Mike D'Angelo at Sundance: Part 9

Peter Smith — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:05:00 GMT

Mike D'Angelo reports from the Sundance Film Festival:

As the festival winds down, some quick notes on movies I didn't have time to address earlier. (I'm gonna include the walk-outs here, despite the wrath of one reader who believes that saying anything at all about a movie you didn't see from start to finish constitutes dereliction of duty. Obviously, you should take such judgments with a grain or two of salt — and maybe an entire shakerful in the case of Ballast, which I'll very likely see again, and in full, at some point. But at the same time, you can get a mighty strong sense of a film in thirty-five to forty minutes.)

Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North (Documentary Competition): Painfully earnest young woman with unbearably whiny voice — she narrates, alas — discovers that her esteemed ancestors were slave traders, corrals nine relatives for self-indulgent journey to sore spots from the family's past. For hardcore aficionados of liberal white guilt only. (W/O)

Time Crimes (Park City at Midnight): I'm a sucker for time-travel stories, but even I had trouble warming to this Spanish gloss on 2004 Sundance prizewinner Primer, in which a middle-aged schlub travels ninety minutes into the past and finds himself engaged in unwitting battle with other versions of himself who've developed wildly divergent agendas. Ineptly directed, for the most part, and the concluding twist is singularly unsatisfying. Come back, Shane (Carruth).

The Wave (World Cinema Dramatic Competition): German filmmaker Dennis Gansel turns the true story of a high-school history experiment gone awry into a glossy, pulse-pounding thriller, employing methods almost as fascistic as those of The Wave itself. Intentional irony? One can't help but be riveted by the spectacle of ordinary teenagers willingly submitting to autocratic rule — their überhip teacher is attempting to demonstrate that the Nazis weren't anomalous monsters — but earmarking one kid as emotionally unstable from the get-go means that we're just twiddling our thumbs as we await the inevitable moment when he finally snaps.

What Just Happened? (Premieres): Hollywood made yet another mildly lacerating self-portrait, that's what. Loosely based on the memoirs of producer Art Linson (Fight Club, Into the Wild, several Mamet films), it boasts the most relaxed De Niro performance in ages and a smattering of truly hilarious jokes, most of them involving out-of-control entitlement. Too bad Bruce Willis, sporting a Grizzly Adams beard that he refuses to shave prior to the start of filming on a new picture, isn't nearly as funny as Alec Baldwin must have been in real life. (Read Linson's equally diverting book for the lowdown; it happened on 1997's The Edge.)

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (Dramatic Competition): Michael Chabon's complicated first novel has been reduced (by Dodgeball's Rawson Marshall Thurber) to a simple bisexual love triangle, with two major characters — Arthur and Cleveland — melded into one, and another, the improbably named Phlox, distorted almost beyond recognition. And yet the movie still almost kinda works, mostly because Peter Sarsgaard commits himself so fully to his ludicrous bad-boy manipulator that we, like the dazed young protagonist, are completely taken in.

Downloading Nancy (Dramatic Competition): I'd had about enough of this repugnant exercise in nihilism at the point when Maria Bello, playing a masochistic housewife who's hired a stranger she found on the Internet (Jason Patric) to torture and kill her, walks barefoot into a mouse trap, over and over and over, shrieking with laughter each time it snaps on her toes. By all accounts from those who stuck it out, it gets much, much worse thereafter. At least the "revelation" that she was sexually abused as a child isn't saved for the final reel. (W/O)

Sundance Roundup: Day 8

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:31:00 GMT

This thing has been going on for a week now and people are ready to get the hell out of Park City. As Aaron Barnhart writes, “tempers are wearing thin. People are getting tired of waiting out in the cold. Volunteers have had it with annoying moviegoers.” So let’s say you’re some hot shot celebrity or big time acquisitions executive on the scene at Sundance. You’ve already filled two suitcases full of swag, and you can’t bring yourself to sit through one more movie today, so now what?

How about taking a ride in an algae-powered Mercedes? As a tie-in to the Sundance documentary Fields of Fuel, biotech firm Solazyme is introducing their product by “tooling around Park City, Utah in a Mercedes Benz C320 diesel,” according to Wired.

Driving around thinking about algae is sure to make you hungry, and that’s where the celebrity chefs of the Food Network come in. We’re not sure if algae is on the menu, but the Salt Lake Tribune can fill you in on all the big names who’ve been feasting on Giada De Laurentiis' “classic Italian comfort food, including tagliatelle pasta with short-rib ragu and a mocha semifreddo ice-cream dessert.”

And yes, there are still movies being shown. Causing one of the biggest commotions is Downloading Nancy, starring Maria Bello as a married woman who meets another man (Jason Patric) on the Internet. That’s about the most innocuous description possible, judging from the first round of reviews. Here are some pull-quotes to whet your appetite:

“An excruciating experience.” – Film Threat

“A film that's beyond difficult to watch.” - Filter

“A low-grade snuff film. It was like the film was raping my face.” – Cinema Blend

On second thought, maybe it’s time for another ride in that algae car.

The Screengrab : downloading nancy

Mike D'Angelo at Sundance: Part 9

Sundance Roundup: Day 8