Today was the opening day press conference with Robert Redford, Festival Director John Cooper, and Executive Director Keri Putnam. They talked about independant films, with Redford remarking that this is the only festival that he knows of that is 100% independant. He also talked about the Sundance labs for filmmakers, which is the most important part of Sundance for him. The film festival is just the most visible part.
There was also talk about how the film festival is expanding. Last year they started taking Sundance on the road. Films and their filmmakers go to various cities that have art house cinemas in order to help get the movies out there. They will also be doing a mini film festival in London at the O2 arena.
Redford also talked about the New Frontier. This year, it is being held at The Yard, which is a much more appropriate space than the Miner's Hospital where it was held last year.
I went back to Salt Lake after the press conference, so movie watching will start Friday.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Red Tails - 2 1/2 stars
George Lucas produced this movie about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American fighter pilots in World War II. At the start of the movie, none of the white generals believe that African Americans are as qualified as white servicemen. They are given hand-me-down planes and given the most meaningless missions possible.
At some point in the movie, they are given an important mission: to protect a group of B-17 bombers in a boming mission. In previous missions, the fighter pilots left the B-17s unprotected as soon as enemy fighters showed up. They would go off and dogfight the enemy planes while the B-17s would get shot down. The Tuskegee Airmen are the first company to actually do their job. No B-17s are lost and they get respect from the other men in the service.
The idea behind the story is great. This is an important chapter in American history, and it deserves a better movie. This movie is not very well done. The dialogue is hokey and corney, and it is so bad I can't believe Lucas didn't write the screenplay himself.
The best scenes in the movie are the dogfights. It's in incredible sight seeing hundreds of planes in the air flying around each other. This is the kind of air battle that wouldn't have been possible before CGI. The music works really well in these scenes too.
If the dialogue and story lived up to the battle scenes, this would have been a great movie.
At some point in the movie, they are given an important mission: to protect a group of B-17 bombers in a boming mission. In previous missions, the fighter pilots left the B-17s unprotected as soon as enemy fighters showed up. They would go off and dogfight the enemy planes while the B-17s would get shot down. The Tuskegee Airmen are the first company to actually do their job. No B-17s are lost and they get respect from the other men in the service.
The idea behind the story is great. This is an important chapter in American history, and it deserves a better movie. This movie is not very well done. The dialogue is hokey and corney, and it is so bad I can't believe Lucas didn't write the screenplay himself.
The best scenes in the movie are the dogfights. It's in incredible sight seeing hundreds of planes in the air flying around each other. This is the kind of air battle that wouldn't have been possible before CGI. The music works really well in these scenes too.
If the dialogue and story lived up to the battle scenes, this would have been a great movie.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - 3 stars
This movie is about Oskar, a very precocious 10 year old. His parents are played by Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. His father was working in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and was killed. Before he died, he used to set up scavenger hunts for Oskar.
A year after his father's death, Oskar finds a key and a newspaper clipping in his father's stuff. Using the clues he finds, he assumes that this is a scavenger hunt his dad devised for him. So he sets off through the streets of New York City to find the lock that the key opens.
For the first half hour or so, I was kind of bored. While I empathized with Oskar, I didn't really care what he was going to find. I also didn't think there was a chance he would find the lock for the key. But then Max von Sydow enters the picture. He plays the mysterious guy who rents a room from Oskar's grandmother. Von Sydow's character doesn't talk, and he gets to show how great an actor he is without saying a word. He starts to go with Oskar on his travels and help him unravel the mystery.
The movie is a bit melodramatic but I really felt for the characters. Oskar may have Asperger's syndrome (the tests were inconclusive), and he has a much harder time than an ordinary kid would expressing his grief. He talks about his father's death in such a matter of fact way that it is even more heartbreaking than if he were to break down. His mother has a hard time dealing with things as not only has she lost her husband, but her son will hardly talk to her.
By the end, I was very emotionally invested. It is a movie that will make you cry. I liked it but I'm not sure I would want to experience it again.
A year after his father's death, Oskar finds a key and a newspaper clipping in his father's stuff. Using the clues he finds, he assumes that this is a scavenger hunt his dad devised for him. So he sets off through the streets of New York City to find the lock that the key opens.
For the first half hour or so, I was kind of bored. While I empathized with Oskar, I didn't really care what he was going to find. I also didn't think there was a chance he would find the lock for the key. But then Max von Sydow enters the picture. He plays the mysterious guy who rents a room from Oskar's grandmother. Von Sydow's character doesn't talk, and he gets to show how great an actor he is without saying a word. He starts to go with Oskar on his travels and help him unravel the mystery.
The movie is a bit melodramatic but I really felt for the characters. Oskar may have Asperger's syndrome (the tests were inconclusive), and he has a much harder time than an ordinary kid would expressing his grief. He talks about his father's death in such a matter of fact way that it is even more heartbreaking than if he were to break down. His mother has a hard time dealing with things as not only has she lost her husband, but her son will hardly talk to her.
By the end, I was very emotionally invested. It is a movie that will make you cry. I liked it but I'm not sure I would want to experience it again.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Joyful Noise - 2 stars
This is a movie about a small town church choir and their aspirations to compete in the national Joyful Noise choir competition.
Queen Latifah plays Vi Rose Hill. She has just taken over as choir director when the previous director (Kris Kristofferson) died unexpectedly. She has two kids, a son with Asperger syndrome, and a daughter named Olivia (Keke Palmer), who seems to be the lead singer of the choir.
G. G. Sparrow (Dolly Parton), believes she should be the new choir director. Her late husband was the former choir director, and she helped him with the song arrangements. G. G.'s grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan) has just arrived in town, and he immediately becomes interested in Olivia.
Randy starts to sing in the choir, gives Vi's son piano lessons (apparently for free), and helps bring him out of his shell, but because there needs to be some conflict, Vi doesn't approve of him. She also refuses to modernize the songs the choir sings. Everyone but her wants to do more modern arrangements and even include some pop songs, but Vi is the most stubborn woman in town and she refuses.
This is a movie made for a Christian audience who loves gospel music. There is a lot of church, God, and faith in this movie. The writing is corny and the directing is horrible. There are cuts that make no sense, and there are a few too many scenes of Vi and Olivia having the same fight.
Latifah and Parton each get a big musical number, and they are good songs. I especially liked the scene where Dolly Parton is looking out the window, singing a song she used to sing with her late husband, and imagines him walking up to her and dancing. That (almost) brought a tear to my eye.
But real emotional scenes are few and far between. The rest are obvious and over the top. There are some laughs, but the funny scenes are juxtaposed with scenes that try to make you cry, and the combination doesn't really work.
If you like this music, buy the soundtrack rather than see the movie.
Queen Latifah plays Vi Rose Hill. She has just taken over as choir director when the previous director (Kris Kristofferson) died unexpectedly. She has two kids, a son with Asperger syndrome, and a daughter named Olivia (Keke Palmer), who seems to be the lead singer of the choir.
G. G. Sparrow (Dolly Parton), believes she should be the new choir director. Her late husband was the former choir director, and she helped him with the song arrangements. G. G.'s grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan) has just arrived in town, and he immediately becomes interested in Olivia.
Randy starts to sing in the choir, gives Vi's son piano lessons (apparently for free), and helps bring him out of his shell, but because there needs to be some conflict, Vi doesn't approve of him. She also refuses to modernize the songs the choir sings. Everyone but her wants to do more modern arrangements and even include some pop songs, but Vi is the most stubborn woman in town and she refuses.
This is a movie made for a Christian audience who loves gospel music. There is a lot of church, God, and faith in this movie. The writing is corny and the directing is horrible. There are cuts that make no sense, and there are a few too many scenes of Vi and Olivia having the same fight.
Latifah and Parton each get a big musical number, and they are good songs. I especially liked the scene where Dolly Parton is looking out the window, singing a song she used to sing with her late husband, and imagines him walking up to her and dancing. That (almost) brought a tear to my eye.
But real emotional scenes are few and far between. The rest are obvious and over the top. There are some laughs, but the funny scenes are juxtaposed with scenes that try to make you cry, and the combination doesn't really work.
If you like this music, buy the soundtrack rather than see the movie.
Contraband - 2 1/2 stars
Mark Wahlberg stars as a former smuggler who has decided to go legit. He now owns a security company, but when he was a smuggler, he was the best smuggler there was. There are a couple of scenes where he tells other smugglers how he pulled off an incredibly difficult job.
He is married and has two kids, but his wife's brother is trying to get into the game. When he gets into trouble with a local criminal, Wahlberg has to pull off one last job to save his brother-in-law.
I feel like I've seen this movie before. Will he successfully smuggle the contraband into the US and deliver it? Will he stop the bad guys from killing his family? Is there a surprise twist or two? I'm not calling this movie predictable, but ...
There are many scenes that are just completely implausible. One is where he is making a large hole in the ship he is working on. He manages to create this hole and conceal it with a panel while other crew members are around, and he could be discovered at any time, and it would take many guys a lot of hours to complete, and on and on. But he is able to do it in no time flat without ever being discovered.
There were also a lot of scenes where he just got lucky. He finishes concealing something, turns the corner, and a split second later the ship's captain comes around the corner. After a while I started to hope he got caught. He wasn't being careful so much as just counting on luck.
This isn't a bad movie, but there is nothing special about it. If you need something to go see tonight, you could do worse but you won't remember this movie a month from now.
He is married and has two kids, but his wife's brother is trying to get into the game. When he gets into trouble with a local criminal, Wahlberg has to pull off one last job to save his brother-in-law.
I feel like I've seen this movie before. Will he successfully smuggle the contraband into the US and deliver it? Will he stop the bad guys from killing his family? Is there a surprise twist or two? I'm not calling this movie predictable, but ...
There are many scenes that are just completely implausible. One is where he is making a large hole in the ship he is working on. He manages to create this hole and conceal it with a panel while other crew members are around, and he could be discovered at any time, and it would take many guys a lot of hours to complete, and on and on. But he is able to do it in no time flat without ever being discovered.
There were also a lot of scenes where he just got lucky. He finishes concealing something, turns the corner, and a split second later the ship's captain comes around the corner. After a while I started to hope he got caught. He wasn't being careful so much as just counting on luck.
This isn't a bad movie, but there is nothing special about it. If you need something to go see tonight, you could do worse but you won't remember this movie a month from now.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - 4 stars
There is a mole at the top of British intelligence. He's been there for years. In order to find him, George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is brought out of retirement. He can't trust anyone, and he is being watched all the time.
This is a rare intelligent spy thriller. There are no explosions or car chases. Everything is done with dialogue and restraint. Oldman's performance is a master class in minimalist acting. Rather than going over the top, he barely says a word. Sometimes he raises an eyebrow.
I was lost for the first half of the movie. It keeps jumping around in time, and sometimes it's hard to tell which timeframe a scene is taking place in. But by the second half, it was all making sense. This is a movie to watch and enjoy, just letting the dialogue and atmosphere wash over you.
Besides Oldman, the cast includes John Hurt, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, and Tom Hardy. If you can pay close attention and not get too frustrated by the confusion going on, you will enjoy this. And it is even better the second time.
This is a rare intelligent spy thriller. There are no explosions or car chases. Everything is done with dialogue and restraint. Oldman's performance is a master class in minimalist acting. Rather than going over the top, he barely says a word. Sometimes he raises an eyebrow.
I was lost for the first half of the movie. It keeps jumping around in time, and sometimes it's hard to tell which timeframe a scene is taking place in. But by the second half, it was all making sense. This is a movie to watch and enjoy, just letting the dialogue and atmosphere wash over you.
Besides Oldman, the cast includes John Hurt, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, and Tom Hardy. If you can pay close attention and not get too frustrated by the confusion going on, you will enjoy this. And it is even better the second time.
The Devil Inside - 2 stars
This is another one of those fake documentary style movies. In 1989 a woman killed 2 priests and a nun during an exorcism. 20 years later, her daughter wants to make a documentary about what happened. So she takes a filmmaker with her to Rome where her mother is being held in an insane asylum.
The usual possession stuff happens, and nothing scary happens. The movie made me jump a few times, but startling someone is easy. The movie is more unintentionally funny than scary. I think I was generous giving the movie 2 stars. Don't waste your time.
The usual possession stuff happens, and nothing scary happens. The movie made me jump a few times, but startling someone is easy. The movie is more unintentionally funny than scary. I think I was generous giving the movie 2 stars. Don't waste your time.
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