Fall Film Fest

The Magic Lantern’s fall film fest opens Friday with three independent films from three veteran film makers featuring idiosyncratic portrayals of modern family life.

It’s a real ‘90s kind of group that makes up the cast in the darkly comic drama "The Opposite of Sex" written and directed by Don Roos ("Single White Female," "Boys on the Side"). Sixteen-year-old stepsister from hell Dedee (Christina Ricci) runs away from her Louisiana home to live with her half-brother Bill (Martin Donovan) turning his quiet existence upside down. Bill is a dedicated and caring English teacher in a small Indiana town who happens to be gay. He has been left independently wealthy after his lover dies of AIDS and is trying to resurrect his life with a new boyfriend, Matt (Ivan Serge).

Dedee not only moves in but puts the moves on Matt convincing him to steal $10,000 and to run away to L.A. with her. For insurance, Dedee also steals the ashes of Bill’s deceased lover and threatens to dump them if Bill comes looking for them.

Bill and fellow teacher Lucia (Lisa Kudrow), who is also the dead lover’s sister, join forces and pursue to two to California. They are the decent high-minded ones; they represent "the opposite of sex" – the opposite of promiscuous Dedee, who has no standards at all. Along the way they come to terms with the disappointments in their lives and the duplicity of the amoral Dedee, who manages to keep all four lives off- balance.

But Dedee does have truth and from her we learn happiness and virtue are not alike and ultimately what we all really want, what we search for, is the opposite of sex– lasting, committed and loving relationships.

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A father who appears bent on the destruction of his illegitimate son is the centerpiece of Academy Award winner for best foreign film "Character" from Dutch director and writer Mike van Diem.

After an aspiring young lawyer, Katadreuffe (Fedja Van Huet) is arrested for the murder of the city’s most feared baliff, Dreverhaven (Jan Decleir), we see the series of events that led up to the arrest through flashbacks.

Katadreuffe is the son of Joba Katadreuffe (Betty Schuurman), a simple but proud woman, and Dreverhaven, who she refuses to marry. Raised in poverty Katadreuffe follows an austere and strict lifestyle until his mother’s lodger, Jan Maan (Hans Kesting), encourages him to improve his lot through investing in a tobacco store with money obtained through a personal loan.

The deal goes south and Katafreuffe is ruined. He discovers it is Dreverhaven who presides over the bank that has his loan and to whom he is indebted.

Katafreuffe decides to become a lawyer, secures a position as a clerk and settles in to get ahead. His success is hampered, however, by his history of bankruptcy and the constant, looming presence of his father whom he is convinced wished to ruin all his career prospects.

As Katadreuffe and Dreverhaven seek to destroy each other, their struggle evolves into a compelling story of passion and ambition in which the wrong-doing of both father and son is exposed--with unexpected consequences.

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"Smoke Signals," the first full-length feature film written, directed and co-produced by American Indians, weaves a tale of fathers, friends and forgiveness. Adapted from Sherman Alexie’s award-winning 1993 collection of short stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the film is permeated with the concept of home.

"This is a haunting film for me– here’s a guy who always wanted to go home and ask forgiveness from his son, but instead dies alone 1,000 miles away," said director Chris Eyre. "For Indians especially, a sense of home is such a strong thing, whether you have stability or dislocation."

Victor (Adam Beach) has not seen his father, Arnold, since he took off after a blow-out Fourth of July bash on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation 10 years before. Now word reaches home that Arnold (Gary Farmer) has died of a heart attack in a tiny trailer home in Phoenix, Ariz., and Victor, along with his goofy friend Thomas Builds-the-Fire, take off on a nostalgic, bittersweet journey to retrieve the father’s ashes.

"While Victor goes about his search, all the while in the background you can see where tribal people are at this moment: mostly we are poor, mostly we are fragmented," said Alexie who adapted four stories to comprise the movie’s plot. "The need for family and meaning in all that occurs is strong. Many of us feel we deserve better lives than we’ve received, but we’re still optimistic. Ultimately, this film offers some peaceful reward for its protagonist and its audience."

Returning to Idaho, with an urn filled with Arnold’s ashes, Victor and Thomas are forced to confront their fears and their memories. Victor learns the value of laughter and the power of stories, and Thomas learns the value of silence and the power of "looking like a warrior."

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An arresting hybrid of kitchen-sink realism and fairy-tale romance, "Buffalo 66" follows the strange path of a troubled young man, cursed with unloving parents, who in his quixotic search for one kind of love, unexpectedly finds another. The film is a contemporary fable of family trauma and the healing power of love.

Billy Brown (Vincent Gallo) has just been released from the state pen. A tightly-wound, intense young man, Billy hates to be touched. He can veer from conscientious politeness to overwrought diatribes in the blink of an eye.

For five years he has deceived his parents (Anjelica Huston and Ben Gazzara) about his circumstances, telling them he’s working a government job. Now he’s back in Buffalo and has to produce a fictitious wife "Wendy" for a family dinner.

Billy kidnaps a young tap dancer named Layla (Christina Ricci) and threatens to kill her if she doesn’t play the part.

Over the course of a horrendous visit with the Browns, Layla happily immerses herself in the role and charms the parents, who show her the kind of affection they’ve never given their son. Passed over again by his parents, Billy decides on suicide but realizes, just in time, the redemption in the love and loyalty of his now friend Layla.

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"Two Girls and a Guy" written and directed by James Toback ("The Gambler," "Bugsy") and starring Robert Downey Jr. as Blake is the story of a two-timing actor who returns to his Manhattan apartment to be confronted by both of his girlfriends, who’ve just found out about each other. The film was written in four days, reputedly after Toback saw Downey being led away in cuffs from a California courtroom on drug charges.

Confronted by the two girlfriends, Blake remains resilient and unbowed claiming he meant it when he told them both it was true love.

"They’re playing at being in love, but essentially all three are soloists, looking out for themselves, and the women can sustain outrage only so long before they begin to seek additional amusements and possibilities," writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun Times." As for the man, well, he always told them his favorite song was ‘You don’t know me.’"

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"Dancer, Texas Pop. 81" doesn’t rate a place on the Rand McNally road map. It’s a sleepy west Texas town where the nearest shopping mall is a general store that stocks vegetables and auto fan belts side by side and the showcase of higher learning is a five-room school house with 41 students and a high school graduating class of five.

It’s also home to Keller (Breckin Meyer), Terrell Lee (Peter Facinelli), Squirrel (Ethan Embry) and John (Eddie Mills) life-long friends who have made a solemn vow to leave town together as soon as they graduate. The moment of truth is just days away. The clock is ticking, and as all 77 remaining townspeople watch from the sidelines, offer advice, and place bets, these four very different boys with unique backgrounds struggle with the biggest decision of their lives – whether to stay or leave home.

The film fest continues next week with "Cousin Bette," "Next Stop Wonderland," "The

Slums of Beverly Hills," "High Art," "Pi" and "Your Friends and Neighbors."