CineVegas 2009

ETIENNE!, which world premiered at CineVegas 2009, will have screenings at film festivals across the country this fall. Directed by Jeff Mizushima (who won the Filmmaker to Watch Award at the 2009 fest), the film tells the story of Richard, who spends his days taking care of his best and only friend, a dwarf hamster named Etienne. When Etienne is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Richard decides to take him on a bicycle road trip up the California coast to show him the world before he must put him to sleep.

Click here to get the full list of screenings and to see if ETIENNE! will be coming to a theater near you!

For the most transgressive double-feature of the year, I caught the new Harmony Korine and Gaspar Noe films back-to-back in Toronto. I didn’t expect each film’s hopeful enthusiasm for innocent youth.

TRASH HUMPERS can be billed as Korine’s return to his early territory of GUMMO… Well, Harmony has always pushed the limits, breaking down the conventions of film plots and styles, reaching the high expectations of euro art yet hitting home for all of us who grew up in the 80s in mid-America suburbia with Swamp Thing as our biggest life coach. HUMPERS reaches the insane levels of GUMMO but is more disjunct with less plot and more pure moments, which turned some viewers off, at least the ones who split early. But I loved it, a film purely in the avant gutter. Every frame was put together beautifully, a photography book in motion, with a perfect looking VHS (on EP mode) format. There is a great traveling gallery show possible alongside the movie. The film documents the minutes and hours of four old people as they hump trash and mess things up around town freaking out onlookers, with a deeper life metaphor in the last few scenes that’s great. Dealing with the heaviness of adult responsibility and desperate for the teenaged carelessness in old age, it becomes life affirming.

Whenever you can, follow HUMPERS up with ENTER THE VOID, Noe’s explosion of a film about the existential circle of life. Following a brother and sister through drugged happiness, childhood tragedy and some baaaad choices, Noe reaches Spielberg levels of CGI to portray the film from inside the main character’s head, complete with eye blinks, before moving the audience on to smooth, endless floating over the characters and luscious Tokyo. It’s excessive but not overdone, with incredible colors and movement, as if Ken Jacobs’ remade The Lady in the Lake (the all-POV film noir). It’s probably too straight-forward and narrative for a pure avant-garde crowd but drug-lovers and reincarnationists will be ecstatic thoughout. Strong performances push the limits with Noe’s frenetic filmwork, bringing realism to the characters. Noe’s fascination with the incredible string of life culminates in a porn version of the last 20 min of 2001, in a way. Yes, lots of the crowd guessed where the plot was going. But if people want to see something truly visceral, tackling the complexities of life and youth, this pops the ceiling.

HUMPDAY, which screened in the Sure Bets section at CineVegas 2009, opens in Vegas today at Regal Village Square. From director Lynn Shelton, and starring indie favorites Mark Duplass and Josh Leonard, HUMPDAY is a buddy movie gone wild.

It’s been a decade since Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard) were the bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took the alternate route as a vagabond artist, skipping the globe from Chiapas to Cambodia. When Andrew shows up unannounced on Ben’s doorstep, they easily fall back into their old dynamic of macho one-upmanship. Late into the night at a wild party, the two find themselves locked in a mutual dare: to enter an amateur porn contest together. But what kind of boundary-breaking, envelope pushing porn can two straight dudes make? After the booze and “big talk” run out, only one idea remains—they will have sex together…on camera. It’s not gay; it’s beyond gay. It’s not porn; it’s art. But how exactly will it work? And more importantly, who will tell Ben’s wife?

Regal Village Square is located at 9400 W. Sahara. Showtimes are 1:15, 3:45, 6:45 and 9:15. For more info on HUMPDAY, visit the film’s website here.