Hey folks, Harry here with a run-down of one of our yearly reporters from SUNDANCE... The Great Joe Bradley. He spent nine days in that frigid film frontier town and these were the pics that perked him right up! Take a read!
Hi Harry - I'm back home after nine action packed days at Sundance. This is year six for me and each year it gets crazier. Once again I'm exhausted and recovering from nine days of hard core skiing, meals on the run, late night parties, and of course the 29 movies, good and bad, I watched during the week. Unlike Moriarty, Robie and the rest of your Sundance spies, I left the laptop at home this trip, so this is my quick and dirty post-festival wrap up of the highs and lows of the week.
What was this year's festival like? First, unlike last year, when "Girlfight," "You Can Count on Me," and "SongCatcher" all stood out as clear festival favorites, no film emerged this year as the consensus best of the fest. I saw a few "A-" and "B+" films, and lots of "B" and "B-'s." And where did all the models and model-like pouty people come from this year? Every party seemed to be full of six-foot tall women in minimal garb, not the usual sweater and jeans crowd of years past. Weirder still, by Tuesday, the festival seemed to be dead - even "hot" screenings seemed empty, and those elusive cheese cubes in the passholder hospitality suite which in years past would have been instantly devoured were available all day long. It was like everybody except for the volunteers and journalists had left by Monday night.
Like past years, once you cut past the "buzz" films (most of which, like "Double Whammy," were mediocre at best), there were some great films shown. So here's my best of list:
1. MEMENTO
This was my favorite film of the festival mainly because of the ingenuity and originality of its central conceit and the amazing ways in which the filmmakers play with their audience's expectations. The movie, directed by Christopher Nolan, tells the story of a man (played by Guy Pearce of "LA Confidential") who has lost his short term memory and is searching for his wife's killer. Because he can't remember any details for more than fifteen minutes, he has to write his memories on paper, charts, or on notes attached to polaroids. The story is told in reverse order, so that details that appear to be solid facts in one scene are completely reversed or proven to be false in the next. The cast also includes Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano of "The Matrix." I don't want to give away too many details here but the film will reward repeated viewings - I definitely want to see it again to find the clues I missed the first time around.
2. THE DISH
Probably the most successful crowd-pleaser I saw at the festival, the film tells the story of a small town in Australia that is home to one of the satellite dishes that will transmit images from Apollo XI moon landing. Starring Sam Neill and Patrick "Puddy" Warburton, and directed by Rob Stich (who previously directed "the Castle"), the film is funny and charming and if marketed correctly could be a big hit.
3. THE ENDURANCE
Documentaries at Sundance are usually the best films in the festival, and this year was no exception. "The Endurance," however, was the best of the lot - a gripping, beautiful shot and edited account of Ernest Shackleton's failed 1915 Antarctic expedition. Shot like a great action flick and thriller, the film conveyed the time, place and horrendous circumstances of the trip, using both archival footage and modern day shots of the bleak terrain. The real life "Perfect Storm," I'm hoping it gets theatrical distribution - the big screen is the best place to see this incredible movie.
4. HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH
Although not a perfect film (it drags towards the end and some crucial plot points are glossed over), this film was the most fun of the dramatic competition flicks. An expanded version of the stage musical, John Cameron Mitchell's film tells the story of a transsexual heavy metal rocker touring with his/her band through the backwaters of middle America. The costumes and songs are brilliant, as is Mitchell's performance as Hedwig. Given some clever marketing, this could be a new "Rocky Horror."
5. THE DEEP END
This was the best film that nobody talked about at the festival. The story of a Lake Tahoe housewife (Tilda Swinton) whose life is turned upside down after her son's lover is murdered on the family property, the movie features incredible performances and gorgeous cinematography. The ending is a little pat, but Swinton's performance is intense, beautifully nuanced, and Oscar-worthy. When I left on Thursday the movie had still not been picked up - again, if marketed correctly, however, it could be a big arthouse hit.
6. DONNIE DARKO
There have been several reviews of this movie on this site, and I pretty much agree with all of them. "Donnie Darko" is not a perfect film, but it is one of the most original movies to come out of Hollywood in ages. While the plot seems bizarre - the story of a high school student haunted by apocalyptic visions delivered by a six-foot tall bunny - it is much more commercial than that description implies, sort of a John Hughes film gone bad. The cast - including Mary McDonnell, Noah Wyle, and Patrick Swayze as a creepy Tony Robbins-type - is uniformally excellent. I hope Drew Barrymore, who produced the movie, continues to support writing this original.
7. ENIGMA
So when did a $20 million internationally produced and financed costume drama become an independent film? Good question - but who cares, it's a good movie. Starring Kate Winslet and Jeremy Northam, the movie centers around British codebreakers during WWII. Impeccably cast and shot (coming from director Michael Apted, that's not a shocker), and lots of fun. The movie was produced by Mick Jagger, who showed up at the screening and generated more rubbernecking than any other celebrity at the festival.
8. HOME MOVIE
Chris Smith's film "American Movie" was one of the best documentaries of the last ten years - and his follow-up is almost as good. Smith visits five bizarre homes - a treehouse in Hawaii, a missile silo in the midwest, a complelely gadget-fied home in Illinois, a houseboat in Louisiana, and a home overrun by cats in California - and interviews their owners, seeking to find out why they live the way they live. While lacking the charisma of the filmmaker portrayed in "American Movie," the subjects still are amazing people with incredible stories to tell.
9. THE BUSINESS OF STRANGERS
The love it or hate it movie of the festival. I fall into the former camp - I found the story of two women (played by Stockard Channing and Julia Stiles) who play mind games with each other during an evening layover at a random airport hotel to be both compelling and incredibly well-acted. Some of my colleagues found it cold, remote, and arch - but, hey, sometimes cold, remote and arch stories are really good.
10. SCOTLAND P.A.
For the first half-hour or so of this adaptation of MacBeth (set in a fast-food restaurant), I was ready to walk out - bad writing, bad filming, mediocre acting. And then the damned thing started to work, due mainly to the performances of Maura Tierney as the modern day Lady MacBeth and Christopher Walken as "Detective" MacDuff, as well as the increasingly funny and clever writing. If the first half-hour can be re-edited, this could be a solid film.
HONORABLE MENTION:
11. WAKING LIFE
Some people loved Rick Linklater's latest film, a completely animated non-linear story that follows one character's dream state encounters with a variety of people (including Steven Soderbergh and Ethan Hawke) spouting off cornerstore philosophy. The animation is truly amazing, but the movie, while sometimes amusing, is mainly pretentious and dull. At the world premiere screening, Linklater stated that "if these characters weren't animated, they'd be really pretentious." Sorry Rick, the animation doesn't take away the pretense.
Other films worth mentioning: "Super Troopers" (pretty funny in parts, especially the "meow" bit, but not the laugh out loud peefest that some of the other reviewers on this site have claimed it to be); and "My First Mister" (Christine Lahti's first feature length film is pretty predictable, but features a great performance by the great Albert Brooks).
Other "Sundance" moments worth mentioning: The Atom films party, which proved that Madonna does dictate fashion: hundreds of normally leather clad student filmmaker types were all sporting cowboy hats and riding the mechanical bull in the center of the barn that served as party central; The AMFAR party, which had the best DJ and the cutest crowd.
See you next year in Park City -
Joe Bradley
