Five Nights, Four Days, several minutes and 14 movies at Sundance...
The first thing that strikes you about Sundance is the lack of sun. Damn cold and snowy outside, you spend most of your time in the dark, watching movies and wandering around dimly lit parties.
The “theme” this year was “Film takes Place”. No one had any idea what that actually means. If you do, email me.
I had planned on arriving Thursday afternoon, in time for the opening film (In Bruges: buzz says good). Alas, Delta had other plans, informing me in Denver my reservation was cancelled and every flight, on every airline, was sold out because, of course, it was the opening day of Sundance. Many hours later, I talked my way onto a delayed flight and staggered into town around midnight.
Bright and early the next morning I lined up for tickets at the box office. At Sundance, everything is sold out in advance. A certain number of unclaimed tickets are released each morning at 8 a.m., but you’d better get there well beforehand, otherwise, you have to rely on the two hour plus wait list lines for each film, with no guarantee of getting in (I got nixed thrice). While I also had access to press/industry screenings, not everything plays the same days and the public screenings are often more “lively” experiences, so it is worth doing the first day box office line. We arrived at 7:15 a.m. I missed out on the hottest tickets, but scored three world premieres — a delightful way to begin the Sundance experience.
The Buzz:
Word on the street was that this was a “down year.” Mediocre movies abounded. The best buzz, for films I did not see, swirled around: Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (documentary on Polanski’s trial for porking a minor); American Son (sounds like an urban, modern American Graffiti without the comedy and heading for Iraq rather than ‘Nam); Hamlet 2 (school teacher stages a sequel to Hamlet — sold for a near record $10 million); and Choke (adaptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel). The Polanski doc sounds like the safest and best bet—look for it on HBO.
Watch out for Kristen Stewart. The soon-to-be eighteen-year-old is best known for playing the androgynous kid opposite Jodie Foster in Panic Room. Now a full-fledged hottie with a sultry pout, Stewart had significant parts in The Yellow Handkerchief and What Just Happened? and could be poised for a mainstream breakout.
Reviews of what I actually saw:
In order from most decent to most awful (none quite made it to “good” status):
The Wave
High school teacher teaches “autocracy” to jaded German students convinced the specter of Nazi fascism could never return to Germany, of all places. Based on a real experience that happened in Palo Alto in the ‘60’s, “Herr” Rainer starts a social experiment as the students willingly vote him dictator for the week. Naturally, the experiment goes too far, as the students, seduced by power, discipline and the all powerful sense of “us vs. them” become entranced by “The Wave” (the eponymous name for their little society) and their white shirt and blue jean uniforms. Predictable and a little clichéd at times, The Wave is nevertheless engaging, thought-provoking and enjoyable. Worth seeing.
Mancora
An erotic journey up the Peruvian coastline in the mold of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Sex and Lucia. Incest, threesomes, affairs, jealousy, drugs and mysticism, combined with hot young actors, sufficiently make up for a somewhat uninspired and tired plot. Not as good as either of its aforementioned models, Man
cora still manages to sustain interest throughout. Good date movie.
Fear(s) of the Dark
A series of black and white, artistically animated shorts, blended together with a consistent theme. The shorts are somewhat hit and miss, but the overall experience is positive and original. Will probably never “come soon” to a theater near you, but definitely track it down if the idea of creatively dark shorts appeals.
What Just Happened?
Barry Levinson’s insider look at the life of a Hollywood producer (Robert DeNiro) is a far cry short of The Player. Somewhere between Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage, What Just Happened? is loaded with talented actors (Catherine Keener is especially good as a Hollywood exec), people playing themselves (Bruce Willis, Sean Penn), and has a number of fun and amusing scenes. If it was thirty minutes shorter and tighter, it might have been quite good. Go see it if the Hollywood life at all intrigues you.
Transsiberian
Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, rising starlet Kate Mara and Ben Kingsley star in this erotic thriller about what could go wrong on a train journey across Russia. The story idea is great — Harrelson is a super sweet, industrious Midwesterner who has tamed the wilder in her younger life Mortimer. Husband and wife escape Iowa for their first big adventure together and run into a young couple (Mara and Eduardo Noreiga) who have been traveling for months. Kingsley plays a Russian narcotics detective and you can see where all this is going. The acting is good, but mediocre execution and somewhat choppy pacing hold Transsiberian back, making what could have been a good suspense thriller into merely a decent one.
Red
Kind-hearted old man (Brian Cox) loves his old dog — his closest friend and companion. A group of teenage boys come along and one shoots the dog, just to be a dick. Naturally, the boy is the son of a rich asshole. Cox wants reasonable justice. When the father backs his son and tells Cox to take a hike, the escalation begins. Excellent set-up of initial conflict sustains what becomes an increasingly disparate storyline that does not fully take advantage of the film’s psychological potential.
King of Ping Pong
Fat, dorky kid in Sweden finds solace through ping pong (though he’s really not that good). Decent coming of age drama dealing with mix-ups of parentage and the general suckiness of growing up (especially when you’re unpopular, a little weird and lack social skills). Slow paced, but sweet and thoughtful. However, I’ll remember it more for the two power failures on Main Street that occurred during the screening. One of which, in a movie with very little action, happened at exactly the climatic point of the one scene of dramatic action. When they restarted it, we’d jumped forward 30 seconds, everything was resolved and they couldn’t back it up. D’oh!
The Yellow Handkerchief
A Hallmark Hall of Fame love story with an indie flair. Target audience: middle aged women. William Hurt gets out of prison and falls into a road trip with two lonely teens (Eddie Redmayne and Kristen Stewart) who have themselves just met. As the predictable hate/love relationship develops between the two kids, Hurt acts as chaperone, while a series of flashbacks explain his prior romance (with Maria Bello) and why he was in prison. Decent, if you like this sort of thing.
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Adaptation of Michael Chabon’s debut novel of the same name. An unremarkably decent film about a recent college graduate trying to figure out what to do with his life during the summer before taking that job in Baltimore his uncle set up for me. High jinxs naturally ensue--centered around sex, sexual identity and the criminal underworld. Think of it as The Graduate light. Relative unknown Jon Foster shines in the lead role of Art Bechstein, opposite more well known actors such as Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard, Mena Suvari and Nick Nolte. Foster’s performance is the highlight of the film. Go see it if you’ve just graduated, are thinking about graduating or can’t get over the fact that you’ve graduated.
The Wackness
Another post graduation flick, this time high school in Manhattan--and NYC high school grads are probably the equivalent of Pittsburgh college grads. Set very strongly in 1994, you’ll love it if you were obsessing about rap music that year. While the winner of the Audience Award for best drama, the movie is a little more whack than winner. Josh Peck plays the lead, a relatively unpopular kid who sells drugs to set-up his college future, sees a shrink (Ben Kingsley) whom he pays with drugs, and obsesses over Kingsley’s unattainable step daughter (Olivia Thirlby). Basically, a more cynical, 90’s version of Can’t Buy Me Love--maybe Peck will be the next McDreamy in twenty years. Peck is annoying, Thirlby is solid and Kingsley gives a very strong performance as a potted up psychiatrist with more problems than his patients.
Flow: For Love of Water (documentary)
Water is the next oil. Our most precious resource is running out and wars will soon be fought over it if we don’t start acting soon. There, I’ve just saved you 90 minutes. Flow effectively highlights a number of pending and potential problems relating to water management and use. But it is not a documentary: it is an hour-and-a-half infomercial for a particular point of view. That point of view may be 100% correct, but when dissenting voices comprise about three minutes of your “documentary”, it’s hard convince critical thinkers. A missed opportunity to do something important.
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Okay, here’s the good news, everything above this line is “ok”, if the basic description appeals to you. The bad news: none of them are good enough to grab audiences who are not predisposed. As for the three below this line? Stay away.
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Good Dick
Lonely, troubled, introverted, relatively attractive young woman regularly rents soft core porn (Marianna Palka, who also writes and directs). Quirky store clerk living out of his car (Jason Ritter), becomes somewhat obsessed with her, essentially stalks her and then weasels his way into crashing on her couch and eventually her life. You want to root for Palka, a struggling actress who manages to write, direct and get produced her own film. Alas, Good Dick is just not that good, as neither main character is all that interesting or engaging. The score is painful.
Yasukuni
Japanese documentary about a sword shrine that creates controversy over Japan’s imperial past. I left after 45 minutes for another screening. Up to that point, it mostly had the feel of a home movie. There was very little background explanation, with long shots simply focusing on conflict between protestors and supporters outside the shrine. You could have done this with a camcorder, a voice over and some Wikipedia research. Maybe it gets better--but I’ll never know.
Blind Date
A passion project for Stanley Tucci. Like many passion projects, downright awful. Man and a woman (Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) meet in a bar for a blind date. Except it’s not, they are husband and wife. Blind date goes bad. Next scene they try again. And then again and again. On the off chance you ignore my recommendation and see this film, I won’t tell you why they are in this self-destructive spiral, but it is not worth sitting through to find out. A remake of a Theo Van Gogh film that I can only hope was more interesting.