The Critics and Their Suffering

UA screens BFA films at the Loft

2007-05-17
Shipherd Reed

The year was 1984. A group of Chicano cub reporters at the LA Times pushed to provide a new perspective on California’s Latino population – something more than the poverty, gangs, and crime that the newspaper usually covered. Their reporting won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service that year. That’s the engaging and affecting story told in Roberto Gudino’s short documentary “Below The Fold” as part of the UA Media Arts annual BFA program screening that goes by the name “I Dream In Widescreen.” Gudino’s film was one of the highlights of the screening this past Friday at the Loft Cinema.

Over the past year, an impressive crop of talented home-grown filmmakers and performers have sprouted in Tucson. And last year at the same UA Media Arts event I saw Jonathan Pulley’s astonishing short “Move Me” which made it to Sundance, and Nate Buchik’s irresistible “On Call Teddy” which just won the year-end grand prize for the Loft’s First Friday Shorts contest. So it was with high expectations that I sat down to watch this year’s “I Dream In Widescreen.” Alas, this year’s screening did not quite meet my hopes.

The screening kicked off with “Stuck” by director Elias Benavidez in which a lovely zaftig young Latina suffers a stuck zipper on the back of her dress as she prepares to go out for a night on the town. The film offered strong camera work from Kelli Dickinson and snappy editing, but it never built much dramatic tension and the twist at the end lacked bite – sweet but never sharp.

Next in line came “Sight” directed by Christafer Suddarth. Suddarth told the story of a shy teenage boy who meets an odd homeless woman under a bridge and she gives him a strange form of “sight.” Imagine being able to see people glow with auras of colored light, then combine that with special effects that look like the wispy spooks in “Ghostbusters,” and you have some idea. The effects were impressive, but the story never grabbed me.

“Below The Fold,” Gudino’s doc about Chicano journalists at the LA Times newspaper, followed. Gudino interviews the original reporters and conveys not only the dramatic tension inherent in their efforts to change reporting on the Latino community, and the courage required to push for that change, but also the profound validation the group felt when they won the Pulitzer Prize – a strong film.

The fourth film of the evening, “Hubris” by director Alex Lau, felt gimmicky. An entry in the well-worn genre of office drone fantasy, an average guy who works a ho-hum desk job saves a pretty woman from a mugger, and she gives him a thankful kiss. This experience proves so gratifying that he tries to do the same thing again by hiring a mugger so he can save the same woman. He ends up in the clink. Solid execution, but again it never hooked or surprised me.

The spirit award might go to the next film, “123 Smile” by Rebecca Skeels about a Latino brother and sister who cause mischievous mayhem at school on the day of the “school photo.” Playful camera work and plenty of color set this film apart even though the story never achieved much momentum or bite.

Another documentary, “We Don’t Eat Like Everyone Else,” followed. Directed by Cecilia Sewell, the film examines two vegetarian sisters and how their family members perceive their dietary restriction. There were a few funny moments, and much heartfelt commentary, but nothing unexpected.

Then we all watched “Lulee,” the tale of a pretty yet alienated college student who writes wise yet funny comments on Post-It notes that she leaves for strangers. Directed by Rachel Jeehye Thomas, the protagonist Lulee sports a black page-boy haircut, not unlike the enchanting Amelie in the charming French film of the same name. Lulee fields phone calls from her Japanese father and French mother and rejects the advances of a cute and savvy British boy as she scribbles her Post-Its. At last, when Brit boy sticks Lulee with a Post-It, she comes to her senses and agrees to a date. The film had a whimsical charm, but the polyglot Lulee felt more jaded than lovelorn and I never empathized with her plight.

In “Missing,” the next film to screen, director Kelli Dickinson focuses on a mother whose son very abruptly goes missing. Mom and a neighbor search desperately for the boy, and when at last they spot him, mom comes to her senses – in a mental hospital. It was all in her head. Dramatic thrillers are not easy to pull off without seeming forced, especially in such a short format. So while the directing was solid, the mother’s desperation did not pull me in. The ninth film of the evening, a film-noir ode to Philip K. Dick called “The Electric Sleep” by Matt Brailey, boasted some cool lighting and camera angles. A haggard Private Eye hero gets into some scrapes with some hard cases, pulls a gun, beds the femme fatale, and then finds out that he’s an android. More bewildering than twisty, although I give Brailey points for visual style.

Following Brailey’s shadowy thriller, Ben Slamka’s short film “Tympanic,” was hard to watch, or hear, and that’s how Slamka wanted it. Using a restrained visual style, and brutal sonic dexterity (painfully effective sound design by Brandon Clay), the film brings us into a large grimy cell in an unknown institution with a straight-jacketed prisoner who has big white devices, presumably amplified speakers, on his ears. Every sound – especially that of a buzzing fly – is amplified for the prisoner to the level of torture, and the audience is occasionally treated to the uber-audio that the prisoner hears. Ouch. The guy ends up bleeding from the ears and dying. Not much story, and grim as it gets, but both visually and sonically memorable.

The final film of the evening, “Revolution TV” directed by Dan Hart, and written and acted by Hart and his buddy Adam Zolnierczyk, was funny. The film offered crass, rapid fire sketch comedy barely strung together by the idea of two rabble-rousers who hit the bar after they are fired from their public access TV show. Hart and Zolnierczyk have a giddy approach to mocking American popular culture, a sensibility closer to Will Farrell than Sacha Baron Cohen, and their humor sometimes hits the mark. They should bring their brand of comedy to the Loft’s First Friday Shorts and I hope they keep making shorts with their “Monkies United” production company.

There was no audience award, but the biggest cheers from the crowd went to “Lulee” and “The Electric Sleep.” Also, I have to chide the Loft because, just like last year, it was sweltering in the filled-to-capacity theater. Was the air conditioning simply overwhelmed? Congratulations to all the BFA filmmakers for their hard work and creativity, and best wishes in their future creative endeavors!