RPIFF: Small Town Murder Songs (2010)

There seemed to be some hype surrounding this one, with the screening actually listed as SOLD OUT the day before and my friend Kate choosing this as the one she must see from the entire festival lineup. And so we saw Ed Gass-Donnelly's Small Town Murder Songs with high expectations, comparisons to the early work of the brothers Coen ringing in our ears.


I will start by going on record with the biggest problem I had with the film; it's runtime of 75 minutes. For me this is not a feature film but when you factor in the small detail that the credits may as well have rolled at 69 minutes and the white on black title cards at the beginning of the movie and you have what is basically a long TV show without the ads.

That aside this small, beautifully shot film is about redemption and centres on the murder of a young woman and the local sheriff's investigation of it in a small religious town in Canada.

It really is a beautifully shot film, the long slow takes of the scenery and small town life are given a haunting quality by the not exactly subtle soundtrack, and it's lucky that they are so nice to look at as they provide the bulk of the imagery, padding out the runtime of the film. I'm all for this kind of attention to beauty, film as art etc. but I feel that with Small Town Murder Songs it is largely there to make up for the lack of plot. Sure there are many films that look this beautiful with less plot and many pretty movies with more storylines than needed and both work fine but in this instance it just sits in the uncomfortable middle ground leaving you feeling unfulfilled.

At least two scenes are played in slow motion, almost choreographed to music, bringing to mind that Tears For Fears moment in Donnie Darko or that Mad World song from Donnie Darko. This also feels like an attempt to use style as a disguise for substance.

Seems like I didn't like this movie much. But it was quite good so I will attempt to finish with something else positive. Peter Stormare was superb and initially unrecognisable in the role of Walter, the Sheriff struggling to redeem himself for his violent past, bringing to mind Nick Nolte in Addiction and John Turturro in Fear X with a powerful performance. It is a shame that he was letdown by the occasional use of cliche in the actions of other characters. This certainly was no Coen Brothers movie.

So it didn't live up to the hype or expectation but it was worth the 75 minutes just to watch Peter Stormare and wonder at the beautiful cinematography.

Coming to the end of the Revelation Perth International Film Festival reviews here at blahblahblahgay, only 2 left. How's it been for you so far? Leave me some blah below.

The Week In Movies 18/7/11 - 24/7/11

A heavy week at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival has seen me watch 8 films, 5 of them at the cinema with full reviews (including those yet to come) so this should be a pretty quick roundup.


It seems like forever ago that we sat down to watch Marathon Man only to find out that the disc was faulty and watched Nic Cage winning an Oscar for drinking his life away in Leaving Las Vegas. It's been so long since he actually acted that it surprises people when I talk about how good Nic Cage is in this and that the Oscar was actually deserved. This is one of those films you shouldn't watch too often; it's terribly depressing, but fantastic. Once every few years however you should remind yourself how wonderful this Mike Figgis film is. Elizabeth Shue as the prostitute on her way to redemption probably gives her career best performance and Julian Sands makes a fun cameo not to forget Danny Huston's blink and you miss it film debut as a bartender but primarily this is all about the subtleties of Nic Cage. Yeah that is what I said.

A few months back we watched the lots of fun but flawed, Carla Gugino starring, Sebastian Gutierrez directed Elektra Luxx about the personal life of a porn star and her group of friends and then we found out there was a film about these characters already, Women in Trouble. So for a bit of light entertainment we settled in. These are not ground breaking movies, there's nothing new or particularly special about them but they're fun all the same with some enjoyable moments and good dialogue from characters you don't usually see in films. Infact one of my favourite characters of recent times, somebody who I could probably watch quite a lot more of, came from these movies; Adrianne Palicki as failing pornstar Holly Rocket. Adrianne Palicki is an extremely beautiful woman and she hardly ever wears much in the way of clothing but her character is so totally clueless and adorable it hardly matters. If you want to look below the surface of these films there's probably even a message and moral somewhere.

Now on to the Don Roos movie The Other Woman, a film which has also been known as Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, hence the two very different posters used, and starring Natalie Portman. I'm a fan of the movies of Don Roos. I saw The Opposite of Sex before any Woody Allen movie so the gimmick with Wednesday Addams breaking the fourth wall was an exciting new cinematic tool for me. Most people didn't enjoy Bounce if I remember correctly but I did and not just because of my guilty pleasure of watching Ben Affleck movies, and Happy Endings was a good, fun, low budget piece of cinema. None of the films are made in a similar style but there's some kind of charm that unites them which must be brought to them by the director. There's nothing particularly new about The Other Woman, we've all seen step-mothers trying to be liked by the child and hated by the ex-wife before but it does have a strong performance from Natalie Portman and Lisa Kudrow is her usual flawless self in this minor post-Friends role. Enjoyable but nothing amazing, but it has stayed with me all week.



I've already reviewed Charlie Casanova and Vacation! from The RPIFF but seen and with reviews forthcoming are Submarine, Small Town Murder Songs and Autoreiji.


A busy week, how bout you? Do you remember when Nic Cage wasn't a joke? As always I'd love to know what blah is filling your movie minds.