It was a frantic and bustling third day of The Austin Film Festival, now in its 22nd year of celebrating the role of the screenwriter. While the numerous and occasionally-costumed attendees swarmed about, intermingling with the increasing chaos of Halloween night in downtown Austin, here’s how the film’s of day three stacked up.
Man Up
[rating=9.00]
Screenwriter Tess Morris came out to introduce her film, proudly championing the oft-pilloried genre of romantic comedies. “If you don’t like romcoms, you might want to leave,” she quipped in her introduction. While often shrugged off as quaint, often charming, generally safe films, Man Up turns any of those expectations on its head within the opening seconds.
The momentum set by the opening, both confident and kinetic, never slows down, summarizing the character of Nancy (an incomparable Lake Bell) after just a few minutes between her pep-talk to her reflection to her mouthing the words to Silence of the Lambs. Before long, she finds herself amidst the delightful misunderstanding of being on a blind date with Jack (Simon Pegg) who was supposed to meet with another woman entirely.
While a more conventional approach would have drawn that misunderstanding out through the bulk of the film, Morris’ screenplay clears it up before the end of the first act, and keeps finding plausible, and outright hilarious ways, to keep these two characters together over the course of the fim. During which, we see them grow to relate to one another through a carousel of circumstance, effortlessly sticking to the well-worn template while repeatedly proving itself a spirited and passionate story.
Sympathy For The Devil: The True Story of the Process Church of the Final Judgment
[rating=8.00]
“What is the process?” – a question repeatedly asked in the intervals between director Neil Edwards’ mostly linear documentary of a once infamous church based out of London before taking their movement to North America. Once there, the disciples slowly come to learn the downside to wielding such an influence through popular culture, who were at the time blamed for everything from The Manson Family killings, the Son of Sam killings, and even the assassination of Robert Kennedy.
Living up to its title, it does well in portraying the church’s former members in a fair and reasonable light, including their wherewithal for joining at the time. The movement itself, espoused throughout its own literature in the 1960s, repeatedly asks the aforementioned question – “what is the process?” – while the documentary itself confidently avoids looking for a definitive answer.
Having grown organically from the Church of Scientology, and members all growing up as children in the rubble of post-war London, their belief came to be centered on the idea of divine forgiveness. This meant that God would forgive Satan, and together they’d bring a new era for humanity, as “the end of the world is good draw.” At its height, John Lennon and Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein found themselves as regular attendees of their services, and George Clinton (woefully underrepresented here), talks about their influence being so profound that he let them compose the liner notes to his album Maggot Brain, as well as the considerable influence on his music.
Looking for understanding as opposed to an answer, it was impossible not to leave the theater with a kind of empathetic envy, despite some of the church’s questionable approaches to the treating of its members. This rang heavy as one of the former disciples was in the audience, explaining afterwards that the relevance of the message was still valid in today’s world.
