Sundance2011

Go ahead, get out your tiny violins.

I’m so tired of watching movies!

I understand the idea of complaining about reviewing movies (even as a side-job) isn’t apt to get much pity. But quite honestly, Sundance can be an exhausting experience. It can also be an inspiring, fascinating and exhilarating one. Which, of course, is why we keep going. Even 30 years into its history, Robert Redford’s annual celebration of indie film is still the pick of the litter when it comes to US film festivals. It has up and down years, but so does the film industry in general. So how does 2011 stack up? Let’s run through the 15 films I managed to cover in 4 days…it’s only a snapshot but that’s the best one man and a shuttle bus can accomplish in that amount of time.

THE PREMIERES:

RED STATE was the hottest ticket at the fast for a few reasons. Director Kevin Smith was synonymous with Sundance ever since Clerks made him a success. But rumor was this was a bit of a departure from the guy who tends to just sit his camera down, walk away, and let the actors read his dialogue for 10-minutes at a stretch. Plus, there was no press screening scheduled…which only fueled the flames for some sort of coverage.

The film itself is a departure. But after Cop Out, Smith had nowhere to go but up. Set in the fictional Southern town of Cooper’s Dell, Red State follows the recent trend of torture porn to a certain extent. A rabid preacher and his flock kidnap a trio of horny teens and plan to execute them for their sins. But the arrival of government agents results in a Waco-style stand-off that threatens to leave no one left alive.

Smith shifts back and forth between his traditional, dialogue driven habits and a more visceral style. But he strikes gold in the form of actor Michael Parks. As Pastor Abin Cooper, Parks makes one hell of an evil impression. So much so that Smith lets him ramble far more than he should. Melissa Leo also makes for a convincing trailer-trash zealot. And overall Red State ranks as a successful evolution for a filmmaker who seemed content to breath through his gills.

MY IDIOT BROTHER: for my money, there was no more joyous, inspiring, hilarious performance at the fest than Paul Rudd’s as Ned, the frustratingly naïve brother to a trio of sisters who share duties babysitting him after a hilarious pot bust to open the film (he sells to a uniformed officer). Rudd has been banking on his “nice guy” performance for years, but never to better effect than here. As Ned drifts from one situation to another, his honesty and genuine concern for others actually digs him into a deeper hole. Director Jesse Peretz makes Rudd the center of a universe upon which all the other performers revolve perfectly (Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Steve Coogan). And if there is any justice in the world, Ned will be celebrated with as much fan fervor as Jeff Bridges “The Dude”….those two would get along great together.

THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED: Based on the case study by Dr. Oliver Sack’s (portrayed by Robin Williams in Awakenings), we cover a lot of the same ground here. After running away from home at the height of the ‘60s counter-culture movement, Gabriel Sawyer turns up in a hospital 20-years later with a brain tumor that prevents him from generating any new memories. The only way he “comes to life” is listening to the music that tore him and his dad (J.K. Simmons) apart. Who new listening the The Grateful Dead had such miraculous curative powers? Music often generates some honest emotion. But it just as frequently seems like a maudlin stage play. That and the structural similarities to Awakenings makes for a less-than-original trip down memory lane.

THE DOCS:

Even though more and more documentaries wind up getting face time thanks to HBO and other cable networks, it’s still a good idea to see as many as you can while you’re at Sundance. Odds are it might be the only chance you get.

CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL is like a B-movie greatest hits. Even for someone like me, whose seen a healthy percentage of Roger’s catalog, you can’t help but emerge from the theater amazed at everything the man accomplished…with budgets that wouldn’t pay for the ergonomic chair James Cameron sits his egocentric ass in. Flashing through Corman’s film history with trailers and interviews from significant filmmakers he set on the golden path (Scorsese, Bogdanovich, Ron Howard), the doc is consistently entertaining…much like Roger’s films. And even features an emotional breakdown by early collaborator Jack Nicholson. Anyone who can make handsome Jack break down and cry deserves to be put on a pedastal.

THESE AMAZING SHADOWS: It seems too “spot on” to include a documentary about the movies during a film festival. And quite honestly, there’s not a lot of depth here. We do find out exactly “how” and “why” certain films are selected to enter the vaults as part of the National Film Registry. And exactly how embarrassed the head of the committee was to stand up in front of congress and defend The Rocky Horror Picture show as being worthy of preservation for future generations. Like one of the Academy Award montages, at the very least The Amazing Shadows serves as a celebration of cinema…and points out some titles you might want to add to your Netflix queue.

TROUBADOURS: East Coast “rock” vs. West Coast “rock”…the debate still rages on. Better never quite so strongly as during the rise of the singer/songwriter days of the early ‘70s. After the chaos of Altamont, musicians like James Taylor, Carole King and Jackson Browne took the stage and showed rock’s softer side. The film focuses on Doug Weston’s LA club, The Troubadour, and its role in launching the career of so many West Coast artists and comedians (Steve Martin and Cheech and Chong played there, too!). With a great soundtrack, the film tells some inspiring stories but never plays the artists’ B-sides, preferring to stick to the happy ending rather than truly take a warts-and-all approach that would have elevated it from a mellow greatest hits collection.

THE DRAMAS:

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE: The one real “discovery” of the fest is Elizabeth Olsen, the younger sister of twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Popping up in two film (the other being the poorly reviewed horror flick Silent House), Elizabeth projects very naturally on screen and seems unintimidated even when confronted by a presence like John Hawkes, up for an Oscar in Winter’s Bone, and here as a frightening cult leader who refuses to give up his girls. Olsen’s character does manage to escape, and the film proceeds to cut between her life in the cult and her life on the lam with her estranged sister’s family. The film wants to be a thriller – and it would have made a remarkably good one – but suffers from some serious indie workshopping, wasting screen time on petty arguments and sibling rivalry that would have been better spent moving the plot forward. Martha is moderately successful despite that, but still ranks as a bit of a disappointment.

ON THE ICE: Another plot that could have fit right at home in Hollywood: two boys accidently kill a friend on the ice then conspire to cover up their crime. The only gimmick is the setting (Alaska) and the characters (native Inuits). Cast with real Inuit teens, the acting is barely professional and frequently pulls you out of the intensity of the situation. Plus, the fact that even in Alaska teenagers all pretend they’re gangster rappers is just too disappointing for words.

SUBMARINE: With a laugh-a-minute pace equal to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, this UK coming-of-age comedy is something boys of almost any age can relate to. 15-year-old Oliver Tate believes the world pretty much revolves around him…at least in his imagination, which the film cuts to quite frequently. This despite the fact that he has no girlfriend, gets poor grade and is fighting to keep his parents marriage from dissolving thanks to the new-age guru who moved in next door (Paddy Considine). Submarine travels down the same currents as countless other tales of awakening sexual maturity, but it does so with such wit and heartbreaking emotion (who doesn’t believe world will end after their first break-up?) that you can’t help but relive it all again yourself.

ANOTHER EARTH: Like the brilliant and underappreciated Never Let Me Go, director Mike Cahill’s story of the discovery of a mirror planet to our own hidden behind the sun is just background material for the tragic characters taking center stage. The sci-fi element does come in to play for Rhoda (Brit Marling), who killed the wife and son of a local composer in a drunk driving accident. Released from prison four years later, she longs for some sort of escape and signs up to win a trip on the first shuttle to this other Earth (which, by the way, has the same people, cities and geography as our own). In the meantime, her she gets up the courage to apologize to the man whose life she ruined (William Mapother) but winds up becoming his cleaning woman – and eventual love interest – instead. Another Earth revels in the sort of bleak, tragic tone of many film festival entries. But patience is rewarded with an unconventional approach to the material and some better than average performances.

FOREIGN FILMS:

I’m not a big fan of the “pop-in,” either as a social practice of surprising someone unannounced or of an unscheduled Sundance film. By and large, I make my schedule and stick to it…there’s just too many films to do it any other way. But, boy am I glad I walked into CIRMCUMSTANCE, an Iranian import that explores the hypocritical restrictions on women’s appearance and behavior in a country that is ruled by religious fervor. Meanwhile, social and sexual rebellion is bubbling up. Teenage girls Atafeh and Shireen hit backroom clubs and experiement with sex, drugs and their own forbidden attraction. Atafeh’s brother, Mehran, joins the morality police (despite his own hidden passions) and begins recording and transforming the family into his rigid, religious worldview. Reading that description, even I wouldn’t be so keen to see the film. But, trust me, Circumstance tells its story in such a compelling, well-paced and Western fashion that even people who are afraid of subtitles should be lining up.

I SAW THE DEVIL: By now you might have heard about the screening of Lucky McKee’s The Woman after which a festival attendee berated the filmmaker and the audience for enjoying what he considered to be a “disgusting movie!” I think we should schedule a double-feature, because Ji-woon Kim’s film wallows in a sea of misogynistic violence, cannibalism, torture and revenge. After the death of his fiancé, supercop Kim Soo-hyeon tracks down the killer (played by Min-sik Choi of Old Boy), beats him within an inch of his life, then lets him go. But that’s not the end of the story. Our supercop has implanted the bad guy with a GPS device, so whenever he misbehaves (and he does quite often), our hero (if that’s what he truly is) can swoop in and inflict more pain. Of course, eventually things go wrong and the line between hero and villain becomes blurred to the point of bloody invisibility. Not a film that can truly be enjoyed, but one that pushes the traditional revenge story to gory new heights.

THE MIDNIGHT SHOWS:

After a day of heady, pretentious “art” it’s often a relief to head into one of the Sundance midnight shows and just have a good time. And with a title like HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN it would seem you couldn’t go wrong. Director Jason Eisener’s balls-out tribute to the second-shelf video store classics of the ‘80s gets the look right (supersaturated neon bleeds from every scene), the cast right (Rutger Hauer made a career out of bad action movies post-Blade Runner) and the score right (dig that Ennio Morricone rip-off title theme!). But he’s almost too good at making a bad movie. Hobo feels exactly like the sort of strange, you-either-get-it-or-you-don’t films that Tromo was making at the same period of the ‘80s. It exists in its own universe, plays by its own rules and invites you to share in the insanity. But if you don’t share at least some of the Tromo mindset, Hobo makes one big inside joke. I was relatively indifferent. But just to be clear, I was never a big fan of The Toxic Avenger either. However the short film that played before the premiere (The Legend of Beaver Dam) is worth tracking down wherever you can find it.

THE TROLL HUNTER: Since Sundance started the whole new cycle of “found footage” movies with Blair Witch back in the ‘90s, it’s only fair they should add a new one to the sub-genre. Escorting a team of film students into the back country, a local poacher admits he’s really a government sponsored troll hunter responsible for keeping the nasty creatures in check. We’re then treated to several unwatchable scenes of people running through the woods interspersed with a visual dictionary of the creatively designed creatures. We get to see a fair share of the computer generated monsters and the toungue-in-cheek mythology created around them is often hilarious (they can’t resist gnawing on old tires, for some reason), but the end result is less successful that even moderately successful films like The Last Exorcism. This is one midnight show that’s hard to recommend staying up for.