In 2004, we had 200 movies to chose from, including a few that are now household names: Napoleon Dynamite, Supersize Me, Garden State and SAW. We didn't see any of those. The closest we came was when we boarded a shuttle full of members of the press who had just seen Supersize Me. They were very quiet and noticeably queasy.
Here's what I remember about the 13 movies we did see:
The Saddest Music in the World
A nice midwestern couple we met at one of the shuttle stops had warned us not to see this movie -- they thought it was terrible. Too late, we already had tickets. This movie will forever go down in Sundance history as the only movie we have seen where the Director came out before the movie and gave a brief explanation. Apparently the audience just didn't get it at the first showing, so he explained that it is meant to be a comedy that makes fun of the melodrama genre. Ohhhhh.
So, this movie is shot entirely in black and white and stars Isabella Rosselini as a legless (don't worry, her love makes her glass prosthetic legs filled with beer), Canadian beer baron who sponsors a contest for the saddest music in the world. This opens the film to a whole cast of deviant characters and the plot to lots of manipulative backstage dealings. There is also a deep family secret and and a huge vat of beer. I didn't love it, but we did get to see and hear from the charming Isabella Rosselini after the show. My sister still claims it as one of her all-time favorites.
Marie and Bruce
Wallace Shawn wrote this as a play in the 1960s. Fast forward 40 years when he co-wrote the screenplay to bring the story to film. It starred Mathew Broderick and Juliane Moore and, in our opinion, stunk. The characters were unlovable and their relationship was toxic. The best part was hearing Wallace Shawn during the Q & A. He was very real, didn't have tedious "I'm trying to impress you" answers, and put the know-it-alls in the audience in their place. I was somewhat disappointed, however, that he never once said "Inconceivable." We did bump into him later that day at another screening and he is the only celebrity that I have had the nerve to talk to --I lied and told him I enjoyed his film.
Touch of Pink
One of the few comedies we have seen at Sundance, it's basically a gay Monsoon Wedding, but it takes place in London and Canada. The main character is a gay Indian man living in London, who is forced to confront his family and his sexuality when his mother sets out to find him a Muslim wife. It has a host of outlandish and sympathetic characters who are played with great comedic timing. As an added bonus, Kyle McLachlan has a small role as Cary Grant's ghost (he advises on how to live a "closeted life".) What's not to like?
Citizen King
This is an awesome and very thorough documentary on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For us, it was huge slice of history as we saw it on MLK Day and Al and Tipper Gore sat right behind us. I enjoyed all the archival footage, interviews with those close to him and the fact that it didn't brush his shortcomings under a rug. I was somewhat distracted throughout the film -- trying to think of something positive to say to Mr. Gore. Jois came up with: "I'm still not over the election, how 'bout you?", but we decided against that.
Book of Love
This is one case where the catalog description and what we saw really don't match-up. This was a rather disturbing story about a relationship and how it changes when a 15-year-old boy enters the couple's life. I don't remember much about the movie other than one particularly violent scene and the false calm that takes over the characters right after it. If you see it on your Netflix list, I would skip it.
Brother to Brother
I think this was the very first Sundance movie we saw. It tells the story of a young gay, African-American artist in New York. He befriends a poet and painter who was part of the Harlem Renaissance and after that, the movie switches back and forth between the 1930's and today. The Harlem Renaissance scenes were excellent and really seemed to capture the mood and flavor of that time. In the end, a better understanding of history helps the young artist to come to terms with his place in the world. Entertaining and a social message -- bonus!
Evergreen
This was an exciting movie to see at Sundance for two reasons. First, it was directed by a young woman from the Pacific Northwest and filmed entirely in Washington. Second, Robert Redford was there. We haven't seen him since, but I thought it must have made that young director so nervous to have him in the audience. The movie dealt with very real issues (poverty, envy, fear)in a real way and was beautifully filmed. I hope it was eventually shown outside the festival. I always root for the underdog.
November
This was the absolutely terrible movie that Courtney Cox starred in that I referred to earlier. Although, her acting was fine, it was just a jumbled up mess of a plot. It told three different versions of the same story, but not in a linear way and not so we could ever figure out why. In the Q and A an audience member asked the question we all wanted to ask: "This is what I thought was happening, am I right?" No, she wasn't and neither were any of the rest of us. If the movie has to be explained to an audience (and a pretty sophisticated one at that) it's no good. It turns out the film's big claim to fame is it was shot entirely on a Sony HD Cam (the techno-geeks in the audience had lots of questions about that). It was also made in 8 weeks time and had a teeny tiny budget. No big surprise there. Even an amusing and somewhat pregnant Courtney Cox there to answer questions couldn't make up for all that the film lacked.
Open Water
This film did make it into distribution, so many people know about it. It is based on a true story of a couple who disappeared while scuba diving. I don't typically like suspenseful movies like this, but it was done in a very quiet, realistic way. No thumping Jaws music to get your heart beating. Our only disappointment was we saw it in Salt Lake and there wasn't any Q & A.
Second Best
This is a story about three men from New Jersey who have been friends forever and are now approaching middle age. One wildly successful friend returns home for a visit and throws them all into fits of jealousy and feelings of inadequacy. It had a terrific cast, including Joe Pantoliano, Boyd Gaines, Jennifer Tilly and Polly Draper; and was very well written. The director/ screenwriter was there to answer questions (yes, he pulled a great deal from his own life and experiences) and his teenage son gave us all a free t-shirt.
Indigenous Shorts
Short films are grouped somewhat thematically into a feature length screening. This particular group of short films were all done by Native filmmakers from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. These films ranged in length from 6-14 minutes, and from very dark and violent to utterly charming. In the charming category was our favorite of the six: Two Cars, One Night from New Zealand. It featured a young boy and a young girl who strike up a brief friendship in a pub parking lot, where they are waiting for their partying parents.
We saw the Native American director of the violent film, Shush, at Starbucks after the screening. When we recognized him and told him we had just seen his film he beamed like he had won an Academy Award.
Our Neighborhood
This was Native documentary about a battle for logging rights between the Listuguj Mi'gmaq people and the Quebec government. The filmmaker had done another documentary in 1981 about this same tribe and their conflict with the government over fishing rights. It felt a little like a sequel, but having the cameras turned on the tribe's internal conversations was interesting nonetheless.
Raspberry Reich
This is when we learned: "if it says 'porn' in the catalog, it is porn." In fact, the exact words in the catalog were: "porno-political-palooza." It was porn in every sense of the word. It had a weak plot that existed only to put the characters into sexual situations, bad dialog and terrible acting. To make matters worse, it was mostly gay sex and written in German, so the English dialog was dubbed. Our favorite quote from the movie: "The Revolution is my boyfriend!" said in gestapo-like manner.
People were falling down the steps of the theater as they tried to discretely exit during the movie. Us, oh no, we stayed. Jois cackled loudly and I decided it would make good Sundance folklore. (Jenn brilliantly decided to skip it and left her ticket as a tip for our dinner waiter -- I prayed not to run into him after the movie.) I was also very uncomfortable when the director and lead actress came out to answer questions afterwards -- I had no questions and I couldn't look the actress in the eye.
Afterward, we went to another theater to try to wait list in for a movie and while in line we met a woman who was scouting movies for the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. She had seen Raspberry Reich and when we asked her if that was a movie they would show there, she gave us our all-time favorite Sundance quote: " Oh yes, it's totally programmable."
No comments:
Post a Comment