Wrapping Telluride.

"Notably, a number of sleeper hits this weekend - including Baltasar Kormakur's Jar City, Kevin Macdonald's My Enemy's Enemy and Li Yang's Blind Mountain - seemed to catch Telluride organizers by surprise, drawing large crowds to smaller theaters and stirring complaints from holders of pricey fest passes," reports Eugene Hernandez in his wrap-up at indieWIRE.

Updated through 9/6.

"The considerable public outcry," he continues, "reported as a front page, above the fold story in the town's local Daily Planet newspaper on Tuesday, is rare for the Tellurude Film Festival, which has fostered a passionate following among industry attendees and general audience members alike, many of whom loyally return year after year for the intimate annual event. Festival faithful, however, seem committed to Telluride."

"Jar City, a tautly directed Icelandic thriller by director Baltasar Kormákur, takes a while to tie all its seemingly disparate pieces together," writes Cinematical's Kim Voynar; "he gets there with deliberate pacing, circling ever closer to the answers, and when it does get there, it comes together like with a satisfying mental 'click' like getting the past piece into a puzzle, or beating Rubik's Cube."

Love this: "Dennis isn't a film or journalism professional (he works as a Registered Nurse); rather, he's just a film and theater lover who spent a vacation at the Telluride festival a decade or so ago and got hooked. He's been there each year since." The Oregonian's Shawn Levy passes along his emailed dispatch.

Updates, 9/6: "Despite some initial fears that the Telluride Film Festival would be reshaped into something unfamiliar to past festival-goers due to a changing of the guard this year - Gary Meyer and Tom Luddy replaced Bill and Stella Pence as the Festival directors - the event seems as innovative, varied and as well organized as it’s always been." Jeff wraps it up at Movie Morlocks.

"My first impression of Margot at the Wedding (which, admittedly, may change after I see it a second time at the New York Film Festival) is that Noah Baumbach's follow-up to The Squid and the Whale is an intermittently fascinating exercise that barely holds together as a film," writes Karina Longworth. Also at the SpoutBlog, Paul on Encounters at the End of the World: "He's a funny narrator, not nearly so severe as in Grizzly Man. But it is Werner Herzog. So, although he's funny, he's constantly reminding us we're all doomed."

JJ offers a list at As Little as Possible: "Five favorite things about Telluride '07."

An Into the Wild roundup:

• "Sean Penn's fourth feature as a director is as exhilarating as it is unwieldy, a sprawling hymn to nature, humanity and personal freedom which firmly establishes the much-feted actor as a filmmaker of vision," writes Mike Goodridge in Screen Daily. "Although a true story, the film is also a throwback of sorts to a brand of 70s road movie - Bound For Glory, Five Easy Pieces, Jeremiah Johnson - which roamed the landscapes of the US, while remaining politically animated and socially aware."

• Cinematical's Kim Voynar reports that Into the Wild was one of "the most polarizing films playing at Telluride this year... Penn doesn't really seek to make us agree with Chris and like him, or not; he simply puts Chris' story out there, narrated by the most sympathetic character, Chris' sister Carine, for us to digest and mull over."

• Larry Calloway proposes that "the movie is more true than the book when it comes to representing the life of the hero in this tragic tale."

• Online listening tip. Kevin Buist talks with Penn for the SpoutBlog.

Posted by dwhudson at September 5, 2007 11:35 AM