Waltz with Two Lovers

I guess I hadn't done my homework ... When I arrived proudly on the rooftop of the Arclight this morning, I had the surprise to realize that the AFI Fest village was nowhere to be found, the festival's headquarters having been moved to the gorgeous Roosevelt hotel, right across that tourist trap named the Chinese theater. Upon arriving, I was even more disappointed running into a few witches and ghouls remaining from Marylin Manson's Halloween party the day before - I should have been there instead of that lame-ass party I went to.

But let's go back to the subject ... I started the festival with the screening of Nirvana (read the Nirvana review or watch my video comments about Nirvana here and if you need subtitles, email me!!), a post-punk Russian film that even a Sigue Sigue Sputnik fan like me found pretty tedious. The film was followed with some absurd Q&A with the director, who managed to never answer to the questions he was asked.

The following Waltz with Bachir was even more disappointing as it was preceded by some good buzz from Cannes (see video comments here - read Waltz with Bachir review), proving that having a good political/humanitarian message isn't enough to make a good film.

Finally, the documentary about Gogol Bordello (see video comments here) proved to be entertaining but messy, while James Gray's Two Lovers (Two Lovers review) was a good surprise despite the bad buzz from Cannes -- I know why the French hated it ... they didn't like the ending ... which isn't surprising, knowing their propensity to enjoy "drama".