February 2, 2008

Park City 08. Cleaning up.

Sundance 08 What follows, basically, are honorable mentions, odds and ends worth pointing to that have gathered since the Sundance and Slamdance film festivals opened a couple of weeks ago but haven't really snowballed into a full-blown entry.

Sundance

Dramatic Competition

  • August: "Austin Chick's drama is about the lengths people will go to cling to illusions they love," writes Matt Singer at IFC News. "[Josh] Hartnett skillfully anchors this mostly impressive drama, which captures its pre-9/11 New York City milieu with wit and nuance." The Reeler talks with Chick; Shawn Levy and Ray Pride talk with screenwriter Howard A Rodman.

  • "Much like last year's Lars and the Real Girl, The Last Word is a very conventional and mostly successful romantic dramedy that comes packaged in an outlandish premise," writes Ryan Stewart at In the Company of Glenn. "In this case, we're led to believe that Evan (American Beauty's Wes Bentley, still sporting that mass-murderer stare) is a freelance writer who supports himself by crafting the suicide notes of clients who are planning their final departure as calmly and carefully as a routine business trip to Palo Alto.... There's hardly anything exceptional about the film, the writing and directing debut of longtime camera operator Geoffrey Haley, but it's also hard to pin down flaws." IndieWIRE interviews Haley.

  • The Mysteries of Pittsburgh "is an off-target, surprisingly weightless adaptation of Michael Chabon's beloved 1988 novel," writes Steve Ramos in indieWIRE. "Pittsburgh has no flow, no depth and no emotional heft." For the Los Angeles Times, Chris Lee talks with writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber, whose Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was a surprise box office smash in 2003: "'I guess it's the anti-follow-up,' Thurber shrugged, biting into a croissandwich at a Hollywood diner days before leaving for North America's preeminent indie film fest. 'It's a novel I have loved since I read it in '95. And I wanted to use whatever momentum, whatever juice I had, to make something that wouldn't have gotten made otherwise.'" Online viewing tip. At Zoom In Online, a "Meet the Artists" interview with Thurber.

  • North Starr: IndieWIRE interviews writer-director Matthew Stanton. Online viewing tip. At Zoom In Online, a "Meet the Artists" interview with Stanton.

Documentary Competition

  • "A personal interrogative doc, more Morgan Spurlock than Doug Block, Christopher Bell's Bigger, Stronger, Faster uses his family's experiences with steroids as the in point to tackle the larger roles of body perception, performance inhancement and competition in contemporary American culture," writes Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog. "The voice of the film, delivered via Bell's narration, can be hackneyed and a bit too cute, but on the whole Bell mounts a surprisingly sophisticated argument - surprising because he's a first time feature-maker, surprising because it's clearly on Bell's agenda to please his crowd, surprising because this is a film that uses footage from Rocky 4 to make its thesis argument - that steroid criminalization amounts to hating the player whilst willfully ignoring the dynamics of the game." It caught the IFC's Alison Willmore "completely by surprise" as it "heads way beyond the bounds of the average outrage doc." IndieWIRE interviews Bell. Online viewing tip. Zoom In Online's "Meet the Artists" video with Bell.

  • "The Recruiter (formerly called An American Soldier) is a sober and sobering documentary about the Army recruiting office in a small town in Louisiana, paying special attention to the star recruiter and a handful of his latest recruits, eventually following them through basic training," writes Rob Davis for Paste. "It's a fair movie about an important aspect of the war that I don't remember seeing onscreen except for a brief segment in Michael Moore's [Fahrenheit 9/11]. Online viewing tip. At Zoom In Online, a "Meet the Artists" interview with writer-director Edet Belzberg.

  • The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo: The Reeler talks with writer-director Lisa F Jackson. Online viewing tip. At Zoom In Online, a "Meet the Artists" interview with Jackson.

World Cinema Dramatic Competition

Máncora

  • "When MTV Latin America honcho Ricardo de Montreuil made his first film, La Mujer de Mi Hermano, I thought (and wrote): Here is a man who ought to be making TV movies for Lifetime or Telemundo," writes Eric D Snider at Cinematical. His follow-up, the generic coming-of-age story Máncora, is more of the same - selfish, gorgeous people having sex and lying to one another while undergoing a bland process of self-discovery."

  • "When Mermaid opens, I fully expect it to become one of those beloved foreign films that people I know gush over while I bite my tongue," writes the AV Club's Noel Murray. "[T]he relentless wackiness is, well, relentless."

  • Perro Come Perro: For Noel Murray, again at the AV Club, it "doesn't make up in voodoo-enhanced local color what it loses in generic plotting and state-of-last-year's-art cinematography."

  • "Although this is a story about a broken relationship, there's as much comedy as tragedy in the tale," writes Kim Voynar in Cinematical. "Riprendimi would be a great pickup for arthouse distribution; I only hope that it doesn't get bought for an English remake starring a big name cast, because it's a really lovely film just as it is."

  • "In July 2006, war broke out between Israel and Lebanon," Erik Davis reminds us at Cinematical. "Unable to adequately process what was happening to his home country, Lebanese director Philippe Aractingi decided to pick up his camera and start shooting ten days in, with no script and only the vague nugget of a story in his head. The end result is Under the Bombs, a fictional tale set against the backdrop of a very real battle." This is "an intense, yet beautiful story about two strangers who come together with one common goal: seek out the truth."

World Cinema Documentary Competition

  • "I was blown away, with some restraint appropriate to the material, by Alone in Four Walls, Alexandra Westheimer's shockingly beautiful and shockingly apolitical documentary about a juvenile hall in Russia," writes David Poland. "The film doesn't have the dramatic flourish of Born Into Brothels or Deliver Us From Evil, but it is complex documentation. And the images... my God... some of those images are the kinds that feature filmmakers dream of creating." And Dennis Harvey in Variety: "Quietly involving pic lands somewhere between social plea and minimalist, aestheticized slice of institutional life."

  • Be Like Others: "Tanaz Eshaghian's brief-but-thorough film captures the ambivalence of the patients' families and the well-meaning arrogance of their doctors, but its real coup is in catching up with a few of its subjects one year later," writes the AV Club's Noel Murray. The Reeler talks with Eshaghian; so does Jesse Ellison for New York's Vulture.

Recycle
  • Recycle: "There's not much to this slice-of-life doc, which follows devout Muslim Abu Amar as he wiles away his days hauling garbage, watching TV, working on a book about Islam, and talking politics with his buddies," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club. "A critic friend I dined with afterward hated this movie, but I found it endlessly fascinating."

  • "Set against the backdrop of China's Three Gorges Dam project, which aims to harness the power of the Yangtze River to help meet the country's growing need for electricity, Up the Yangtze examines the climate of political and social change in China through the lives of two young people," writes Kim Voynar at Cinematical. "The stories of the Yu Shui and Chen Bo Yu are interesting enough by themselves, but what particularly makes Up the Yangtze a fascinating work is how filmmaker Yung Chang addresses the larger societal issues facing China today by following these young peoples' personal journeys." IndieWIRE interviews Yung Chang. Online listening: Kevin Buist has a quick interview with Yung Chang for the SpoutBlog.

Premieres

Death in Love
  • Death in Love: The Reeler interviews writer-director Boaz Yakin.

  • Diminished Capacity: IndieWIRE interviews director Terry Kinney.

  • "The Escapist, directed by Rupert Wyatt, is a high-octane, efficiently told story from the UK about a prison break, with just the exciting bits, no boring setup, scrambled chronologically into a complex web of suspense," writes Rob Davis for Paste. "Swifter, grittier, and louder than the typical jailbreak movie - no one will mistake it for Bresson's contemplative A Man Escaped nor Darabont's sentimental Shawshank Redemption - The Escapist still falls firmly within the tradition of underground break-outs." IndieWIRE interviews Wyatt.

  • "Imagine The Bucket List reconceived as a New York art installation, with some free-love shenanigans thrown in for good measure, and you'll have a faint idea of what to expect from actress Amy Redford's uneven but occasionally entrancing filmmaking debut, The Guitar," writes Justin Chang in Variety. "A moodily offbeat chamber piece carried along by Saffron Burrows's delicate, somber performance as a dying woman who locks herself away to spend her final month in luxurious isolation, this beguiling wisp of a film charms and maddens in equal measure, and as such boasts commercial prospects roughly in line with those of the average street musician." The Reeler and indieWIRE talk with Redford. Online viewing tip. Zoom In Online's "Meet the Artists" video with Redford.

  • "Hamlet 2 was one of the first - and biggest - sales at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, claimed by Focus Feaures for a reported $10 million," notes James Rocchi at Cinematical. "And after finally seeing it... I had one of those moments where one feels totally disassociated from the second half of the phrase 'show business.'... Maybe Focus have bought themselves the next Little Miss Sunshine, a wacky, sprawling-cast comedy that will have a lively, lucrative life after the festival. But after watching Hamlet 2 - a shoddy and indulgent mass of bits from other movies with a shapeless, shameless performance by British comedic actor Steve Coogan as its unfixed center - I wasn't thinking of Little Miss Sunshine or Once or any of the other Sundance success stories of the recent past. I was thinking of Happy, Texas - the most recent and memorable example of a big-money Sundance sale where the excitement about the film crumpled as the movie descended from the elevations of Park City."

  • "Based on the book by Chris Cleave, Incendiary follows a grieving mother (Michelle Williams) as she attempts to come to terms with a terrorist bombing that takes the life of her husband and young son," writes Erik Davis at Cinematical. "Some have criticized the book for taking advantage of the London bombings, however it was written before that attack and even arrived in bookstores on that same day. Bridget Jones's Diary director Sharon Maguire takes the helm here, bringing us a daunting multi-layered story that begins with a bang (no pun intended), but then slowly falls apart when it doesn't have time to tie up loose ends."

  • A Raisin in the Sun: IndieWIRE interviews director Kenny Leon.

Sleepwalking
  • "Sleepwalking stars Charlize Theron - but she disappears from the screen for about two-thirds of the film," writes James Rocchi at Cinematical. "It's set in the American West - but shot in Canada. It's about family, pain, loss, renewal - all of which are discussed, and discussed more elegantly, in other films at Sundance this year. It even has what's become a fairly standard-issue Sundance finale, as a character hits the open road with a bright future ahead of them, aside from the murder rap in their rear view mirror. It's not that Sleepwalking is bad, per se; it's just that it's inert, a space-and-schedule filler that can now put the words 'Sundance Premiere Selection' on the DVD box when it goes straight-to-video." Matt Singer at IFC News: "What an appropriate title for a movie that seems to be working solely from a checklist of Sundance movie tropes."

  • "[Alan] Ball is a creator of ensembles, and in the last third of the film, when his script (adapted from Alicia Erian's autobiographical novel) finally finds a way to cram all these people into the same house, Towelhead finds some satisfying depth and texture," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "In particular, it's [Toni] Collette and [Peter] Macdissi's characters, and their battle over Jasira's future, who are the heart and soul of the picture, and who don't get nearly enough screen time together. Up till then, though, there's a well-intentioned, young-adult-novel drabness to Towelhead."

Spectrum: Dramatic Section

    Birds of America
  • "Dysfunctional families and indie films go together like peanut butter and chocolate, and Birds of America, directed by playwright Craig Lucas, has dysfunction in abundance," writes Kim Voynar at Cinematical. "It's not quite funny enough to appeal as a rom-com, nor quite darkly comedic enough to satisfy.... [I]t just ends up feeling more like a film fest snack than a meal." The Reeler talks with Lucas.

  • "Directed and co-written by Randall Miller, Bottle Shock is exceedingly eager to please - to a fault, perhaps, depending on your palette," writes Rob Nelson at indieWIRE. "In the end, where a blind taste-test brings "the future" of winemaking (and a spiffy blazer for Pine's reforming hippie), Bottle Shock, albeit true, isn't a ripe grape so much as pure American corn."

  • "A constant haze of icy mist and cigarette smoke brings director Tom Hines's emotionally raw relationship drama Chronic Town beautiful grimness and undeniable power," writes Steve Ramos; IndieWIRE interviews Hines.

  • "Early on, Love Comes Lately is a queasy combination of cute and sour, but gradually the Singer sensibility starts to take hold, and the question of when the writer’s art ends and his life begins starts to become genuinely compelling," writes the AV Club's Noel Murray. The Reeler talks with writer-director Jan Schütte.

  • "Taken as a low-key cross between Garden State, The Waterdance and Cronenberg's Crash (now there's a weird combo), there's a good deal to like about the weird but well-intentioned Quid Pro Quo," writes Scott Weinberg at Cinematical. The film "has some pretty insightful things to say about the nature of being 'disabled,' and it does so with a good deal of humor, style, and understanding." The Reeler and indieWIRE talk with writer-director Carlos Brooks.

Spectrum: Documentary Spotlight

  • "A two-man mission to document the world's endangered tongues becomes a fleet-footed study of human communication and its limitless structural and functional possibilities in The Linguists," writes Justin Chang in Variety. "Fascinating insights about the many uses and varieties of human communication... compensate for pic's routine ethnographic approach and sometimes too-swift editing." IndieWIRE interviews the team. Online listening tip. So does Kevin Buist at the SpoutBlog.

  • "Finally saw one that blew my doors off last night," announces the Boston Globe's Ty Burr. "Young@Heart, British filmmaker Stephen Walker traveled to Northampton, Mass, to film the Young@Heart Chorus, a vocal choir whose average age is 80 and whose choice of material includes songs by The Clash, James Brown, Sonic Youth, and a lot of Talking Heads." He's got video, too, of the post-screening discussion.

New Frontier

  • "My favorite film this Sundance, the one that works best for me and which I think displays the most directorial talent and ambition, is Half-Life by Jennifer Pang," writes Michael Ryan at Hammer to Nail. "It is an extremely compelling, visual film and I can't wait to see it again so that I may better understand the mysteries of its formal magic."

Hell Ride
  • "Hell Ride, which [Quentin] Tarantino executive produced and Larry Bishop wrote and directed, is a salute to the ridiculous biker movies that Bishop frequently acted in back in the late 60s and early 70s," writes Eric D Snider at Cinematical. "With titles like The Savage Seven and Chrome and Hot Leather, these were pure grindhouse cheese, and Hell Ride is either a parody of them or an adoring tribute. The line is always fine when it comes to a Tarantino project - does he really like these movies, or does he only like them ironically? - and here it's nearly invisible."

Park City at Midnight

  • Adventures of Power: "Wow," marvels Scott Weinberg at Cinematical. "You just don't expect to see a movie this awful playing at the Sundance Film Festival (even if a good deal of the film was shot in Utah)." The Reeler interviews writer-director Ari Gold.

  • "[N]ot until the final third does Ellis really get the movie moving, right before stinging the audience with a final twist that's not quite as profound as it means to be, but is unsettling enough that I began to wonder if The Broken would play better the second time through, when all its scenes of nothingness would become more meaningful," writes the AV Club's Noel Murray. "Unfortunately the movie is really frustrating," writes Quint at AICN.

  • At the IFC Blog, Alison Willmore finds Olly Blackburn's Donkey Punch to be a "gratifyingly nasty midnight movie." IndieWIRE interviews Blackburn.

Slamdance

Far Out

  • Far Out: "In 1972, a flamboyant producer's Hollywood party takes a strange turn when an uninvited guest comes for more than sex and drugs." At Filmmaker, Brandon Harris introduces his interview with director Phil Mucci, whose The Listening Dead "wowed audiences at Slamdance 2007."

  • "I was looking for a story that would allow me to gradually transition to narrative filmmaking using the language I had learned making documentaries," Tao Ruspoli tells Eric Kohn in indieWIRE. Kohn: "Whatever the language, Fix has a magnificent visual panache, glimmering with the neon hues of Beverly Hills. The talented cast of emerging professionals ([Olivia] Wilde was recently cast alongside Jack Black in Year One) compensate for a simplistic quest-based plot."

  • "Frontrunner tells the story of this Dr Massouda Jalal, an Afghani medical doctor and mother of three, who ran for the Presidency of Afghanistan," writes Brandon Harris, introducing his interview with director Virginia Williams for Filmmaker. "As a children's advocate, [Jalal] defied the murderous Taliban regime, and amidst death threats and bomb attacks, continues to work for progressive political policy in the troubled state."

And for Filmmaker, Brandon Harris talked with:



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Posted by dwhudson at February 2, 2008 3:41 PM