DAY 5

From right, Maurizio Farhad, Carl Colpaert and Joe Arquette of G.I. Jesus

Gina Philips and Jessica Kavana

Actor Maurizio Farhad

America is about a number of different cultures coming together and blending as one. Or that’s what we say anyway. Some may think this country is that way. Others might disagree. To me it’s what makes us so different than any other place. We don’t necessarily always follow through with this way of thinking, but we should surrender to it completely. We should celebrate and appreciate our differences, all the while sharing, caring and accepting each other, learning from each others different perspectives and ways of thinking. I bring this up because that’s truthfully what CineVegas is about. It’s not “the world’s most dangerous film festival.”

I hate that slogan. It misrepresents the festival in so many ways. This isn’t a “dangerous” festival with movies involving “dangerous” subject matters. Sure Las Vegas is place of sin, filth, greed, corruption and many get caught up in all of it. And Nevada has ranked as the most dangerous state for three straight years as reported by the Morgan Quinto Press and based on “rates per 100,000 population for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.” Regardless, I think the slogan should disappear next year. I think “CineVegas – A Celebration of Diversity” works better. (Of course what the hell do I know. I also think Gina Philips should replace Dennis Hopper as chairman of the festival as she is the only person I have seen more than him.) I talked to the festival’s director of programming Trevor Groth about his thoughts on the slogan and how they select the 30 films they screen and I’ll get to that later.

First, I want to tell you about the two excellent films I caught at day five of the cinematic marathon. To be honest, the whole slogan thing started not sitting well with me on day two. I’m confused by it. I know it’s just a slogan and I shouldn’t really care because I have absolutely no vested interest in the festival. I just couldn’t fully understand what this festival is all about. I thought if it’s “danger” and “edginess” and “underground” and “alternative” and “dark” and “controversial” that the film festival is trying to be, then it absolutely fails. The thing is, I don’t think that is what the whole thing is about. I finally, figured that out after watching “Thanks to Gravity” and “G.I. Jesus.” These two films are all heart. You can tell they were made with the most sincere intentions with most people involved giving their all. Both films are deeply rooted in different cultures. “Thanks to Gravity” is set in Miami and is from the perspective of a female that is both Jewish and Latino that competes in team debate. “G.I. Jesus” is set in California and is from the perspective of a Mexican national male that is in the U.S. Army and is returning home from Iraq. These two films are what CineVegas is really all about. It’s about celebrating diversity. It’s about understanding. It’s about looking within others to try and accept them for who they really are and doing the same to ourselves in hopes of finding who we really are. It’s also about removing ourselves from our comfortable worlds and placing us in the shoes of others, so that we can fully see the entire picture.

THANKS TO GRAVITY

“Thanks to Gravity” is the debut from writer and director Jessica Kavana. It’s quite impressive for her first time out. It’s not a perfect film and it does fall into some coming of age cliché traps, but it also deals with heavy issues not often addressed in the Hollywood-made versions. Based on her own Latin-Jewish upbringing and experience as a top female debater, Kavana’s screenplay touches on rape and drugs. It’s kind of a cross between the Britney Spears vehicle “Crossroads,” the Katie Holmes teen movie “First Daughter” with the Showtime-made “Speak,” the Latin flavored “Real Women Have Curves” and the HBO-produced “Blue Car.” I’m a fan of coming of age movies. You always know what's going to happen and they sometimes have cheesy feel good endings, but I admittedly like them. That being said, “Thanks to Gravity” is probably the best female coming of age film I’ve seen. And I’m a male that is big on dark films that either have twisted senses of humor, extremely violent visuals/overtones or feature sexually charged imagery. So in other words, it's not exactly my type of movie. Yet, I still like it, so I could just imagine how much females might be into it.

Gina Philips in Thanks to Gravity

Produced by actress Gina Philips, who also stars, and Las Vegas native Amy Greenspun, “Thanks to Gravity” follows Jordan Landa as she struggles with who she is as a person. She is a talented debater and gets a scholarship to a prestigious college before getting involved with bad elements and finding herself regretting mistakes, feeling alone in the world and confused with what to do with her life. Like I said the film is cliché so you know she faces her fears, prevails and begins to find herself as a person. Philips (“Jeepers Creepers”) is extremely good in the role of Jordan. She is an emotional rollercoaster here and from what I understand was highly involved in the project as producer. Philips, who can light up a room with her smile, actually said she felt too involved at times during a Q&A after the film. Look for many good things to come from her in the future and the same can be said for Kavana, who also cameos in the film. “Thanks to Gravity” also had a terrific supporting cast with Rachel Minor (“Bully”), Sean Astin (“Rudy”) Adam Rodriguez (“C.S.I.: Miami”), Joaquim de Almeida (“Desperado”) and Azura Skye (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”).

(Polly Staffle Rating: *** - If I gave half stars, this one would get three and a half.)

AUDIENCE Q&A HIGHLIGHTS

Gina Philips on preparing for the debate scenes -

GP: I watched a lot of tape and hung around this one (points to Jessica Kavana) and learned to speak as quickly as she did, which was daunting at first. In order to have a conversation with Jessica for too long, you have to start (speeds up her delivery) talking like this. I just followed her around, “Am I doing well? Am I fast enough? Am I fast enough?” By the end she was saying, “Slow down!”

On whether Gina and Jessica debated as practice for the film –

JK: In post production. (LOL)

GP: Not intentionally.

On how Gina prepared for the emotional aspect of the film –

GP: It’s funny because I get asked that a lot because I seem to keep playing emotional roles. A lot of people do different things to get into character and I’m someone who jokes up until the last minute and I seem to get out all of my emotions on film so I stay a semi sane person in real life.

JK: To add to that. It was actually quite amazing. It was just on the spot. Totally Gina.

Movie fanatic Bobby Beghtel and Gina Philips. Bobby told Gina he hopes her movie wins because it is the best one of the 14 he’s seen.

G.I. JESUS

Joe Arquette plays Jesus

“G.I. Jesus” is also a really good film that has a number of strengths. At the same time, it uses an unneeded copout that’s been done to death and while the core acting is top notch, many supporting players give pretty bad performances. Newcomer Joe Arquette plays the lead Jesus and is absolutely amazing. By the way, I think the film should have been “G.I. Jose,” but maybe that is just me.

Anyway, Jesus joined the army to get his United States citizenship. He is returning home a wounded man. He isn’t physically hurt. He is just confused and depressed with the war and things he saw and did. He has to work through his emotions and finds himself wondering if taking the lives of others is worth becoming a legal American. The film was written and directed by Carl Colpaert, who was born in Belguim. I always find it odd when people from other countries understand issues surrounding the United States better than those of us that were born and raised here. But if you stop for a moment and think about it, who better to understand a situation than someone who is looking in as an outsider. I recently called “Dear Wendy,” which was written and directed by Danish filmmakers, the most American film I had seen in a long time. I still stick by that, but this one gives it a run for its money. There are so many good issues touched on here from immigration, to the molding of children into killing machines with propaganda, to war, to the damage we do as a country to ourselves and just about ever other country out there. We sell patriotism to our youth like Ronald McDonald sells them Happy Meals. We want to close off the borders and stop letting people come here when our country was founded on immigration. At the same time, we feel we have the right to invade other countries and tell them what to do. Does this make any sense to anyone? “We don’t want you here Jesus, but if you go over there and kill for us, you can live here. And then when your child isn’t even of drinking age, hand them over to us, so we can ship them off to commit murder too.” No, Jesus, that’s not what I want and there are many more of us that actually care as well.

Patrícia Mota

Getting back to the film, when Jesus gets back home, he sees visions. He has nightmares. Worst of all he doesn’t trust anyone, including his wife he so dearly loves. She is Claudia. He refers to her as his Dominican Princess and has a huge image of her on the hood of his car. Played by Patrícia Mota, who reminded me of Asia Argento, Claudia is sexy, but strong. They have an adorable daughter Marina, played here by Tempe, Arizona’s Telana Lynum. Mota, Arquette and Lynum are so believable in their roles you could swear at times you are watching a hidden camera of a real family that cared for each other. Claudia and Jesus share a number of sweet moments as a couple and as a family with Marina. But Jesus and Claudia also send each other into fits of rage. Rounding out the cast was Maurizio Farhad, who essentially plays a hallucination of Jesus. Farhad is good, but I swear he calls Jesus by his real name a number of times. I’m glad I saw this film. I hope many get to see it and it doesn’t just disappear. It isn’t nowhere near perfect, but it is such an extremely important film.

(Polly Staffle Rating: ****)

G.I. Jesus director Carl Colpaert

A CONVERSATION WITH TREVOR

Trevor Groth – CineVegas Director of Programming

CCF: First off, I want to know about the whole process of picking the films. Do you personally watch most of them?

TG: Yeah, All the submissions are either screened by myself or Michael Plant. He’s the associate director of programming. It’s really the two of us who select everything.

CCF: What is it that makes you say, “Ok. This one and that one, but not this one ”?

TG: There’s a wide range of issues that come into it. There’s the issue that we are looking for newer films, but we also show films that have played at other festivals as well. You know, we’re looking for things that speak to us. Whether it’s originality or ultimately something new we haven’t seen before. That’s a big part of it. And then also there is looking at the craft of it. That’s an issue too. So there’s a lot that goes into it.

CCF: It definitely is an interesting mix of movies. But this year, you’ve been pushing the whole “world’s most dangerous film festival.” What is your take on that label in relation to the movies screened?

TG: We sort of ran with that tagline a bit. Partly because we do look for films that challenge conventions and audiences. I think quite a few of ours do that. We’re not limited by that. We also show films you wouldn’t put that label on either. We just try to have a balance in the program. But that also applies to the city itself. You know Las Vegas is a dangerous city. You could come here and get into a lot of trouble and some people come here looking for it. So it was an idea we had and we’re trying to have some fun with it.

CCF: What are some of the films the festival has this year that you feel really fit under the “dangerous” label?

TG: To me, I think “Running Stumbled.” It was a documentary we showed and it is one of the most harrowing films. It was a difficult film to watch, but I thought it was also beautiful in an expressionistic portrait of this difficult family. “G.I. Jesus” is another. The way it deals with immigration and the Iraqi war in such a personal style. It’s a terrific film. I think “5 Up 2 Down” has one of the most authentic portrayals of drugs in a film that I’ve seen and it’s really beautifully crafted.

CCF: Ok, well, that’s about it. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

TG: My pleasure. Thanks for coming.

- CCF, June 14

(Day 6 - Cick here)