SXSW 2013: COMPUTER CHESS

A scene from Computer Chess.

Slouching toward Alphaville

By Don Simpson

Andrew Bukalski’s Computer Chess is exactly what I would imagine an immersive documentary about computer chess programmers circa 1980 to look like. Modeled loosely as a first person — dare I say “found footage” — narrative, Bujalski’s film documents a computer chess tournament a few years before computers are expected to conquer humans…at least within the realm of the 64 squares of the chess board. As if these programmers learned nothing from 2001: A Space Odyssey or Battlestar Galactica, they teach their respective team’s computer to play a board game that was developed centuries ago by humans, for humans.

To win at chess, one must be able to predict his or her opponent’s future moves; presumably these programmers are on the cusp of developing code that will allow computers to do just that, anticipate the decisions that a human will make in the future. Imagine the possibilities in military, political, financial and marketing strategizing if computers could accurately predict human behavior. Essentially, these hyper-intelligent men -- and let’s not forget the one woman -- are laying the groundwork for Artificial Intelligence. You might call it a god complex, their desire to develop a form of consciousness purely out of circuitry and code. Bujalski, however, doesn’t present us with a heavy-handed diatribe about computer programmers with god complexes; these are just a bunch of nerds who can effortlessly ramble on and on and on about technology to eye-glazing — and eye-rolling — proportions. Carbray (James Curry) is the perfect example of a programmer who seems to speak in a language that indecipherable to anyone but himself. The meandering linguistic smokescreen befuddles whoever is listening to him, rendering them powerless in debating his oblique hypotheses. It is the Computer Chess ensemble’s propensity for philosophizing that reminds me of Richard Linklater’s Slacker but, whereas Linklater’s film ruminates upon the existential crises of humans, Bujalski’s film expounds upon the existential crises of synthetic consciousness.

Bujalski makes an interesting decision to juxtapose the technology-driven participants of the computer chess conference with the followers of a new age guru from Africa. The guru professes the significance of the human heart and soul, teaching his followers to be more open and loving to others. The computer chess teams are secretive and competitive. They are focused on exploring a mechanical consciousness rather than looking inward towards their own. This tactic may seem a bit too contrived -- that is until the two groups interact with each other, then Bujalski’s approach makes a lot more sense.

Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Computer Chess carefully balances high-minded philosophy with comedy and pathos. All the while, Bujalski achieves an ultimate level of realism by enlisting a cast of computer savvy actors and non-actors who at least seem like they know what they’re rambling on about. The production design is the real show-stopper though; this is a masterfully stylized film saturated with authenticity.

SXSW 2012: TCHOUPITOULAS

A scene from Tchoupitoulas.

We have a contender!

By Don Simpson

Bill and Turner Ross’ Tchoupitoulas does a tremendous job of defying classification. It functions as both a surreal documentary that borrows from narrative storytelling techniques and a narrative film that paints a realistic portrait of its protagonists by utilizing documentary devices. The narrative unfolds like an improvised jazz album with various tangents that flow seamlessly away from and towards the forward-moving primary thread. The tempo continuously alternates as well as the sublime, impressionistic cinematography alternates between running, walking and pausing. We are fully immersed into the surrounding environment from the perspective of three young brothers as they embark upon an adventure deep into the heart of New Orleans.

Tchoupitoulas feels like a fairy tale as the three boys enjoy absolute freedom without any parental supervision, experiencing firsthand the entrancing New Orleans nightlife — something that is typically limited to adults. Every sequence brings new emotions, ranging from ecstasy and joy to fear and sadness. When the new day rises, the magical cinematic sedation quickly wears off. We are awoken from the meditative dream-state and the story ends, yet the entire cinematic experience is left lingering in our subconscious like a fading childhood memory.

No one makes films like the Ross brothers -- at least not anymore -- and Tchoupitoulas is no exception. A cerebral experience like none other, Tchoupitoulas is certainly going to be one of my favorite films of 2012.

SXSW 2012: FRANCINE

Francine (Melissa Leo) in Francine.

Realism, I suppose she is acting

By Don Simpson

Sometimes a great film is the product of pure, dumb luck; and Francine is one of those films. We will never know what this film would have been without Melissa Leo in the titular lead, instead we will only know this film by the masterful performance that Leo contributes. The story goes that Leo was not pursued by the directors, she responded to a general casting call posted by the Hudson Valley Film Commission. With an Oscar under her belt, Leo could have taken countless other roles that would have paid much higher wages; but we can only assume that Francine struck Leo as a character she needed to fully immerse herself in.

Francine begins with Francine’s last day in prison. It seems she has been locked away for a long time, though the crime she committed is left unspoken. Francine moves into a small cottage near the water and finds a series of jobs — at a pet store, in the stables of a polo club, at a veterinarian’s office.

Yes, Francine loves animals. She begins to collect them, as if to create a close-knit family, one that only knows unbridled love and affection. Eventually, Francine’s home becomes one of those homes, one in which too many animals are given too much freedom in too confined of a space. (Thank goodness smell-o-vision was not used in the making of Francine!)

As Francine tepidly integrates herself back into society, she begins to develop friendships. This is the crux of Francine, a cinema verite portrayal of a woman struggling to become a member of the free world. As awesome as Leo’s performance is, co-directors/writers Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatsky's Francine‘s strength is in its uncanny sense of realism -- the real people, the real places, the real events. This is essentially a documentary from the perspective of a fictional character.

EXCULSIVE INTERVIEW: MATT PORTERFIELD

Putty Hill writer-director Matt Porterfield.

In his hands

By Don Simpson

I am a real sucker for cinematic realism, so writer-director Matt Porterfield’s Putty Hill is right up my proverbial alley. The setting is a poor, working-class suburb of Baltimore where descriptive adjectives such as decrepit, depressing and boring seem to fit best. There is nothing of merit or worth here. It seems as though no one works -- with the exception of drug dealers. This is a community of tattoos, dreadlocks, torn clothes, skaters and BMXers, graffiti, paintball, video games and drugs. Nonetheless, a place in Porterfield’s sympathetic hands.

JEsther Entertainment met up with Porterfield at Putty Hill’s U.S. premiere at SXSW 2010 to chat about the collaborative nature of his sophomore effort and his unique brand of cinematic realism.

JEsther Entertainment: Something that really intrigues me about Putty Hill is the high level of realism. Did you set any specific standards for yourself, the cast and the crew to achieve this?

Matt Porterfield: When I made my first feature film, Hamilton -- which is also an attempt at cinematic realism -- I did set strict rules for myself to follow, like [Robert] Bresson’s model. No score, only diegetic sound of an onscreen source. The approach to the aesthetic, as well, was really pared back -- a kind of an economy to the aesthetic. This time going in -- because the circumstances were so different -- the only devise in place was the interviews with the cast. That served to make all of us aware that we were attempting, self-consciously, this exercise in realism. All of us were aware of the mechanism and aware of the fictive and truer elements of the film and how they kept intersecting, and that's the experience that the audience has as well. I didn’t give the actors too much back story. I told them about the fictive character Cory who ties all of their worlds together. I told them that I would be off-camera interviewing them and if I asked questions that they could answer truthfully from within their own life than I encouraged them to do so. I have an aesthetic sensibility that favors long masters and I use non-professionals principally. Working that way allows every scene to have its own internal breath and potentially a little bit of magic; and those things contrast well with the more traditional documentary style interviews throughout, so its like this dialectic at play.

JE: The documentary format works especially well because so many of the characters seemed so naturally introverted, so the only way these characters would speak -- especially to reveal personal information -- would be if a third party intervened.

MP: At the time we were shooting there was a question on all of our minds regarding how this would play out and work together. I didn’t really see it until we started cutting. I like that the questions aren’t too probing, that they maintain a respectful distance from the characters. I could have dug deeper but it just didn’t feel right. On some level it’s just appropriate.

JE: A lot of the actors were carryovers from Metal Gods. How did you approach them initially for Metal Gods and then how did you bring them over to Putty Hill?

MP:  Metal Gods is about young people, so we held auditions at area high schools. I was inspired by the stories I heard from the casting of Paranoid Park -- how the casting agents in Portland, whom Gus Van Zant was working with, used MySpace and also advertised public auditions. So I kind of followed that model. We set up a MySpace page just for casting the movie and then used that as an Internet reference point. I had some friends helping me, so, in addition to seeing people on the street, we would find people via the Internet. We just did a lot of digging around. We printed postcards, so we would flyer the street or hand them out at malls. We had these more formal auditions at high schools that I was able to set up -- focusing on the high schools with performing arts programs -- and then we tried to use every means that we could to publicize the public auditions around town. We had about six of those altogether. I saw upwards around 500 to 600 people probably. Along the way I met some kids that I really wanted to work with but I wasn’t certain how well they’d fit or how they would handle the Metal Gods material. So when our hand was forced and we switched gears, it was really liberating then to create a scenario just using the people that I wanted to see on screen as a sort of thread or inspiration. I took a casting credit on Putty Hill.

JE: And you mentioned that you didn’t really coach the actors, but so many of the performances are so consistently quiet and toned down – so that just came naturally with the actors that you chose?

MP: There’s a certain way in which I feel like I’m learning more -- and I’ve definitely learned a lot between Hamilton and Putty Hill -- ways of working with actors. One of the most important things is that I’ve honed a way to communicate with actors that conveys the kind of energy on set that translates on screen. It’s a balance. You have to give a nonprofessional actor enough information to feel safe and secure. Some will ask you very directly for specific things that they need, but then also don’t give them too much information. You could very easily crowd their heads with directions. So I try just to focus on the reality of the action. If we’re shooting a wide master, then it’s really about getting them comfortable with a few key actions that they can then focus on. The scene where the mom is playing the guitar in the kitchen is an example of something that really just came about organically. I knew I wanted to shoot in the kitchen. I knew Cody was going to come in. I planned to have his girlfriend and his baby there. But mom happened to be there that morning playing guitar, so I decided to keep her in the scene -- pretty much where she had been. And it was just a matter of giving Cody specific movements to get him from point A to point B. Then, in running through it together we came up with lines. It wasn’t so important to me what they said as long as they were comfortable with the dialogue and it felt natural.

JE: Let’s discuss your use of sound. In some scenes you use noises that almost blur out the audio -- there’s the scene in the tattoo shop during which you wound up having to use subtitles because the sound was so obscured.

MP: Traditionally we would have shot that scene without the tattoo gun turned on and then just added that in post, to get the dialogue, but you can’t do that when you’re working the way we were.

JE: And it added another level of realism.

MP: Exactly. The whole film is an exercise in the perception of objective and subjective cinematic reality -- if there is such a thing -- and just playing with the audience’s awareness of that relationship. I was selective. There is dialogue in scenes that we chose not to bring up because it wasn’t important. Sometimes we keep the relationship between camera and subject realistic and other times we don’t. There are scenes [when] we broke our own rules, like the scene where they take that long walk and we can hear the dialogue all the way. But then there is that scene in the woods, where you can’t hear anything the girls are saying. It was just a matter of scene by scene what felt right -- what we wanted to highlight. And then, in post, it was just trying to create just the right balance. Bring down some of the treble on the tattoo gun so it’s not too annoying for an audience but maintains its integrity, and we chose to subtitle really because I was thinking about my mom in the theater -- she wouldn’t pick up anything if she watched that scene. For me, it’s an example of what is important. What’s important is what they are saying as well as everything else, so it needs to be intelligible. In this case, subtitles were the answer. And then of course being the second scene of the film adds that sort of extra “is there a documentary feeling?” Subtitles again reinforce this idea that we’re blending the lines between fiction and non-fiction.

JE: Did you intend any specific economic or political message with Putty Hill?

MP: That’s always on my mind. I am very aware -- having grown up in Baltimore and lived there as an adult for almost ten years -- that it’s a very stratified city, like so many American cities, along the lines of race and class. Despite the fact that in the city proper there’s diversity -- in that we all live on top of one another. Those lines of communication are severed. There was a purpose -- and it’s maybe the reason that I stay working in Baltimore -- I would like to portray the diversity of experience onscreen of a very particular place that I know and love. As artists working in America it is important to show other visions of America; and a city like Baltimore can be a tool to bridge gaps and open lines of communication. It’s about a place that I know very well, so anything about the particular economy of that world is just part of the realism that we were attempting.

JE: There is also the degradation of the family element in Putty Hill. Though most of the family lives close to each other, they just don’t communicate. Nobody really spoke to Cory. Nobody really knew him…

MP: And the guy that was most connected with Cory in the film is Dustin. It is crazy to think that they had to be in prison together to really connect at that level. It’s true that a lot of the characters in Cory’s family don’t have much to say. I think that’s just true. I was meditating a lot on the idea of loss and what a family would go through if they lost someone.

SXSW 2011: ATTENBERG

Bella (Evangelia Randou) and Marina (Ariane Labed) in Attenberg.

Zooropa 

By Don Simpson

Writer-director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Attenberg opens with a few feeble attempts at open-mouthed French kisses exchanged between Bella (Evangelia Randou) and Marina (Ariane Labed). The absurdly uncomfortable exercise is not one that is fueled by hormones or attraction, this is purely a learning experience -- the purportedly sexually advanced Bella is hopelessly attempting to teach her sexually naive 23-year-old best friend, Marina, how to kiss.

Marina still resides with her dying father, Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis) -- the architect who, back in the 1960s, developed the drearily concrete seaside town that they still inhabit. A daddy’s girl from her id to her superego, Marina and her father enjoy an absurd yet loving relationship that occasionally borders on taboo. We sense that Marina’s primary impetus to finally become sexually awakened is her father’s terminally ill condition; as if she is trying to replace her father’s love...or something like that.

Marina is the focal point of Attenberg and the audience quickly learns to observe Marina in the same manner in which she observes the world around her. Marina has learned most of what she knows about the world by studiously watching, alongside her father, Sir David Attenborough’s nature television programs. She perceives the world as a giant zoo: people are just another animal species and cities/towns are the cages that contain them. It is no wonder she views the world in this manner. She lives in a town that seems to be physically walled off from the rest of the world and being the only child of a single parent has proven to further shelter Marina from “normal” life experiences. 

Tsangari provokes the audience to study Marina as Marina discovers that she is a sexual being and explores the related implications. We clinically observe Marina’s advanced communication techniques (she speaks in Greek, sings in French, plays strange rhyming word games with her father, and makes animal noises for no particular reason), her wildly expressive movements (she and Bella walk/dance in carefully choreographed movements), and her obscure musical tastes (her favorite song is Suicide’s “Be Bop Kid”) in order to develop a novel ethnographic hypothesis explaining what the behaviors of this virgin subspecies of Homo sapiens might possibly mean to humankind. 

Attenberg is certainly not as fantastically absurd as Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth -- which Tsangari produced -- but the two Greek films do share a certain cinematic kinship in farcically discussing the effects of overly restrictive parenting, specifically related to the social and sexual repression of the offspring. One might say that Attenberg is like the mellow chaser used to calm the crazy rush after experiencing the sheer frenzy of Dogtooth, but it is certainly no less meaningful and pervasive.

SXSW 2011: THE DISH AND THE SPOON

Rose (Greta Gerwig) and Boy (Olly Alexander) in The Dish and the Spoon.

The woman with the thorns in her sides

By Don Simpson

We first meet Rose (Greta Gerwig) as she drives her car amidst some sort of intense emotional breakdown. Still clad in pajamas, Rose wanders into a convenience store located somewhere in Delaware to stock up on donuts and Dogfish Beer purchased with the change she scrounges from her car’s ashtray. Refueled with a hefty dose of sugar and alcohol, Rose continues her drive to the coastal town where her family’s vacation home is located.

Before heading to the shuttered house Rose climbs the spiral stairs of a cement lookout tower (used during World War II to search for German U-boats) where she meets an absurdly dislocated British manchild (Olly Alexander), a lost puppy of sorts who resembles a vaudevillian mash-up of Bob Dylan, Robert Smith, Oscar Wilde and Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp. It is not without purpose that a woman who has partially de-evolved into a sobbing, tantrum-throwing child meets an ambiguously-aged male who feeds her childlike tendencies, but also desires her love and affection. Whether that is the love and affection of a mother-figure, a lover or both has yet to be determined. The British lad represents the most simple and innocent form of love, but it also does not hurt matters that he has enough money to support Rose’s bender for a while.

It is not long before we learn the reason that Rose is in such a state of emotional disrepair: her husband has cheated on her, shagging one of Rose’s friends no less. The harlot in question just happens to live in the very same quaint seaside town where Rose’s bender has marooned her. Okay, it is not as much of a coincidence as it seems. It turns out Rose has arrived here quite purposefully to "kill the bitch." Rose and her Boy-friend thus proceed to alternate whimsical adventures with the development of their asexual romance with schemes to avenge the woman who slept with Rose’s hubby.

My unwavering love for Gerwig is pretty well known from sea to shining sea, but for those of you who have been residing under a rock since Hannah Takes the Stairs, let me warn you that I sometimes find myself a wee bit biased when it comes to reviewing films featuring Gerwig. That said, Gerwig’s unyieldingly emotional Tilt-a-Whirl of a performance in The Dish and the Spoon is by far the best of her career. Unleashing an endless plethora of emotions, Gerwig may totally let herself go at times (to transcendental results) but we never lose our sense of Rose’s reality as a human being. In Gerwig’s hands, Rose is a magnificent humanization of juxtapositions: juggling a dire sort of fragility with enduring strength, humor and beauty with ugly emotional breakdowns.

Alexander portrays the boy who fell to earth -- since Rose never once asks his name, we will never know what to call him (Alexander is credited as "Boy") -- with a frail and sweet persona, yet a mysterious presence. Alexander’s character seems to be not of the same time or place as Rose; and not just because of his accent and fashion sense, but his archaic taste in music and cultural naivete play into this as well. The Dish and the Spoon contemplates history in many literal manners (historical costumes, old-timey music, the characters’ discussion about Thanksgiving), but it is director and co-writer Alison Bagnall’s clever toying with the historical ambiguity of Alexander’s character -- who appears to be torn straight from a 19th-century novel -- that really turns any sense of reality on its head.

Bagnall, who co-wrote Buffalo ‘66 with Vincent Gallo, takes a fairly extreme risk allowing Gerwig to portray Rose’s turmoil and anguish with intense sincerity during some scenes while playing the same emotions for comedic affect in other scenes. Bagnall also reveals a real (or reel) knack for never allowing The Dish and the Spoon to veer too far into the realm of overly precious tweeness. Recalling Blue Valentine, an all-so-cute song and dance scene is one of the lighthearted highlights of an otherwise emotionally intense film. The Dish and the Spoon is incredibly sincere and brutally honest in its portrayal of the highs and lows of relationships -- especially in its representation of the rage and sadness that are closely associated with romance.

SXSW 2011: INSIDE AMERICA

A scene from Inside America.

Deep Southland tales

By Don Simpson

Metal detectors welcome us to Hanna High School in Brownsville, Texas. Then, on the other side of the threshold, we are greeted by police monitors and drug dogs in the hallways. Trust is not a virtue to be found in Hanna High School -- the one thing that the rich and the poor students have in common (other than the American flag that they must pledge their allegiance to on a daily basis) is that they are all bad.

Otherwise, director Barbara Eder’s Inside America works as an analysis of juxtapositions.

The film starts as a group of poor teenagers steal beer from a neighborhood convenience store; then we cut to an ROTC drill squad raising the U.S. flag in front of the high school. Later the ROTC drill squad’s maneuvers are juxtaposed with cheerleader practice and the loud arguing between the poor teens is juxtaposed with the barking orders of the ROTC drill squad. Poor students in ESL classes are juxtaposed with rich students in modeling class. Broken homes -- kids living with foster parents, grandparents or drugged-out parents -- are juxtaposed with the overbearing parents of the rich kids. The poor kids get bad grades and have bad attendance records while the rich kids appear to be passing their classes just fine. Most importantly, the rich kids are U.S. citizens and the poor kids are illegal immigrants or at least do not have a social security number.

As we learn during one of the classes, the students are taught that even the poor and underprivileged can realize the American dream (you know, the old Victorian house with a white picket fence). They can be a part of it; work their way up from the bottom to the top. Who knows how they will be able to do that without social security numbers -- especially if the political right enacts more state laws similar to the Arizona immigration law (SB1070). One of the more humorous (albeit tinged with bitterness) moments is when one of the ROTC students is asked to describe the American way of life. He responds: “Following orders.”

Eder focuses primarily on six high schoolers: Patty (Patty Barrera) lives with her two grandmothers (Cary Gonzalez and Jovita Gonzalez), she is turning 18 soon and her family is trying to set her up with a good (religious and wealthy) boy (Eduardo Aramburo) from church; Patty is dating Manni (Raul Juarez), a tortilla factory worker who lives with his mother (Criselda Argullin), a drug addict; Zuly (Zuleyma Jaime) is trying to figure out where she is going to live once she turns 18 and must leave her foster home; Aimee (Aimeé Lizette Saldivar) is the head cheerleader, frontrunner in the ”most beautiful” contest at Hanna High, and heavy cocaine user; Aimee’s boyfriend, Carlos (Carlos Benavides), is an anti-immigrant ROTC student who enjoys shooting his paint gun at freaked-out bystanders while speeding around town in his big ass truck; Ricky (Luis De Los Santos) is a shy and naive nerdy kid who gets picked on in school and hopelessly tries to sell cookies so that he can travel with the rest of the school choir to Disney World.

Eder’s feature film debut is a raw, brutal and jaded perspective of Brownsville and, from what I have heard about Brownsville, it is pretty damn near spot on. Inside America is based on Eder’s -- a native Austrian -- experiences as an exchange student in Brownsville in 1994. Eder dedicates herself to discovering the truth in this story by utilizing non-actors -- real gang members, beauty contestants and illegal immigrants. Inside America is very clearly a critique of an outsider looking in (Eder seems intent on revealing herself as an outsider by way of the film’s soundtrack), but sometimes it does take someone as far removed as Eder to show the people living inside America the truth.

SXSW 2011: SILVER BULLETS

Kate (Kate Lyn Sheil) in Silver Bullets.

Swanberg song

By Don Simpson

Blurring the line between fiction and reality, writer-director-producer-cinematographer-editor Joe Swanberg' film’s opts not to formally name any of the characters in Silver Bullets, most likely because all of the actors are playing fictionalized versions of themselves.

Joe (Swanberg) and Kate (Kate Lyn Sheil) are an onscreen couple who often work together on films -- the former as the director and lead actor, the latter as the lead actress. When Kate accepts the leading role as a werewolf in a new Ti West project, Joe finds himself casting a new leading lady, Kate’s friend, Amy (Amy Seimetz). Jealousy ensues. Joe rightly assumes that Ti has his eyes set on Kate while Kate becomes very upset that Joe would cast her friend in his next project because she knows that this also means that Joe and Amy will establish an extremely close (and naked) on-camera relationship. Oh, what an incestuous world of celluloid!

I do not think it is too much of a stretch to state that Silver Bullets is Swanberg’s most Godardian film to date -- and that is not just because it features a girl with a gun or an onscreen director with a penchant for cinema theory. This is a film in which Swanberg puts himself under the proverbial microscope, in true self-reflexive fashion, questioning his role as a filmmaker and as a sexual being.

Swanberg’s cinematic output has traditionally burst with unbridled sexuality -- a quality that I suspect may have caused some arguments with his off-screen lovers over the years. (Swanberg is currently married.) Silver Bullets appears to be Swanberg’s way of working through all of that, while directly addressing past criticisms of his work -- primarily that he is a predatory director who makes movies solely for the opportunity to make out with attractive actresses. It is important to note that Silver Bullets is much more sympathetic towards Kate; revealing Joe as a two-timing cheat.

Silver Bullets is also the most stylistically playful of Swanberg’s films, at least since Hannah Takes the Stairs. Swanberg tinkers not only with the visual aspects of cinema but with its narrative conventions as well. I have never really thought of Swanberg as an editor, but he does a beautiful job tying together Silver Bullets’ concurrent stories in an overtly artful fashion. Despite being completely unscripted, Silver Bullets is dramatically more complex than Swanberg’s previous efforts; it is also his most cohesive and coherent, especially in terms of purpose. Silver Bullets represents a clean break from Mumblecore (a genre not known for profound messages) for Swanberg. He has a lot to say, and the messages are relayed loud and clear.

Swanberg also premiered Uncle Kent at Sundance Film Festival 2011.

SXSW 2011: MY SUCKY TEEN ROMANCE

Kate (Elaine Hurt) in My Sucky Teen Romance.

Big gulp

By Don Simpson

Every decade there seems to be a new cinematic approach to the vampire genre -- a majority of which involve some sort of adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. There are classics (Robert G. Vignola’s The Vampire, F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, Universal’s and Hammer Films’ Dracula franchises, etc.) as well as the reverential revivals of “serious” vampire films that were released in the 1980s (Tony Scott’s The Hunger, Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys, Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, etc.) and 1990s (Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker's Dracula, Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos, Michael Almereyda’s Nadja, Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire, etc.). In one way or another, cinema history leads us to the more recent past, with films such as Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In (and Matt Reeves’ remake, Let Me In) and the Twilight franchise. (To be perfectly honest, I am not quite sure how or where the tween-tastic Twilight franchise fits into the history of vampire films, if it does at all.)

There has also been a slew of vamp comedies and satires over the decades (Charles Barton’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers, Stan Dragoti’s Love at First Bite, Mel Brooks’ Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Malcolm Marmorstein’s Love Bites, etc.); but, for me (I by no means purport to be an expert on this subject), Joss Whedon’s television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is the first production that matches note-for-note a snarky sort of irreverence with a catholic reverence for not only the vampire genre but for pop culture history as well. This is kind of sort of where 18-year old writer-director Emily Hagins enters the fanged foray with My Sucky Teen Romance.

My Sucky Teen Romance is not nearly as snarky or catholic as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In fact, the tone is completely different, but both productions are coming from the same sort of sucky high school existence. As for the remainder of the vampire film pantheon, I would place My Sucky Teen Romance somewhere along the lines of The Lost Boys and Near Dark -- though My Sucky Teen Romance is not nearly as dark. Heck, My Sucky Teen Romance is probably the most colorful and brightest vampire film of them all!.

This is Kate’s (Elaine Hurt) last week in town before she leaves for college and she is spending her final weekend with her best friends at the local sci-fi convention, SpaceCON. A fan-boy’s fantasy, Kate is a cute girl who likes comic books.

Kate meets Paul (Patrick Delgado) at the local grocery store (which also happens to be my neighborhood grocery store: Crestview Minimax IGA). Kate attempts to chat-up Paul, mentioning that she likes the comic book that he is reading, but he, like many comic book geeks, is completely clueless to her advances.

Fate -- or maybe it is just plain old-fashioned bloodlust -- brings Kate and Paul together again at SpaceCON. Paul is looking remarkably paler and his teeth have become quite fangy. Oh, wait, he must be dressed up in a vampire costume for the convention! Soon Kate is dressed up as a vampire too.

When Nancy Drew (Emily Hagins) goes missing, Kate and her friends -- Allison (Lauren Lee), Jason (Santiago Dietche) and Mark (Tony Vespe) -- become suspicious that danger is afoot in the form of Vince (Devin Bonnee). So they form their own version of Whedon’s Scoobies. Kate slowly evolves into a vampire expert (of sorts) while Jason relies on his impressive knowledge of monsters (he watches a lot of horror movies)... Oh, and as luck would have it, Harry Knowles is hosting the Vampires 101 panel at SpaceCON today! So Austin.

Although My Sucky Teen Romance is purposefully referential and shies away from any pretense of realism, the story is so much more real and grounded than the Twilight saga. As a teenager, Hagins clearly understands her teenager characters better than most directors who are not teenagers. (I imagine that Hagins has probably experienced a sucky teenage romance more recently than 99.9 percent of all other film directors.) It also helps that the characters actually look like teenagers.

My Sucky Teen Romance is unmistakably a film for teens by teens. The news is that -- at least judging from Hagins’ film -- the awkward romantic (or lack thereof) experiences of teenage comic book/sci-fi/horror geeks has barely changed in the past three decades; so I expect that most aged comic book/sci-fi/horror geeks will be able to appreciate Hagins’ knack for teenage suckiness as much as I do.

SXSW 2011: DRAGONSLAYER

Josh "Skreech" Sandoval in Dragonslayer.

Wassup Wasteoid

By Don Simpson

Not to be confused with Ain’t It Cool News’ lackluster 15th Anniversary screening of Matthew Robbins’ Dragonslayer from 1981, Tristan Patterson’s documentary is about skateboarding, relationships and getting totally wasted. Sounds totally more awesome than that AICN screening, right? Well, it kind of is awesomer.

Josh “Skreech” Sandoval is the textbook definition of odd. Unique in the best and worst possible ways, Sandoval seems to communicate and function on a wavelength that is unfathomable to any other human beings. His priorities are rarely rational, sometimes Sandoval’s life focuses on finding the perfect abandoned pool to skate, while other times it revolves solely around getting blitzed out of his gourd beyond recognition. It becomes increasingly clear that Sandoval experiences his life solely in the present as he uses drugs and booze to effectively erase his past and negate any cares about his future. Pro skateboarding sponsorships may come and go, but Sandoval is too carefree and numb to muster up enough emotion to give a rat’s ass. The only time we become aware of Sandovar’s emotions is when he explains that he stops skating whenever he becomes depressed. It is more important for Sandoval to live life -- he seemingly abides by the motto "live stoned and die young" -- with the least possible funds and possessions. (Sandoval spends a significant portion of Dragonslayer squatting in a tent in a friend’s backyard.)

Come to think of it, Sandoval is somewhat reminiscent of one of those eternally fucked-up teenagers from Harmony Korine’s cinematic cannon; but he happens to be one who occasionally reveals a somewhat sympathetic side. Even though Sandoval’s life is constantly on the verge of a massive wipe out, it is difficult not to like him...but only just a little bit. Sandoval seems to truly like his girlfriend, Leslie, though their relationship seems uncommunicative and somewhat asexual (or at least kept private from Patterson’s camera) and his excitement over spending his first day out with his child, Sid Rocket, is pretty darn cute...that is until he cannot figure out how to open the baby stroller -- a reminder that Sandoval is a pretty fucked-up dad.

How much could Sid really matter to Sandoval if they never spend any father-son time together? Is Sandoval purposely staying out of Sid’s life so that he does not become a negative influence on his tyke’s upbringing? (Sandoval does confess that he left Sid’s mother because he did not want Sid to grow up in a house with two constantly quarreling parents.) And forget about the “SK8 or die!” mantra, because even skateboarding -- something he can excel at -- does not matter to Sandoval as much as maintaining a steady diet of pills, pot and booze.

Patterson’s documentary makes no attempt to cast any judgements about Sandoval, he merely provides us with a countdown of events for the audience to make their own determinations. This is (dare I say) the genius of Patterson’s film. Sure, his directorial perspective has chosen ten distinct moments in Sandoval’s life, but the images remain uncannily free of directorial opinions. (I also believe that Sandoval is too zonked out to be influenced by the presence of the film cameras; his actions seem perfectly natural and instinctual for him.) Sandoval’s lifestyle is never glorified by Patterson, but is not necessarily condemned either. That said, I suspect most sane audience members will walk away from Dragonslayer scared shitless that Sandoval is not quite as unique as we might hope. What would you do if your teenage daughter started dating someone like Sandoval? (That is probably slightly more frightening to parents than having one’s son turn out like Sandoval.)

Photographed by Eric Koretz and Sandoval -- who was provided with a Flip camera to capture footage while the director and his crew were not present -- Dragonslayer is one of the most beautifully shot and edited films about skateboarding culture that I have ever seen. 


Dragonslayer won the Best Documentary Feature and Best Cinematography awards at SXSW 2011.

SXSW 2011: THE FUTURE

Sophie (Miranda July) in The Future.

A paw paw blowtorch

By Don Simpson

Poor Paw Paw (creepily voiced by writer-director Miranda July) -- our narrator and...ahem...talking cat -- is dying. With only six months to live, Paw Paw requires constant medical attention. No one wants to adopt Paw Paw...until a cute curlicued couple, Sophie (Miranda July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater), decide that they will do a good deed and bring Paw Paw home with them. After they commit to taking care of Paw Paw, Sophie and Jason are informed by the animal clinic that their love and care will probably help Paw Paw live significantly longer -- a revelation that strikes the two of them like a lightening bolt.

Suddenly, Sophie and Jason perceive their adoption of Paw Paw as the end of their lives while Paw Paw sees it as the highly anticipated renewal of his. It will be another 28 days until Sophie and Jason can officially bring Paw Paw home, so they have time to mentally prepare for this impending change in their lives. Sophie and Jason -- both 35 years old -- decide that they should make the very most of their remaining days of freedom. (“We’re 35 now...by the time the cat dies, we’ll be 40...might as well be 50...after that, spare change.” “Spare change?” “Less than a dollar -- not enough to get anything you want.”)

Sophie quits her job as a dance instructor and promises herself that she will record a new dance routine on You Tube every day for the next 28 days. Jason quits his job as a computer support technician and -- opting to “look for coincidences” and “listen to what people are saying” for hints regarding his destiny -- he becomes a volunteer for an environmental non-profit, Tree by Tree. (Jason describes the current state of the world -- thanks in no small part to global warming -- as a building just as it has been hit by a wrecking ball in a cartoon.) Sophie also releases them from the greatest shackle of them all: their Internet service.

Jason’s new life suits him pretty well, but Sophie is unable to gain any momentum toward her goals. As a couple, their perceived freedoms begin gnawing at their relationship bonds; an insurmountable distance quickly grows between them. This is around the time where two key supporting characters -- Marshall (David Warshofsky) and Joe (Joe Putterlik) -- are catapulted into the picture. Jason finds himself in a position that he must stop time (something he has claimed the ability to do ever since the opening scene) while Sophie partakes in a rebirth of sorts, via a stunningly surreal cocoon-like dance in a yellow t-shirt.

Sophie and Jason begin the film so perfectly matched for each other that they could have been twins. Now they are utter strangers because they embarked in making one serious commitment, the adoption of an ailing pet. Unfortunately, they cannot truly comprehend the dire consequences of breaking their commitment -- not just to themselves, but also to Paw Paw. (Poor Paw Paw...) The fate of their relationship weighs heavily upon Paw Paw’s future. With allusions to the female baby factory -- the female menstrual cycle (28 days) and fertility (35 years old -- often the age associated with a sharp decline in fertility) -- The Future serves as apparent analogies for the certainty of the passage of time and “aging” couples whose seemingly perfect relationships become devastated by the possibility of throwing a baby into the mix. To many people, babies are the ultimate sign of commitment and represent the loss of personal freedom for the parents.

Following up on her near-brilliant directorial debut, Me and You and Everyone We Know, writer-director July takes The Future to some new and fascinating places. The Future, unlike Me and You and Everyone We Know, dives deep into a world that mixes magical realism (the talking cat, Jason’s ability to stop time, etc.) with surrealism. She may have felt somewhat confined to cinematic conventions in Me and You and Everyone We Know, but with The Future July expresses a uniquely personal freedom of expression. As psychologically cerebral as The Future seems, it is the work of unadulterated eye candy as well -- with its luscious color palate, keen fashion eye, and wondrously theatrical scenes of performance art.

July also rehashes situations that are familiar to us from Me and You and Everyone We Know. Both films reveal that July is fascinated by relationships -- between people who “know” each other and between complete strangers -- and creates various scenarios to compare and contrast the levels of kindness, strangeness and romanticism inherent in each pairing. July’s characters are deeply flawed and unpredictable, revealing incredibly wide ranges of emotions and desires. The differences between coincidence and fate are practically indistinguishable. I sometimes wonder if July is working out her theological beliefs concerning the presence of a “higher power” at the rate of 24 frames per second.

SXSW 2011: 13 ASSASSINS

A scene from 13 Assassins.

Sword to disobey

By Don Simpson

13 Assassins, Takashi Miike's remake of the 1963 Eiichi Kudo film, takes place in Japan during mid-19th century. The Shogunate has known peace for many years and the Samurai have grown soft and lazy in their inactivity. Something has got to change.

The sadistically inclined Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira (Gorô Inagaki) is on the fast track to power in the Shogunate. His penchant for killing and raping innocent civilians for sheer entertainment value has forced the hand of the noble advisor to the Shogun, Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira), to plan Lord Naritsugu’s assassination. Doi promptly recruits one of the last true samurai, Shinzaemon Shimada (Kôji Yakusho), to establish a team for this very risky mission.

The first act of 13 Assassins focuses on Shinzaemon gathering his team. He scours the land for the few remaining competent and trustworthy samurai with a few less competent, but very dedicated and trustworthy ones, nonetheless, thrown in for good measure. Eventually Shinzaemon finds twelve samurai who are willing to risk their life in order to participate in Lord Naritsugu’s demise. Later, one non-samurai, Koyata (Yûsuke Iseya), joins the fold along their journey, bringing the total to 13. 

Soon Shinzaemon finds himself face-to-face with Naritsugu's lead samurai, Hanbei Kitou (Masachika Ichimura), Shinzaemon’s old rival from training school, now his nemesis, and the "chess" match begins. Shinzaemon’s small group of samurai prepare to battle Hanbei’s samurai army of hundreds. Facing impossible odds, Shinzaemon is forced to go all in with a high risk gamble. The thirteen assassins choose a small town to fortify with the hope that strategic preparation will somehow even out the odds.

As the third act commences, so does the drawn-sword-out slaughter fest. Surprisingly, the blood and violence never becomes gratuitous; if anything, Miike restrains himself in an effort to make a profound statement about the senselessness of war. As Lord Naritsugu revels in the bloody mayhem, his army blindly follows him. Miike skillfully highlights the moral dilemma of the film’s samurai -- they must weigh obedience against justice. The battle is between the blindly obedient and the morally just. The morally just are backed into a corner; with the future of Japan at stake, they are forced to kill their foes in defense of their country.

Since we are talking about a group of samurai hired to be heroes, it is only natural 13 Assassins remind anyone who has seen Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai of that epic film in which samurai are hired to protect a village from bandits.

The Koyata character offers a hefty dash of Kurosawa-esque comic relief and besides the narrative trope of recruiting heroes into a team for a mission, Miike also co-opts Kurosawa’s anti-war stance. 13 Assassins is an unexpectedly mature and profound film for the incredibly prolific Miike and, truth be told, I never thought I would compare Kurosawa with Miike. They have both traditionally been polar opposites for me: Kurosawa the formal master and Miike the guilty pleasure. Suddenly, with 13 Assassins, the two worlds have collided. 13 Assassins is dramatically more violent than anything Kurosawa ever created yet 13 Assassins could very well be a remake of Seven Samurai.

FILM FEATURE: PAGE OSTROW

Producer Page Ostrow

Producing pictures of importance

By Ed Rampell

The fact that Beverly Hills-based Page Ostrow is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors has contributed to rather than hampered her success in the highly competitive, male-dominated movie world. The profound life lessons Ostrow absorbed from her parents -- who met in Germany after their liberation from different concentration camps -- have served this producer’s representative well.

“Around 1960 my father came to Toronto without two nickels to rub together, and he went on to have the second largest manufacturing company of leather coats in Canada,” proudly states Ostrow, President of Ostrow and Company.

Ostrow developed the sharp, shrewd negotiating skills necessary for obtaining distribution for hundreds of films and navigating Hollywood’s shark infested waters by paying close attention to and implementing strategies she learned from her Dad, a self made businessman.

“I worked with my father for four years, learning how to do business the old school way, which includes having the long view of building close relationships with clients and associates,” said Ostrow.

But more important than the business acumen Ostrow accumulated from her family is the ethos bestowed by parents who endured Bergen-Belsen, Gross-Rosen and other slave labor camps. Indeed, as one of a handful of the film industry’s producer’s representatives, Ostrow is on a movie mission, using her savvy deal making skills to secure outlets and film financing for socially aware indie features and documentaries that might otherwise fall by the wayside amidst Hollywood’s focus on big budget glitz, glamour and escapism. Ostrow hooks up independent, hard hitting filmmakers with distributors who release their work worldwide on all platforms, including theatrical, television, home entertainment/ VOD (video on demand), Internet and all ancillary rights.

“We’re fortunate to represent quality films,” said Ostrow. “Films of conscience with cinematic vision meet with our commitment and strategy toward championing a new global reality”

The specialty cinema Ostrow and Company represents includes Juvies, a documentary about juvenile offenders tried as adults by what the firm’s website calls “a kind of vending machine justice.” The 2004 doc aired on HBO.

Heavens Fall is a 2006 dramatization of the infamous Scottsboro Boys court case, wherein nine Blacks were falsely accused of raping two Southern white women during the 1930s, starring David Strathairn, Timothy Hutton and Leelee Sobieski. Mohammed Gohar’s 2008 The Anti-Bin Laden is an award winning nonfiction look at the Egyptian televangelist and businessman, Amar Khaled, who preaches a moderate vision. Stolen Childhoods is a doc narrated by Meryl Streep about forced child labor. The firm’s 200-plus titles also include feel good movies like Dating Games People Play and Summer Dreams.

A day in this producer’s representative’s hectic life reveals her to be a whirlwind of activity. At her office, located a stone’s throw from Rodeo Drive, Ostrow and her team seem to need eight arms each to get through in-house meetings, nonstop phone calls and emails from around the globe. Ostrow works the phone with an ease Alexander Graham Bell would marvel at, negotiating contracts with filmmakers and distributors, navigating the finer points of a deal with studio executives to win her producers bigger payoffs.

The firm’s busy pace became fever-pitched during Egypt’s revolutionary turmoil, when Mohammed Gohar, CEO of Video Cairo Sat, made frantic long distance calls to Ostrow and Company, declaring that VCS’ “150 employees are holed up in my office for nine days now with the lights dimmed to protect from looters and security at our door protecting us. We’re providing satellite, crew and information to all the reporters from around the world here in Egypt. We’re currently missing three of our team who went out as crew to report and have not returned.”

The child of Holocaust survivors empathizes with the desperate Egyptian, and asks, “How can I help?” “Just watch our film,” replies Gohar, who, via satellite, sends Ostrow a link to The Last Breath, arguably the first documentary chronicling the events leading up to Egypt’s revolution and the people’s power revolt there. Viewing the doc, Ostrow and her staff are, she says, “amazed by the uncanny predictions detailed in the film which are now a reality in Egypt,” and the producer’s rep signs a contract with Gohar to represent The Last Breath.

Ostrow’s team includes 30 cinema scouts who travel the film festival circuit and trade shows all over the world, including Toronto (Ostrow’s hometown), Austin (where the South By Southwest Festival is taking place this week), the Bahamas, Utah (home of Robert Redford’s Sundance), the French Riviera (Cannes), Santa Monica (the American Film Market), etc. Every day there’s another film festival somewhere; Ostrow’s team covers most of them. At these venues producers seeking distribution for character driven feature films and socially relevant documentaries are encouraged to submit their work for consideration. An in-house team of executives review each and every film submitted for filtration to see which are suitable for producer's representation.

Those selected are then offered a deal in exchange for a retainer and percentage of business done by Ostrow’s multimillion dollar Beverly Hills outfit, which has access to film distributors in various mediums and platforms. Filmmakers may know their art, but Ostrow – who has worked for distributors such as Graham King (The Aviator; The Departed) for 10 years and on her own as a producer’s rep for another decade -- has the business savvy, contacts and database to ensure producers find audiences for their work.

But this Beverly Hills wheeler-dealer isn’t only in it for the moolah. Remembering her roots, Ostrow supports Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation, recording testimonials of thousands of survivors of Hitler’s genocide. In 2004 she served on the board of directors of the National Council for Jewish Women, serving as an activist as well. Ostrow was also the first Hollywood entertainment executive invited to speak at the United Nations Film Festival in New York.

“The noblest search is the search for excellence,” Ostrow stresses. “Could I have made more money doing slasher films and movies with gratuitous sex and violence? I don’t even think about it; there’s many ways to make money. Feature films and socially conscious documentaries are the kinds of films I like to represent. I’d rather leave a legacy, change lives and have an impact. There’s an audience for these types of films."

Another Harvest Moon is one of these films. Starring Doris Roberts, Piper Laurie, Anne Meara, Richard Schiff, Cybill Shepherd and Cameron Monaghan, the film is scheduled for an April release in selected theaters. The movie deals with the circle of life in three generations of a family and stars Ernest Borgnine, who just won the Screen Actors Guild’s Life Achievement Award.

While growing up in Toronto Ostrow was bitten by the movie bug after seeing the 1972 anti-Nazi musical, Cabaret, starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey.

“When I first started going to Cannes,” she recalls, “I brought with me the Time Magazine that had on the cover a Holocaust survivor in the camps behind electric wires, in black and white uniform, and it said: ‘Love Letters From the Camps.’ Even during the times of the concentration camps people actually sent love letters back and forth. And I thought, ‘If they could do that, and have hope and be brave, then I can certainly handle what any of the notoriously difficult Hollywood players or studio executive at Cannes can throw my way as a young woman deal making on the Croisette of the French Riviera.’ Courage is never letting your actions be dictated by fears.”

Page Ostrow has survived and thrived in Tinseltown, enhancing the cinema scene by championing the indie and the underdog.

SXSW 2011: WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM

Dominic Fredianelli in Where the Soliders Come From.

Class warfare

By Don Simpson

So, where do soldiers come from? As far as I can determine, soldiers are not delivered by a stork nor are they created by the gratuitous mating of birds and bees, but there have been several military decisions made in the last decade to make one think that soldiers are totally expendable beings.

Research shows that, for the most part, U.S. soldiers come from poor, uneducated, rural families and Heather Courtney’s documentary Where Soldiers Come From gives us an example of one such group of young soldiers from the Upper Peninsula of Northern Michigan. Dominic Fredianelli and four of his friends joined the National Guard when they graduated from high school because they were enticed by the college tuition support and $20,000 signing-bonus (the average annual income in their county is only $21,186).

When Courtney first meets the young soldiers, they are just 19. Where Soldiers Come From follows the soldiers for four years, beginning with their monthly training sojourns at the local National Guard base and remaining by their sides until the inevitable happens -- they are deployed to Afghanistan to sweep for IEDs. (While the young men are awar, Courtney makes a few return trips to Michigan to find out how the soldiers’ families are holding up.)

Then the narrative returns stateside as the five 23-year-old combat veterans attempt to readjust to their civilian lives . The most amazing aspect of Where Soldiers Come From is watching Courtney’s five subjects evolve from being politically apathetic -- showcased brilliantly as they listlessly observe Barack Obama win the 2008 Presidential election on television -- to becoming damningly incredulous about the U.S. military and its role in Afghanistan.

Despite the obvious temptation of bombarding the audience with additional footage of the war-torn soldiers and their families railing against U.S. economic, military and foreign policies, Courtney refrains from turning Where Soldiers Come From into a heavy handed political diatribe. Instead, the resulting film is a deeply humanistic tale of five young men yearning to earn some basic financial stability in their futures.

Americans rarely acknowledge the existence of a rigid class system. Instead we are led to believe that free market capitalism allows everyone equal opportunities to become successful, but that is far from true. Since the nation’s poor cannot afford higher education, they are left with only a few options, one of which is to join the military (during a perpetual state of wartime, no less). It is a sorry state of affairs when an entire segment of our population has to risk their lives -- for senseless wars, no less -- for the sole purpose of having a chance to claw their way up from the lowest economic rung of our oppressive class system.

With two full-immersion documentaries about the Afghanistan war -- Where Soldiers Come From and Armadillo -- screening at SXSW 2011, it is difficult to avoid comparing them. Courtney’s film utilizes an array of styles and techniques of cinematography to keep things visually stimulating, though Where Soldiers Come From never becomes as over-stylized as Armadillo. In fact, other than both documentaries utilizing cameras mounted on the soldiers (and their vehicles) while out on maneuvers -- thus throwing the audience right into the middle of the action -- Where Soldiers Come From and Armadillo could not be more different. Not only does Where Soldiers Come From approach its subjects with much more intimacy, but (thanks in part to its more humble production values) it also seems more honest and, dare I say, real.

SXSW 2011: HIT SO HARD

Patty Schemel in Hit So Hard.

Wham, Bam, Mam

By Don Simpson

Some of you might be asking the same question I asked myself when I first received the press release for Hit So Hard: The Life & Near‐Death Story of Drummer Patty Schemel. Why would I want to watch a documentary about the drummer of Hole? Nothing personal about Schemel, but she is not the first person who comes to mind when I think of Hole. Knowing absolutely nothing about Schemel, I figured that it would not hurt anything for me to give Hit So Hard a chance.

Hailing from Marysville, a farm town outside of Seattle, at age 15 Schemel formed her first band, Sybil (later known as Kill Sybil), with her brother Larry. Schemel was 20 when she joined Doll Squad, an all-female punk rock band from Seattle. Then when Chad Channing left Nirvana in 1990, Schemel was considered to be Kurt Cobain’s leading candidate for Nirvana’s new drummer...that is until Dave Grohl’s audition. Nevertheless, Schemel developed a close friendship with Cobain so when Hole's original drummer, Caroline Rue, left the band in 1992, Schemel was Courtney Love’s first choice.

Schemel played drums on Hole's sophomore album, Live Through This (1994), and while touring, performed high profile shows at the Reading Festival, Big Day Out and Lollapalooza. (In 1995, Schemel became the first woman ever to appear on the cover of Drum World magazine.) Hole entered the studio in 1997 to record their third album, Celebrity Skin, but Schemel left the band before any tracks were laid down. Schemel had worked on the writing of the album's material and contributed to the demos so her name and photo were still included on the album sleeve. (The album’s drum tracks were performed by a male session drummer; eventually Samantha Maloney became Hole’s third drummer.) Love claims that Schemel's drug habit was to blame, but Schemel insisted she left Hole due to personal and musical differences between her and Celebrity Skin producer, Michael Beinhorn.

In 2001, Schemel joined Love's short-lived band, Bastard, along with Louise Post (from Veruca Salt) and Gina Crosley (from Rockit Girl). Schemel also played drums on Juliette Lewis' Juliette and the Licks’ debut EP, ...Like a Bolt of Lightning. Schemel performed on Love's solo album, America's Sweetheart, and toured with Imperial Teen. In early 2010, Schemel formed the band, Green Eyes.

That said, music takes a back seat in P. David Ebersole’s documentary. Hit So Hard is more about drug and alcohol addiction. Schemel is a member of the “Unlucky 13th Generation," a group of people who have been mired by a plethora of pain, hardship and death. As someone who seemed predestined to fall prey to that curse, Schemel developed a heroin addiction in the early 1990s. (She notoriously refused to be part of Kurt Cobain's drug intervention in March 1994, claiming that doing so would be hypocrisy.) Eventually, she found herself unable to stay in any bands. In order to support her drug habit Schemel sold all of her possessions and began living in a parking lot near the corner of Temple Street and Alvarado Street in Los Angeles, California.

Many have hypothesised that the Grunge movement and prolific drug use in the 1990s was reverbial feedback from the very same twenty-somethings who suffered through the conservatism of the Reagan-Bush era during their teenage years. Like the various Punk movements that came before and after Grunge, the angst from feeling disenfranchised for so long came through in their music and fashion. But their rebelliousness did not dull the pain and thus turned to alcohol and drugs for their proverbial ostrich hole.

Hit So Hard features recent and archival talking head interviews with Schemel, as well as her friends, family and colleagues. But what everyone will be talking about is Ebersole’s Hi-8 footage during various tours and while she was living with Love and Cobain just prior to Cobain’s death.