The sweet irony of Paul Osborne’s documentary, Official Rejection, a backstage tell-all of American film festival culture, is that the film has gone on to be something of a fest favorite around the country. I first reviewed the film at last year’s Deadcenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City, where Paul and I agreed we would find time for an interview. Finally, we have come together to chat about his film, which is still running the festival circuit, and movies in general. As Sundance 2010 begins, we thought it would be a perfect time to discuss what festivals represent in the dreams of filmmakers and what they really are. Believe it or not, a lot has changed since Paul made the film, so listen in as he explains where we stand today. Other points of interest: my own bitching about Blu-Ray, the films Paul is most excited to see, and the two of us compare war stories on both sides of the critic-filmmaker lines.

 
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Ed. Note: My microphone suffered some fits of serious crackling for this one. I’ve been trying to scrub it out but I’m finding it impossible. I’ll fix the problem by the next Candlercast. Sorry for the ear-strain.

Now that the dust has settled, here’s the complete compendium of candler blog coverage from Oklahoma City’s deadCENTER Film Festival. Read on…

The internet has been touch and go the past two days, and I’m on a friend’s computer instead of my own, so I can’t add the usual flair you have come to know and love to this post. Even with the fest completed, this continues to be an intensely film-related vacation. After a buffet breakfast at a place called Ingrid’s Kitchen, I headed over to the best bookstore in Oklahoma City, Full Circle. Designed with all kinds of nooks and crannies and rolling ladders, it is a store whose selection is not only Okie specific, but wide ranging. It’s design encourages discovery and their staff are super friendly. No one paid me to say that, seriously.

I went to Full Circle because my friend, Sunrise Tippeconnie, was signing a book in which an essay of his is featured. The book is Sooner Cinema: Oklahoma Goes to the Movies and I’m in the process of reading it. Quite interesting. This state has a long history of making movies and being portrayed in them. Which brings me to my next point.

The talk of the town right now is Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me, which is shooting here right now. The film has brought stars Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, and Ned Beatty. During the final day of deadCENTER they had blocked off streets downtown and filled them with 1950s cars. Last night I headed to Cookie’s, a tiny bar with a lot of heart, for the Cast and Crew more-than-halfway-through-production party. It was a nice time with some wonderful karaōke singers. The only celeb to show up was Mr. Beatty, and he was a gentleman.

I love hanging out with film crews. They are so much more tolerable than filmmakers because they rarely want to talk about movies. After the bar I went straight to a Sonic for the second time today. For those of you who don’t know about Sonic, well, you just have to drive until you find one. I got an Ocean Water Slushie and some onion rings. They tasted delicious after drinking a Pacifico cerveza.

We are off to the Wichita Mountains now, probably no more film to deal with today. I still owe you all some reiews and you’ll get them, but probably not until I’m back in New York. Poke around the site in the meantime, there’s a lot going on here.

Hot off the presses! Here are the winnered of the 9^th Annual deadCENTER Film Festival. I was only able to review two of these films here, but hopefully I will get to see/review the rest at a later date.

• Screenplay:  Laura Looks Up by Keri Schreiner, Los Angeles, CA
• Narrative Feature: Weather Girl directed by Blayne Weaver, Los Angeles, CA
• Documentary Feature: Official Rejection directed by Paul Osborne, Los Angeles, CA
• Narrative Short: Gaining Ground directed by Marc Brummen, Germany
• Documentary Short: Forced into ‘Comfort’, Fighting for Apology directed by Theo Lipfert, Bozeman, MT
• Animation: I’m So Proud Of You directed by Don Herzfeld, Santa Barbara, CA
• Student Film: Science Fair directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp, Brooklyn, NY
• Oklahoma Feature: Barking Water directed by Sterlin Harjo, Tulsa, OK
• Oklahoma Short: Starvation Doctrine directed by Zac Davis, OKC, OK
• Grand Jury Narrative Feature: Yvette, directed by Rogelio Almeida, Duncan, OK
• Grand Jury Narrative Documentary:  The Day After Peace directed by Jeremy Gilley, London, UK

Yesterday was a bit of whirlwind, even though I spent most of the day on my ass in the same theater. It just so happened that all the films I wanted to see were at the same venue. Really, I mean it, I’m not just lazy. It started out with a little filmmaker coffee time over at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. It is nice when everyone comes together for a bit of starbucks and biscuits in the morning. Makers, fans, critics and friends all hung out, some tooling around on MacBook Airs that are provided in the lounge. I, course, just slapped my giant 17″ MBP next to those lithe little machines and went to town.

By days end I managed to see 3 features: Official Rejection, Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo, and Weather Girl. All attracted nice sized crowds and were recieved quite positively by the festival audience. As I settled into the 8:00 screening of Weather Girl, I finally realized that I hadn’t eaten all day. More than anything, I feared my critical rendencies being affected by the hunger pangs that would taunt me throughout. As you could guess, I was fine and ended up going to an Italian joint named Flip’s on the way back to the house.

Let me tell you about Flip’s. The food was okay, and the Oklahoma Belgian-style beer I had was delicious, but the real charm was the music. I swear, for the entire time I was there, they must have been playing the theme song from King of the Hill on loop. It was just plain awesome. Filmmaker coffee this morning was pretty nice. I got to talk to some filmmakers about the reviews I’ve given them, but more on that later. Right now I’ve got to head to another feature doc, Our Spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding School. I’m not sure what I’ll be seeing after that, but check back soon for the liveblog where I’ll keep you up to date.

Here is a picture of how intense filmmaker coffee can get in the morning. And yes, I did choose a pic that made everyone look bad on purpose.

Scott Storm, Aaron Hillis and Paul Osborne talking about stuff.

Blayne Weaver’s second feature, Weather Girl, is a predictable love triangle that dabbles in a grab bag of independent filmmaking clichés that we, as a viewership, are so over. So what? It made me and the entire audience laugh. Here at the candler blog I don’t usually let films off the hook so easily, so how could I say that Weather Girl gets a pass because it made me laugh? The film is tight and the laughs are genuine in ways that other films, many many other films, aren’t.

The film follows “sassy” weather girl Sylvia after an on air Network inspired freakout leaves her jobless, homeless and manless. She moves in with her slacker brother and his cute-in-a-dirty-kinda-way philosophy major neighbor. Hmmmmm, I wonder if she’ll find love under these wacky conditions? Wait! Maybe she’ll not only find love, but she’ll find herself while searching for it. It is formulaic to say the least, but like I said, who cares?

Over the years, festival films have become the next best thing for an audience always on the prowl for new surprises. I think we can look at them a bit differently. Mr. Weaver’s film is an excellent exercise in comedic timing, and I believe we will see wonderful things from him in the future. For my money, he should direct a film that someone else wrote as that seems where his strengths lie, but I’m just a critic. What do I know?

We get nice performances from Tricia O’Kelley, Patrick J. Adams, and Ryan Devlin, as well a gloriously smarmy Mark Harmon. My personal favorite perf comes from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Kaitlin Olson. She doesn’t get that much screen time, but when she does, she shines. I would also like to point out that, especially in the scenes that take place on the morning news show, editing plays an enormous role in the comedic tension that is built throughout the film. A huge pat on the back goes to editor Abe Levy who cut those laughs into shape.

Over the years, the rom-com has become something of an art form. Hitting the right emotional beats for a crowd that doesn’t want to invest too much of themselves in a story is not an easy task, but Weather Girl seems to accomplish this. The audience stuck with it and had some great laughs along the way. What more could they really ask for? A better movie? Yeah, get on that Mr. Weaver. What’s next?

I feel inclined to like Paul Osborne’s Official Rejection, but not because it is a good film. As a film critic, I am drawn to any movie whose premise is that we (filmmakers, critics, distributors, audience members, etc.) are all complicit in a broken system. The film, which follows a number of filmmakers around the festival circuit during the course of a year, is seemingly propagandizing the concept that big name festivals are a scourge on independent filmmaking. They take your hopes and dreams and money and make you feel like shit when they reject you without cause or justifiation.

So yes, I liked it, because its heart. Mr. Osborne and his dedicated team traverse the North American festival wasteland in search of fame and fortune, but moreso recognition of any sort. A key player here is director Scott Storm, whose film,  Ten ‘Til Noon, is the main focus of the festival hopping. (Paul Osborne also wrote that film) Broken up into segments which parallel the process of distributing a film via the festival pipe, Official Rejection is tight, funny and generally easy on the eyes. The film is mostly successful as an educational tool for young filmmakers. It demystifies many of the paradigms that they may think they understand, particularly the idea that a screening at a festival is the first step to getting noticed, getting riches, getting famous, etc.

Also, the filmmakers call attention to the importance of the camaraderie that has become the lifeblood of many festivals. When you throw a bunch of creatives into the same volatile foxhole, you are bound to hit on something exciting, something electric. New relationships are forged, new perspectives are discovered, and people come together in ways that they may never have done under other circumstances.

Which brings us to the film’s greatest weakness: while trying to deconstruct the horrors of the North American film festivals, Mr. Osborne and friends become smitten with them. Their hatred of the majors brings them even closer to the minor festivals, though I should say that Chicago’s IndieFest gets the rawest deal of any of them in the film. I could amend that to say that feature director Blayne Weaver gets the rawest deal, but you’ll have to see the film to understand that reference. Nevertheless, no matter how much the filmmakers tell us that the festival system is broken, they keep returning to it as the same solution.

In my opinion (and you asked for it, that’s why you’re here), there must be a better way to get your films out there, to reach an audience, than the same old ways that we have relied on for decades. There is also no historical frame of reference in this movie. It should be noted that as long as there has been art, there have been critics; as long as there have been fests, there have been anti-fests. This is not a new phenomenon, just one that has been amplified by the prevalence of the equipment required to make a film. It is so funny that the same people who wish to democratize cinema (filmmakers) will end up getting burned by the inundation of new work being created faster, quicker, and cheaper every single day. We want everyone to make a movie, just not while we’re trying to sell ours.

All that ranting and raving aside, Official Rejection is a solid film that all film enthusiasts should see. If you are not in the mood for a discussion on the current state of cinema distribution, there is plenty for you to love here. And if you are on the inside and you absolutely hate this film, well, at least Paul Osborne has opened up the conversation.

There are so many films showing here at deadCENTER that it is impossible for me to see everything that I want to. Yesterday I was only able to check out two features and no shorts. If only the festival could be two weeks long so I could see it all.

Anyway, most of yesterday was spent in friend’s car, searching for Route 66, which we didn’t find. I still got a scenic tour of Oklahoma, so it wasn’t a total loss. When we cot back to the city, I went to the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. This is a beautiful memorial for this terrible act that happened on our soil. Given that I am here to observe cinema, it is fascinating to see a horror like this bombing being dealt with through art. The memorial is a peaceful place. Very fitting. Pictures below.

But this isn’t a sightseeing tour, it’s film festival coverage. You can check out my reviews on the films I saw yesterday, Triangle of Death and Pearl, elsewhere on the site. Afterwards I headed over to a swanky party, much swankier than the party on Wednesday night. How swanky? A friend of mine ordered a glass of water and it came in an 18 inch tall fluted glass. Classy? Hells yeah it’s classy. Unfortunately, my beer only came in a 12 ounce bottle. Bummer.

Today is going to be a busy slate. Official Rejection screening and panel is at 2:00pm, then Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo followed by Weather Girl. I’m hoping to bounce in and out of shorts programs in between, and my late night screening plans are still up in the air. Live blog will start soon, keep checking back for the latest and greatest from the center of the earth. Pictures from the Pearl première and requisite party below.