Great World of Sound.

Great World of Sound is "a wrenching fable of life at the ass-end of the music business that was one of the few real surprise pictures to emerge at Sundance this year," writes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. "This is independent filmmaking with genuine ambition and an unfaltering vision, depicting unglamorous lives with sympathy but without much sentiment, and thoroughly devoid of the pallid quirkiness that might make it a crossover candidate."

Now, before carrying on with all this, I have to point you to Vadim Rizov's profile of one of Great World's producers, David Gordon Green, in which he explains how Green's become the bridge between two of this summer's hot topics, Judd Apatow and "mumblecore." A must-read. Also at the Reeler is January's chat with director Craig Zobel and Vadim Rizov's review: "On its surface, Great World of Sound has little in common with news reports on Enron and its heirs, focusing as it does on the smallest of scams in the least significant of towns. But dishonesty has to start somewhere, and Great World implicitly shows us where it leads."

Updated through 9/19.

"I found Zobel's film touching and amusing, but it also left me a bit queasy," writes AO Scott. "Most of the gospel crooners and keyboard noodlers we see on screen - some of whom sound pretty good, by the way - had answered talent-seeking ads. They thought they were trying for a record deal, not appearing in a movie.... But there is no doubt that the auditions, like the no-frills cinematography and the worn sets, contribute to the downbeat authenticity that is the most striking feature of Great World of Sound. Mr Zobel may be a scam artist, but he's also the real thing."

"Great World of Sound is painfully specific about the music-scouting grind, which involves listening to a thousand moribund variations of the slop already on the charts, but it's even sharper - Tin Men and Glengarry Glen Ross sharp - about the lies salesmen tell themselves to get through the day," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club.

"Zobel's directorial debut is as bleak a look at working as [Arthur] Miller's or [David] Mamet's earlier efforts, but what's most striking about this bittersweet drama is its absence of indignant rage," writes Tim Grierson in the Voice.

"Sure, it's got some wry humor, but it's also depressing as hell, an ambiguous story about soul-deadening ethical transgressions carried out in drab strip-mall America," writes Peter Smith at Nerve. "Yet bleak as it is, Great World of Sound is also weirdly uplifting; written and acted with admirable subtlety, it shows without telling."

"Before the inevitable sets in, the film is a gently, sometimes brilliantly, discomforting evocation of music-industry fringes - a seedy B-side to Once," writes Jesse Hassenger in the L Magazine.

For Filmmaker, Nick Dawson talks with Zobel "about working with Terrence Malick, his love of I Heart Huckabees, and his desire to make the seventh Bourne movie." And Matt Singer talks with Zobel for IFC News.

And for the New York Press, Eric Kohn talks with him, too, "about his experiences since the film premiered at Sundance in January."

Update, 9/16: A "smarter, post-reality-television generation of novels and movies is beginning to emerge," writes Caryn James in the New York Times. "The clever little film Great World of Sound (which opened on Friday) and the graphic novel The Homeless Channel (published in May) tackle the issues behind reality television with subtlety and a true understanding of the genre's appeal. And even movies like last year's satire American Dreamz and the current fantasy The Nines, which don't go far in analyzing the genre, appreciate its allure."

Sound Updates, 9/19: "Zobel's method lends the movie a psychological depth that'd be difficult to achieve in conventional fictional filmmaking," writes Robert Levin at cinemaattraction. "The experience of watching real people negotiate their ways through genuine emotions and concerns strips the film of any artifice."

IndieWIRE interviews Zobel.

Posted by dwhudson at September 14, 2007 9:42 AM