On Monday, I’m flying to Denver to spend a couple of days hanging around the Democratic National Convention before heading up to Telluride on Thursday. If I was reading that sentence unawares, two questions would inevitably come to mind. First: “Why, Karina, are you going to a political event when you have a movie blog to write?”

Answer: there actually are two major film events happening over the three days that I’ll be in town. The first, the Denver Film Society production Cinemocracy (previously mentioned here), will screen ten finalists in a short film competition that’s been winnowing down submissions online for months. You can watch the films and vote for your favorites here.

The second event is the Impact Film Festival. Founded this year by Jody Arlington, Jamie Shor and Kimball Stroud, IFF will screen “socially-themed documentary and dramatic films” every day at both the DNC and RNC. Films on the program include Battle in Seattle, I.O.U.S.A., and Flow. Check out the Bside page for info on the full lineup.

The second question is a bit trickier.

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• Oscilloscope, the fledgling distribution label spearheaded by the Beastie Boy formerly known as MCA, has picked up Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy, which premiered at Cannes to raves from some but measured praise from me. It’ll open at Film Forum on December 10. If his boys don’t try to push Michelle Williams for an Oscar nod the same year her baby daddy has a posthumous nomination all but locked down, Adam Yauch needs to check his head.
• People are still spending money they don’t have on a movie they don’t need. Also: Christian Bale says he didn’t hit his sister and mom, and London police released him yesterday after questioning. Does that mean he’ll show up at Comic-Con to promote his new Terminator movie?!!?? You’re a horrible person for even suggesting such a thing.
• Ted Johnson has details on the many film oriented events happening at the Democratic National Convention next month––or, as he calls it, “the Sundance of politics.” I think I might go and cover them. Would you like that?
• Sophia from Golden Girls, ie Estelle Getty, has died.
• Blah blah blah the guy who made Hancock, blah blah blah something about Hercules…?

Here are some quick reviews of two SDFF films that I watched via screeners before touching down in Denver, and the one film I managed to see in town before succumbing to jet lag/altitude exhaustion. Oddly and entirely accidentally, all three films have something to do with aging males and their identity crises.

Karl Rove, I Love You

A self-mocking psuedo-documentary from the mind of Dan Butler (a journeyman supporting actor best known for a recurring role on Frasier), Karl Rove, I Love You has far less to do with the titualar “ultimate supporting actor” than with the personal fallout of engagement in our super-polarized political culture. What begins as a documentary on Butler as the archetypical “invisible” character actor (he’s consistently compared to Philip Seymour Hoffman, only “less famous”) morphs into a document of Butler’s mid-life crisis passion project, a one man show designed to expose the world to the “Real” Karl Rove. Butler begins the project wanting to hit the Bush administration where it hurts, but slowly comes to empathise with Rove, turns his show into a mildly-satiric love-letter, and alienates his single-minded friends and collaborators in the process.

Not always laugh-out loud funny, but well-paced and consistently engaging, Karl Rove, I Love You uses the natural conflict between (pervasively and unquestioningly liberal, and largely openly gay) Hollywood and (socially conservative but morally ambiguous) Red State actors to explore how angry obsession can offer the same kind of madness, identity salvation and pure pleasure as romantic passion. But more interestingly, it’s also about breaking down a black-and-white cipher and finding a whole person. It always feels more like a sitcom than a credible documentary (and the last twenty minutes really push the limits of disbelief), but it’s just creepy enough to work.

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Posting may be a bit light today and Friday, as I’m heading to Denver to attend the final weekend of the Starz Denver Film Festival. Kevin and Paul will be posting a bit while I’m gone, so be nice to them. Hopefully I’ll find the time to scribble something about the films screening while I’m there, including Starting Out in the Evening, the much-lauded doc  A Walk Into the Sea, and the comedy Karl Rove, I Love You. And if you’re in Denver, come see me speak on this panel on Friday. It’s very important that I put as many sympathetic plants in the audience as possible.

News of a number of can’t-miss events has flown into my inbox over the past 24 hours. In chronological order:

• This Saturday, The Pioneer Theater in New York is presenting a six-film, 584 minute werewolf movie marathon. $25 buys tickets to the whole affair, or if you really just want to show up at 4 AM to catch Teen Wolf (and who could resist, after seeing the poster to the right?), individual shows are $5 each. For more information, visit The Pioneer’s website.
• The Denver Film Festival runs November 8-18. There are many reasons to be excited about this festival (and Mark Rabinowitz has and will continue to list many of them on his blog), but here’s a new one: I’m going to be speaking on a panel about film blogging, alongside Mark, James Israel from indieWIRE, and director AJ Schnack. For more info and tickets, go here.
• Alas, because I’ll be in Denver that weekend, I won’t be able to head up to Cambridge for the Futures of Entertainment conference, which is happening November 16-17 at MIT. Organized by the Convergence Culture Consortium of the school’s Comparative Media Studies program, the conference will bring together academics and industry experts to discuss a variety of new frontiers of form and content, from mobile distribution to fan labor and the “architecture of participation.” There are only 200 seats available, so if this sounds good to you, register now.

It seems pretty clear that the current movie theater model doesn’t quite work for anyone. Well, maybe it’s nearly perfect for a 15-year-old in Normal, Illinois, but that’s precisely why I hardly ever see a movie in a multiplex.

A long time ago (at least on the Spout calendar), Paul wrote a post essentially brainstorming about his dream movie theater. In his post, Paul actually wrote “I secretly hope Landmark Theaters will consider this a quick and dirty business plan to elaborate on.”

Well, it looks like Mark Cuban is actually jumping on Paul’s bandwagon, or at least something close. An article today on Cinematical, “Mark Cuban Wants To Make Us Scoop Our Own Popcorn,” says Cuban and Todd Wagner are unveiling their new movie theater concepts in three of their Landmark theaters–in Baltimore, Denver, and Los Angeles.

“Landmark’s goal is to be the ultimate night out for grownups. Today’s customer has different expectations than the customer of 10 and 20 years ago, and we need to recognize that and respond to it,” says Cuban in the article.

But what does that actually mean? Amenities, retail sales, and a “lounge-like atmosphere” for food and drinks before and after the movie. Next to Paul’s dream theater, Cuban’s model sounds a bit like it’s trying too hard, although of course I’d have to see and experience it before I could say anything conclusive. Paul’s plan includes ideas like converting old neighborhood theaters back into theaters, starting clubs and other opportunities for like-minded people to come together around films they love, and offering opening acts as a way to expose people to shorts and other emerging cinema. The plan is practical in many ways (brief intermission, anyone?) yet also focuses on actually enriching the movie-going experience, not just lengthening it and providing more opportunities for spending too much.

I guess what I’m thinking is that Cuban’s plan sounds perfect for a first-date, or for any date meant to be somewhat novel–but minus the work. Paul’s plan sounds sustainable for real people who love movies and want better movie-watching experiences on a regular basis. Of course, Cuban has the money, not Paul, so in many ways I have to agree with Patrick Walsh on Cinematical: “Going to the theater is far too expensive to be as unpleasant as it so often is–why not experiment with the formula?”

So we went a little nuts at the Denver Film Festival–just shy of 50 podcasts went up on SpoutBlog and the Denver sitelet. But unless you’re really bored this Thanksgiving weekend, we realize you won’t have time to sit down and listen to them one by one. We thought we would help out by highlighting a handful of our favorites. Like all greatest hits albums, it’s not going to provide the full experience, but it at least gives you a good sense for what was going on in Denver. Listen in…

- Academy Award-winning director Anthony Minghella talking about his newest film, Breaking and Entering.

- Angie Avarez discussing her mockumentary about high school teachers, Chalk.

- Brothers and ultimate collaborators Aaron and Adam Nee talking about their film The Last Romantic.

- Filmmaker David Gow and the two impressive male leads in Steel Toes.

- Sister team Amy and Andrea Doe talking about making Saucy Flyer UFO P.I..

- Filmmaker Matthew Porterfield discussing being a kindergarten teacher and how he made his documentary Hamilton.

- Samira Goetschel and her controversial film Our Own Private Bin Laden.

- The November 15 Roundtable Recap with Bill, Kevin and Dave, talking about nine or so films they had just watched.

- The unexpected interview with Will Ferrell and his wife Viveca Paulin, focusing on Paulin’s work on the film Nail Polish.

- Richard Berge and his documentary The Rape of Europa, which explores the plunder of Europe’s art treasures during WWII.

- Our first conversation with Canadian cinema verite treasure Allan King.

- One amazing question and one amazing answer from Tim Robbins.

- The November 17 Roundtable Recap with Dave, Paul, Kristin and Kevin, who shares a great story about the Tim Robbins event.

- Another great director with an impressive list of films, Michael Apted, discussing the inspirational aspects of his new historical film Amazing Grace.

The Trials of Darryl Hunt is on the short list for the Best Documentary Oscar. It’s far more than a courtroom drama, it’s the real story of an amazing man and the community around him refusing to play the roles society placed on them: Criminal, rapist, murderer. The accounts of Darryl Hunt’s various trials over twenty years are jaw dropping.

Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast

Jeremy Davies is one of those actors whose talent is so abundant, but he isn’t a household name because his characters are so unmarketable. Co-starring in the new film, Rescue Dawn, he talks briefly about working with Werner Herzog and the real reason he’s been showing up recently in films by great directors.

Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast

The legendary and enigmatic director, Werner Herzog, found a new collaborator for Rescue Dawn (2006) in producer, Harry Knapp. Knapp describes that collaboration with one word.

Brutal.

Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast

Allan King’s latest film, EMPz for Life, is a film long overdue. The common concept of racism is outdated and conjures images from the Civil Rights Movement. The racism we face today has been harder to attach an image to. EMPz for Life accomplishes just this as the camera crew follows–in King’s signature cinema verite style–half a dozen young men and their frustrated mentor through twelve weeks of their life in inner city Toronto.

Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast

Friday night at the Starz Denver Film Festival. Kristin talked with Michael Apted about his film, Amazing Grace. Paul saw two docs, The Trials of Darryl Hunt and Allan Rich’s Memory…. Dave saw Heath Ledger’s new film, Candy. And Kevin saw We Like to Drink, We Like to Play Rock and Roll preceded by the short film, Moosecock.

Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast

In the 1960s and 70s, Allan King was at the forefront of a new way of doing documentary using cinema verite. Up until that point, cinema verite hinged on a central question that needed to be answered by the film, but King decided that the real life drama was the story in and of itself. This was very clear (and very successful) in the 1969 film A Married Couple, which Paul and I watched last night. I went into the film thinking it would be very interesting on an academic level, so I wasn’t prepared to be moved so deeply by the drama between Bill and Antoinette unfolding on the screen. King and his crew filmed the couple in their home for 10 weeks, until they appear to have completely forgotten the camera was present. The demonstrations of what goes wrong–and right–in a marriage are powerful. After the screening, Paul and I were very privileged to talk to Mr. King about the process of making A Married Couple and his particular understanding of marriage since making the film.

Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast

Originally a play made up of eight monologues, Marc Meyers and Jodi Girgenti adapted Approaching Union Square into a movie made on a micro-budget.

Starz Denver Film Festival, spout.com podcast