Sundance. Steve Buscemi x 2.

Steve Buscemi, "an indie god among video-store clerks: patron saint of character actors, working stiffs, and last-true-believers everywhere," as Logan Hill called him in his profile for New York last week, stars in two films at Sundance, Tom DiCillo's Delirious and his own Interview. Now, the first reviews are coming in.

"Delirious is a major-league indie crowd pleaser and could end up being one of the biggest sales of the festival," wrote David Poland the other day. "[I]t has the makings of a cult classic." But the Reeler "can't figure out why Poland - whose contrarian-for-its-own-sake streak traditionally runs hot but who certainly has taste - could be so upbeat about a straight-to-DVD shelfwarmer."

For Cinematical's Scott Weinberg, though, Delirious is "a poker-faced but insightful and amusing comedic drama that takes square aim at pop stars, paparazzi and stargazers without ever settling for the obvious joke or the predictable punchline. This comes as no big surprise to me, considering that the writer/director of Delirious is Tom DiCillo, frequent Jim Jarmusch cinematographer and rather astute filmmaker in his own right. (DiCillo gave us Johnny Suede, The Real Blonde and - one of my favorite movies about filmmakers - the excellent Living in Oblivion).

But for Eric Kohn, blogging for the New York Press, it "feels like the corpse of a movie treatment that once seemed like a good idea. It veers from a send-up of NYC publicity chaos to a buddy comedy, then teases with some vaguely homoerotic themes, morphs into a thriller, and suddenly throws everything out the window for a mindlessly cheery finale."

Then again, on the other hand, Sura Wood for the Hollywood Reporter: "Tom DiCillo's smart, funny and ultimately over-the-top spoof is more often than not, spot on."

In Interview, tabloid joke Sienna Miller convinces that she can carry a film, which bodes well for the upcoming Factory Girl," writes Annie Frisbie at Zoom In Online. "She's the definition of lovely, and far outshines this poorly scripted remake of slain Dutch director Theo van Gogh's 2003 film of the same name."

But AICN's Quint finds it "a great mix of artistry and entertainment."

Updates, 1/26: Sheila Johnston profiles Buscemi for the Independent.

Robin Abcarian talks with Sienna Miller for the Los Angeles Times.

Update, 1/29: Tom Hall: "Of all the losers on the screen at the festival, Buscemi's Les [in Delirious] somehow felt the most human."

Update, 2/5: In MovieMaker, Tom DiCillo sings the praises of the "digital intermediate (a digitization of a project in order to manipulate color and other image characteristics)": "In some cases, the DI actually allows you to rewrite the script."

Coverage of the coverage: The Park City Index.

Posted by dwhudson at January 22, 2007 3:10 PM