then The Signal is like being splattered all over the pavement by a Mack truck.
The story is (loosely anyway) a commentary on the dangers modern dependence on electronic communication. One day the world’s televisions, radios, and telephones turn against it. All forms of communication are jammed by a strange, pulsating signal. Everyone is instantly out of touch. Worse, much worse, exposure to the signal drives people completely mad. Anyone subjected to it is instantly turned into a rampaging murderer. In the course of a few hours, the world has gone completely mad. Murder is the new world order and there’s absolutely no one you can trust.
The film’s premise is perhaps, a bit better than the execution. The Signal’s story follows a handful of characters as they make their way across the city in pursuit of a girl. For the most part, it ignores the larger questions of what’s going on and why in favor of focusing on, well, what their budget can handle. The problem there is that for the middle half of the film their budget seems able only to handle a few nutjobs in a suburban home. When The Signal is outside in a world gone mad, it’s brilliant. But the shut-in section, while interesting at first, starts to wear on much too long. By the time the camera finally steps out the front door it’s become a little frustrating.
Still, this is a seriously scary movie. It has a raw amateurish feel to it which, rather than detracting from it only heightens the terror. The Signal drops you into a world where society has become completely unpredictable and asks: What happens if everyone simply stops playing by the rules? Society only works because we all follow a gentleman’s agreement of sorts. Sure, we have laws, but laws only work as long as the majority follows them. What if the majority stops following them and starts killing? That’s the dark and terrifying world of The Signal.
That’s it for my soggy Sunday at SXSW. Three great movies and Robert Rodriguez to boot. By far my best day so far. Check back with Cinema Blend tomorrow for my fourth and final day from SXSW when I’ll give you the lowdown on two of the festival’s most high profile movies: Knocked Up and Smiley Face
For all of Cinema Blend’s full SXSW 2007 coverage click here.
