We stand where he stood ...

... and we should damn proud of it. One of the documentaries I mentioned earlier this week that I saw at CineVegas was "Where I Stand," the story of Hank Greenspun, the founder and longtime publisher of the Las Vegas Sun. (Full disclosure: He's also the founder of Greenspun Media Group, the company that puts a roof over my head, food on my table and clothes on my back, but I'll try to be as impartial as I can.)

I love documentaries in general, because the truth is usually stranger than fiction, but this one really stood out for me because while I knew Hank was a pretty amazing guy, I had no idea just how much he influenced not only Las Vegas history but U.S. and international events as well. Now, of course in a documentary you're only hearing one side of the story, so some of this has to be taken with a grain of salt, but from what the director said, the family had no involvement in the project beyond providing interviews and the like, so I really have no reason to believe the lily was gilded too much in this film.

In a nutshell, Greenspun was a Jewish kid from New York City who moved to Las Vegas to find his fortune in 1943. After spending a short time as Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel's PR man at the Flamingo, he founded the Sun, wrote an influential front-page column called "Where I Stand," and became a multimillionaire through smart investments in real estate. His son Brian now publishes the Sun, while his son Danny runs GMG, and his daughters are involved in the business world and philanthropy. And his wife Barbara is still with us as well, the matriarch of a great family.

I won't go into too many details, because you really should see this movie for yourself (and negotiations for a distribution deal are ongoing, so it may come to a theater near you, no matter where you are). But to pique your interest, here's a brief rundown of Hank's accomplishments and intersections with history.

• He helped supply arms for the Israeli army to help the country survive after it was granted independence in 1947. Not funding for the arms -- the arms themselves. There's a great anecdote about him sneaking guns and ammo out of a munitions dump in post-WWII Hawaii that illustrates how dirty his hands got. He was convicted of a felony and fined $10,000 for violating the Neutrality Act, but JFK later pardoned him.
• He was one of the first public figures to stand up to Sen. Joe McCarthy during the Red Scare of the 1950s. McCarthy called him a commie (presumably because he was in the newspaper business and had warred with Nevada Sen. Patrick McCarran, a crony of McCarthy) in a speech in Las Vegas, but Greenspun was actually in the audience and grabbed the mike after McCarthy left the podium. He shouted at McCarthy as he left the arena, turned the crowd in his favor, then used his column to rail against McCarthy and all he stood for. And you all know how that turned out.
• He helped integrate the businesses on the Strip. For years, blacks were allowed to perform on the Strip, but not stay in the hotels or eat in the restaurants. When the threat of a strike by the many minority Strip workers led to the fear of a riot, Greenspun used his influence with the casino owners to gather them and hammer out a compromise that effectively integrated the Strip in the early 1960s.
• He helped kick the mafia out of Las Vegas. The mob mostly ran the show until the late 1960s when a guy named Howard Hughes moved to town. Hughes needed a place to stay, and he holed up in the penthouse suite at the Desert Inn. When the DI's owners wanted him to move on because he was taking up space they could rent to people who would actually gamble in their casino, he ended up buying the property. With Greenspun's help as a liaison between the mob's money men and Hughes, the reclusive billionaire bought up a handful of casinos and the mafia's influence dried up in the desert.
• He was knee-deep in the Watergate scandal. Nixon heard a rumor that Greenspun had compromising information about his longtime confidant Bebe Rebozo, who also was a friend of Hughes. The infamous Plumbers were plotting to break into Greenspun's office at the Sun and steal or break into his safe when the whole Democratic Party office thing blew up. At one point on the Watergate tapes, Greenspun's name comes up, and when one of his lackeys said he didn't know who Hank was, Nixon sharply retorted, "Jesus Christ, everyone knows who Hank Greenspun is. He's the publisher of the Las Vegas Sun!"

Let's see ... Israeli independence, McCarthy, civil rights, the mafia, Howard Hughes, Watergate ... have I missed anything? Probably -- he was a crusader against the IRS, he tried to help broker a Middle East peace pact, he owned TV and radio stations here in Las Vegas, and he basically bought up all the land between the Strip and a sleepy little burg called Henderson, the area now known as Green Valley and my back yard.

After seeing the film, I couldn't help but think that Hank Greenspun in a way was a real-life Forrest Gump, except he wasn't a passive observer at so many key points in American history. He actually affected it. It's hard to say how this world would be different if Hank Greenspun hadn't made that long drive from New York to Las Vegas, but one thing I know for sure -- I wouldn't be sitting here typing this if he hadn't.

Wake up, dead man

I wish I had as good a reason for my hiatus as my friend at Bye Bye Shadowlands, but all I can say is that I've been doing other things. Work-wise, I wrote a couple articles for the Vikings' yearbook and continued to fine-tune the book project. Travel included a Daddy-daughter trip to San Diego to watch the red-hot Minnesota Twins take a pair from the Padres at Petco Park. We also had a family trip to Disneyland -- one day, in and out, ten hours at the park and then four hours home.

Oh, and I never did finish my thoughts on CineVegas. I saw a couple more movies that second week -- two documentaries that I loved, and one feature film that was brilliant. I'll break down the documentaries later this week, but here's my brief review of The Wackness.

Sir Ben Kingsley headlines a dynamite cast that includes two rising stars -- Josh Peck (from the Nickelodeon show "Drake and Josh") and Olivia Thirlby (a.k.a. Juno's best friend). Peck's character is a recent high school graduate spending his final summer at home in Manhattan in 1994. He makes ends meet by selling pot out of a snack cart, and even uses the dope to pay off his therapist, Kingsley, a hapless self-involved goofball who's losing his wife and stepdaughter (Thirlby) day by painful day.

Peck shows he has the chops to move beyond the child-actor stage and Thirlby clearly is more than second-banana material. The two have a summer romance that includes a few twists, but predictably ends poorly. Still, this is a sweet look back at both the 90s (lots of references to Cobain and that new mayor, some Giuliani guy) and the coming-of-age summer that we all had or at least think we did. The verdict: 4 stars.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

Well, I got to experience a personal "first" tonight -- the first time I've ever walked out in the middle of a movie.

We went to a 7 p.m. screening of a film called Memorial Day, an indie flick that was described in the literature I'd read thusly: "A wild Memorial Day weekend takes an unexpected turn in this brutally thrilling roller coaster ride through over-exposed national obsessions."

Sounded like an interesting premise. I figured it would be about a group of people whose vacation weekend goes awry when something horrible happens -- murder, kidnapping, something along those lines. And the resolution would teach us something about our cultural indulgences.

It started out with cinema verite passage as the camera followed young men and women partying over said holiday weekend in Ocean City, N.J. From the setup, the message seemed to be that these kids were overindulging in a "Girls Gone Wild" kind of lifestyle, and I figured the tension would ramp up as one or more of them suffered the consequences.

Only it never happened. It just dragged on and on, 45 minutes of unlikable, unknowable characters -- we never even find out their names -- getting drunk, acting stupid and swearing up a blue streak. And because of the faux-documentary style of filmmaking, you never really knew which of the people were actors and which of them were just random party kids who were caught on film. They just kept being annoying, screaming into the camera, and generally making asses of themselves in a variety of unfunny ways.

I started fidgeting in my seat and looking for the exit about 25 minutes in, when two of the characters had sex in an SUV on the way from the bar to their hotel. The girl was a willing participant at first, then obviously wanted the guy to stop, but he was being cheered on by his buddies and kept at it (yes, it was as bad as it sounds). But when they got to the hotel, they just stood around in the parking lot as if nothing happened, then moved inside to the after-bar party.

There, it went from bad to worse as we were treated to the characters' inane and profane "conversations" about sex, booze, and whatever else seemed to be on their simple little minds at the time. The last straw for me came when one guy ranted for a couple minutes straight about "butt sex" and how he just didn't understand gays. Believe me, it was a lot more disturbing and ridiculous than it sounds -- I truly can't do it justice.

Other people began walking out about 20 minutes into the film -- including the entire front row, about eight 20-somethings who filed out grimly. We bolted and caught the second half of the Celtics-Lakers game in the food court while we waited for our nephew, Paul, who stayed around to see if it would get better.

Sadly, it didn't. Apparently the "unexpected turn" was that the characters suddenly appeared in an Abu Ghraib-style prison in Iraq, torturing the Iraqi prisoners in the manner depicted in those infamous photos. That had to be the director's "artistic intent" -- to show us that a party can turn into war, and war can turn into a party or some such crap.

Frankly, it didn't work. The first 45 minutes could have been condensed into about 10, and from what Paul said, the last 45 minutes also could have been shortened considerably. Maybe if it had been a 20-minute short, it wouldn't have failed as miserably. But it wasn't, and it did.

The weirdest thing was that we were sitting right behind the director and a few of the actors in the movie. It was the film's world premiere, so maybe they didn't know just how bad it would look. Or maybe they thought it was brilliant -- I don't know. I didn't stick around for the Q&A that followed, nor did about half of the audience by my count.

The thing is, I'm not a prude -- I have no problem with sex or violence or profanity in a movie if there's a purpose for it. And I don't mind it when a director takes a chance or three -- hell, I thoroughly enjoyed Your Name Here, even the part where a stillborn baby came back to life and talked to the main character while covered in mucous membranes. Sure, it was weird, but this is a film festival, after all, so you expect directors to push you to the edge once in awhile.

But nothing in this movie seemed to have any purpose to it. Mrs. Gopher and I both noted that the part we sat through felt exactly like being the designated driver and lone sober person in a group of obnoxious drunks. Only, you'd do that voluntarily for your friends, to ensure that they got home safely. I don't know why a director would expect you to put yourself in the same position for a bunch of strangers who are painted in the most unflattering way possible.

All in all, it was a craptacular evening, although at least now we've got a story to tell when somebody complains about a movie so bad they had to walk out in the middle. We can now join in that conversation. The Verdict: negative-infinity stars.

Lights ... Camera ...

and plenty of action at the 10th annual CineVegas film festival, which kicked off Thursday night here in the valley of sin. It's probably my favorite local event of the year, because we don't really have an art-house theater the likes of the Lagoon or Uptown back in the Twin Cities, so it's my only chance to see movies that don't feature Ashton Kutcher or an explosion every three minutes. Or, as in the case of Strangers With Candy two years ago and Oceans 13 last year, we get a sneak preview of movies that will be released nationally later in the summer.

We've seen three movies so far -- here's a quick recap:

The Rocker -- Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute of "The Office") sort of takes on the Jack Black "School of Rock" role, in that he helms a group of precocious musical prodigies, except here they're teenagers playing in a straight-up rock band. Wilson's character (Fish) was a drummer for an 80s hair band that kicked him out just before they surged to international stardom. Fish broods about his dashed dreams for 20 years before his nephew asks him to fill in on the skins for his band's first gig. Hilarity ensues.

And lots of hilarity. It's a brilliant sendup of 80s hair metal and the music industry. SNL's Jason Sudekis is fantastic as a slimy label rep, and the kids more than hold their own. But this is Wilson's show, and he's dynamite as the dinosaur drummer stuck in the 80s who embraces (literally, and sweatily, as you'll see) his second chance to live out the rock star lifestyle. (National release: August 1) The Verdict: 4 stars (out of 5)

Big Heart City -- An ex-con returns to the real world after six months in the can, only to find that his pregnant girlfriend has gone missing. Did she leave on her own, or has something terrible happened to her? That's the basic plot summary, but it's not nearly as suspenseful as it sounds. The movie is basically a look into the psyche of the main character, who seems to be living in his own little dreamland. By the end of the film, you wonder if that's literally what was happening. The Verdict: 2.5 stars

Your Name Here -- This one was a real mindf--k. Bill Pullman stars as a sci-fi author (loosely based on Phillip K. Dick) who in the process of completing his masterpiece snorts a little speed and blacks out. When he wakes up, he finds himself trapped inside some kind of alternate reality that mirrors the twisted, conspiracy-filled world of his novels.

Visually, it's a treat -- it's set in 1974, so you get plenty of sweet disco-era duds and hair, as well as a strong dose of Nixonian paranoia. Pullman is brilliant in a role that pushes him beyond the affable supporting roles that he typically plays. The plot is likely too confusing challenging to appeal to a broad audience, but those of you who like a movie that makes you think -- or allows you to get out of the way and let the plot and characters just wash over you and carry you away -- will get a kick out of this. Pullman's performance alone is worth the price of admission. The Verdict: 3.5 stars.

After the last movie, we checked out the CineVegas 10th anniversary party, poolside at the new Palms condo tower. Decent crowd -- saw Pullman and his wife, as well as the star of Big Heart City. But the big buzz was the presence of one Britney Spears, who was holed up in a cabana with three beefy security guards keeping the crowd at arm's length. In the one glimpse of La Spears that I got, she looked healthy, sober, and appropriately attired. So, there's that.