DAY 4

Izabella Miko signs an autograph.

The red carpert.

Park stars Izabella Miko and Anne Dudek

Wet Dreams director Steve Willis

A FOR EFFORTS

Saw a couple of interesting films, got my picture taken with a Playboy Playmate and talked with two talented actresses that are on their way up the fame ladder at Day 4 of CineVegas. Attended the world premiere of Kurt Voelker’s “Park” and a screening of Jim Finn’s extremely odd underground film “Interkosmos;” chatted briefly with Izabella Miko (“The Foresaken”) and Dagney Kerr (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Desperate Housewives”); and posed with poker player/magazine editor and publisher/blonde bombshell/photographer Jill Ann Spaulding. First I’ll talk movies and we will get to the other stuff later.

“Park” is a funny movie that wants to be edgy. It so badly wants to be a dark comedy, pushing boundaries and dealing with taboos. It’s not so much, but it aspires and that can be respected to a degree. The film has a great ensemble cast with Miko, Kerr, Ricki Lake, Naughty by Nature’s Treach, Saturday Night Live’s Cheri Oteri, William Baldwin and Anne Dudek (“White Chicks” and “The Human Stain”) and the acting is top notch. I would have liked the script to have been a little bit darker, but the cast is so good they save the film despite its weaknesses. Running just 86 minutes, the movie has the illusion it is in real time following several separate stories that connect one afternoon during everyone’s lunch break at a park. In the end I was unsatisfied with how easily and quick a lot of things were resolved. It has one of those everyone gives everyone a hug kind of endings. That’s because it’s a slick fluff comedy. It keeps social commentary to an extremely small amount and isn’t near as open-minded and daring as it wants to be. I hope I’m not giving too much away, but there are two characters in the film that think they want to kill themselves. It becomes apparent very early this will never happen in this film. There would have been a lot of power in doing so, but maybe that’s just me. It is funny and worth a watch, but I’d probably give it three stars out of four at most. That’s a shame as good as the acting is. Every single person does a great job. Definitely, Billy Baldwin’s best performance ever.

The other film I saw – “Interkosmos” – is one of the festivals Area 52 selections, which essentially means weird movie. It’s kind of hard to give the film more than one star as I was bored most of its 70-minute run time. At the same time, it’s hard to hate the film. I think it’s a well executed project using a very bad idea. The movie is part mockumentary, part experimental and strange for the sake of strangeness. There’s no story. There’s no way the film had a script. It’s more of a bunch of jumbled ideas on the same subject – the Interkomos project, which is a fictitious secret Communist space program in the 1970s. There are no scenes with dialogue. There are scenes with conversations taking place astronaut to astronaut over radios in German or Russian or perhaps some foreign language that Finn made up. These static back and fourths take place while an image of something you can’t quite make out is on the screen. It’s supposed to be a view of space. Perhaps it is a planet or again it’s probably something Finn pulled out of his ass, no pun intended. The visuals are boring as are the conversations. There is supposed to be moments of humor, but I didn’t laugh a single time. The most annoying thing is the moments of dead silence. I counted and there are as many as nine seconds of silence in between the voiced-over dialogue scenes. If someone in the last row was to fart, you could hear it on the first. These scenes are cut into clips of dolphins at Sea World, goofy musical numbers with girls in lacrosse outfits, retro space sets and outfits that make “Wham Bam Thank You Space Man” seem like it had brilliant art direction. This just isn’t my cup of tea. I wasn’t the only one though. The only laughs the film got were forced and a number of people headed to the exit about half way through.

FAMILIAR FACES

Now to the quick interviews on the red carpet. First up is Dagney Kerr.

CCF: Is this the first movie you’ve had like a starring role in?

DK: Oh yeah. I’ve only done one other film and I had like one line. (LOL) And it went straight to video. I’ve done a lot of T.V. stuff, but this was my first film. Especially the first film I’ve had a substantial role. It’s a lot more fun when you have more to do.

CCF: Are you getting to where people are starting to recognize you more from “Desperate Housewives,” “Six Feet Under” and some of the other shows you’ve been on?

DK: I still get a lot from “Buffy.” I was on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” like eight years ago. Actually, it was like season four. It was so long ago, but that seems to be the thing people remember me from. I’ll be in the grocery store and people are like, “You look familiar.” And I don’t know. I don’t want to be, “Oh, is it from T.V.?” So I go, “Oh I don’t know.” They go, “No, you look… Oh, you’re the roommate with the face! The face came off.” And I go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But you know what? That was a fun show and it’s better to be known from that than something really bad I’ve done.

CCF: It seems like you’ve been involved with a lot of good projects.

DK: Yeah, “Desperate Housewives” and “Buffy.” Well, big and very visible, I guess is the word. And I’ve done a lot of invisible stuff too. I kind of every two years get these good T.V. roles. It’s nice. It’s a fun thing to be able to do. And anytime people enjoy it. It’s cool.

CCF: Well, thanks for talking to me.

DK: Yeah, you too. Thanks.

Next on the red carpet is Izabella Miko.

CCF: It looks like you have a lot of projects coming out here soon. You’ve been pretty busy, huh?

IM: Yeah. Last year was pretty crazy.

CCF: And are you getting more and more where when you walk down the street or wherever and people recognize you?

IM: Yeah. It’s good. It’s funny. They are always, “You’re much taller that I thought” or “Younger than I thought.” Some people can’t quite picture where they know me from and they're all, “Weren’t you the sister of the cousin…”

CCF: Yeah and if they do they probably screw your name up.

IM: Yeah.(LOL) Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s all good.

CCF: What do you get recognized from by people, is it mostly “Coyote Ugly” still?

IM: Yes. That and “Deadwood” on HBO.

CCF: And also, “The Foresaken.” Do you have any other vampire movies, horror movies, anything like that.

IM: No, no, no. I actually haven’t found another great horror movie to do. I’ve got a lot of drama and comedy coming out. I have the movie “Save the Last Dance 2” coming out, which is a dnace movie.

CCF: And you worked with Bijou Phillips?

IM: Yeah, “Dark Streets.”

CCF: How was that project?

IM: It was good. It’s an amazing film. It’s a musical based in the 1930s and I get to sing.

CCF: How was it working with her?

IM: It was good. Very good.

CCF: What about working with Dagney on this film?

IM: Awesome. Everybody on this movie was phenomenal. It was so much fun. It was one of those breezy sort of shoots where everybody pretty much gets along. And although it’s hot, it’s really fun.

CCF: Alright. Thanks for talking to me.

IM: Absolutely.

LOCAL LEGENDS

Before I go, I wanted to tell you about two people I’ve met at the festival. The first is somebody I’ve been rubbing elbows with for the past several days on the red carpet. She’s one of the many photographers there every day. For obvious reasons, I took notice of her the first time I saw her, but I had no idea who she was. I remember I even was telling my girlfriend about this blonde busty photographer. And my girlfriend was all, “How big are they?” And I was like, “You know, porn star jumbo-sized.” It just so happens the next day, the photographer gave me her card and I found out she was Jill Ann Spaulding – the poker player, website entrepreneur, Top Pair Magazine photographer/editor/publisher, Playboy Playmate and author. I don’t usually get my photo taken with any of the celebrities or filmmakers I talk to at the festival. To me it kind of cheapens my creditability as a journalist if I am too star struck. But in the case of Jill, it’s another story. She’s there working the festival as a photographer, so…

CCF and Jill Ann

The other, person I've met has got to be one of the biggest movie fans. His name is Bobby Beghtel and he’s 71. He has become a staple at CineVegas the past three years and I’m not kidding every person that works for the festival knows who he is. This week so far he’s seen 11 and a half movies in three days. Like me, he was unable to get into the opening night screening and the reason there is a half is because he was one of the audience members that couldn’t stomach sitting through “Interkosmos.” And the funny part is Bobby likes just about every film he has seen at CineVegas so far. Anyway, Beghtel has lived in Vegas for 45 years and he is a retired sports book employee. He loves movies so much, he says he once watched 19 films over a three and a half day span in Los Angeles. He also once saw five films on Christmas day. Beghtel says he doesn’t live in L.A. because he always goes crazy there seeing way too many movies because they start them earlier and run them later than Vegas does. He also has been keeping track of every film he has seen since 2004. Last year he saw 200-plus movies, but he will most likely top that as he is already to 111 and a half.

Mega movie fan Bobby Beghtel gives a thumb up, but not for Interkosmos

- CCF, June 13

(Day 5 - Cick here)