ANDREW BIRD: FEVER YEAR
9:30 pm, Fri, Feb. 8 • Magic Lantern • 100 minutes • Directed by Xan Aranda • Documentary This evenly split hybrid of concert and documentary follows indie artist Andrew Bird through a year of relentless tour dates. Bird is arguably indie-pop’s best whistler and specializes in looping equipment, integrating multiple instruments into complex pieces that please the ears of hipsters everywhere. The film provides an inside look at how he writes on the road, including a collaboration with St. Vincent set in a hotel room. We explore the early years of Bird’s career and the series of events leading him to leave his solo work behind and establish a band. As in most indie music documentaries, we get a glimpse of the ashes from which the artist crawled after early failings at landing a record deal. In this case, Bird flew away to a beautiful family farm outside Chicago where he remodeled a barn, jammed it full of recording equipment and allowed his soft music to seep out and influence the world. The filmmakers have decided to make the documentary unavailable except at festivals like SpIFF, so this may be your only opportunity to check it out. — ERIC GAVELIN
BERT STERN: ORIGINAL MADMAN
2 pm, Sun, Feb 3 • Magic Lantern • 93 minutes • Directed by Shannah Laumeister • Documentary Follows Bert Stern throughout his career, from the mail room at Look Magazine to becoming one of the first photography stars. The Original Madman explores creativity, fame and the prices paid for achievement. (EG)
BOTTLED LIFE: NESTLE’S BUSINESS WITH WATER
2:00 pm, Sat, Feb 9 • Magic Lantern • 90 minutes • Directed by Urs Schnell • Documentary An expose of a multinational corporation bent on expanding its revenue through selling water, Bottled Life will unsettle you as much as any global warming tear-jerker. The film highlights the exploits of Swiss company Nestle as it expands its bottled water business. The film tracks Nestle’s controversial practice of basically pumping the state of Maine dry at virtually no cost for its Poland Spring brand.
Director Urs Schnell also exposes the practice of the company — which also owns the Aquafina and Perrier water brands, among others — of using a pumping station outside an African refugee camp to spin some positive PR. “They’re predators, water hunters, looking for the last pure water in the world,” says one United Nations water expert. Makes you wonder when we’ll stop giving away our number one natural resource for free — and when we’ll stop buying it back at mark-up. Chilling. — JOE O’SULLIVAN
CAMERA SHY
Fri, Feb. 1 and Sat, Feb. 2, 8 pm • Magic Lantern • 91 minutes • Directed by Mark Sawers • Comedy An ambitious, manipulative politician is relaxing in a hotel room after some extramarital recreation when he realizes a cameraman is filming his every move. And, it turns out, he’s the only one who can see the cameraman. This clever satire about political corruption and conscience-reckoning plays off our age of reality TV hyper-documentation. (LW)
hardly a bummer. Yes, it begins with Russell Sawtelle (Kyle Arrington), a down-on-his luck drummer who’s just been kicked out of his band, learning that his father has died and his dad, by all accounts, kind of seemed like an ass when he was alive. When his estranged siblings, hot-shot brother (Lucas Kwan Peterson) and erratic sister (Jenni Melear) show up for the funeral, the story becomes deeply interesting, moving and thought-provoking. Given their father’s remains, old Cadillac and dingy house to look after, the three siblings come to terms with what’s happened as they get to know each other again. It’s a well-acted and smoothly shot film — with an excellent soundtrack — that might make you want to call your brother or sister after the final credits roll. — MIKE BOOKEY
DER GLANZ DES TAGES (SHINE OF DAY)
6:30 pm, Magic Lantern • 90 minutes • Tizza Covi • Foreign A successful actor named Philipp Hochmair begins work for theaters in Vienna and Hamburg, but his lifestyle leads him to lose touch with reality. (EG)
CARTOON COLLEGE
Sun, Feb. 3 at noon and Thu, Feb. 7 at 6:45 pm • Magic Lantern • 78 minutes • Directed by Josh Melrod/Tara Wray • Documentary At some point in every creative person’s life, they stand at a fork between two very different roads. On one side, they could dive head-first into their creativity, devoting their life and career to their art, knowing that they’ll never make much money but that they’ll be happy. On the other side, they start giving it all up: sidelining creativity into a weekend hobby, taking on a career and, maybe, making some money doing it. That’s a choice that every single person in the excellent comicdocumentary, Cartoon School, has grappled with. At the nation’s only comic book college, some of the finest comic artists in the country cannonball themselves into their creativity, devoting two years of their lives to a grueling, labor-intensive comic Masters program at the Center for Cartoon Studies. This doc tracks students working their way through stories, drawings and the tough decision of how devoted they are to being comic artists for life. Punctuated with wisdom from comic giants like Chris Ware, Lynda Barry and Art Spiegelman, Cartoon School lays out the hard work of making it as a comic artist. And that “making it” is never truly making it. — LEAH SOTTILE
DEAD DAD
5pm, Fri, Feb. 8 • Magic Lantern • 100 minutes • Directed by Ken Adachi • Drama The title is depressing, but somehow this film by first-time feature director Ken Adachi is
HELLBOUND?
11:30 am, Sun, Feb. 3 • Magic Lantern • 84 minutes • Directed by Kevin Miller • Documentary The documentary opens with an orgy of patriotism — banners of American flags, soldiers and mourners on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The scene, however, is misleading. The crux of the documentary isn’t about terrorism or political warfare, rather it focuses on the existence of hell and the interpretation of Christian dogma. Writer and director Kevin Miller sets out on a mission to interview authors, pastors, theologians — mostly old white men — and even members of the Westboro Baptist Church to determine if the Lake Of Fire truly exists, and if so, who will spend eternity there. Surprisingly, there is relatively limited talk of everyone’s favorite fallen angel, Satan. The documentary features protesters holding hand-drawn signs that read “Soldiers die for fag love,” Christian haunted houses depicting scenes of suicide and rape to scare children away from hell’s temptations, the heavy metal band GWAR and teenage girls with blingedout crucifixes learning how to perform an exorcism. But it’s not all fire and damnation. The documentary also sheds light on in-depth interpretations of scripture, Christian denominations and the bearded brethren of founding fathers in the early church. — JORDY BYRD
IN SEARCH OF BLIND JOE DEATH: THE SAGA OF JOHN FAHEY
See this week’s music section for an interview with director James Cullingham.
IN THE FOG
6:30 pm, Tue, Feb. 5 • Magic Lantern • 2:03 • Sergei Loznitsa • Foreign Soviet and German soldiers are fighting a brutal resistance campaign deep in an ancient forest. (EG)
THE IRAN JOB
7 pm, Fri, Feb 1 • Bing Crosby Theater • 93 minutes • Directed by Till Schauder • Documentary American Kevin Sheppard moves to Iran in 2008 to play professional basketball. But he finds much more than a job: Sheppard befriends some outspoken Iranian women on the eve of the country’s massive Green movement protests. It’s a story of sports, freedom, politics, equality and an insight into how people from two countries that hate each other can form a bond. (JO)
JARDIN EN EL MAR (GARDEN IN THE SEA)
7:30 pm, Fri, Feb. 1; 6:45 pm, Wed Feb. 6 • Magic Lantern • 68 minutes • Thomas Riedelsheimer • Foreign The film outlines the 4-year process of making art for an island previously used by UNESCO activists. (EG)
LE TABLEAU (THE PAINTING )
1 pm, Sat, Feb 2 • Bing Crosby Theater • 76 minutes • Directed by Jean-François Laguionie • Animation An animated parable following a diverse cast of characters through different paintings, and eventually out of the canvas and into the real world. (EG)
LET MY PEOPLE GO!
7 pm, Sat, Feb. 9 • Magic Lantern • 86 minutes • Directed by Mikael Buch • Foreign A gay French-Jewish mailman is exiled from his Nordic boyfriend back to his zany Paris lifestyle. (EG)
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JANUARY 31, 2013 INLANDER 25