Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another batch of Sundance reviews, including our first review of WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY, a dark comedy which this reviewer thinks is the bee's knees. Enjoy the reviews!
Hey AICN,
I'm a big fan of the site and being that this was my first Sundance, I figured I'd drop you guys a line with some reviews. First, let me start out by saying that Sundance is a wonderful experience and if anyone hasn't gone yet, then they should. The staff are all very helpful and it's a shitload of fun. Now, on to the reviews
Little Red Flowers - 3 out of 5
Let me first start by saying that I'm semi-familiar with Asian cinema so I kind of knew what to expect--as far as style goes--out of this one. This is a really cute film about a young Chinese boy (about 4 years old) who has just been sent to a strict kindergarten boarding school. The staff isn't mean, just very stringent when it comes to rules and routine, which the boy never seems to get quite right. It's all about breaking the mold and thinking for yourself and whatnot. The most amazing thing about the film is the acting...because its all done by the kids. And they're great! I mean 4 yr olds acting really well and without that inherent creepiness i feel every time I see Dakota Fanning. It develops slowly as most Asian films tend to do, but it's worth a look.
Cargo - 1.5 out of 5
This film pissed me off because it had such a cool premise, but just refused to deliver. It's (supposedly) about a young German man who gets in trouble while traveling in Africa, so he stows away on a freight ship headed for Europe. While onboard he finds that all the crew are creepy and are hiding terrible skeletons in their collective closets. Sounded cool, but boy did it suck. The plot developed extremely slow and then, in the end, didn't even answer all the questions. To give a hint as to how it went, the first question asked after the films premier was: "who was your main character and what was his arc?" The only thing good here was the beautiful cinematography.
Factotum - 4 out of 5
It's been said time and time again, but it perfectly describes how a viewer will respond to the film: if you like Bukowski, you'll like "Factotum," if not, you won't. Simple as that. As you can tell, I like Bukowski. This film is filled with drunken absurdity and fun, and Dillon's portrayal of Chinaski was spot-on. For those not familiar with Bukowski, if you like drunken craziness, see it, but keep away if you're a stickler for plot and closure.
Art School Confidential - 3.5 out of 5
When I first saw this, I loved it, but like pancakes as the time passed my love faded. The first hour is pure fun. The characters are amazing and it has more laugh-out-loud moments than the writer-director duo's previous film "Ghostworld." However, as the film stretches the comedy starts to fade into a slightly convoluted drama that simply wasn't as fun. I really wish it would have stayed with the same feeling that it had at the start, but it was still pretty good and I'd probably recommend it to a friend.
Darwin Awards - 3 out of 5
Here's another film that should have been better than it was. The premise and stars all look great on paper, but much gets lost in the cliched/forced romance of the only-by-the-rules male and the free-livin' female. It had it's funny, light-hearted moments but for a film about absurd death the comedy lacked any sort of darkness to it. The film ended up being more of a slapstick comedy than a dark one and the only acting that really stood out was surprisingly Winona Ryder's. Go figure. Worth a look but don't expect anything groundbreaking.
Wristcutters: A Love Story - 5 out of 5
I am extremely surprised that I haven't seen anything for this on the site yet. This films is everything a dark comedy should be. It's about a young man who after committing suicide finds out that self-inflicted death only takes you to another world which is pretty much like ours except slightly worse. As he put it, it's the perfect punishment because your death accomplished nothing. He goes about living his, uh, life until he finds out that the girl he killed himself over has "offed" herself as well and so he sets upon a journey with a new friend and a female hitchhiker in order to find her. The characters are all remarkably flawed and funny and the quirkiness switches to an absolutely wonderful weirdness with the emergence of Tom Waits, whose character I won't describe because I really don't want to spoil this one. There isn't a person in Park City who didn't love this film and it's definitely worth all the buzz its getting. Without a doubt the best film I saw while I was there and I think the sites staff is gonna love it. Check it out.
With that, I'm gone. Enjoy the reviews
-Marcus
