Last few days at Sundance

Since I got so lazy keeping up with my Sundance journal, I'm just going to list the rest of the movies I saw. Do you really care which movies I saw on which day anyway?

Tyrannosaur - the first movie directed by Paddy Considine, it stars Peter Mullan as a bitter old man with a really bad temper. His name is Joseph. He gets into fights because he can't keep his mouth shut, and when he gets really pissed off, he has to hit or kick something, even if it's his own dog. He befriends a battered woman named Hannah (Olivia Colman). This isn't a feel good movie, but it is a very interesting character study. A very good performance by Mullan. There are some shocking moments of violence in this movie.

Margin Call - set at a fictional investment firm, this movie is about the first day of the 2008 financial crisis. Late one evening, a financial analyst (Zachary Quinto) discovers that the shit is about to hit the fan. He tells his supervisor (Paul Bettany), who calls his supervisor (Kevin Spacey), who calls in others (Demi Moore, Jeremy Irons) and at 2 in the morning, these people are all deciding how to handle the crisis that is about to hit.

The plan involves trying to sell all of their worthless stock before everyone else figures out what is going on, which will happen the next morning around 11am. The movie would be better if it started off with some kind of narration, or a primer explaining the terminology. I have read enough (and seen enough documentaries) to have some idea of what led to the crisis, and I was still confused by the terminology used. The movie takes a good 45 minutes to get to the good stuff, which is the president of the company realizing how bad things are about to get. The first half of the movie consists of the same conversation over and over while people look at computer screens and ask if it is accurate. Overall a disappointing movie.

Perfect Sense - Ewan McGregor is a chef in Glasgow. Eva Green is an epidemiologist (google it, kiddies). They meet and fall in love at the same time as a strange disease is being reported all over the globe. People are suddenly overcome with emotions, then they lose their sense of smell. What could be causing this? Eventually it affects everyone. Next they lose their sense of taste, and after that, well, I won't ruin it.

McGregor and Green have really good chemistry together, and they are always good. They do a great job making you care about these characters, and it puts you right in the middle of this frightening situation where the world might be ending.

Fun fact: the actor who plays McGregor's boss is Denis Lawson, who is not only McGregor's uncle in real life, but he played Wedge in the Star Wars trilogy.

Incendies - this is my favorite movie from Sundance. It starts off in Canada where a pair of twins are at the reading for their late mother's will. They are handed two envelopes. One they are to deliver to their father (who they thought was dead), and the other is to be delivered to their brother (who they never knew existed). They go to the Middle East to investigate their mother's past, which they never knew anything about.

At the same time, the movie treats us to flashbacks of their mother as a young woman. She lived through many horrors during a civil war between Christians and Palenstinians. There are definitely some horrific things in this movie, and the end has some pretty good revelations that made the audience gasp audibly many times. The movie is also nominated for the best foreign language Academy Award.

The Lie - Joshua Leonard and Jess Weixler star as a young married couple with a baby. He isn't happy at his job, and one day he tells a ridiculous lie to get a couple of days off work. As the lie gets around, he has to hide stuff from his wife, and the question becomes when will she find out, and how will she react. Not a bad little movie, but nothing special.

Sound of My Voice - this is about a married couple who plan to infiltrate a strange cult so they can make a documentary exposing the leader. As they get drawn into the cult, one of them may be starting to believe while the other remains skeptical. Is the leader a time traveler from the future, come back to save a select group of people, or is she a con artist? The movie is surprisingly well written by newcomer Brit Marling, who co-produced and starred in the movie, as well as another Sundance movie called Another Earth (which I didn't see). A good, solid suspenseful movie.

The Woman - this movie was co-written by Jack Ketchum. If you are familiar with his work, you know what to expect. A man is out hunting, and he comes across a wild woman in the forest. She seems like she is right out of Quest for Fire. Is she part of a tribe, or was she raised by wolves? We never find out, but the man kidnaps her and takes her home to his family. He chains her up in the cellar with the plan of civilizing her.

This family man is the psychotic one, as we see the way he treats his family. They don't seem to question him too much, especially the son who has no problem torturing the woman on his own. The movie is very shocking but not too graphic - most of the worst stuff happens off screen. But this movie outraged people to the point where at the first public screening, a man had to be escorted out by security for yelling at the filmmakers during the Q&A. I liked it, but I would only recommend it to horror fans.