The Screengrab : independent film festival of boston

Independent Film Festival Boston Review: Winnebago Man

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:05:00 GMT

My Screengrab colleague Scott Von Doviak and I tried to see Ben Steinbauer’s hot ticket documentary Winnebago Man three times during the 2009 South-By-Southwest festival in Austin, TX and were thwarted each time: once by sold-out crowds, once by SXSW traffic combined with sold-out crowds and once by a scheduling conflict.

Thus, I was happy to finally catch up with the movie at this year’s IFFB (which, curiously, stands for just “Independent Film Festival Boston,” rather than the presumably too mainstream-sounding “Independent Film Festival OF Boston”) -- and, I’m happy to report, the experience was nearly as rewarding and worth the wait as Steinbauer’s own three year pursuit of his elusive subject, Jack “Winnebago Man” Rebney, a.k.a. the Angriest R.V. Salesman in the World.

My wife had never seen the infamous YouTube clip that spawned Steinbauer’s project (a fact that, when spoken aloud at yesterday’s screening, brought astonished cries of disbelief from several audience members surrounding us at the Somerville Theater) -- so for those of you similarly unfamiliar, “Winnebago Man” was among the earliest generation of viral video superstars, back when “viral videos” were actually bootleg VHS tapes passed from one found footage enthusiast to another. Later, with the advent of YouTube’s paradigm-shifting time-suck technology, the montage of expletive-laden outtakes from some long-ago industrial film “blew up” (as the young people say), inspiring dozens of online parodies and spreading the Winnebago Man’s Daffy Duck-esque exasperation to millions around the world:

Austin documentarian Steinbauer, no stranger to on-set frustration and stress, became obsessed with the man in the clip (who’d inevitably become, among other things, a kind of patron saint to independent filmmakers everywhere) and set out to discover what the Winnebago Man himself thought of his new-fangled digital age fame (if, indeed, he was aware of it, or even still alive).

And so begins a funny and thought-provoking investigation into the nature of overnight on-line notoriety (featuring several hilarious and wince-inducing clips of comparable interweb superstars like the Star Wars kid and Aleksey “Impossible Is Nothing” Vayner), followed by a search for Rebney, the mysterious, reclusive Winnebago Man (whose Kurtz-like enigma is pieced together in the first reel of the film via intriguing clues like a telling string of P.O. boxes and off-the-grid identity erasure, the purple prose of a lone online classified ad attributed to Rebney and, eventually, first-hand accounts of actual encounters with the angriest RV salesman in the world).

Then one day, in a comically thrilling moment, the voice of the actual Winnebago Man finally issues from Steinbauer’s answering machine, luring the filmmaker on a journey that snakes through the rest of the film like a main circuit cable, plugged straight into Rebney. Since the filmmaker’s multi-faceted encounter with the real-life man behind the ranting is part of the fun and suspense of Winnebago Man, I won’t reveal more, except to say the results are funny, unpredictable and satisfying, resulting in a foul-mouthed, misanthropic (yet deeply human) examination of privacy and community in the internet age -- ideally suited for a double-feature screening with the somewhat sunnier, thematically-linked and equally enjoyable Best Worst Movie on your Netflix queue and/or at a savvy art-house near you.

Related Articles:
SXSW: The Final Round-Up
SXSW Review: Best Worst Movie

Introducing the Screengrab Highlight Reel

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Welcome to yet another new weekly feature here at the Screengrab. Hard as it is to believe, our research shows that there is actually some miniscule percentage of our reading public that misses the occasional post during the week. We can’t stand the thought of any of you being deprived of our wit and wisdom, so every Friday the Highlight Reel will round up the best of the week in Screengrab.

You like film festivals? We’ve got your film festivals covered! Phil “Tolstoy” Nugent has seen and written about seemingly every movie at the Tribeca Film Festival, while Andrew “Dropkick” Osborne has the Independent Film Festival of Boston covered.

While those guys are out loading up on art, I’ve been sitting home with the 100 worst movies of all time. You might say they’re Unwatchable.

Art schmart. What you really want to know is which movies will be the Top 5 Hits of Summer 2008 and which will be the Top 5 Bombs.

Why haven’t all you Objectivists come out of the woodwork to jump all over Leonard “Teflon” Pierce and his takedown of The Fountainhead?

Any Billy Jack fans out there?

How will you spend your weekend? With Grand Theft Auto IV or Iron Man?

And finally, Scarlett Johansson has large breasts. Er, a music video! I meant Scarlett Johansson has a music video!

Independent Film Festival of Boston Reviews: Song Sung Blue, Second Skin, Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Song Sung Blue: In this documentary about “Lightning & Thunder,” a husband and wife Neil Diamond/Patsy Cline tribute band, the appeal of the group’s success is attributed to the fact that, like Diamond, they and their Milwaukee fan base are “normal.” That adjective, however, may not be the first that springs to mind when viewing this quirky, moving and often harrowing depiction of the rewards and hard realities of low-level show biz dreams. Director Greg Kohs makes the most of his (sometimes uncomfortably) intimate access to his subjects’ lives, capturing a real world soap opera of triumph, tragedy, and the unexpected magnanimity of Eddie Vedder.

Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie: And while we’re on the subject of seemingly whimsical but ultimately depressing depictions of American eccentrics, this barely feature-length documentary follows a pair of hard-luck backwoods Sasquatch enthusiasts who invest so much of their time and self-esteem in pursuit of the titular monster that I began to wonder if the whole movie was not actually some kind of giant Blair Witchy scam. If not, then the likeable, desperate true believers depicted here by director Jay Delaney (more or less without exploitive condescension) really need a more productive hobby (but then again, as an underviewed, D-List blogger, I suppose I’m hardly one to judge)!

Second Skin: And speaking of questionable hobbies, this interesting but seriously overlong documentary by Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza utilizes geek-tastic computer graphics, talking head experts and a likeable ensemble of misfits to offer a relatively comprehensive survey course on the positive and negative societal and individual aspects of spending way, way, way too much time online playing Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft and Everquest. But, like a marathon session playing actual video games, the initial enjoyment factor here eventually gives way to numb-ass claustrophobia and a nagging awareness that you should probably be doing something better with your time.

(For a second opinion, be sure to check out Scott Von Doviak’s SXSW review of Second Skin.)

Independent Film Festival of Boston Review: Turn the River

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Gambling movies, like submarine movies, generally don’t have too many variables. At some point in just about every sub movie, the submarine gets torpedoed and/or sinks to “crush depth,” and the captain and crew either get killed or, more often, survive. Likewise, in cards and billiards movies (not to mention sports films in general, of which gambling flicks are a boozier subset), the plot typically comes down to: in the big, climactic competition, does your rooting interest win or lose? And in most stories, the outcome, while faux suspenseful, is usually pretty easy to predict.

So it’s one of the strengths of indie staple Chris Eigeman’s writing and directing debut Turn the River, about Famke Janssen’s desperate, homeless, pool-hustling card sharp, that not only is the outcome of her particular “big game,” when it comes, anything but a foregone conclusion, but also that her ultimate success or failure in the contest is only one element in a suspenseful skein of fateful plot developments.

Eigeman, best known for mordant, fast-talking characters in films like Kicking & Screaming, Mr. Jealousy, the short-lived West Coast Seinfeld knock-off It’s Like, You Know and the Whit Stillman trilogy (Metropolitan, Barcelona & The Last Days of Disco), does a good job capturing both the quiet hostility of upper class dysfunction and the bare-knuckle grit of back-room cash games in this tightly-controlled, low-budget indie about a mother (Janssen) struggling to raise the money necessary to kidnap her son (Jaymie Dornan) over the border to Canada, away from his abusive yuppie father (Matt Ross, the scary polygamist Alby on Big Love).

Janssen goes “all in” (get it?) with her portrayal of the mother, Kailey, an older, sadder variant of the shady poker pro she portrayed in Rounders. Despite stringy hair and a drab wardrobe, the actress’ supermodel looks clash a bit with River's seedy milieu, but the character’s she-wolf intensity is nevertheless compelling.

According to Eigman, his star went to billiards boot camp before shooting began, and managed to nail one crucial, difficult bank shot in the movie on her very first try (scoring a nice payday for some lucky P.A. in the on-set betting pool who correctly predicted she’d manage the feat in one take). Janssen’s unfaked ease with a cue stick lends credence to the storyline, as does her palpable chemistry with Dornan, utterly believable as a smart, resourceful kid with none of the usual cloying Hollywood precociousness.

The rest of the supporting cast is equally fine: Ross is a hissable but multi-faceted villain, Lois Smith is a hoot as a bitch-on-wheels matriarch, John Juback is a formidable pool-hall adversary and Terry Kinney steals his scenes as a sweet, street-smart black marketeer. And for those disheartened by Rip Torn’s recent frail, half-speed performances on 30 Rock, his turn here as Janssen’s grizzly mentor, Quinn, is a gruff, vigorous return to form.

Independent Film Festival of Boston: The Zellner Brothers & Goliath

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:30:00 GMT

Goliath, a quasi-mumblecore tragi-comedy by the Zellner Brothers of Austin, TX plays this weekend at the Independent Film Festival of Boston. The indie feature, about a man who loses both his wife and his beloved cat in the same harrowing year, was first reviewed here at The Screengrab by Scott Von Doviak during the 2008 South-by-Southwest Film Festival.

David Zellner and his brother, Nathan, have been crafting distinctive independent cinema since 1996, but I first became aware of them at a terrible film festival called 30th Parallel that leeched onto the back of the 1997 SXSW fest, analogous to the Slamdance/Sundance arrangement, but much shoddier (and short-lived, since 30th Parallel barely made it through its first and only installment).

I know about the 30th Parallel Fest, because it featured the Texas premiere of my own indie film, Apocalypse Bop. The whole misbegotten affair kicked off with a back room hotel reception marked by a sad tray of vegetables and the absence of any members of the 30th Parallel staff to greet us. This led to some awkward bonding among the invited filmmakers as we all stood around, confused, waiting for some information about what we were supposed to do. Then, eventually, we all left.

Because just about every movie theater, auditorium and/or other screening venue in Austin was booked for SXSW, 30th Parallel mostly screened its selections in the back rooms of bars, which wasn’t a terrible idea in theory. Unfortunately, the Zellner Brothers had the misfortune of premiering their surrealist mime masterpiece Plastic Utopia on “Melrose Monday” at some 6th Street dive, meaning that many of the 30th Parallel films screened that evening were drowned out by blaring Melrose Place-themed trivia questions from the front of the bar.

Additionally, the 30th Parallel projectors were seeming World War II-era relics that kept jamming and breaking down every few minutes...and, even when they worked, they often caused the projected films to stutter, blur and, occasionally, melt.

And yet, it is to the Zellner Brothers’ credit that, despite all the hellacious distractions, I not only sat through the entire, tortured screening of Plastic Utopia, but came away considering it one of the most brilliantly deranged independent films I’ve ever seen, a surrealistic cult classic that, sadly, has never inspired nearly the cult it deserves.

Yet, while not cult figures on the level of, say, John Waters, Kevin Smith or Jim Jones, the Zellners have slowly built a small, devoted following, in Austin and elsewhere, despite their tiny budgets and occasional peculiar experiments like 2001’s Frontier, a faux foreign film in a fake foreign language (Bulbovian) starring an older, puffier Wiley Wiggins (of Dazed and Confused fame).

Recently, the Zellners have devoted themselves to dry, absurdist short subjects which highlight the pair’s strengths: unexpected, offbeat writing and visuals combined with their own very likeable recurring screen personas: David, the excitable, put-upon cynic and Nathan, the mellower zen weirdo.

The shorts (available for viewing at ZellnerBros.com) opened the door to the influential Sundance Film Festival, which recently premiered their latest feature film, Goliath, once again starring David and Nathan, with cameos by Wiggins and mumblecore poster boy Andrew Bujalski.

The film, in terms of tone and subject matter, plays like the bastard child of Little Children and Year of the Dog. Goliath, the titular tiger-striped tabby owned by David Zellner’s protagonist, goes missing and his recently divorced owner goes more than a little insane, eventually scapegoating a neighborhood sex offender (played by Nathan) as the source of his troubles.

The film plays out in a deadpan naturalistic style that left me yearning for a little more of Plastic Utopia’s antic narrative drive and visual invention, yet nevertheless hooked me with its own peculiar rhythms, dry wit, occasional slapstick, Asian porno drumming (yeah, you heard me) and its sometimes harrowing depiction of the hazards of love and pet ownership...without giving too much away, I’ll just note here that if you’re a tender-hearted pet lover, this may not be the movie for you.

Independent Film Festival of Boston: Three Things I've Learned About Crawford, Texas

Andrew Osborne — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Crawford, a documentary about (and named for) George W. Bush’s favorite cynically selected folksy backdrop...I mean, uh, vacation spot...was first reviewed here by Scott Von Doviak (at SXSW) and will screen this weekend at the Independent Film Festival of Boston.

The film profiles the titular town and its residents from just before the future commander-in-chief’s arrival (he bought his ranch there around the time of the 2000 presidential campaign, back when he was governor of the state) through the Decider's recent reversals of fortune. The film was a little preachy-to-the-choir but interesting and taught me the following things about Crawford...

1. The town is small, but not really as dusty and rural as the president would have you believe. In fact, in one of the doc’s best moments, the filmmakers reveal how dozens of different TV news crews use the same farm equipment as a backdrop for their reports from the "Western White House," while carefully framing out the modern high school adjacent to the folksy rustic hardware.

2. There’s a pretty wide, purple-state range of opinions in the heart of "Bush country"...and, in fact, a “peace house” was sitting smack dab in the middle of Crawford even before Cindy Sheehan and the Camp Casey crowd showed up.

3. Once the novelty wears off, having your small town crammed with reporters, protesters and secret service agents gets old pretty quick.

Independent Film Festival of Boston 2008

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

The Boston Film Festival began in 1976 at the late, lamented Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, and was reborn, in a new incarnation, in 1985. Although hardly a big, buzzy fest like Sundance or Toronto, packed with deal-making, career-launching glamour, the BFF was still an exciting venue for independent cinema, where local audiences got their first glimpse of films like Blue Velvet and Down By Law, complete with special guest appearances by the likes of David Lynch. And, while the Boston Film Festival is still up and running, offering hometown premieres of future arthouse fodder like Jesus Camp and The U.S. Versus John Lennon, it’s telling that the Best Comedic Actor Award at last year’s edition of the fest went to Dane Cook for Good Luck Chuck.

But even as The BFF becomes ever more non-essential, the Independent Film Festival of Boston (which kicked off last night with the East Coast premiere of local hero Brad Anderson’s latest, Transsiberian) has restored the excitement and thrill of discovery to Beantown's movie-going diet.

Reflecting the fresh energy and opportunity of the Hub’s resurgent indie scene (as well as its recent adoption by Martin Scorcese and other Hollywood players), the IFFB presents itself as a vital, hands-on event, with a “filmmaker friendly” focus, offering panels like “Breaking into the Boston Film Industry” while championing homegrown talent like Anderson and mumblecore progenitor Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha).

Click here for more information on IFFB 2008 (which runs through April 29), and stay tuned for reviews of this year’s festival fare!

The Rep Report (23--May 1)

Phil Nugent — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:00:00 GMT

NEW YORK: One of the strangest and most intriguing new filmmaking talents to emerge in recent years, the Korean writer-director Kim Ki-Duk gets his first complete U.S. retrosepctive, courtesy of the Museum of Modern art, running from April 23 to May 8. Originally typed as a bit of a sickie on the basis of his 2000 film The Isle, with its isolated, watery setting, creepy eroticized atmosphere, and creative use of fishhooks, Kim has continued to turn out deluxe midnight-movie fare (such as Samaritan Girl) while also revealing a more restrained, meditative side in such films as Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring and the weird, mute romance 3-Iron. The MOMA show will be of special interest to old fans eager to get a look at some of his movies that haven't gotten much play here before, including his 1996 debut picture Crocodile.

"Creatively Speaking" (April 25-27) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music is a series, curated by Michelle Materre and co-curated and produced by Neyda Martinez, that seeks to showcase "realistic, universal portrayals of people of color." It includes documentaries about the culture and political activism of South Africa, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a concert honoring what would have been Bob Marley's sixtieth birthday, the African-American activist Robert F. Williams, and the roots and spread of hip hop culture, along with a number of dramatic short films. Each screening will be accompanied by a Q & A session afterwards.

FESTIVAL NEWS: In spring, the film geek's heart turns to thoughts of film festivals, where the hardcore faithful can seal themselves up in dark screening rooms to take refuge from all that sunshine and pollen. The Independent Film Festival of Boston, which was founded in 2003 and is already well-established as perhaps the city's premier yearly film event, kicks off on Wednesday, April 23, and runs through the 29th. This year's week-long bash includes new features from Guy Maddin (My Winnipeg, Harmony Korine (Mister Lonely), Werner Herzog (Encounters at the End of the World), and the Hoop Dreams, Steve James and Peter Gilbert (At the Death House Door), as well as documentaries on Joy Division, Harlan Ellison (Dreams with Sharp Teeth), and George W. Bush's home away from home, Crawford, Texas. From April 25 through May 8, Pacific Film Archive will be running standout attractions from the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival, including Ermanno Olmi's One Hundred Nails, Bela Tarr's The Man from London, Claude Chabrol's Girl Cut in Two, Roy Andersson's You, the Living, and Mock Up on Mu, the latest "pulp serial-cum-political tract" from Bay Area filmmaker and "culture jammer" Craig Baldwin. Across the border, Toronto's fifteenth annual Hot Docs Candaian International Documentary Film Festival begins on Thursday and spends eleven days showcasing the best in nonfiction filmmaking, including more than a hundred new pictures and retrospectives devoted to the work of Richard Leacock and Canada's own Jennifer Baichwal. And New York's youthful-and-still-growing counterweight to the city's fall festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, begins Wednesday and continues through May 4, with a handsome spread of independent and international films sandwiched in between the premieres of Baby Mama and Speed Racer. We'll have more to come on Tribeca as soon as it lands.