Hey Harry, et al. Bungion Boy here in New York. This past January I attended the Sundance Film Festival for the first time. I had the time of my life and saw 18 films in about four and a half days. Some great, some interesting, some shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for a release. Check out my original reviews HERE. Still with all I had seen, there were several films that had been on my list that I didn’t get a chance to see. So this week I’ve been attending the 2nd Annual Sundance At BAM Festival in Brooklyn. Essentially Robert Redford brought about 25 films from the 2007 Sundance Festival and is showing them in New York. I had the opportunity to see some of my favorites from January, (Snow Angels, Rocket Science, Padre Nuestro) and catch a few new ones that I thought I’d write a few mini reviews for. Enjoy.
Son of Rambow (Dir: Garth Jennings)- This was one that I really wanted to see at Sundance but the few people I know who saw it weren’t too impressed by it. “Liked it but didn’t love it,” was what I heard the most of there. I didn’t know anything about it past the basic premise: two kids, obsessed with Rambo, decide to make their own Rambo movie. I was sort of expecting a kind of “Be Kind, Rewind” for kids, but I’m happy to say that the film is so much more than that.
The scenes of the kids making the film are hilarious and often visually inventive, but the film is really about the connection that is made between two very different kids. There is William, whose father has recently died and is completely sheltered by his religion that forbids him to watch television or films. Then there is Carter, who is the little snot kid that everyone in school hates. He’s an asshole to teachers and students. He’s a bully to those younger than him, while still being a victim who is beaten and loathed by others older than him. When he is kicked out of classes for being disruptive, you can hear the faint cheers of students shouting “Hooray!” after the classroom door slams behind him. While the two kids do form an unlikely bond to one another, it isn’t the kind of film where they realize that they’re not so different after all. They are very different and remain different throughout the film. They are just both so lonely that they welcome each other into their lives, even if they’re not the ideal person they’d want for a friend.
The film reminded me a lot of the films of Louis Malle, especially the way he deals with children in “Murmur of the Heart” and “Au Revoir, Les Enfants.” As funny as this film is, I would have liked to have even more of the dramatic background of the situations that the two boys are in, and really wanted to know more about William’s mother, who is played by Jessica Stevenson of “Spaced” fame. Garth Jennings, who made the criminally underrated “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” has made a much smaller, intimate film here, but still managed to cram in great visual imagery. There’s a great fantasy scene involving an evil scarecrow and I loved staring at all of the quirky art that William’s character makes that serves as storyboards for their film.
There is also a very funny subplot involving the arrival of a French exchange student who dresses a little like Prince and is worshipped by everyone at the school. The attitude of everyone who comes in contact with him changes and one of the best scenes involves a dance club for kids on campus, where students “do drugs” such as sniffing pens that smell like fruit and drinking soda laced with Pop Rocks. It’s all very harmless and innocent though. Jennings knows how to treat the characters like children wanting to act grown up, rather than grown ups trapped in kids bodies. It is worth noting though that about an hour into the film I got very angry because I realized that some of the kids in the film say the occasional swear word and sometimes smoke. This is a wonderful film that has humor and themes mature enough for adults to get, but also a lot that kids will understand and relate to. Plus it’s just so much fun. If this gets an R rating then my frustration with the MPAA will reach new heights. I urge people to see this film when it comes out next year, and I urge parents to take their kids.
Great World of Sound (Dir. Craig Zobel)- This was one of my friend’s’ favorite films from the festival. While it has some unique subject matter and some really interesting ways of telling its story, I couldn’t ever completely get behind it. The film was made by Zobel, who has worked with David Gordon Green on films like “George Washington” and “Undertow.” Green, in turn, produced this film with Zobel.
The story exhibits the practice of Song Sharks, which is essentially a con that has been around for decades. Pat Healy plays Martin, who has just gotten a job with Great World of Sound Records, finding new talent and producing albums. His job entails meeting with bands and singers, having them perform for him, and then, whether he likes what he hears or not, asking them to pay $3,000 or so to help make a record. Sound a little suspicious? Well my biggest problem was that it doesn’t sound the least bit suspicious to Martin, and it isn’t until over an hour into the film before he starts to piece together what’s really going on. The whole process aside, just his orientation to the company should tip him off. The opening scenes are very funny as the people at the top teach their new drones how to “sign” clients. The reason these scenes are so funny is because the bosses are such over the top scam artists and that makes for good comedy, but it doesn’t make sense that Martin thinks this is all legitimate. For a while, I thought that Martin’s partner, in a very funny performance by Kene Holiday, knew exactly what was going on and was deliberately keeping Martin in ignorance, but that doesn’t turn out to be the case. That would have made for an interesting twist, but instead it goes exactly where you’re expecting. Martin isn’t played as a stupid character, but you the movie asks you to believe that he believes very stupid things. Still, Healy is excellent at playing a bland guy with little personality, while never making his performance bland.
The audition scenes are what makes this film worth seeing. Almost all of the bands that audition are real bands and performers, recorded by hidden cameras, who thought that they were really getting their big break. These scenes are mostly improvised and they really give Healy and Holiday the chance to show their verbal skills, which occasionally makes these scenes have a very different tone from the rest of the film. Sometimes I felt bad for the people auditioning, because they get a lot of pitiful and pathetic laughter from the audience. It seemed like Zobel’s film about people who exploit musicians was actually exploiting these people. Still there is some nice work here, a lot of earned laughter, and an interesting world to explore, at least for a little while. I will say that Zobel’s Q and A gave a lot more back story of the subject matter that might make me enjoy the film more when I give it a second chance. This might have worked better as a short, as the real auditions make up for about half of the film and can get tedious, but it is what it is.
Delirious (Dir. Tom DiCillo)- I’m always curious to see a new Tom DiCillo film. His work ranges from great, (Living in Oblivion, Box of Moonlight) to noble and interesting failures (The Real Blonde, Double Whammy). “Delirious” falls somewhere in between. DiCillo regular Steve Buscemi plays Les, a paparazzo who demands to be referred to as a licensed professional. It’s one of those sleazy, disgusting characters that is made all the more sleazy and disgusting by the fact that he’s played by Buscemi. Seriously, he has one of the most expressive faces in film. However, there’s more to Les than the sleaze, and Buscemi lets us see all the layers of the character. He makes Les a hilarious but sad and sympathetic character that wants to be taken seriously, but is all too aware of what a loser he is.
Enter Michael Pitt as Toby, a homeless man who has a chance encounter with Les one day and looks up to him and his glamorous life photographing celebrities. At first Les is creeped out by Toby, (one of the films running gags is Les and everyone else keeps asking Toby if he’s gay), but eventually Les takes Toby under his wing, just happy to have anyone looking up to him. Les teaches Toby the tricks of the trade and Toby is all to eager and excited to learn. I’ve sometimes had problems with Michael Pitt who just looks lazy and sleepy in so many of his films, but here he’s pretty funny and plays against type. A nice friendship forms between the two, we meet Les’ parents and get some insight into why he so desperately craves approval, and there are funny gags involving Les’ apartment and lifestyle and what it takes to be a paparazzo. That’s the first half of the movie. It’s really enjoyable and entertaining. But then the movie completely shifts gears.
Toby falls for a famous singer, played convincingly by Alison Lohman, and after a series of events becomes famous in his own right. With that, gone is the interesting performance by Pitt and his usual lazy, sleepy persona returns. I was disappointed because his character seems so fascinated by the world of the paparazzi, but when he becomes famous he stops being fascinated and just looks bored and livid, like young celebrities are supposed to look. The whole tone of the first half of the film is gone and there’s a lot more over the top satire, which peeked through the first half but at least that also had real character development and compelling scenes. Worst of all, Buscemi vanishes from the story for large chunks, which is too bad because not only have we become attached to Steve’s great performance, but also his character. The whole thing builds to a finale that’s supposed to be dramatic but plays as kind of silly, mostly thanks to a prop that is such an out of place, ridiculous item, that we know it will play a part in the story as soon as it’s introduced in the first act of the film. To be fair, the second half of the film isn’t really that awful. It’s still interesting and entertaining, with some good work by Gina Gershon, Callie Thorne, and the always hilarious David Wain, but it just doesn’t really match the rest of the film. The shift is too abrupt and takes us out of the paparazzi world before we’ve learned everything we wanted to know about it. Plus there is less screen time for Steve Buscemi, who turns in one of his best and memorable performances in years. In the Q and A, DiCillo said that the movie was practically written in the editing room, so maybe somewhere out there there’s a version of the film that works better, but this one kind of let me down. I still recommend it to Buscemi. They are in for a treat. At least for about an hour.
That’s all for now. This is Bungion Boy, signing off.
-Bungion Boy
