OFFScreen Schedule Fall 2008

The Foot Fist Way

August 31st- 7:00 and 9:30- 85 minutes

Dir. Jody Hill- USA 2006

Jody Hill’s film debut stars Danny McBride as Fred Simmons, a bullying, narcissistic tae kwon do instructor who berates the students at his small strip-mall dojo. When Fred learns that his spandex-loving wife, Suzie, has been cheating on him, he decides to go on a journey in order to meet his Tae Kwon Do idol Chuck “The Truck” Taylor. Through Fred Simmons, Danny McBride has succeeded in creating a character “at once engaging and repulsive, that it's hard not to keep watching even while cringing.” (Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times)

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Full Battle Rattle

September 7th- 7:00 and 9:30- 85 minutes

Dir. Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss- USA 2008

The town of Medina Wasl is the focus of this documentary by Tom Garber and Jesse Moss. Medina Wasl is a small desert village with a mixed Sunni/Shiite population that has just been occupied by American forces. What is unusual about Medina Wasl is that it’s not located in Iraq, but California’s Mojave Desert. Its “citizens” are Iraq-Americans, and every explosion, insurgency and sneak attack against the American forces is orchestrated by simulation planners. “If Full Battle Rattle begins as surreal, almost goofball farce, with a bunch of beefy guys playing a fancy-dress version of laser tag in the desert -- aided by a bunch of rented Iraqis who'd rather be watching TV in suburbia -- it ends on an ambiguous and haunting note, much closer to tragedy.” (Andrew O’ Hehir, Salon).

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Wonderful Town
September 14th- 7:00 and 9:30- 92 minutes
Dir. Aditya Assarat- Thailand 2008

Director Aditya Assarat’s second feature length film follows Na, a woman who owns a small hotel in the city of Takua Pa, in southern Thailand. Na’s seaside hotel is still recovering from theTsunami that decimated the coast of Thailand and killed several thousand citizens in Takua Pa. Na’s lone guest at her hotel is Ton, an architect rebuilding a tsunami-damaged shore resort. Soon Na and Ton begin a relationship, angering Na’s brother Wit. Through out the film Assarat sustains “command as he guides his material into darker waters. It’s no small feat to pull off as sweet and sensitive a romance as that between Na and Ton, and something rarer yet to suffuse such affections into a poem of wounded landscape.” (Nathan Lee, The New York Times)

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Forever

September 21st- 7:00 and 9:30- 95 minutes

Dir. Heddy Honigmann- USA 2008

Dutch film maker Heddy Honigmann’s latest documentary fixes on Paris’ Pere-Lachaise cemetery, the world’s largest and most mythologized cemetery. Honigmann focuses on the people who have forged an intimate relationship with the Pere-Lachaise’s famous denizens. She focuses on devotees ranging from an Iranian cab driver who maintains a connection to his homeland and his culture via interred writer Sadegh Hedayat, and an illustrator who is inspired by Proust’s tomb to illustrate a graphic novel entitled “Remembrance of Things Past.” In the end; “Forever" is a poetic meditation on death, yeah, but it's also a joyful experience. It makes you feel profoundly grateful to be alive.” (Andrew O’Hehir, Salon)

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Shotgun Stories
September 28th- 7:00 and 9:30- 92 minutes
Dir. Jeff Nichols- USA 2008

Son, Boy and Kid Hayes are three brothers who are forced, after the death of their father, to come to terms with their difficult upbringing. Set in rural and desolate Arkansas, the film explores the relationship between the Hayes family while tracking the transformation of Son, Boy and Kid’s father from an abusive patriarch to an enlightened practitioner of the Christian faith, and documenting the struggles of each boy in his formative years. “The film is a here-and-now American potboiler and a stripped-down parable that can be appreciated by any culture.” (Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Times)

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Tuya's Marriage
October 5th- 7:00 and 9:30 PM- 86 minutes
Dir. Ouanan Wang- China 2007

In the harsh hinterlands of Mongolia, desertification is plaguing the land and those whom it sustains. Tuya and her husband Bater are one such couple, struggling each day with the trials caused by the fast-disappearing landscape and the complications that arise from Bater’s paralysis. Forced to find a better life for herself and her family, Tuya must seek a new husband to provide for her and her loved ones. “Mr. Wang and his screenwriting collaborator, Lu Wei (“Farewell My Concubine”), portray a world that, apart from its hardship, is thoroughly recognizable in its human complexity. Its characters are motivated by the same needs for companionship and material well-being and the same demons — greed, lust, jealousy and despair — that drive everybody.” (Stephen Holden, New York Times)

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My Winnipeg
Sponsored by The Declaration
October 19th-7:00 and 9:30PM- 80 minutes
Dir. Guy Maddin- Canada 2007

Pitching the slogan “the truth is relative,” Guy Maddin gives us an inside look into his past, and how he would have liked to change it. In his self-proclaimed “docu-fantasia,” we are led through the winding streets and tangled lives of Winnipeg, Manitoba, viewing the town through the humorous, bizarre, or the sometimes excruciatingly mundane lens of the director. “The prismatic 80-minute film is a visual translation of a voluptuously nostalgic state of Maddinesque Winnipeg-itude.” (Lisa Schwarzbaum, Enterntainment Weekly)

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Decay of Fiction
October 26th- 7:00 and 9:30 PM- 73 minutes
Dir. Pat O'Neil- USA 2006

The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles serves as the backdrop of Pat O’Neill’s artfully-crafted film. Shot in the classic Hollywood style, the movie follows various mysterious characters as they move through the haunted halls of the hotel, exploring along the way the secrets that are held within. “While depicting the relentless passage of time with a power that few other films have captured, ‘The Decay of Fiction’ sustains a mood of almost gothic sadness.” (Stephen Holden, New York Times)

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The Exiles
(In association with the Virginia Film Festival)
November 2th-7:00 and 9:30 PM- 72 minutes
Dir. Kent Mackenzie-USA 1961

Unseen by the public for almost 50 years, Kent Mackenzie's bleak look on a community in collapse is a rare and unforgettable film. Through one night in the burnt-out Native American Community of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, a group of young Indians look for trouble and a good time. Part immigrant story, part essay on urban decay, Exiles is a rare example of a subject playing itself. Shot with a hard neo-realist look, and jumping with the wild music of the times, the 1962 cult favorite "that's pure foot-to-pedal exhilaration (Jim Ridley, The Village Voice)."

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Trumbo
November 9th-7:00 and 9:30 PM- 96 minutes
Dir. Peter Askin- USA 2007

In 1950, in the heat of the Red Scare, ten members of Hollywood's elite were called before congress to testify. Among them was Dalton Trumbo. Originally known for his controversial screenplays, Trumbo became even more famous when he refused to give evidence, and was eventually blacklisted from the film industry. Set in nation gone mad, Peter Askin's documentary examines not only the infamous writer, but the entire mood and fear of the era, and how strongly this man's stand for the voice of the individual resonates today.

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Woodpecker
November 16th-7:00 and 9:30-87 minutes
Dir. Alex Karpovsky-USA 2008

In the town of Brinkley, Arkansas, tensions and excitement boil over with the sudden appearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a rare species of bird assumed to be extinct. Soon, the community of bird-enthusiasts, environmentalists, hunters, and profiteers is turned upside-down with the arrival of this extraordinary species. Enter Johnny and Wes, a would-be bird-watcher and his uninterested poet friend. Together, the two scour the hillsides, refusing to leave before at least catching a glimpse, all while musing on the nature of love, death, life, and birds. . Told in the mocumentary-style of such hits as Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, the newest film by Alex Karpovsky "soars above the bulk of low-budget Amer-indie farces, earning a beakful of yuks. (Robert Nelson, Variety)."

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Drained:

November 23rd- 7:00 and 9:30 PM-112 minutes

Director Heitor Dahalia-Brail 2006

Trapped in the office of his seedy Rio De Janeiro pawnshop, Lourenco aspires to live a more romantic life, while cruelly manipulating the shop's desperate patrons. Desperate for contact, yet hopelessly disconnected with the world around him, his life becomes dominated with two obsessions: the well-shaped rear of a local waitress and the growing smell from his back-room toilet. As sewage and seduction run wild, Lourenco breaks down as he fights between suppressing his raging fetishes or embracing them. Nominated for Sundance's Grand Jury Prize, Drained is a disgusting and enthralling take on film noir that provides a "scatological piece of theater of the absurd" that's never less than engaging (Robert Koehlker, Variety).

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