Tree of Life and AFI Dallas

Clearly it's been a while since my last utterance, so let me try to bring you up to speed quick like. Shortly after my first and last entry, I spent about a month in the charming town of Smithville, about an hour east of Austin, lending a hand to Terrence Malick's latest production, Tree of Life.

This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to be a fly on a wall while a few of the greatest at their game went about their work. I worked in Jack Fisk's department for a little while, doing what I could to assist in making the physical world of 1950's small town Texas come to life. Once filming started, I spent a lot of time with set dresser Eliot Hostetter in between takes, as well as associate producer Ivan Bess doing clearances for various books that we were planning to shoot.

Best of all, I got a first hand account of one of the greatest American directors going about creating his art. I can only imagine that it must be a joy as an actor to work with Mr. Malick, and Mr. Pitt sure looked liked he was having fun. As one of the producers, the leading man definitely took an interest in the way each scene was approached and it was educational to say the least to watch these two pros do what they do.

I don't claim to be any expert on acting or actors and their might be a lot of debate regarding the talents of Brad Pitt, but one thing I will stand up for is his discretion in the jobs he's taken recently. His next three films (Tree of Life, Burn After Reading, and the Curious Case of Benjamin Bottom) can claim four of the greatest helmers of the past quarter century of cinema in Terry Malick, Joel and Ethan Coen, and David Fincher. I can't wait to see these films.

I went straight from Smithville to the Big D to attend the second annual AFI Dallas International Film Festival. The whole team at AFI Dallas was crucial to the success of LSIFF 07 and we tried to do everything we could to show our support for their landmark event. I joined the rest of the Lone Star staff who occupied various directorial roles there and was immediately put to work coordinating the jury and had the privilege of accomodating Kit Carson (Co-producer, Bottle Rocket), Ron Livingston (Office Space, The Music Within), Elvis Mitchell (New York Times film critic), and many other film pros and their jury needs.

John Storm, our managing director, and I had the opportunity to take one of the festival's guests of honor, Helen Hunt, whose directorial debut, Then She Found Me filled the opening night slot, to the museums so she could get little taste of the local cultural flavor. Ms. Hunt was as nice as she could be and when I remarked that I was eager to see her film, she responded by promising me it was 90 minutes long.

I wonder if Mickey Rooney would have said the same thing about his Star Award acceptance speech, which may have been the highlight of my festival. After rambling through a few episodic recollections of productions throughout his storied carreer, Mr. Rooney launched into a discourse on divorce, ultimately scolding the audience for laughing at its mention, and even included an anecdote about a song he sang whenever the tamale truck would come through his neigborhood. I think it was the reference to tamales that eventually prompted his wife to come on stage and inform him it was about time to say "Thank you".

After the lights came up in the beautful Majestic, we walked around the corner to a posh party in first floor of the dowtown Neimans. On loan from the Harry Ransom Center in Austin were costumes and storyboards from Gone With the Wind, including Scarlett's dress, the original script from Sunset Boulevard, and a few of the costumes from characters that Bobby DeNiro has played over the years.

For the rest of the fest, you could almost always find a drinking buddy or 27 in the filmmakers lounge at the W sales office on the 3rd floor of the Victory Park building that runs adjacent to the American Airlines Center. The lounge featured a scale model of dowtown Dallas, a pool table, a Guitar Hero room, and a great view of those massive mobile screens that screened several films from the AFI D program including Ice Age 2 (a personal favorite) and Vexille (a brilliant recent Japanese animation production distributed stateside by our local Funimation).

As for films, the brightest spotlights were aimed at David Gordon Green's latest edition, Snow Angels, Barry Levinson's Hollywood rumination, What Just Happened, starring Robert DeNiro, and actor Stuart Towsend's first feature helming attempt, Battle In Seattle. Unfortunately, since I still had responsibilites from Tree of Life and Lone Star, in addition to my jury duties, I wasn't able to see many of the films I would have liked to. Still, from what I saw, standouts included a little film about meth addicts called Cook County, as well as a delightful documentary about the fresh food revolution that began in California called Food Fight.

Nighttime activities were never limited and the Ghost Bar, high up in the W, held concerts by Chuck D and Paul Oakenfold. To close things out Polyphonic Spree broke out their classic cult couture and rocked the House of Blues. All in all, with an average of 80% of their seats filled over ten days of world class screenings and soirees, I'd say you'd have to call AFI Dallas 08 a resounding success. Hats off to everyone who had a hand in making this such a world class event in only its second year.