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 6

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:45:00 GMT

The wallets have finally opened in Park City, as the L.A. Times reports a trio of high profile sales: Choke, based on the novel by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, has sold to Fox Searchlight for $5 million, while Focus has ponied up twice that much for the rights to Hamlet 2 (a sequel centuries in the making, no doubt), and new player Overture Films has secured domestic rights to “bittersweet drama” Henry Poole is Here, starring Luke Wilson.

That’s good news for the “Focus on Film” movement, “a salvo fired at the publicity-starved companies that lure celebrities and media with an avalanche of products,” as the Times also reports. Yes, for some it’s all about the gift bags, and the “Brand-dance” luxury lounges are as popular as ever this year. If you’re looking for a free diamond-encrusted iPod case, Park City is the place to be.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh caused a stir when star Sienna Miller referred to the titular city as “Shitsburg,” but all may be forgiven now. Per the Tribune Review, Pittsburgh Film Office director Dawn Keezer was on hand for the Sundance premiere and gushed, “It's absolutely amazing. Pittsburgh looks stunning. It's literally a picture-postcard to the city of Pittsburgh.”

Always on the lookout for the next trend, The Hollywood Reporter declares suicide this year’s hot Sundance topic. “Geoff Haley's The Last Word looks at a writer (Wes Bentley) whose business is drafting people's suicide notes, including one for a despondent Ray Romano. In I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster, an already suicidal teenage girl tries to kill herself while being held hostage. And in The Wackness, one character attempts to re-create James Mason's famous walk into the ocean in A Star Is Born. And those are just the funny films.” We could die laughing.

The Screengrab : the mysteries of pittsburgh

Mike D'Angelo at Sundance: Part 9

Sundance Roundup: Day 6