By Dave McCoy
MSN Movies

Sept. 9, 2008

So, about that weekend wrap-up I promised you last Friday ...

Poets, artists, novelists, filmmakers ... all have imagined what hell must look and feel like. Before this weekend, I thought it'd be akin to being strapped down and forced to watch Alan Parker and Michael Bay movies in a loop, for eternity (with the occasional performance by Coldplay or Creed). But no, it's far worse. I'm a film geek, and, as I've discovered, hell means attending a film festival and being unable to see any movies. That, plus tons of pain.

On Saturday night, I got a brutal case of the flu: fever, chills, etc. (The last film I saw was "The Duchess." I could probably blame my illness on that, too.) It's now Tuesday and I've just left my room for the first time. While I was laid up, I missed "Zack & Miri Make a Porno," "Me & Orson Welles," "The Wrestler," "Achilles and the Tortoise," "Happy-Go-Lucky," "The Burning Plain" and many, many others. However, I did have some horrific hallucinations during the peak of my fever, so I wasn't without some fiction.

But no one wants to read reviews of my crazy fever dreams (and I don't want to go there ever again) ... so here is that infamous weekend wrap-up. I saw a few interesting films before my body shut down. For more up-to-date coverage, please read the dispatch by my healthy colleague Kathleen Murphy.

Speaking of Ms. Murphy, she discusses how many films this year concern families (most of them really screwed up). To her list, let me add my personal favorite film of the festival: Jonathan Demme's "Rachel Getting Married." Much like Michael Winterbottom's "Genova" (a haunting, lovely work I also saw pre-flu), "Rachel" revolves around a tragic past event that splinters a family. But, whereas in "Genova" no one wants to talk about the event, here the tragedy is verbally examined from many angles, only to reveal that no amount of discussion can erase the guilt and blame and pain.

We watch all of this unfold through the point of view of, no, not Rachel, but her sister Kym (Anne Hathaway, in what's being touted as an Oscar-worthy performance), fresh out of rehab and ready to head back to her Connecticut home. But this isn't a homecoming for black sheep Kym; instead it's a celebration for Rachel, the promising sister who is about to marry a musician in a one-of-a-kind wedding (and truly, you've never seen a wedding quite like the one Demme imagines here). But Kym's egomaniacal, self-absorbed and tortured presence throws a monkey wrench into the proceedings and leads to ... well ...

It leads to what may be Demme's finest film -- and that's saying a lot. And if it's not his finest, it feels like the summation of everything he's been doing for 30 years: His obsession with oddball misfits, uncomfortable situations, loose plot threads, unsentimental romance and, most importantly, music (of all kinds ... dizzying) all intertwine. The style is free and unfastened (hearkening back to Cassavetes and Altman), the handheld camera floating in and out of rooms, groups of people, conversations, and capturing such an authentic, lively experience. A lot of viewers may have a hard time with the structure (the rehearsal dinner, which exists mostly of toasts, runs for 20 minutes or more) or perhaps the characters: Kym is a true terror ... if you can find her insides, you'll find the core to the film. It's completely worth a long, exhausting and beautiful journey.

League of Morons

In 1998, two years after "Fargo" earned seven Oscar nominations and moved the Coen brothers from cult-movie heroes to (nearly) household names, they responded with a huge middle finger aimed at the mainstream called "The Big Lebowski." Critics trashed it, audiences ignored it, and, of course, 10 years later it's proved to be not only a better film than "Fargo," but also one of their best, period.

A year after sweeping the Oscars with "No Country for Old Men," it feels like the Coens are using the other hand but the same finger. What else to make of "Burn After Reading," another journey into verbally formalized, red-herring-heavy, completely bizarro Coens-land? This is uncut, screwball Coens, warts and all, populated with doofus after doofus, all connected by one old lady's mistake of leaving a CD-R of government secrets at her local gym.

"I'm surrounded by a league of morons," screams John Malkovich, in perhaps his funniest role ever. And he's right. In fact, the whole movie may have just been the Coens trying to take Hollywood's most talented stars and make them look as stupid as possible. And Malkovich, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and especially Brad Pitt (his dancing is indescribable) sign on, vanity-free.

What to make of the film? It's minor Coen brothers, but I laughed from start to finish and haven't stopped for days. It's absurdity turned into lowbrow art. Sold.

Short Cuts

Look, I'm no one to give career advice, but Michael Cera: Don't follow one all-night road comedy/romance ("Superbad") with ... another all-night road comedy/romance ("Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist"). Especially when the follow-up is as charmingly booooring and precocious as "Nick and Norah." Add in your character from Juno, and you have now played the same character three times. Don't get me wrong: You're hysterical. Your understated comic delivery? Pitch perfect. But mix it up ... and choose better scripts.

All of which means: "Nick and Norah" will be huge, "Burn After Reading" will tank and no one will see "Rachel Getting Married."

I'm going back to bed.

Dave McCoy is Lead Editor for MSN Movies 

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