Tonight it's your big chance to have dinner with Mike Tyson. A Q&A and dinner with the former champ will follow tonight's screening of James Toback's documentary Tyson. (Please don't ask if ears are on the menu.) The movie itself had its first screening bright and early yesterday at 8:30 am ("You people did more than I would have done, coming out at 8:30 in the morning for a movie!" Toback told the crowd.) According to the L.A. Times, "Toback filmed Tyson during a time when the former heavyweight fighter was in rehab for drug addiction and feeling contemplative about his life. Intercut with the interview are clips from Tyson's highlights and lowlights, including footage from his 1997 fight against Evander Holyfield that ended with Iron Mike chomping off part of Holyfield's ear. Yet despite this unflattering footage, the film is largely sympathetic to Tyson." Slashfilm has a problem with that: "Situations dealing with abuse and rape charges deserve to show the other side of the story (especially when Tyson claims they never happened). But the documentary never strays from the one on one interview with Tyson himself." The film has already been picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics.
If you've been waiting for the mumblecore bromance version of Zack and Miri Make a Porno, it sounds like Humpday is the movie for you. Two college buds dare each other to make a gay porno together in a movie Salon's Andrew O'Hehir describes as "a subtle and intelligent picture that blends dudely comedy and adult relationship drama." Or as Spoutblog puts it, it's "like Bang the Drum Slowly meets Jaws. Only no one dies." Intriguing!
The New York Times notes a number of eco-friendly films on the schedule, including Robert Stone's documentary Earth Days, but wonders if the festival itself is as green as it should be. "Still, a stroll here this week down Main Street — where a dozen idling trucks were unloading supplies and equipment, while an oversize band bus, with trailer in tow, spewed fumes outside a soon-to-be-busy party site — framed the obvious quandary: how can you cram some 46,000 people, roughly equivalent to a fifth of Hollywood’s total work force, into a pretty little mountain town without contributing mightily to the problems your films hope to solve?"