The Savannah Film Festival is back offering students and Savannahians the opportunity to take part in one of the largest university-sponsored film festivals. Last year, Savannah had an influx of more than 40,000 attendees over the festival’s eight days.

This year, special guests include John Goodman, Stan Lee, Diane Lane, Matt Dillon, Michelle Monoghan, Geoffrey Fletcher, and John Gatins.

The reels start rolling Saturday, Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m. at Trustees Theater with “Silver Linings Playbook,” starring actors such as Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Stiles and Robert De Niro.

Over the week, both Trustees Theater and Lucas Theater will have faces like Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken and Jesse Tyler Ferguson gracing their screens in full length films such as musical hit “Hairspray” and new thriller “Flight.”

Several films will also be premiering here in front of Savannah audiences. “On the Road,” based on Jack Kerouac’s famous novel published in 1957, will be screening on Monday, Oct. 29 at 7:00 p.m. at Trustees Theater. The film features a large celebrity cast including Steve Buscemi, Viggo Mortensen, and Kirsten Dunst. “Twilight” starlet Kristen Stewart has a main role as Marylou (Dean Moriarty’s girlfriend).

Workshops are scheduled throughout the week, as well as several secret workshops. “Long Story Short: The Challenges of Short Filmmaking” will feature a panel of filmmakers with work featured in the film festival competition. The panel begins at 11:30 a.m. at Gutstein Gallery on Oct. 31.

If you don’t have enough time to see a full-length feature, there are also shorts screening throughout the festival. “Good Karma $1,” directed by Jason Berger, explores Alex Bogusky’s experiences buying signs from the homeless in only fourteen minutes. It will play at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 1 at Lucas Theater.

SCAD students and graduates will have access to morning and afternoon screenings and panels at no cost. Evening screenings will be $5 for students and $10 for the public.

For more information about tickets, visit savannahboxoffice.com or call 912-525-5050. For screening times and workshops, visit filmfest.scad.edu.

Be sure to check out District’s coverage of the event as well.

“Like Crazy,” the latest project from director Drake Doremus, provides a modern perspective on long distance relationships. The film headlines upcoming stars Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones as young lovers divided by land and sea. The film wrapped up the 2011 Savannah Film Festival on Nov 5. Listen to audience members review the film in their own words.

Just a few minutes before the screening of the last film of the Savannah Film Festival on Nov. 5, Aaron Eckhart was honored with the Outstanding Achievement in Cinema award. When presented with the award, Eckhart’s career was succinctly summarized, “Many have called him an ‘actor’s actor,’ but that doesn’t account for the millions of regular people who enjoy his work.”

In his acceptance speech, Eckhart told the packed theater that what drives him forward is his search for perfection. “How do you reach perfection?” is a question he asks himself and one he asked the audience in attendance.

But at the end of the day, Eckhart said that the one thing he wants to convey through his acting is reality. “All I’ve ever wanted to be is real.”

By Danielle Austin

Performing arts students crowded into a small room in Crites Hall to hear actor James Marsden, known for his roles in  ”X-Men,” “Enchanted” and “Straw Dogs,” answer questions about how he first broke into the acting business and has successfully stayed there.

Marsden started acting at age 19 and hasn’t stopped since. He hopes to move towards directing, writing and even doing Broadway in the future. But for now, be sure to check out Marsden in his upcoming films “Bachelorette,” “Loft,” “Robot and Frank,” “Nailed” and “As Cool as I Am”.

 
Contact Danielle Austin.

“The lighting is horrible in here,” said the actor as he sat down in SCAD’s Jen Library. Which is true, but one would fail to notice when sitting across from the multi-talented Anson Mount. From his wavy hair to his slightly Southern-twanged voice, remnants of his character Cullen Bohannan from AMC’s “Hell on Wheels” are still present.

When asked how he broke into film, Mount replied with a chuckle, “You don’t really break into film, that makes it sound like it’s some sort of escape from prison. I was fortunate enough to get signed to an agency right out of grad school.” His first film role came in “Tully” as Tully Coates Jr.

Mount, who has worked in television, film and theater talked about the technical differences between each platform.

“Part of what you are going to the theater to see is the craft. We want to see the artist’s hand. That is one of the joys of theater. We want to see the set changes — set changes are fascinating to an audience. But in film if we see the artist’s hand for even a second, we check out. We don’t want that. We want be completely consumed and convinced that this thing is happening.”

He also had a few words of wisdom for students.

“Don’t wait around for the man to discover you. You have to become your own producer. If you haven’t produced, if you’ve been at school and allowing other students to produce things for you to be in, then you have been too lazy. You need to spend some time while you are here or during the summer getting some experience with producing something.”

After a moment of thought he added:

“Too many actors go to L.A. or New York, and they sit around waiting to be discovered, trying to be people’s friend so their friend will want to cast them. It is a waste of a life.”

Just before stepping on stage at Trustees Theater on Nov. 5 to accept his award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinema, Aaron Eckhart sat down with District for a brief interview.

After nearly 15 years in the industry, he shared his advice for young actors jumping into their first big role and what it was like working alongside Johnny Depp in his most recent film, “The Rum Diary.”

What a ride it’s been. If the film festival began with an homage to films past, then it ended with an example of films in the present. “Like Crazy” tells the story of young love and all its highs and lows and manages to inject a new passion into a genre that may not always have it.

Anna (Felicity Jones), a British native studying in America under a visa, is infatuated with Jacob (Anton Yelchin), the teacher’s assistant in one of her classes. She leaves a long love poem on the windshield of his car to confess her feelings. Fortunately for her, he feels intrigued instead of stalked, and calls her for a date.

Right out of the park, it’s clear that Anna has much stronger feelings for Jacob than he does for her. Jones does a great job in the first act of portraying the kind of lovesick young woman that everyone’s known at some point.

On their first date, she spends the majority of the time giggling and smiling, in between trying to converse in an adorably awkward way. She has such a loving look in her eye that in that one moment, all the love she feels for the young man in front of her can be felt through the screen.

Jacob himself is no less of a romantic. Although, his performance during their first date leans a little more towards the awkward side.

He stutters, randomly brings up subjects and injects more than a few silences into the conversation. And yet, Yelchin plays the character so sympathetically that Jacob never comes across as annoying or creepy. He’s just a young man in love, and by the end of the first date, the two are hooked.

Time passes. Instead of a simple title card, cinematographer John Guleserian chose to show the passage of time by changing the cinematography. The film turns into a home movie styled montage of Anna and Jacob enjoying their life together. The personal feeling of this style makes it easier to accept not only that their relationship has gone on for a while, but also that the two have grown close.

So close that Jacob is soon meeting Anna’s parents and winning them over. He’s also made Anna a chair, as his major happens to be furniture design. The chair will be a constant presence in the film, and serves as a reminder to both Anna and the audience of their relationship. Even caught up in their romance, Jacob finally asks the big question. What will happen to them once Anna’s visa is up?

As it turns out, romance gets the best of Anna, and she stays in America longer than her visa allows. The next time she tries getting into the country, she’s detained and sent back to Britain. It is a testament to the goodwill Jones builds in her role that when her character sits detained, not speaking and clearly heartbroken, it’s so easy to forgive her for her mistake.

More time passes. Anna and Jacob become an on again, off again couple, going through the trials and tribulations of a long-distance relationship. Along the way, they each pick up a new lover on the rebound. Jacob has Sam (Jennifer Lawrence) and Anna has Simon (Charlie Bewley).

It’d be nice to be able to say that this adds another level of tension to the film. But that’s not the case. Neither of the two characters are ever really given much personality. Sam is nothing more than a hot noncombative blonde, whose first line of dialogue has her asking if Jacob needs his pants ironed. Simon is just a generic handsome British guy whose big scene involves making a fool of himself in front of Anna’s parents. Admittedly, it’s a hilarious scene, but the character never gets any more depth.

It’s true that “Like Crazy” is first and foremost the story of Anna and Jacob, but the lack of really good supporting characters hurts the film. As the third act rolls around, there’s a need for a rest from Anna and Jacob’s melodrama.

Still, the film manages to save itself. Anna and Jacob may be different people by the movie’s end, but the long journey from one point to the other makes it more than worth it, like it should be in any good film.

Can film really change the world? Panelists Lesley Chilcott, Lynn Hirshfield and James Cromwell sat down with Michael Chaney, a professor in the film and television department, to discuss just that.

The panel, held on Nov. 2 at Gutstein Gallery, opened with a collective laugh when Chaney posited the question.

Chilcott simply answered, “It can inspire a movement and that movement has the opportunity to change the world.” And Chilcott would know. She’s worked on films such as “Waiting for Superman” and “An Inconvenient Truth,” both of which have caused their own movements

“The primary point of a documentary is to tell a story,” Chilcott said. Hirshfield, of Participant Media, added that her job was “to get butts in the seats.”

One thing that could be agreed upon was that having a great story is what captures the audience, no matter what genre of film. It brings the audience to the theater and gets the story out to people, thereby accomplishing both of their primary focuses.

For both narrative and documentary films, audience is key. “As an audience we can connect with those characters and the decisions that they are making. It starts us asking questions to ourselves,” said Cromwell.

Jay Duplass, an independent filmmaker whose latest film, “Jeff Who Lives at Home,” screened Nov. 5 at the Savannah Film Festival, stumbled upon his love for film as a teenager.

“I grew up in New Orleans. I didn’t even know that filmmakers existed,” he said. “I just thought that movies got piped in on cable television and just came from some magical place.”

It wasn’t until he saw “Raising Arizona” in 1987 that he realized that “human beings made these movies, very thoughtful and funny human beings.”

But he still continued on with his life, going to the University of Texas and majoring in psychology. Of course, it wasn’t long before he had his next big film experience in 1991 when “Slacker” was first released and “El Mariachi” was in the making.

“There was just sort of like common knowledge around that time that you don’t need millions of dollars to make a movie. You don’t need movie stars. You actually can make a movie for $25,000,” he said. “That’s when it really came together … we started realizing that there’s something else going on here and maybe we could do this.”

What’s his advice for a new generation of student filmmakers? Duplass had one simple word of advice: create. Make tons and tons of movies.

“Don’t think too much about what you’re doing. I remember being a student and thinking, maybe I’ll make a movie this weekend, and you always don’t make the movie. You always just think about making the movie,” he said. “What schools don’t teach you is who you are and what you uniquely have to offer the world … you can’t figure out what you have to offer the world by thinking about it, you do it by accident, basically.”

In Duplass’ case, he’s had a partner to figure it out with, his brother Mark. It is safe to say that a love for film is something that runs in the family.

“My parents are not artists. My dad’s a lawyer and my mom’s just a mom, works in retail. But, every Christmas we would go to the movie theater, and watch some big blockbuster and cry and have a peak emotional experience in a movie theater.”

Working with his brother as a filmmaker was a natural step for him.

“We’ve always been close, and we’ve always done creative stuff together — we were in bands together. When we were kids, we would do all kinds of creative projects, so, for us, it’s just [about] making stuff.”

The brothers focus on capturing “cringe-worthy laughs” in the movies they make.

“We’re obsessed with human beings, human nature and we watch people and we talk about the really embarrassing, passive aggressive things that they do to each other,” he said. “And I think that’s kind of like the meat of our movies is cringe-worthy laughs — truthful things that happen and hopefully, you laugh about it later.”

Their most recent film, “Jeff Who Lives at Home,” is something the duo has never done before.

“We got to go back to our hometown of New Orleans to make the film, which was really fun. It was a little different for us because all of our previous movies were very domestic movies that happened inside a house, and the first scene of this movie happens inside a house, but after that it’s like the characters venture out into the world and really start interacting with the universe.”

The movie is also bigger than anything they have done before.

“It was exciting and challenging, especially because we shoot in a very uncontrolled, sort of documentary fashion, so it was a new challenge for us.”

“Jeff Who Lives at Home” is centered around two brothers, and there’s a good reason for this according to Duplass.

“We’re just obsessed with brothers,” he said. “The brother relationship is very interesting because you’re talking about two men who share a level of closeness and intimacy that they’re probably not comfortable talking about … we’re just kind of strangely obsessed with brothers, I guess.”

If there’s one thing the folks at the Savannah Film Festival do well, it’s keeping the annual Director’s Choice hush-hush until the moment the title screen rolls. The only teaser we got was that it’d be family-friendly, so it probably made perfect sense for the packed audience in Trustees Theater when the title flashed on the screen: “The Muppets.”

My stomach sank.

You could say I’m the Grinch of family films, a trait I’m sure I share with a certain percentage of college-aged 20-somethings. But for you skeptics out there, let me assure you of one thing: Disney and director James Bobin have nailed the balance of a children’s film appealing to adult sensibilities. I laughed more during “The Muppets” than I did during the first “Shrek,” and I have no doubt that after the film’s Thanksgiving release, it will pick up a large following.

The greatest danger for this sort of film is failing to hit a broad demographic. The cleverness of “The Muppets” script — a story about Kermit and his comrades defeating skeptics who claim that they’re no longer relevant — is that it works on two levels.

While the Muppets must convince television producer Veronica (Rashida Jones) to give them air time after being rejected at every major network, the film’s real life writers must come up with a way to appeal to a 21st century audience.

And boy, do they.

By following a tone made famous by shows like “Glee” and “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” “The Muppets” transitions from upbeat musical numbers to a deadpan self-awareness (“Sorry I’m late, I was finishing a musical number”) that reins even the most skeptical audiences back in.

But that’s not to say all of the musical numbers are just for kids. When villainous Tex Richman (Chris Cooper), an oil tycoon attempting to take over the Muppet Studios, breaks into rap, I, along with the rest of the audience, just died with laughter. Cooper, known for his serious roles in “Sea Biscuit” and “Adaptation” is campier than Aaron Carter circa his “That’s How I Beat Shaq” days. It’s nothing short of brilliant.

The same effect is achieved when the chickens take on Cee Lo Green’s, “F*** You,” with some of the best nondescript adult-aimed humor in quite a while. Trust me here. Just imagine the chorus: “Bawk Bawk [and] Bawk Bawk Bawk.”

The largest achievement, however, is that “The Muppets” doesn’t rely on its franchise — its story and acting really do stand on their own. It might be helpful to know some of the backstory on Miss Piggy and Kermit’s relationship, but even without a background in Muppets history, audiences can pick up on the couple’s troubled past from the tension of Kermit’s anticipation in the scenes leading up to his reunion with Piggy.

Paralleling Piggy and Kermit’s arc, Gary and Mary, the live-action characters played by Jason Segel and Amy Adams, have their own quirky side story. The challenge of finding that right balance between sticking true to the tone, without overshadowing the cast of puppets, lies on their shoulders. Adams, particularly, feels perfectly cast in a role where she plays the proverbial third wheel, but never comes across as bitter or angry.

A film like “The Muppets” is always a balancing act: appealing to children, and the parents they drag along, while trying to satisfy old fans of the franchise and those entering the theater with fresh eyes. But even my fellow Grinches out there should give this one a chance. Your heart just might grow three sizes that day.