Heh. Well, I have to admit that for the first time ever, I bought a couple of big bags of Utz potato chips this week when I went grocery shopping. Utz was one of the corporate sponsors of the IFFB (as they were last year), and probably one of the most visible. The festival throwers had boxes of snack sized bags of Utz chips available for free at all the screenings, and I partook more than a couple times, it's true. The little cartoon Utz girl kinda freaks me out a bit, comes across in my mind as a strung-out/wired Nancy, w the munchies, hand in the bag and all. Happy enough, but just, like, a little bit crazed... I mean, what's in the bag? Chips? A .38? A forty? Sluggo's severed head?
I've never bought them before, but, when I was at the store this last time, looking for my chips fixx for the week and change, well, I saw the Utz label and felt kindly towards them for helping to enable my recent five days of movie madness. =)
I got the rippled Utz chips. Ain't no Ruffles, but they do just fine next to my hot dog w peanut butter and jelly or roast beef sandwich.
So, although at the times of the screenings, I pretty much scoffed at the acknowledgement of sponsors before each show, in the end, I can't deny that the sponsorship definitely had *some* effect... Although, it doesn't mean I'm in any hurry to buy a new Ford, jump a weekend flight on JetBlue, or buy or rent a high-rez kickass quality digital projector from Rule Broadcasting.
At least, not until I hear the correct trigger word.
Movies-wise... There are a number of movies that New England-premiered at last year's IFFB that are just this week being screened in theaters in Boston. It doesn't seem quite right that it should take a year for some of these films to find distribution and win theatrical release, but I suppose, unfortunately, it comes with the "independent" territory.
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For a week at the Brattle, starting Friday, April 28, see BLACKBALLED: THE BOBBY DUKES STORY! Saw this at last year's IFFB and dig it mucho =)
Local comedic talent - Rob "C'mON!" Corddry of the DAILY SHOW, and comedian DJ Hazzard, regularly seen at comedy venues around town - along with members of the comedy troupe the Upright Citizens Brigade, bring to life a hilarious mockumentary about the sport of paintball. Cordry is Bobby Dukes, legendary paintball champion, forced into early retirement years ago, now looking to make a comeback. Alas, his departure from the game a decade back was under sketchy circumstances, and he's having troubles finding old friends and players to join his comeback squad. Hazzard plays an excellent Patton-esque paintball coach-patriarch who helps Dukes with his bottom of the barrel recruiting. Can Bobby turn a roster of paintball's rejects and newbies into his winning team? And just what happened ten years ago in the championship finals that got him ejected from the sport in the first place...?
Check the site for venues and showtimes in your area.
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Playing this week at the Coolidge, is MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA, a documentary on the wonders of globalization that follows the inequities of the network and flow of wealth, quality of life, and consumerism by tracking the "beads trail." From the factories of China to the streets of New Orleans, you'll follow the path of the famed beaded necklaces of Mardi Gras - made notorious in Girls With Low Self Esteem videos - from their factory worker manufacture in China to their international commercial sale to their party-going distribution and their ultimate New Orleans bartering/exchange for clothing optional services...
I haven't seen this, but heard great chatter about it among moviegoers at the festival last year. It's playing in the Screening Room at the Coolidge, the very comfortable digital projection room upstairs at the theater.
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Coming soon to the Coolidge, SHAKESPEARE BEHIND BARS. Saw this at last year's IFFB and was schizophrenically touched. Confusing description of my reaction, eh? Well, consider that it's about a company of thespians, dedicated to the production of Shakespeare's "The Tempest," who also happen to be inmates at the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in Kentucky. They are bad men, judged on their deeds by society according to the law, and sentenced to serve time as their punishment. The film, covering the inmate-actors' rehearsal, workshop, production, and performance of the play, portrays them as men before convicts. It's disarming, and surprising, how sympathetic you may find yourself to these men's situations, given their cold-blooded histories. It's an excellent heart-puncher of a film.
A couple of random media crossover experiences with this film's topic...
From bookybooks... A few weeks before I saw the movie last year, I'd just finished reading a book about a woman who volunteers her time at a correctional facility teaching Shakespeare's plays. Her accounts are very much in line w the documentary's.
From TV news... Just last week sometime, I caught a news teaser on television about a program that offers youth offenders a choice between some form of detention and participation in a study or production of Shakespeare. I wonder how long Shakespeare has been employed as part of the U.S. correctional/rehabilitation process and at what levels.
Keep on keepin on~
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