Chalk

I saw this film at the Tom Cruise Scientology Laboratories Religious Propaganda Festival, and I must say the crowd absolutely LOVED it. Afterward, we all chanted and lost ourselves in a quick, pulsating rhythm of spirituality that is in the very nature of our alien beings... Xinatthrusta-humda!

Seriously now. Why do some IMDb-ers start their comments with "I saw this film at such and such festival"? Who cares where you saw the film. As if the location and the circumstances matter. In fact, I saw "Chalk" in my bathroom while standing upside-down and juggling tennis balls with my feet. Does that make my experience any more or less worthy, interesting, valid?

I see no problem in someone combining Christopher Guest's mockumentary style (very obviously quite influential here) with a bit of Woody Allen thrown in. The improvisations are quite solid, the cast is good (amateur or not) and fairly likable, and there is even a pleasant little song at the very end of the end-credits. However, there are no laugh-out-loud moments - unless, of course, if you were watching this film with an eager festival crowd who carried you with their unbridled, uncritical enthusiasm, almost forcing you to laugh along with them. The gags i.e. the observations about the teaching life are clever, somewhat amusing, and "cute", but hardly what one could call hilarious. Although an indie film, it succumbs to the old Hollywood formula sentimentality trap which has ruined man a comedy by infiltrating itself like a virus into the last third of the movie. I can't say I was annoyed by the quick deterioration of comedy to melancholic semi-schmaltz, but a mockumentary should end just as it had begun: with humor. I am a proponent of the "Seinfeld" school of "zero sentimentality" comedy, as opposed to the "cheap weepy drama twists" school of "Friends", an approach tailored toward easy-to-please sheep. Hence that is the one rule that they should have definitely obeyed in the Christopher Guest Manual of Making Fake Documentaries. Although not a perfect film, the makers of "Chalk" can find consolation in the fact that their little movie is much better than Guest's "A Mighty Wind", which was a major disappointment.

I had never heard before either of the "Teacher of the Year Debate" or the "Spelling Hornet". Did they make this up, or do these two absurd events actually take place in American high schools? You are welcome to e-mail me with an answer to that one. (I can't be bothered to surf the net for that...) If so, then no wonder the U.S. pre-college education system is in such poor shape. Teachers debating in front of students over who should win "teacher of the year"?? Teachers being tested in spelling those ridiculous new slang words?? You gotta be kidding me...

All in all, I consider "Chalk" to be a cut above the rest of the independent films coming out in recent years. It was interesting to observe that the makers of the movie thank a few dozen festivals for supporting them from the beginning - and yet the supposedly "hip", "underground", and "trend-setting" Sundance festival wasn't mentioned. However, this doesn't really surprise me. The reason Robert Redford and his cronies (initially?) ignored this film is simple: "Chalk" is a totally unpolitical film, lacking the left-wing propaganda bits that Redford looks out for.

So my advice for "Chalk 2: The Sequel" is this: invite Michael Moore to have a cameo appearance in which he will mock a Capitalist or a policeman, and include a sub-plot about a dumb Republican teacher that everyone hates. That would definitely please His Royal Redness, Robert Ford the Red One...