Only two movies opened in SLC on Friday.
When in Rome - didn't see, but I hear it's terrible
Edge of Darkness - 2 1/2 stars
I was glad to see Mel Gibson in a movie again. Actors and their off screen actions don't really bother me. I don't really care if an actor is a nice guy or not. So, forget about all the stuff Mel was in the tabloids for.
Mel plays a Boston cop who's daughter is killed right in front of him. This isn't a spoiler, it happens in the first 5 minutes. Since he is a cop, he figures he was the target. But as the movie goes on we figure out that his daughter was the target after all. The killers were pretty stupid to not shoot him at the same time.
Since the movie was directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) and written by William Monahan (The Departed), I had high hopes for it. But I was disappointed. There is some good action and a few laughs, but the story isn't very good. We know what is going on and who is involved very early on, so all we are waiting for is to see how many people Mel Gibson will punch and shoot before the end.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
more Sundance
I fell a little behind, so I'm just going to plow through some more Sundance movies.
Son of Babylon
It's 2003, just after the fall of Saddam. In Iraq, many prisoners have been released from Saddam's prisons, and hundreds of mass graves have been found. As the movie starts, a young boy and his grandmother are on the road. They are going to one of the prisons, where they hope to find Ibrahim (the boy's father, the woman's son).
It's a good story but I was bored by it. There just isn't enough going on. There are too many scenes of them traveling in silence, and the scenes at the mass graves, as sad as they are, get repetitious.
The performances were good, especially Yasser Talib as the boy Ahmed. And there are a few laughs. I like the way going to the bathroom is refered to as "going to visit Saddam", and the way one Iraqi says "Ok, thank you sir" in English to the American soldiers, then switches to Arabic to say "Son of a bitch."
The Fence
This is a short film about the fence that the government tried to build along the US / Mexico border. They spent millions of dollars on part of a fence. In some places, the fence just ends, so people wanting to cross just have to go a mile or so to the east or west to get around. In other places, they can easily dig a hole under the fence, the same way my dog used to dig a hole under the fence and escape the yard.
The fence was so badly planned and executed that they destroyed a wildlife refuge. Tons of animals were cut off from their food source. And in one place, the first time there was a big rainstorm the fence caused a flood on the Mexico side that two people drowned and many buildings were destroyed. The US government would have been better off just taking our tax dollars and throwing them on the fire.
High School
Henry Burke is a good student who never does anything wrong, is about to be valedictorian, and has a good scholarship. His friend has just talked him into trying pot for the first time. Unfortunately, the next day the principal decides to drug test the entire school, as part of his zero tolerance against drugs program.
Henry and his friend come up with a great plan: get the entire school stoned so everyone fails. The timing is perfect: the day of the drug test is the big bake-off, so there will be hundreds of brownies that morning. All they have to do is get the drugs, bake the brownies, and make the switch.
It's a good premise, and the script is fine. The problem is with the direction and editing. The movie feels long, and the jokes don't work as well as they should. With better directing and editing, this would have been a great comedy.
The Killer Inside Me
Casey Affleck plays a sherrif's deputy in a small Texas town in the 1950s. He has a girlfriend (Kate Hudson) and is seeing a prostitute (Jessica Alba) on the side. He is also a psychopath. This is a very violent and unsettling movie. I've seen lots of killings on screen, but there are a couple in this movie that really shocked me. I really liked this. It was a great psychological thriller.
Blue Valentine
Imagine (500) Days of Summer without the humor or the happy ending. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play a married couple with a 5 year-old daughter. They are no longer in love with each other. Over the course of a couple of days we watch their marriage fall apart.
The movie flashed back and forth between the present and the time when they first met and fell in love. We learn that they probably shouldn't have gotten married in the first place, so it isn't too surprising that it isn't working out. Anyone who has ever been divorced, or ended a really serious relationship will be moved by this movie. It moves slowly but I was never bored. The performances were incredible.
Perfect Host
Set in Los Angeles, John Taylor has just robbed a bank. His face is all over the news, so he needs to hide. He finds a house, looks in the mailbox and discovers the owner is named Warwick (David Hyde Pierce). A postcard in the mailbox tells him that Warwick's friend Diane is in Australia. So John knocks on the door, says he just got in from Australia, and Diane said to look Warwick up. He uses this ruse to get into the house and hide out for a while.
John thinks he is in charge of the situation, but he has no idea what kind of person Warwick is. Pierce is a lot of fun as Warwick, and the story is definintely interesting, but it runs out of steam. It would have been better if it was at least 20 minutes shorter.
Russian Lessons
This is a documentary about the war between Russia and Georgia a couple of years ago. It also gets into North and South Ossetia. It was hard to follow all the details, and it was pretty boring. I walked out after 45 minutes or so, so I could catch another movie.
Animal Kingdom
Probably the best movie I saw at Sundance. Set in Australia, Josh's mother has just died. He goes to live with his grandmother and uncles, who are all criminals. He doesn't want to have much to do with their criminal ways, but he is dragged in before he knows it. He has a girlfriend who seems unaware of what his family does.
I don't want to say anything about the plot because the less you know about it, the better. But trust me on this. When this movie comes out, make sure you see it.
Son of Babylon
It's 2003, just after the fall of Saddam. In Iraq, many prisoners have been released from Saddam's prisons, and hundreds of mass graves have been found. As the movie starts, a young boy and his grandmother are on the road. They are going to one of the prisons, where they hope to find Ibrahim (the boy's father, the woman's son).
It's a good story but I was bored by it. There just isn't enough going on. There are too many scenes of them traveling in silence, and the scenes at the mass graves, as sad as they are, get repetitious.
The performances were good, especially Yasser Talib as the boy Ahmed. And there are a few laughs. I like the way going to the bathroom is refered to as "going to visit Saddam", and the way one Iraqi says "Ok, thank you sir" in English to the American soldiers, then switches to Arabic to say "Son of a bitch."
The Fence
This is a short film about the fence that the government tried to build along the US / Mexico border. They spent millions of dollars on part of a fence. In some places, the fence just ends, so people wanting to cross just have to go a mile or so to the east or west to get around. In other places, they can easily dig a hole under the fence, the same way my dog used to dig a hole under the fence and escape the yard.
The fence was so badly planned and executed that they destroyed a wildlife refuge. Tons of animals were cut off from their food source. And in one place, the first time there was a big rainstorm the fence caused a flood on the Mexico side that two people drowned and many buildings were destroyed. The US government would have been better off just taking our tax dollars and throwing them on the fire.
High School
Henry Burke is a good student who never does anything wrong, is about to be valedictorian, and has a good scholarship. His friend has just talked him into trying pot for the first time. Unfortunately, the next day the principal decides to drug test the entire school, as part of his zero tolerance against drugs program.
Henry and his friend come up with a great plan: get the entire school stoned so everyone fails. The timing is perfect: the day of the drug test is the big bake-off, so there will be hundreds of brownies that morning. All they have to do is get the drugs, bake the brownies, and make the switch.
It's a good premise, and the script is fine. The problem is with the direction and editing. The movie feels long, and the jokes don't work as well as they should. With better directing and editing, this would have been a great comedy.
The Killer Inside Me
Casey Affleck plays a sherrif's deputy in a small Texas town in the 1950s. He has a girlfriend (Kate Hudson) and is seeing a prostitute (Jessica Alba) on the side. He is also a psychopath. This is a very violent and unsettling movie. I've seen lots of killings on screen, but there are a couple in this movie that really shocked me. I really liked this. It was a great psychological thriller.
Blue Valentine
Imagine (500) Days of Summer without the humor or the happy ending. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play a married couple with a 5 year-old daughter. They are no longer in love with each other. Over the course of a couple of days we watch their marriage fall apart.
The movie flashed back and forth between the present and the time when they first met and fell in love. We learn that they probably shouldn't have gotten married in the first place, so it isn't too surprising that it isn't working out. Anyone who has ever been divorced, or ended a really serious relationship will be moved by this movie. It moves slowly but I was never bored. The performances were incredible.
Perfect Host
Set in Los Angeles, John Taylor has just robbed a bank. His face is all over the news, so he needs to hide. He finds a house, looks in the mailbox and discovers the owner is named Warwick (David Hyde Pierce). A postcard in the mailbox tells him that Warwick's friend Diane is in Australia. So John knocks on the door, says he just got in from Australia, and Diane said to look Warwick up. He uses this ruse to get into the house and hide out for a while.
John thinks he is in charge of the situation, but he has no idea what kind of person Warwick is. Pierce is a lot of fun as Warwick, and the story is definintely interesting, but it runs out of steam. It would have been better if it was at least 20 minutes shorter.
Russian Lessons
This is a documentary about the war between Russia and Georgia a couple of years ago. It also gets into North and South Ossetia. It was hard to follow all the details, and it was pretty boring. I walked out after 45 minutes or so, so I could catch another movie.
Animal Kingdom
Probably the best movie I saw at Sundance. Set in Australia, Josh's mother has just died. He goes to live with his grandmother and uncles, who are all criminals. He doesn't want to have much to do with their criminal ways, but he is dragged in before he knows it. He has a girlfriend who seems unaware of what his family does.
I don't want to say anything about the plot because the less you know about it, the better. But trust me on this. When this movie comes out, make sure you see it.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tuesday at Sundance
Today was my best day at Sundance so far. Partly because I saw three great movies, and also because I didn't waste time trying to meet celebrities or get into any events.
First up was my favorite movie of the festival so far, Grown Up Movie Star. It's about a father and his two daughters, who live in Newfoundland. The wife/mother has just walked out on the family, to go to Hollywood and try to become a movie star. The father was an NHL hockey player for about one season, which ended when he got busted for bringing drugs into Canada.
The oldest daughter is just starting to discover boys and her own sexuality. There are a couple of guys she sees regularly and she starts getting into making out and offering sexual pleasures. One of the guys she is seeing just happens to be a close family friend who is confined to a wheelchair and is a photographer.
The characters were so wonderfully developed and the acting was so good that I wasn't bored for a second. In fact the movie could have gone on for another hour and I wouldn't have minded. I really enjoyed spending time with these characters.
My second movie was 8: The Mormon Proposition. Growing up Mormon in Salt Lake City, I was particularly interested in this movie. My entire life, I was told that the church would never tell us how to vote, and I never thought I would see the Mormon church get into politics. I guess I didn't pay attention very well during the whole Prop 8 controversy, because I knew that the church supported Prop 8, but I had no idea how much the church was involved. I was shocked to learn that the First Presidency issued a statement basically commanding members to do all they could (use your time and means) to help support Prop 8. I also was shocked to hear about bishops going over people's tithing records, and telling them how much they should be able to contribute.
This was a very powerful and affecting documentary. I will be really curious to hear how active Mormons view it. It's one thing to view an issue like Prop 8 as a political cause or a moral issue, but to actually see and hear from the real people affected, well, it's hard to see how some people can be so full of hate.
The last movie I saw was a great change of pace. It's called Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. It's a very funny horror movie. Well, not really horror at all. Just a funny version of a horror movie. A group of college kids are going to a lake to camp and party. While there, they run into a couple of hillbillies (think Cabin Fever). The hillbillies are very nice guys, but the college kids are immediately afraid of them. When the hillbillies see one of the girls hit her head and fall in the lake, they rescue her. But the other kids think that they are kidnapping her, and they decide to go rescue her.
As they try to rescue the girl, one by one they accidentally get killed. This makes the surviving college kids assume that the hillbillies are our to kill them all, while the nice hillbillies are wondering why these kids keep killing themselves.
The plot gets more and more contrived as it goes. Kind of like those episodes of Three's Company where the whole story depends on a misunderstanding. If the characters talked for one minute they would figure it all out, but for the story to work, they can't ever have that discussion. Although in this movie, there is a point where they do talk it out, but by that time the surviving kids are so convinced these guys are psychos that there is no changing their minds.
I had a lot of fun in the movie. There are some gruesome kills but the tone of the movie is such that you laugh every time someone dies. Some you can see coming a mile away, but that didn't bother me at all. And you can't see a woodchipper in a movie without knowing that A) someone is going in that woodchipper, and B) thinking of Fargo.
First up was my favorite movie of the festival so far, Grown Up Movie Star. It's about a father and his two daughters, who live in Newfoundland. The wife/mother has just walked out on the family, to go to Hollywood and try to become a movie star. The father was an NHL hockey player for about one season, which ended when he got busted for bringing drugs into Canada.
The oldest daughter is just starting to discover boys and her own sexuality. There are a couple of guys she sees regularly and she starts getting into making out and offering sexual pleasures. One of the guys she is seeing just happens to be a close family friend who is confined to a wheelchair and is a photographer.
The characters were so wonderfully developed and the acting was so good that I wasn't bored for a second. In fact the movie could have gone on for another hour and I wouldn't have minded. I really enjoyed spending time with these characters.
My second movie was 8: The Mormon Proposition. Growing up Mormon in Salt Lake City, I was particularly interested in this movie. My entire life, I was told that the church would never tell us how to vote, and I never thought I would see the Mormon church get into politics. I guess I didn't pay attention very well during the whole Prop 8 controversy, because I knew that the church supported Prop 8, but I had no idea how much the church was involved. I was shocked to learn that the First Presidency issued a statement basically commanding members to do all they could (use your time and means) to help support Prop 8. I also was shocked to hear about bishops going over people's tithing records, and telling them how much they should be able to contribute.
This was a very powerful and affecting documentary. I will be really curious to hear how active Mormons view it. It's one thing to view an issue like Prop 8 as a political cause or a moral issue, but to actually see and hear from the real people affected, well, it's hard to see how some people can be so full of hate.
The last movie I saw was a great change of pace. It's called Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. It's a very funny horror movie. Well, not really horror at all. Just a funny version of a horror movie. A group of college kids are going to a lake to camp and party. While there, they run into a couple of hillbillies (think Cabin Fever). The hillbillies are very nice guys, but the college kids are immediately afraid of them. When the hillbillies see one of the girls hit her head and fall in the lake, they rescue her. But the other kids think that they are kidnapping her, and they decide to go rescue her.
As they try to rescue the girl, one by one they accidentally get killed. This makes the surviving college kids assume that the hillbillies are our to kill them all, while the nice hillbillies are wondering why these kids keep killing themselves.
The plot gets more and more contrived as it goes. Kind of like those episodes of Three's Company where the whole story depends on a misunderstanding. If the characters talked for one minute they would figure it all out, but for the story to work, they can't ever have that discussion. Although in this movie, there is a point where they do talk it out, but by that time the surviving kids are so convinced these guys are psychos that there is no changing their minds.
I had a lot of fun in the movie. There are some gruesome kills but the tone of the movie is such that you laugh every time someone dies. Some you can see coming a mile away, but that didn't bother me at all. And you can't see a woodchipper in a movie without knowing that A) someone is going in that woodchipper, and B) thinking of Fargo.
Monday at Sundance
Monday I went to two movies.
The first was My Peristroika. It's a documentary about the last generation to grow up in the Soviet Union. They talk about what life was like in the 80s compared to the 90s and today. They say the kids today in Russia can't even imagine what it was like to live behind the iron curtain. It's interesting to hear them talk about what they thought about America in the 80s. They wrote letters to Ronald Reagan, telling him that he should end the cold war, they lived in constant fear of the USA nuking them, and they thought if there was no America, there would be world peace.
It's a very interesting subject but the movie got boring really fast. It would have been nice if the movie taught us a bit more about Russian history objectively. You need to already be familiar with Russian history from the 60s until now to really understand everything in this movie.
The second movie was The Runaways. This is the one everyone is talking about, either because they are big fans of Joan Jett and the Runaways, or because of that rumored lesbian sex scene between Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.
I liked the first part of the movie. It shows how The Runaways came together as a band and quickly became a huge sensation in Japan. It goes through the typical rock star stuff - drug abuse, fighting within the band, band members walking out in the middle of a recording session, that kind of stuff. But I wish the movie focused more on Joan Jett and less on Cherie Currie. We see a lot of Currie's sister, who is jealous of her sister's fame, and her alcoholic father.
For me the second half should have been about how Joan Jett formed her next band, The Blackhearts, recorded I Love Rock and Roll, and achieved fame for herself. But instead this is covered in about two minutes at the end of the movie. It felt to me like the movie had no ending, like they just kind of said "That's enough story. Let's just end the movie here." It really felt anti-climactic.
The first was My Peristroika. It's a documentary about the last generation to grow up in the Soviet Union. They talk about what life was like in the 80s compared to the 90s and today. They say the kids today in Russia can't even imagine what it was like to live behind the iron curtain. It's interesting to hear them talk about what they thought about America in the 80s. They wrote letters to Ronald Reagan, telling him that he should end the cold war, they lived in constant fear of the USA nuking them, and they thought if there was no America, there would be world peace.
It's a very interesting subject but the movie got boring really fast. It would have been nice if the movie taught us a bit more about Russian history objectively. You need to already be familiar with Russian history from the 60s until now to really understand everything in this movie.
The second movie was The Runaways. This is the one everyone is talking about, either because they are big fans of Joan Jett and the Runaways, or because of that rumored lesbian sex scene between Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.
I liked the first part of the movie. It shows how The Runaways came together as a band and quickly became a huge sensation in Japan. It goes through the typical rock star stuff - drug abuse, fighting within the band, band members walking out in the middle of a recording session, that kind of stuff. But I wish the movie focused more on Joan Jett and less on Cherie Currie. We see a lot of Currie's sister, who is jealous of her sister's fame, and her alcoholic father.
For me the second half should have been about how Joan Jett formed her next band, The Blackhearts, recorded I Love Rock and Roll, and achieved fame for herself. But instead this is covered in about two minutes at the end of the movie. It felt to me like the movie had no ending, like they just kind of said "That's enough story. Let's just end the movie here." It really felt anti-climactic.
The Violent Kind - interview with The Butcher Brothers
I met with The Butcher Brothers, aka Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores. They were exhausted. They had been working around the clock editing The Violent Kind in order to be ready for Sundance.
You can see The Violent Kind at Sundance thru January 31st, and The Hamiltons is available on DVD.
I noticed a Sam Raimi / Evil Dead influence in one aspect of the movie. They said that wasn’t necessarily put in as an Evil Dead reference, but that his style and flavor are in the movie. Besides Raimi, their biggest influences were David Lynch, Roman Polanski, and David Cronenberg. They really enjoy movies that start in one direction then take a huge turn in a completely different direction that you don’t see coming. That influenced not only The Violent Kind but also their previous film, The Hamiltons.
They like to keep audiences on their toes. As soon as you think you have the movie figured out, they spin it so it goes in another direction, and they are pretty hard turns. When writing, they are constantly trying to challenge themselves. If it keeps them interested, they hope it will keep the audience interested.
They said the movie only took 2-3 months to write. They have been working together for about 15 years so they know what each other likes. This means there aren't a whole lot of arguments. They know each other's style so they know what they are going after.
Surprisingly they didn't even know what the movie was going to be when they pitched it to the producers. Their main producer on the film was Michael Ferris Gibson, who also produced The Hamiltons. Most of the same cast and crew from The Hamiltons worked on this movie. They like to keep it in the family, which helps make a difficult shoot bearable. At times they had 9 people in a room shooting for several days, so its important that they all know they can rely on each other. It was a quick shoot, but very tough. 21 days, shooting 6 pm - 6 am every day. About 3 am everybody gets into as weird state and starts walking around like zombies. Which is part of the fun. And even though it was summer when they filmed it, they were up in the Redwoods and it was cold at night.
I asked about their early days together and how they got into the industry. They said they basically just started making movies together. At first it was just the two of them, using a video camera and operating their own boom mic. They did everything themselves and made short films, which turned into making bigger films, then The Hamiltons took off and that is when The Butcher Brothers were born. They decided it would be a good idea to have an alter ego to channel some of their darker content.
One thing they strive for in their movies is to make them very character based. Their movies are not just straight horror but has comedy in it as well. If you take the horror out of their films, you would still have a good movie.
I asked about their top horror (or thriller) movies of all time, and they mentioned Mulholland Drive, The Shining, and Angel Heart. Coincidentally I saw Angel Heart for the first time a few months ago, so we spent a few minutes just talking about that movie.
They mentioned that their next movie will be called Black Sunset. It will be about a group of surfers that head to Mexico and end up turning on each other. They said it would be like Lords of Dogtown meets The Shining. They don't know where the movie will be filmed yet, but they would love to shoot in Baja.
You can see The Violent Kind at Sundance thru January 31st, and The Hamiltons is available on DVD.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sunday at Sundance
I had some things come up yesterday and I wasn't able to attend Sundance. But I am here today. Just finished a great interview with The Butcher Brothers. Their film The Violent Kind premiers tomorrow night. I will update later with details of our interview.
After the interview, I saw Casino Jack and the United States of Money, directed by Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side). It confirmed something I've believed for a while: lobbying is nothing more than bribery, and the biggest corporations control the country.
If you don't already hate Tom Delay or Jack Abramoff, this movie will make you hate them. One of the most disturbing things I learned was about the sweat shops in Saipan and the Northern Mariana Islands. They made clothes that said "Made in the USA" (because the islands are a commonwealth in political union with the United States), but the companies there are exempted from federal immigration and labor laws. The workers there were paid next to nothing, worked 18 hour days, and they were sometimes locked in the factories and chained to their workstations.
Human rights groups were investigating and in order to shut them up, Abramoff and the company bribed a bunch of congressmen there. They brought them to the island, wined and dined them, and gave them a tour of the facility, where of course they found no violations. The company knew they were coming. Only one congressman bothered to actually talk to the workers, and the stuff he learned confirmed all the violations. But because the congressmen and lobbyists care more about money (campaign contributions) than they do about human rights, the factories continued to operate.
Enough depressing politics. The movie is one everyone should see, so more people understand how our government works. But most people are not interested in the subject, and even if they were, the movie is hard to sit through. It is too long and gives us way too much information. It didn't feel as focused as Gibney's previous documentaries. It's one of those that I give 4 stars for the subject matter's importance, but only 2 stars for the actual movie.
After that movie I decided to go check out Variety's 10 Directors to Watch. It was an event where they were going to give Phillip Seymour Hoffman an award. I had received an e-mail telling me about the event, and the e-mail said nothing about RSVP or credentials. But when I showed up at the event (which was located at Deer Mountain Resort), they said I wasn't on the list so I couldn't cover it. Thanks a lot, Variety!
Since that was a bust, and I missed the chance to see any movies for a couple hours, I decided to go cover the post-film Q and A of The Runaways. That's the movie about Joan Jett's first band. At the Q & A I saw Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon, Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, and writer/director Floria Sigismondi. They didn't have much to say other that how wonderful everyone was to work with. It was interesting to see how shy and nervous Kristen Stewart was, and how confident Dakota Fanning was (in person and on stage, I mean). Unfortunately I haven't seen the movie yet.
The last thing I did was attend the big Canadian party at Shobu's restaurant on Main Street. Since there are so many Canadian films at Sundance this year, they wanted to have a party with all the Canadian filmmakers. I hung out for an hour or so and got to talk to some nice people. The best exchange I had was with Gabriel Caldwell, Jesse Clark, and Enzo Zanatta. Their short film, Latte America, is about a country where coffee is illegal, and the entire movie was filmed in one take, performed in reverse. Here are all the Canadian filmmakers.
As the week goes on, I really need to see more movies. So far I am averaging 1.3 movies a day, but I didn't go up there at all on Saturday. We shall see what tomorrow brings.
After the interview, I saw Casino Jack and the United States of Money, directed by Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side). It confirmed something I've believed for a while: lobbying is nothing more than bribery, and the biggest corporations control the country.
If you don't already hate Tom Delay or Jack Abramoff, this movie will make you hate them. One of the most disturbing things I learned was about the sweat shops in Saipan and the Northern Mariana Islands. They made clothes that said "Made in the USA" (because the islands are a commonwealth in political union with the United States), but the companies there are exempted from federal immigration and labor laws. The workers there were paid next to nothing, worked 18 hour days, and they were sometimes locked in the factories and chained to their workstations.
Human rights groups were investigating and in order to shut them up, Abramoff and the company bribed a bunch of congressmen there. They brought them to the island, wined and dined them, and gave them a tour of the facility, where of course they found no violations. The company knew they were coming. Only one congressman bothered to actually talk to the workers, and the stuff he learned confirmed all the violations. But because the congressmen and lobbyists care more about money (campaign contributions) than they do about human rights, the factories continued to operate.
Enough depressing politics. The movie is one everyone should see, so more people understand how our government works. But most people are not interested in the subject, and even if they were, the movie is hard to sit through. It is too long and gives us way too much information. It didn't feel as focused as Gibney's previous documentaries. It's one of those that I give 4 stars for the subject matter's importance, but only 2 stars for the actual movie.
After that movie I decided to go check out Variety's 10 Directors to Watch. It was an event where they were going to give Phillip Seymour Hoffman an award. I had received an e-mail telling me about the event, and the e-mail said nothing about RSVP or credentials. But when I showed up at the event (which was located at Deer Mountain Resort), they said I wasn't on the list so I couldn't cover it. Thanks a lot, Variety!
Since that was a bust, and I missed the chance to see any movies for a couple hours, I decided to go cover the post-film Q and A of The Runaways. That's the movie about Joan Jett's first band. At the Q & A I saw Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon, Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, and writer/director Floria Sigismondi. They didn't have much to say other that how wonderful everyone was to work with. It was interesting to see how shy and nervous Kristen Stewart was, and how confident Dakota Fanning was (in person and on stage, I mean). Unfortunately I haven't seen the movie yet.
The last thing I did was attend the big Canadian party at Shobu's restaurant on Main Street. Since there are so many Canadian films at Sundance this year, they wanted to have a party with all the Canadian filmmakers. I hung out for an hour or so and got to talk to some nice people. The best exchange I had was with Gabriel Caldwell, Jesse Clark, and Enzo Zanatta. Their short film, Latte America, is about a country where coffee is illegal, and the entire movie was filmed in one take, performed in reverse. Here are all the Canadian filmmakers.
As the week goes on, I really need to see more movies. So far I am averaging 1.3 movies a day, but I didn't go up there at all on Saturday. We shall see what tomorrow brings.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Sundance, day 2
I started watching movies today.
First up was The Violent Kind. Directed by The Butcher Brothers, this is a crazy horror movie. It starts out with a biker gang going to a party at a house in the woods. Between the isolated house in the middle of nowhere and the possessed chick speaking with a demonic voice, it reminded me of Evil Dead. Then the movie gets weird. There are these crazy greasers straight out of the 1950s that start stalking the biker gang. They seem to have supernatural powers.
The movie reminded me of something Stephen King might have written back when he was on cocaine. A story starts out one way, some violence and killing starts happening, then some crazy supernatural stuff comes out of left field. The movie was interesting, but disappointing. The dialogue was ok at times and horrible other times. Lines like "You have a lot of heart" and "You can do anything you want. I know you can!" Cringe-inducing dialogue. The performances are ok, but most of the movie is kind of boring. It only gets entertaining when the strange 1950s greasers show up. They should have come into the story much earlier.
The next movie I saw was Enemies of the People. Its a documentary about the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields of Cambodia (1975 - 1979). Thet Sambath's family was killed by the Khmer Rouge, and he spent 10 years of his life befriending the people who committed the killing. He gets people to talk about the victims they killed, and he even talks to Brother Number Two, Pol Pot's right hand man.
It was chilling to watch these people talk about what they did. Some of them feel very bad about it, but some are just afraid they will go to prison. I thought the subject matter was fascinating, especially considering how much Sambath sacrificed to get the testimony of these guys. But I was hoping to learn more about the Khmer Rouge than I did. I wish he had asked Brother Number Two about Security Prison 21, for example.
The last movie was a great French horror movie called 7 Days. Dr. Bruno Hamel's daughter is kidnapped, raped, and murdered at the beginning of the movie. The killer is arrested, and before he can stand trial, Bruno manages to kidnap the killer and take him to an isolated cottage by a lake (the old cabin in the woods, again). He ties the killer up and tortures him for 7 days.
This sounds like the setup for Law-Abiding Citizen, but it is a very different kind of movie. For one thing, it's much more graphic. We see most of the things Bruno does to his daughter's killer. The movie also explores the idea of revenge. He wants to make his daughter's killer suffer as much as he possibly can, and we see the toll this has on the guy. There is a scene where a police officer asks why they are trying to find the killer. He says Bruno is justified in what he is doing, and why should they be trying to rescue a child murderer. His superior officer says that its not the killer he is trying to save, but Bruno.
As I said, the movie is very graphic. Every time he tried a new torture on his victim, I watched a handful of critics get up and leave. There were even some critics who made it over an hour into the movie, then something would happen that they just couldn't handle and they would head for the exits.
Oh, and here is a picture I took of a giant ice sculpture made to look like a big bottle of Absolute Vodka.
First up was The Violent Kind. Directed by The Butcher Brothers, this is a crazy horror movie. It starts out with a biker gang going to a party at a house in the woods. Between the isolated house in the middle of nowhere and the possessed chick speaking with a demonic voice, it reminded me of Evil Dead. Then the movie gets weird. There are these crazy greasers straight out of the 1950s that start stalking the biker gang. They seem to have supernatural powers.
The movie reminded me of something Stephen King might have written back when he was on cocaine. A story starts out one way, some violence and killing starts happening, then some crazy supernatural stuff comes out of left field. The movie was interesting, but disappointing. The dialogue was ok at times and horrible other times. Lines like "You have a lot of heart" and "You can do anything you want. I know you can!" Cringe-inducing dialogue. The performances are ok, but most of the movie is kind of boring. It only gets entertaining when the strange 1950s greasers show up. They should have come into the story much earlier.
The next movie I saw was Enemies of the People. Its a documentary about the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields of Cambodia (1975 - 1979). Thet Sambath's family was killed by the Khmer Rouge, and he spent 10 years of his life befriending the people who committed the killing. He gets people to talk about the victims they killed, and he even talks to Brother Number Two, Pol Pot's right hand man.
It was chilling to watch these people talk about what they did. Some of them feel very bad about it, but some are just afraid they will go to prison. I thought the subject matter was fascinating, especially considering how much Sambath sacrificed to get the testimony of these guys. But I was hoping to learn more about the Khmer Rouge than I did. I wish he had asked Brother Number Two about Security Prison 21, for example.
The last movie was a great French horror movie called 7 Days. Dr. Bruno Hamel's daughter is kidnapped, raped, and murdered at the beginning of the movie. The killer is arrested, and before he can stand trial, Bruno manages to kidnap the killer and take him to an isolated cottage by a lake (the old cabin in the woods, again). He ties the killer up and tortures him for 7 days.
This sounds like the setup for Law-Abiding Citizen, but it is a very different kind of movie. For one thing, it's much more graphic. We see most of the things Bruno does to his daughter's killer. The movie also explores the idea of revenge. He wants to make his daughter's killer suffer as much as he possibly can, and we see the toll this has on the guy. There is a scene where a police officer asks why they are trying to find the killer. He says Bruno is justified in what he is doing, and why should they be trying to rescue a child murderer. His superior officer says that its not the killer he is trying to save, but Bruno.
As I said, the movie is very graphic. Every time he tried a new torture on his victim, I watched a handful of critics get up and leave. There were even some critics who made it over an hour into the movie, then something would happen that they just couldn't handle and they would head for the exits.
Oh, and here is a picture I took of a giant ice sculpture made to look like a big bottle of Absolute Vodka.
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