About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (June 22, 2011)
dm iMtel±®$[k NEWS OF ATHENS’ CINEMA SCENE Baby Talk: The only movie I've seen in the past two weeks—somehow wedged into an inexplicably blank 90 minutes in my hilarious home renovation schedule—is the Rikki Lake- produced documentary The Business of Being Born, which I watched on our tiny bedroom TV (the only operable one on the construc tion site—er, in the house—at the moment) with the magnificently pregnant Mrs. Film Notebook. It's a pretty instructive thing to see if you're about to enter the childbirth system, especially if you or your more responsible spouse or partner haven't been busily reading up on all the crazy things people in hospitals sometimes want to do to women they're trying to get babies out of. Hint: they may be hoping to do it fairly quickly. So, the film's pro-midwifery stance, and even its nearly as strident argument for home birth, are pretty easy to buy into. (In fact, the Film Notebooks are all about the midwives—here's a shout out to the ladies at ARMC: Woot! Woot!) But without giving too much away, I might suggest that depicting a late- night New York taxi ride to the hospital, however timely and well- managed, when complications make a home birth risky is not the best way to reassure those who might be on the fence about going that route. You gotta admire director Abby Epstein's commit ment to honesty, though—especially considering she was the lady having a baby in a cab. Yeah, go ahead and see it. 4 A Everything's AthFest: Once again, Cine is film central for the summer music festival, and the lineup for this year's AthFest FilmFest is pretty diverse and fun, including, as usual, several well-chosen, music-related feature documentaries, as well as the short film pro grams Athens Picture Show and TeenScreen— plus, an encore presentation of the Sprockets Music + Video Show (which debuted last week end at the 40 Watt, and whose winners will be announced at this Thursday's Flagpole Music Awards Show at the Morton Theatre). Two of the music docs are about the Drive-By Truckers: Barr Weissman's 2009 fea ture The Secret to a Happy Ending and The Go-Go Boots Episodes, an eight-segment video companion to the band's latest album written by frontman Patterson Hood and directed by Athens filmmaker and photogra pher Jason Thrasher. The latter will answer questions from the audience following the film's Sunday screening. Athens Burning, director Andrew Haynes' tribute to the Georgia Theatre and chronicle of its rebirth (or the beginnings of it, at least) after being nearly destroyed by fire in Wes Freed's DVD cover art for The Secret to a Happy Ending, the Drive-By Truckers doc playing at Cine during AthFest. 2009, will also be screened with a filmmaker Q&A session. And Devin DiMattia, director of Firewall of Sound, will be present for the Saturday screening of his 2010 film, a look at the changing face of the independent music industry in the digital age, featuring inter views with Julian Koster, Bertis Downs and many others. A Saturday matinee screening of Girls Rock!, the 2007 doc about the original Rock 'n' Roll Camp for girls, will promote and benefit the third annual Athens version, Girls' Rock Camp ATH. Finally, honorary local status needs to be awarded to Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett, the guyS behind the long-running (seriously!) and ever-changing Found Footage Festival. They've brought their lovingly curated compendia of unfortunate training videos, unintentionally surreal cable access shows, creepily erotic exercise tapes and various other video ephemera from the trash heap of semi-recent history to Athens repeat edly over the past several years, and it's always a good time. They'll be back for a Saturday night screening of the "best" from their 20 years of collecting this stuff, presented with their inimi table in-person commentary. Get a full sched ule and detailed descriptions at www.athenscine. com. Summer Classics Set: Last time out, I mentioned the Summer Classic Movie Series at Cine; the films, dates and presenters have now been finalized. Presenters will introduce their films on Friday opening nights, and each film runs a week. The series begins July 8, when Tony Eubanks will introduce Chocolat. Next, Patterson Hood presents one of his favorite films, The Treasure of the Sierra Mad re. I'll introduce Ernst Lubitsch's final film, Cluny Brown, followed by Sanni Baungartner with Josef von Sternberg's first collaboration with Marlene Dietrich, The Blue Angel. The series wraps up with two musicals: Jacques Demy's lovely The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, presented by Richard Neupert, and the splendid, ubiq uitous Grease, introduced by Pam Kohn. I'll remind you of these in the coming weeks; in the meantime, you can find out more at Cine's website. Extra Credit: A few readers and friends responded to my challenge to think of west ern films directed by women, with both Will Stephenson and Derek Hill mentioning Maggie Greenwald's 1991 The Ballad of Little Jo, which I've never seen. Will found a few more, too, but overall the question seems to have been a surprisingly tough one. Again: who knew? Dave Marr film@flagpole.com $15 weekday POINTS $20 weekend . Call for Reservations 706-353-6002 ' 2525 Atlanta Highway www.bigdogsontheriver.com Keepin’ It Clean and Green! FesnvaL weexeNP! 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