RockaFire Explosion (2008)

Ever since I saw the trailer for this bad boy back in July, I had been foaming at the mouth to see it. I remember Showbiz Pizza from when I was a kid, but I was even more excited to get an intimate look at the man behind last year's RockaFire Explosion YouTube Phenomenon. Simply put, about a year or two ago, a man in his mid-30's named Chris Thrash began to upload videos on to YouTube of his in-home animatronic band, Showbiz Pizza's very own RockaFire Explosion. He had programed the band to perform modern radio Rock hits. Although the music wasn't that great, what made these videos so fascinating was the fact that somewhere out there someone had the RockaFire Explosion in their house. The mere thought of that boggled my mind.

Let just say that after watching the documentary, my mind has been boggled 100-fold!!!! Beginning in February, the Alamo Ritz will be holding screenings of the "RockaFire Explosion" documentary and I strongly urge everyone to check it out and learn about the power of dreams and the unwavering strength of the human spirit. Okay, so that's a lot of praise, but seriously, this movie was a lot fun and strangely moving at times...no joke. It's all about the pros and con of nostalgia, and the bizarre places we find happiness.

Here's the trailer that changed my life.


The Rock-afire Explosion Movie Trailer from The Rock-afire Explosion on Vimeo.

Wendy and Lucy (2008)

This was a slow moving train that seemed to really bore the hell out of my friends. It did not bother me as much, but I understand why they didn't like it. It's the "deliberately paced" tale of Wendy (Michelle Williams), a woman on her way to Alaska to work for the Summer when her car breaks down in a small town. Low on cash and options, her struggles to figure out her next move are complicated even more by the mysterious loss of her dog and companion, Lucy. She spends the whole movie wandering around looking for her dog, barely scrapping by, and having strange encounters with the locals. The movie has garnered a lot praise recently and has surprisingly ended up on a lot of year end Top 10's. whatevs, it was o.k.

35mm Shorts (Passages, Frankie, The Adventure, Love You More) (2008)

This was the one shorts program this year that I actually built up. Whenever you build a movie for a film festival, they never screen it before hand so you never really know if you made mistake until it first screening. It's kind of like working without a net, and it can be pretty stressful watching it for the first time with an audience. Every approaching reel change filled my heart with anxiety, but alas, there were no problems on my end. Anyway there were 4 shorts in this one.

The black and white animated piece entitled "Passages" about a botched delivery of a baby, directed Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre. It was intricate, fascinating, sad, and infuriating.

The film "Frankie" about a 15 year old Irish boy who is preparing himself to be a dad. It was interesting, but not my cup of tea.

For me, one of the 2 standout films of this collection was the curiously hilarious and uncomfortable, "The Adventure," by writer/director Mike Brune. It's about an older couple on a leisurely drive through the woodsy country side that gets interrupted by a bizarre encounter with a pair of mimes. Really Great!

Love You More preview from Matt Cooper on Vimeo.
And finally, there was the other standout short, "Love You More," by Sam Taylor Wood. It's the completely badass tale of two teenager drawn together by the Buzzcocks' single 'Love You More' during the summer of 1978. Right up my alley!

Just for the hell of it, here's "Love You More (mp3)" by the Buzzcocks!

Paper or Plastic? (2008)

This was a surprisingly compelling documentary about a yearly competition that I had no idea even existed. It follows 8 very different grocery store clerks on their individual journeys from various humble beginnings to the National Championship of Grocery Bagging in Las Vegas. It's a nice little gem of a movie. There were times where I just laughed at how ridiculous it all was, but when the grand finale came around I was totally enthralled.

Psycho Sleepover (2008)

This is an ultra low budget Slasher Comedy (a blending of genres that I'm not a big fan of) that was at times fun and entertaining, but that I'm willing to bet disappointed 95% of the audience that saw it during AFF. Here's the way I viewed the movie, yeah it's not a real "film" and yeah it's not "well made," but I'm guarantee if your best friend shot this exact same movie just for fun and never intending on showing it to anyone outside of their living room, you would think it was pretty awesome. Don't get me wrong, it's still bad, but it's not worth beating up because as Ian MacKaye yelled: at least it's "fucking trying, what the fuck have you done?"

Trailer:

The Boogens (1981)

This Taft International production centers around an old mine shaft that runs underneath a small rural town in Colorado. Deep within the shaft live the Boogens, vicious turtle-like creatures with sharp teeth. After the shaft is blown wide open at the onset of the film freeing the little nasties, it's takes the movie a full hour to produce even the first sight of one Boogen. That's a lot of stalling or in this case tension building mixed with a lot of goofy 80's acting. Our heroes in the film are a pair of girls, their boyfriends who are part of the local mining crew, and an incredible Poodle named Tiger. Seriously though, the dog gives the best performance in the entire movie.

Despite not having a lot of action up front, the film manages to avoid being boring and provides a pretty solid payoff.

Among my favorite moments/details in the movie:

--The opening credits with it's silly "Newspaper Exposition."

--The foreman's one simple rule: “Don't Fuck Around”

--The film's main horndog announcing to the group that he was in fact "Hormone Man"

--The phrase "Doggie Electric Chair"

--The music that accompanied the Creepy Old Man, not to mention his amazingly scared uttering of the line: "The Boogens!!"

--The Unicorn Apron.

--The story of the First Girl Paperboy!

--One of our female protagonists singing “She'll be Coming Around the Mountain” in the Shower.

Role Models (2008)

Comic hotshit David Wain has eked out a pretty decent career and amassed a nice following for his work on “The State” and “Stella,” not to mention his film “Wet Hot American Summer,” but he has yet to find box office success. All that's changed now though with “Role Models,” a film that fits nicely alongside the Judd Apatow sect and it pretty much follows the same formula as those films: a man-child is forced to grow up against his will and comedy ensues.

In this case there are two man-children, cynical energy drink promoter, Paul Rudd (who co-wrote this), and his obnoxious co-worker, Sean William Scott. After Rudd loses his girlfriend played by Elizabeth Banks (ot as my gf puts it, the new Rachel McAdams), he finds himself sentenced to community service along with Scott. The two of them have to participate in a mentoring program in which both of them are assigned a problem child. Rudd gets a introverted role-playing nerd named Augie (played by “Superbad's” Christopher Mintz-Plasse), while Scott gets the extroverted foul-mouthed Ronnie (played by Bobb'e J. Thompson). I won't spoil surprise as to who will help who grow up.

Bottom line on this one is that the first two-thirds is okay with enough chuckles to not leave you bored, but there's very few big laughs. The last act of the film though comes together so triumphantly that it pretty much makes the movie worth seeing.