Film Culture

"Mistress," which plays for the weekend at the Charles, i "The Player" without the edge -- that is to say, without the reason for existing. Edge is everything in these matters.It's an occasionally amusing look at film culture, which watches as a small-time producer and a wannabe director, probably too sensitive for the game, try to hustle three wealthy men into putting up some dough for their marginal production. Their central ploy is to offer the rich guys' mistresses fat parts in the film, whether it needs it or not.Of course that's only the first meaning in the title: the second is that art is the true mistress of the piece and our hero, the feckless Robert Wuhl playing the director, just isn't quite man enough to bed her. He tries, but those damned philistines just won't let him. The movie invites us to shudder at his victimization.

World-premiere films. Movie stars. Local guys and gals made good, returning home to maybe show off a little. A block of Charles Street teaming with people watching and talking about the movies. Maryland Film Festival 2004, Baltimore's sixth annual celebration of all things cinematic, unspooled over the weekend at the Charles Theatre, offering a little bit of something for all tastes - major studio premieres shared the bill with short films made by city grade-schoolers - and proving once again that film culture is alive and well and quite happy to take over the local art scene an entire weekend.

If the Charles goes under, where will Baltimore filmgoers turn for art film?The answers aren't encouraging.Certainly the bigger films will achieve commercial release in mainstream venues. The independently owned Senator (on York Road) and the Loew's Rotunda (near Roland Park) will probably consolidate their positions as the major players in attempts to get the Robert Altman and James Ivory films of the '90s. The Westview complex, in Baltimore County on Route 40 West, has evinced interest in specialty films; maybe it will become a player.

The third edition of the Johns Hopkins Film Festival opens Thursday. On its face, that doesn't look like a revolutionary statement. But the fact that this entirely student-run film festival has reached its third year, with a more impressive lineup of films than ever, is extraordinary. Extraordinary considering that, with the onslaught of the VCR and the Internet, campus film culture has generally been on the wane since its heyday in the 1970s. What's more surprising still is that such a festival is happening at Hopkins, a school known more for science and engineering than for art and culture.

The third edition of the Johns Hopkins Film Festival opens Thursday. On its face, that doesn't look like a revolutionary statement. But the fact that this entirely student-run film festival has reached its third year, with a more impressive lineup of films than ever, is extraordinary. Extraordinary considering that, with the onslaught of the VCR and the Internet, campus film culture has generally been on the wane since its heyday in the 1970s. What's more surprising still is that such a festival is happening at Hopkins, a school known more for science and engineering than for art and culture.

George Udel, who almost single-handedly created the Baltimore film culture he was such a crucial fixture of, died yesterday. He was 69. Udel, who had fought heart disease for 20 years, succumbed to kidney failure at Union Memorial Hospital.At a time when Baltimore enjoys a bustling film culture -- with the Maryland Film Festival, a rejuvenated Charles Theatre, the Cinema Sundays series and countless other opportunities to screen rarely seen films -- it's easy to forget that when Udel became involved with the newly founded Baltimore Film Forum in 1969, local filmgoers had far fewer choices at their disposal.

It's been a good year for Maryland in the movies, and for Baltimore movie fans in particular.Who didn't swell with pride when the locally filmed "Blair Witch Project" became a certified pop cultural phenomenon? Who didn't get a little rush from seeing Barry Levinson's latest loving depiction of his hometown in "Liberty Heights"? Who can't admit to a secret thrill spying Keanu Reeves in line at the Charles Theatre? (Reeves and Gene Hackman were in town filming "The Replacements.") Hey, even "Runaway Bride," not exactly a runaway hit at the box office, did well by the picturesque Eastern Shore hamlet of Berlin.

World-premiere films. Movie stars. Local guys and gals made good, returning home to maybe show off a little. A block of Charles Street teaming with people watching and talking about the movies. Maryland Film Festival 2004, Baltimore's sixth annual celebration of all things cinematic, unspooled over the weekend at the Charles Theatre, offering a little bit of something for all tastes - major studio premieres shared the bill with short films made by city grade-schoolers - and proving once again that film culture is alive and well and quite happy to take over the local art scene an entire weekend.

I call it the quiver.It happens oh so very rarely, and for a professional moviegoer such as myself, jaded and slow to impress and slower yet to actually feel, it happens almost never.I can first remember identifying it in another person, namely my son. He's a lanky teen-ager now, busy with sports and studies and trying to find the appropriate degree of cool to carry him through a complex life, but not so long ago he was a chubby blond baby and the world was mudluscious with possibility.One day, in complete innocence, we took him to a fast-food restaurant on the way home from a hardware store.

If Walt Disney were around to see the results of his cartoon studio's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" adaptation, chances are he'd exclaim: "Gosh! This'll make Victor Hugo!"Disney had exclaimed similarly about his musically driven feature, "Fantasia," and Beethoven during the early 1940s, defining the true conceit of the popular culture: It actually fancies itself in a class with the higher forms.In a broader sense, however, Disney was also right about "Fantasia," for the arrogant concert-film experiment did introduce Beethoven and its other chosen composers to a whole new shirtsleeves audience.

It's been a good year for Maryland in the movies, and for Baltimore movie fans in particular.Who didn't swell with pride when the locally filmed "Blair Witch Project" became a certified pop cultural phenomenon? Who didn't get a little rush from seeing Barry Levinson's latest loving depiction of his hometown in "Liberty Heights"? Who can't admit to a secret thrill spying Keanu Reeves in line at the Charles Theatre? (Reeves and Gene Hackman were in town filming "The Replacements.") Hey, even "Runaway Bride," not exactly a runaway hit at the box office, did well by the picturesque Eastern Shore hamlet of Berlin.

George Udel, who almost single-handedly created the Baltimore film culture he was such a crucial fixture of, died yesterday. He was 69. Udel, who had fought heart disease for 20 years, succumbed to kidney failure at Union Memorial Hospital.At a time when Baltimore enjoys a bustling film culture -- with the Maryland Film Festival, a rejuvenated Charles Theatre, the Cinema Sundays series and countless other opportunities to screen rarely seen films -- it's easy to forget that when Udel became involved with the newly founded Baltimore Film Forum in 1969, local filmgoers had far fewer choices at their disposal.

If Walt Disney were around to see the results of his cartoon studio's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" adaptation, chances are he'd exclaim: "Gosh! This'll make Victor Hugo!"Disney had exclaimed similarly about his musically driven feature, "Fantasia," and Beethoven during the early 1940s, defining the true conceit of the popular culture: It actually fancies itself in a class with the higher forms.In a broader sense, however, Disney was also right about "Fantasia," for the arrogant concert-film experiment did introduce Beethoven and its other chosen composers to a whole new shirtsleeves audience.

If the Charles goes under, where will Baltimore filmgoers turn for art film?The answers aren't encouraging.Certainly the bigger films will achieve commercial release in mainstream venues. The independently owned Senator (on York Road) and the Loew's Rotunda (near Roland Park) will probably consolidate their positions as the major players in attempts to get the Robert Altman and James Ivory films of the '90s. The Westview complex, in Baltimore County on Route 40 West, has evinced interest in specialty films; maybe it will become a player.

I call it the quiver.It happens oh so very rarely, and for a professional moviegoer such as myself, jaded and slow to impress and slower yet to actually feel, it happens almost never.I can first remember identifying it in another person, namely my son. He's a lanky teen-ager now, busy with sports and studies and trying to find the appropriate degree of cool to carry him through a complex life, but not so long ago he was a chubby blond baby and the world was mudluscious with possibility.One day, in complete innocence, we took him to a fast-food restaurant on the way home from a hardware store.

"Mistress," which plays for the weekend at the Charles, i "The Player" without the edge -- that is to say, without the reason for existing. Edge is everything in these matters.It's an occasionally amusing look at film culture, which watches as a small-time producer and a wannabe director, probably too sensitive for the game, try to hustle three wealthy men into putting up some dough for their marginal production. Their central ploy is to offer the rich guys' mistresses fat parts in the film, whether it needs it or not.Of course that's only the first meaning in the title: the second is that art is the true mistress of the piece and our hero, the feckless Robert Wuhl playing the director, just isn't quite man enough to bed her. He tries, but those damned philistines just won't let him. The movie invites us to shudder at his victimization.

Oh, those wacky Scandinavians! What a zany lot! Inside every silver lining there's a dark cloud; it's always lightest until the darkness dawns; why suffer tomorrow when you can suffer today and tomorrow!The latest depression-o-rama from the Northlands arrives in the "The Ox," a deliciously oppressive and crushingly lugubrious work from Ingmar Bergman's long-time cinemato- grapher, Sven Nykvist. The film will be shown tonight at 9 at the Baltimore Museum of Art as part of the 24th International Film Festival.

"Grosse Fatigue" isn't too clever by half, only about a sixth or an eighth. Opening today at the Charles, it's one of those zippy Pirandellian constructions that turns amusingly in upon itself and its creator's life until it comes to seem almost claustrophobic. Fortunately, Michel Blanc is lovable enough to send you out of the theater after an hour and a half's immersion in the total Michel Blanc experience without wanting to strangle him.And I don't want to strangle him. I just want to beat him up a little.