Nashville Pt. 2: Mardi Gras, "Normal" Movies, Dan Butler

Crap. I spilled glitter on the logo again!After the arriving excitement covered in Part One, it was down to watching movies. I started with a few documentaries: One Lucky Elephant and Project NIM (both of which I'll talk about tomorrow) and Sons of Tennessee Williams which is an intriguing and entertaining documentary on a very early pre-Stonewall civil rights victory for gays. And in the South no less! The film is primarily focused on the tradition of Mardi Gras costume balls. Maybe it could have used more thematic organization or stricter editing but the footage and wealth of old photographs are goldmine finds and really fill out the fascinating stories and interviews with living witnesses. The takeaway is pretty spot on -- we all ready need to be aware of history and stop getting complacent about hard-won civil rights. It can all be taken away from you.  I have a feeling this film will stick in the head, lingering like glitter. Have you ever used the stuff? You find that shit ev-er-y-where for months afterwards, nay, years! You find it in the weirdest places. It won't go away so thankfully it's shiny and pretty.

While I was waiting in the queue for the first documentary, a gaggle of noisy teenage and tweenage girls walked by en masse and two older female festival patrons behind me stared at them.

Woman #1: [confused] I don't understand what film they were here to see.
Woman #2: [matter of fact] It must have been a normal movie.

Normal. Hee. Festival movies are abnormal you see! Or maybe it's just that they're "films" as opposed to movies...  it struck me as funny until I realized that I also see unnormal movies at festivals. Which is to say that my normal movie-diet does not include much in the way of non-fiction but at festivals I seem to always be sticking my toes into documentary waters (they're generally warm and inviting, these metaphorical pools). I choose mostly on subject/story as I suspect regular moviegoers do at the box office which is probably why I should be less judgmental of "civilians" who rarely think about the man artists behind the curtain. "They" don't even seem to choose based on stars they love else films like Blue Valentine with Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams would be major hits because who doesn't love those two actors? Speaking of Ryan Gosling...

Industry Chat
One of my fellow jurors is Dan Butler, the actor. I've met him before at a previous festival when he was promoting his mockumentary Karl Rove, I Love You (2007). You might remember him as "Bulldog" from Frasier or as one of the geeky entomologists in The Silence of the Lambs [weird trivia note: He's also in Manhunter albeit as a different character so I think he's the only actor to appear in both of the first two Hannibal Lecter pictures?]. We had several opportunities to chat since we're jurying but I had to congratulate him on getting the Crazy Stupid Love gig.

Amy heard you crying in the bathroom. We all thought it was cancer.

He even gets a big joke in the trailer. I asked him if he knew he was going to be in the trailer but he had no idea until it came out. But he knew the scene "played," as they say, and it's one of the first big laughs in the movie. We talked about Ryan Gosling. "Sweet" and "talented" were the adjectives of choice. Of course we all knew about the talented part but it's good to hear that he's a nice guy, too. Dan plays "Cal's Boss", Cal being Steve Carrel. I told him I had looked up his "name" on IMDb.  He joked that character actors get very excited when they get roles with both first and last names because usually you get a first name or a last name or job title in this case. He obviously loved the part and said he had a great albeit very short time on the set of the star-studded comedy. Get this. He had to fly in to LA right after a performance Off Broadway, film this scene in the movie and fly right back to NYC to return to the play. I thought it sounded exhausting but he only had to miss one matinee performance for the filming. Dedication!

Showbiz people log many frequently flier miles. Perhaps that's one reason Up in the Air played so well with the Academy?

Nathaniel in Nashville Pt. 1

I thought I'd share a few of my adventures at the Nashville Film Festival whilst practicing on my wacom tablet -- so hard to get the hang of this, the wacom not the Nashville. (I've been to the Nashville Festival a couple of times so I think I have the hang of it now.) I arrived in my Herzog tee -- I always live in mortal fear that some Herzog freak will grill me about good ol' Werner since I probably don't know as much about him as I should given the human advertisement aspects of t-shirt wearing. My favorites are Grizzly Man and Aguirre the Wrath of God and Nosferatu but Werner is prolific so I can't say I've seen everything.

The jurors and guests of the festival stay in downtown Nashville where you can get to the touristy parts quick but the festival is actually at a multiplex called Regal Green Hill...(update:  but I'm hearing from Mark in the comments that this is not the same thing as Green Hills. What do I know? I live in NYC and never drive and am losing my spatial relations skills)  Nice theater with lots of screens. They shuttle you back and forth so as I'm waiting for the morning shuttle I am scribbling away at you.

Last night riding from hotel to festival I ended up in a van of fellow jurors, though none from my category. I was  happily chatting away with the guy in front of me when I suddenly realized Who He Was. It was Jamie Travis, a filmmaker I am so enthralled by -- the Patterns trilogy is genius --that I'm just grateful his back was turned and he didn't see my insta-tranformation into scary obsessive superfan.

It reminded me of my very first Life Drawing class in college where I was just randomly talking to the new kid in class. We're chatting for like 5 minutes and then the teacher walks in and new kid just stands up and starts taking his clothes off. (Was it something I said?) Turns out new kid was the nude model and suddenly I went from gregarious to totally awkward / speechless. It was kinda like that except for that nobody got naked.

In reality I'm sure I kept babbling but my sentences probably made less sense.

Celebrity Sightings
Some country music stars were doing the carpet but I never know who they are. I did gaze at Kris Kristofferson and Emmylou Harris chatting up TV crews on the red carpet for awhile though. The carpet had been mostly shoved into the VIP tent instead of outside where it usually is (very stormy and wet night).

Kristofferson had just received a career prize at the screening of his new movie Bloodworth. I arrived too late to see it but I heard from my driver Elaine -- a lovely retired woman volunteering at the fest -- that it was good and she was just raving about W. Earl Brown, who plays one of his sons in the movie.

I give it a 4.3 out of 5. "Brady" is Academy Award material!

Val Kilmer and Dwight Yoakam are also in the movie but it turns out that this W Earl Brown also wrote the movie and was smart enough to give himself a great part.

I couldn't quite make out why Emmylou was with Kristofferson (she's not in the cast list of the movie) but she looked eerily ageless. She just turned 64 and her silver locks -- clearly not a wig -- are so thick and lustrous you'd think she was 30 or 40 but for the silver.

Okay, back to the festival with me. Ciao.

This & That: Nashville, Disney, Broadway

NASHVILLE
I'm packing up and heading out to the Nashville Film Festival which is becoming something of an annual jaunt for me. The opening night film is Bloodworth starring this year's career achievement honoree Kris Kristofferson.

I'm on the jury for the narrative competition with actor Dan Butler (Frasier, Crazy Stupid Love) and critic Joe Leydon. Last year I had the pleasure of attending an event honoring composer Carter Burwell but this year I have to miss the Gustavo Santaoalla celebration, damnit. (Since the festival is in Music City, they wisely opt to honor composers each year).

I'll send you little bits from the festival and meanwhile the usual contributors will be on hand here to keep you entertained!

Have you ever been to Nashville? A few years back when I went for the first time I took a trip to the Parthenon and i'd never wanted to know how to play guitar worse. I woulda busted out the strings and sung Nashville's "It Don't Worry Me ♫" at the top of my lungs right then and there.

DISNEY
Sorry about that Hit Me With Your Best Shot situation. We'll do something special for Beauty & The Beast once I'm back from Nashville. Next week's Wednesday night film is Charlie Chaplin's The Circus (1928) but we'll figure something out. It's part of my Personal Canon anyway so we have to work Belle & The Beast in. In the meantime I really hope you'll click around and read all those posts it prompted among animation fans.

Broadway's "CATCH ME IF YOU CAN": Norbert Leo Butz (Tom Hanks role), Aaron Tveit (DiCaprio's role), Tom Wopat (Christopher Walken's role)

BROADWAY
I'm doing too many things at once. Before I head out to Nashville I had to also get up this week's Towleroad column where you should head if you want to read a bit on The Hobbit Part One or my reaction to Broadway's "Catch Me If You Can" (hint: it's better than the reviews say).

Manuel Muñoz on Psycho, Nashville, and Movies as Inspiration

Interview
The Film Experience doesn't often push books upon you, but it's time for an exception. Manuel Muñoz's debut novel "What You See in the Dark" hits bookstores, virtual and otherwise, this week. While it is a work of fiction, it borrows from reality for its backdrop. The pre-production and eventual release of Alfred Hitchcock's immortal Psycho (1960) figure into the narrative in crucial and evocative ways and both The Actress and The Director in question are characters.

Consider this amazing "double feature"

Full Disclosure (as I always believe in such things): I met Manuel Muñoz at a poetry event about four years  ago and he introduced himself as a reader of The Film Experience. Though predisposed to rooting for him as a result (I'm only human!) we hadn't really kept in good touch. In the intervening years, I bought a copy of his second short story collection. Two months ago his first novel arrived in galley form and I ate it right up.  I think it's quite an amazing read.

Nathaniel: Before your beautiful novel, which we'll get to in a moment, you had two short story collections published. The first piece of yours I ever read was "Skyshot" which had an amazing Robert Altman thread. That really won me over. How did that story come about and has the cinema always inspired you creatively as a writer?

Manuel Muñoz: I was lucky enough to see Nashville on the big screen at the Brattle in Cambridge when I was in college. I was stunned by it, and it remains my favorite film (with The Piano a close second.) Altman's command of multiple character arcs enthralled me--it was the closest I'd seen a film parallel the possibilities of words on the page. He could shift magnificently and I loved that he could suggest interiority with camera movement: I was stunned when I realized the camera had crept up on Lily Tomlin as she listened to "I'm Easy." (He did the same to Ronee when she sings "Dues.")

At the time, I was coming to terms with identity and subject matter, so it confused me to be so attracted to a film like Nashville, which is far outside my experience.

Manuel Muñoz by © Stuart Bernstein

But I eventually thought of how often we use films to narrate our own lives. I've never sat at the back of a bar while in love with a performer on stage, but I've worn that look that Lily has on her face. Know what I mean?

Nathaniel: I think so.  But to the point on identity. I've always believed that specificity -- be it in sharply drawn characterizations or carefully observed milieus -- has a way of inverting itself so it's suddenly universal. I see that in your writing too as you're often dealing with the Chicano experience, which I have little connection to and yet it's totally alive for me.

I'm guessing this has a lot to do with an assured storytelling voice, one that's relaxed about the audience feeling whatever it is they're going to feel without forcing it upon them.

Read the full interview for more on Great Actressing, casting dreams, Psycho and unlikely inspirations.

Click to read more ...