Things are looking up today. I've applied for one job in Salt Lake that I could really love and am working on the application for a federal job in Seattle that looks just fine. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to be an archivist again. I really do love the work, even when I have to deal with people.
I knew it was feeling like spring despite the cold and things were bound to be looking up.
Wish me luck!
02 February 2007
Sundance 2007 - the round up
Well, with the "best of fest" movies on Monday I caught 33 films at Sundance this year, and missed countless (because I don't want to count) more that I wanted to see.
It was a good year, I didn't see anything I didn't like and the ones I liked least I can still appreciate. I even liked all of the films in "Shorts Program I" which might be a first for a shorts program. The "Animation Spotlight" was a crap shoot, but I expect that.
In the documentary categories "In the Shadow of the Moon" rocked my world. "Joe Strummer..." and "Three Comrades" were also very fine.
I liked all of the fictions I saw as well, but if since I've decided to go with a top 3 here we go (drum roll please...): "Once" (I'm waiting for the album the leads recorded together before the filming, I've ordered it and it should be here any day now), "Teeth" and "Angel-A" with an honorable nod to "Blame it on Fidel."
These may not be the technical best of Sundance, or the one the real film snobs love, but they're the movies I loved this year.
It's Friday now, I haven't been to a movie since Monday. Maybe I'll go tonight.
One more thing, if you're reading this click on the ads at the bottom, consider it a contribution to my delinquency.
It was a good year, I didn't see anything I didn't like and the ones I liked least I can still appreciate. I even liked all of the films in "Shorts Program I" which might be a first for a shorts program. The "Animation Spotlight" was a crap shoot, but I expect that.
In the documentary categories "In the Shadow of the Moon" rocked my world. "Joe Strummer..." and "Three Comrades" were also very fine.
I liked all of the fictions I saw as well, but if since I've decided to go with a top 3 here we go (drum roll please...): "Once" (I'm waiting for the album the leads recorded together before the filming, I've ordered it and it should be here any day now), "Teeth" and "Angel-A" with an honorable nod to "Blame it on Fidel."
These may not be the technical best of Sundance, or the one the real film snobs love, but they're the movies I loved this year.
It's Friday now, I haven't been to a movie since Monday. Maybe I'll go tonight.
One more thing, if you're reading this click on the ads at the bottom, consider it a contribution to my delinquency.
Sundance 2007: Best of Fest: Rocket Science
I would have liked "Rocket Science" a lot more if I hadn't been so blown away by "In the Shadow of the Moon", but I did like it all the same.
Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson) is a shy teenager with an intermittent stutter. His parents are divorced, his brother Earl (an hilarious Vincent Piazza) is a very organized kleptomaniac and bully, and the school speech therapist is in the wrong job. Things just aren't good for Hal.
Hal's as intelligent as anyone, he just literally has a hard time expressing himself. When star debater Ginny (Anna Kendrick) approaches him to join the debate team as her partner he has his doubts but goes along with it - as much to be around her as anything. When she abandons him by transferring to another school he quits the team, but can't quit the idea of debate and living up to Ginny's apparent idea of him or getting revenge on her - it's about an equal measure of each.
This is a love-revenge comedy that works on most levels.
Writer/director Jeffrey Blitz has made a fine, funny, hopeful movie about youth finding its voice.
Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson) is a shy teenager with an intermittent stutter. His parents are divorced, his brother Earl (an hilarious Vincent Piazza) is a very organized kleptomaniac and bully, and the school speech therapist is in the wrong job. Things just aren't good for Hal.
Hal's as intelligent as anyone, he just literally has a hard time expressing himself. When star debater Ginny (Anna Kendrick) approaches him to join the debate team as her partner he has his doubts but goes along with it - as much to be around her as anything. When she abandons him by transferring to another school he quits the team, but can't quit the idea of debate and living up to Ginny's apparent idea of him or getting revenge on her - it's about an equal measure of each.
This is a love-revenge comedy that works on most levels.
Writer/director Jeffrey Blitz has made a fine, funny, hopeful movie about youth finding its voice.
Sundance 2007: Best of Fest: In the Shadow of the Moon
See "In the Shadow of the Moon," I don't care if you wait to see it on the Discovery Channel or in a theatrical release, but see this movie.
I am 40-years-old and don't remember the first moon launch though I do have images in my head of the later launches. Like so many people my age I have a small disappointment that there aren't colonies on the Moon and people haven't set foot on Mars yet. This film reminded me of what the future used to be and maybe can be again.
This really amazing documentary has very little to do with the science and technology of the NASA Apollo program, it's all about the people, the men who went to the moon.
"In the Shadow of the Moon" is the story of a group of modest, soft spoken mostly Midwestern and Texan Air Force test and fighter pilots who knowingly did one of the coolest and most potentially dangerous things ever. We've all seen footage, read text books, watched TV specials on the moon landings, but I've never seen it presented so well.
Using NASA footage and interviews with the surviving astronauts, David Sington made a film which reminds us that once upon a time everyone could be proud to be an American and member of the world community.
"In the Shadow of the Moon" is hands down the best movie I saw at Sundance this year, even if I saw it as a "Best of Fest" screening after the festival was over.
I am 40-years-old and don't remember the first moon launch though I do have images in my head of the later launches. Like so many people my age I have a small disappointment that there aren't colonies on the Moon and people haven't set foot on Mars yet. This film reminded me of what the future used to be and maybe can be again.
This really amazing documentary has very little to do with the science and technology of the NASA Apollo program, it's all about the people, the men who went to the moon.
"In the Shadow of the Moon" is the story of a group of modest, soft spoken mostly Midwestern and Texan Air Force test and fighter pilots who knowingly did one of the coolest and most potentially dangerous things ever. We've all seen footage, read text books, watched TV specials on the moon landings, but I've never seen it presented so well.
Using NASA footage and interviews with the surviving astronauts, David Sington made a film which reminds us that once upon a time everyone could be proud to be an American and member of the world community.
"In the Shadow of the Moon" is hands down the best movie I saw at Sundance this year, even if I saw it as a "Best of Fest" screening after the festival was over.
Sundance 2007: Eagle vs. Shark
"Eagle vs. Shark," is a little movie from New Zealand which is everything that "Napoleon Dynamite" failed to be in my eyes. It's a charming, funny tale of social misfits.
Lily (Loren Horsley) is a lonely, weird, sweet girl who lives with her kind by inept older brother. She develops a crush on Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) who goes into the fast food place she works at every day on his lunch break. After her co-worker, whom Jarrod has a crush on, throws away a party invitation, Lily decides that she will go and impress this geeky man who has the same mole she does.
She and her brother crash the costume party (dressed as a shark and tarantula respectively) and Lily proceeds to get Jarrod's attention by beating everyone at a video game she has never played. It comes down to Lily and Jarrod in the final and she just can't pay attention to the game because she is standing next to him (he is dressed as an eagle in case you wondered about the title.)
The two hook up and Lily and her brother end up driving Jarrod to his hometown so that he can wreak vengeance on a school bully who is returning from Samoa. It turns out that he also has problems with his family, particularly his dead brother.
Jarrod is more haunted than he lets on and Lily is much stronger than even she could imagine.
This is a funny, odd love story that deserves a wide audience.
Lily (Loren Horsley) is a lonely, weird, sweet girl who lives with her kind by inept older brother. She develops a crush on Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) who goes into the fast food place she works at every day on his lunch break. After her co-worker, whom Jarrod has a crush on, throws away a party invitation, Lily decides that she will go and impress this geeky man who has the same mole she does.
She and her brother crash the costume party (dressed as a shark and tarantula respectively) and Lily proceeds to get Jarrod's attention by beating everyone at a video game she has never played. It comes down to Lily and Jarrod in the final and she just can't pay attention to the game because she is standing next to him (he is dressed as an eagle in case you wondered about the title.)
The two hook up and Lily and her brother end up driving Jarrod to his hometown so that he can wreak vengeance on a school bully who is returning from Samoa. It turns out that he also has problems with his family, particularly his dead brother.
Jarrod is more haunted than he lets on and Lily is much stronger than even she could imagine.
This is a funny, odd love story that deserves a wide audience.
Sundance 2007: The Nines
This movie contains what looks like three stories, all acted by Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy.
In the first chapter of "The Nines," "The Prisoner", a television actor (Reynolds) finds himself under house arrest for things ranging from crack use to arson. McCarthy works for his publicist and specializes in dealing with the disturbed and drug addled. She and the actor form a childlike friendship of name calling and giggling. Davis plays the stay at home mother next door who nearly seduces the actor out of what seems like boredom.
The second chapter "Reality Television" follows Reynolds as a screenwriter who has filmed a pilot with his best friend, McCarthy, as the lead. In his effort to have the show picked up he gives in to the unscrupulous demands of Davis to replace McCarthy and reshoot the pilot.
"Knowing," the third chapter, is the story of a video game designer, Reynolds, and his wife, McCarthy whose car breaks down after a hike. Reynolds goes in search of either help or cell phone reception and finds Davis, again trying to seduce him.
Elle Fanning is adorable and quite creepy in all three chapters as Noelle, first a mystery girl, second the daughter in the pilot and third the daughter of the stranded couple. Only she and McCarthy seems to have an inkling about what is really going on.
This is a stylish film that blindsided me - I really didn't expect that this was a speculative fiction story, I thought ghosts might be involved. Until the end the framework and actual plot is only hinted at.
I do like a movie that surprises me. It didn't play out to be a major sideswipe like "The Usual Suspects" or "Fight Club" (I was so suckered and delighted I laughed my way through the credits on both of these), but a good twist all the same.
In the first chapter of "The Nines," "The Prisoner", a television actor (Reynolds) finds himself under house arrest for things ranging from crack use to arson. McCarthy works for his publicist and specializes in dealing with the disturbed and drug addled. She and the actor form a childlike friendship of name calling and giggling. Davis plays the stay at home mother next door who nearly seduces the actor out of what seems like boredom.
The second chapter "Reality Television" follows Reynolds as a screenwriter who has filmed a pilot with his best friend, McCarthy, as the lead. In his effort to have the show picked up he gives in to the unscrupulous demands of Davis to replace McCarthy and reshoot the pilot.
"Knowing," the third chapter, is the story of a video game designer, Reynolds, and his wife, McCarthy whose car breaks down after a hike. Reynolds goes in search of either help or cell phone reception and finds Davis, again trying to seduce him.
Elle Fanning is adorable and quite creepy in all three chapters as Noelle, first a mystery girl, second the daughter in the pilot and third the daughter of the stranded couple. Only she and McCarthy seems to have an inkling about what is really going on.
This is a stylish film that blindsided me - I really didn't expect that this was a speculative fiction story, I thought ghosts might be involved. Until the end the framework and actual plot is only hinted at.
I do like a movie that surprises me. It didn't play out to be a major sideswipe like "The Usual Suspects" or "Fight Club" (I was so suckered and delighted I laughed my way through the credits on both of these), but a good twist all the same.
Sundance 2007: Life Support
Queen Latifah really shows her dramatic chops as Ana Willis, an HIV positive, AIDS activist, former junkie in "Life Support."
But this is more a movie about family than disease. Ana signed over custody of her oldest daughter, Kelly (Rachel Nicks) to her mother 10 years earlier. Ana, her youngest daughter Kim (Rayelle Parker) and husband Slick (Wendell Pierce), also HIV positive, function as a family, but Ana and Kim really want Kelly around.
Ana is a hard working woman who takes her messages to the streets, sometimes with fatal results. She is told several times in the film that she is stubborn and selfish. The stubbornness is always there, but she is so selfless in her work that she is selfish in her personal life. She needs everything to be her way. But when Kelly's best friend the HIV positive Omari (Evan Ross) goes missing without his medication she is forced to readjust her outlook.
I really like the way this movie deals with AIDS and HIV. It could be any medicatable disease - high blood pressure, diabetes, MS... AIDS/HIV is important in this movie, more because of Omari than because of Slick, Ana or anyone else who works with her in the outreach group. The audience is reminded that disease can control a person's habits, in this case loads of medication and condom use are essential, but the disease does not make the sufferer less of a person.
But this is more a movie about family than disease. Ana signed over custody of her oldest daughter, Kelly (Rachel Nicks) to her mother 10 years earlier. Ana, her youngest daughter Kim (Rayelle Parker) and husband Slick (Wendell Pierce), also HIV positive, function as a family, but Ana and Kim really want Kelly around.
Ana is a hard working woman who takes her messages to the streets, sometimes with fatal results. She is told several times in the film that she is stubborn and selfish. The stubbornness is always there, but she is so selfless in her work that she is selfish in her personal life. She needs everything to be her way. But when Kelly's best friend the HIV positive Omari (Evan Ross) goes missing without his medication she is forced to readjust her outlook.
I really like the way this movie deals with AIDS and HIV. It could be any medicatable disease - high blood pressure, diabetes, MS... AIDS/HIV is important in this movie, more because of Omari than because of Slick, Ana or anyone else who works with her in the outreach group. The audience is reminded that disease can control a person's habits, in this case loads of medication and condom use are essential, but the disease does not make the sufferer less of a person.
01 February 2007
Sundance 2007: Year of the Fish
"Year of the Fish" is a charming Cinderella story, as well as another movie about the plight of illegal immigrants - this time Chinese in New York.
Using a similar technique of animating film as was used in "A Scanner Darkly", "Year of the Fish" has a dreamlike quality even at its darkest moments.
Ye Xian (An Nguyen) is a very pretty young woman (17, 18 if anyone asks) who has been smuggled into the United States and finds herself at a distant relative's "massage" parlor. She is also a nice girl, with all of the meanings I can think of for the term. The relative Mrs. Su (Tsai Chin) is a particularly unpleasant woman who throws wonderful tantrums. When Ye Xian refuses to "give massage" she becomes the one who cleans, cooks and does all of the crappy jobs at the parlor - essentially an indentured servant. On her first day at the market, with two of the other girls, she is given a fish by a mysterious fortune teller, Auntie Yaga (Randall Duk Kim, who also plays a few other characters). She is told that the fish will bring her luck.
Since we all know how Cinderella works that's all I have to say about this movie except that it is a charming film that gives hope through magic.
Using a similar technique of animating film as was used in "A Scanner Darkly", "Year of the Fish" has a dreamlike quality even at its darkest moments.
Ye Xian (An Nguyen) is a very pretty young woman (17, 18 if anyone asks) who has been smuggled into the United States and finds herself at a distant relative's "massage" parlor. She is also a nice girl, with all of the meanings I can think of for the term. The relative Mrs. Su (Tsai Chin) is a particularly unpleasant woman who throws wonderful tantrums. When Ye Xian refuses to "give massage" she becomes the one who cleans, cooks and does all of the crappy jobs at the parlor - essentially an indentured servant. On her first day at the market, with two of the other girls, she is given a fish by a mysterious fortune teller, Auntie Yaga (Randall Duk Kim, who also plays a few other characters). She is told that the fish will bring her luck.
Since we all know how Cinderella works that's all I have to say about this movie except that it is a charming film that gives hope through magic.
Sundance 2007: Black Snake Moan
I've only seen two of Craig Brewer's movie, but he is well on his way to becoming one of my favorite writer/directors.
"Hustle and Flow" was amazing, and now he's topped himself with "Black Snake Moan."
Lazarus or Laz (Samuel L. Jackson) is a farmer/musician whose younger wife has just left him. For the first time in a long time he goes on a drinking binge and assaults his brother.
Rae (Christina Ricci) is a nymphomaniac (who was sexually abused as a child) whose boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) has just left for a tour of duty with the National Guard.
When Laz wakes up with a hangover he finds what he thinks is a body in the road, until she moves. Rae had been dumped for dead by Ronnie's best friend.
Laz gets medicine from a friendly pharmacist Angela (S. Epatha Merkerson) for Rae's cough and fever and bandages the wounds he can. When Rae starts wandering into the fields in her fever, he chains her to the radiator. As he tries to fine out who she is he discovers she has a reputation for promiscuity. He decides that he can help her change her ways, mostly by keeping her in his house and making her face her demons.
Their relationship moves from anger and resentment to loving friendship and an interesting take on the old redemption drama. Laz picks up his guitar again (Jackson is a fine musician with a beautiful voice) and Rae starts to pick up the pieces of her life. No one is redeemed, but everyone is going in the right direction.
"Hustle and Flow" was amazing, and now he's topped himself with "Black Snake Moan."
Lazarus or Laz (Samuel L. Jackson) is a farmer/musician whose younger wife has just left him. For the first time in a long time he goes on a drinking binge and assaults his brother.
Rae (Christina Ricci) is a nymphomaniac (who was sexually abused as a child) whose boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) has just left for a tour of duty with the National Guard.
When Laz wakes up with a hangover he finds what he thinks is a body in the road, until she moves. Rae had been dumped for dead by Ronnie's best friend.
Laz gets medicine from a friendly pharmacist Angela (S. Epatha Merkerson) for Rae's cough and fever and bandages the wounds he can. When Rae starts wandering into the fields in her fever, he chains her to the radiator. As he tries to fine out who she is he discovers she has a reputation for promiscuity. He decides that he can help her change her ways, mostly by keeping her in his house and making her face her demons.
Their relationship moves from anger and resentment to loving friendship and an interesting take on the old redemption drama. Laz picks up his guitar again (Jackson is a fine musician with a beautiful voice) and Rae starts to pick up the pieces of her life. No one is redeemed, but everyone is going in the right direction.
Sundance 2007: The Good Night
Martin Freeman plays Gary, a one hit wonder rock star who is now doing contract work for an ad agency. Gwyneth Paltrow is is somewhat shrewish girlfriend Dora who works in an art gallery. Penélope Cruz is radiant, as always, as Anna - the literal girl of Gary's dreams.
It is the search for the dreams that Anna is in that leads Gary to Mel (Danny DiVito) who leads a workshop on lucid dreaming, in the hour between the ballet and karate classes.
Gary does everything, including driving Dora away, in this film which is part straight narrative, part mockumentary.
Jake Paltrow (Gwyneth's brother) has made a funny, dreamy, generally unoffensive movie. I'm not being snide by saying unoffensive, I mean this is a nice movie you could take your parents to, or a teenage niece, and not be embarrassed to be enjoying it.
Argh, that still doesn't sound right. I like this movie, it's a great first writer/director effort by Paltrow and doesn't have many of those first film flaws that show up so often.
I do need to say that I like the role DiVito seems to be taking more often lately as the flawed wise man (I'm thinking this film and "The OH in Ohio" in particular). He's very good as the character who gives wise advice that he doesn't want to follow himself.
It is the search for the dreams that Anna is in that leads Gary to Mel (Danny DiVito) who leads a workshop on lucid dreaming, in the hour between the ballet and karate classes.
Gary does everything, including driving Dora away, in this film which is part straight narrative, part mockumentary.
Jake Paltrow (Gwyneth's brother) has made a funny, dreamy, generally unoffensive movie. I'm not being snide by saying unoffensive, I mean this is a nice movie you could take your parents to, or a teenage niece, and not be embarrassed to be enjoying it.
Argh, that still doesn't sound right. I like this movie, it's a great first writer/director effort by Paltrow and doesn't have many of those first film flaws that show up so often.
I do need to say that I like the role DiVito seems to be taking more often lately as the flawed wise man (I'm thinking this film and "The OH in Ohio" in particular). He's very good as the character who gives wise advice that he doesn't want to follow himself.
29 January 2007
Sundance 2007: Tuli
"Tuli" is the story of Daisy (Desiree Del Valle) a young woman who does not fit into her rural Philippine village.
The story in the movie "Tuli" is not a happy one, but its ending is filled with love and a hope for the future.
It begins with four young boys going the the village circumciser, Daisy's father (Bembol Roco). The father is an abusive drunk baker in his daily life. Daisy's best chance of escape is marriage. She is being courted by a young man whom she does not want to marry, because she is in love with her best friend Botchok (Vanna Garcia). Botchok moves in with Daisy and her family. When Daisy's father dies the two girls decide that the best way to pull Daisy's disapproving mother out of her grief is to give her a grandchild.
Since Daisy assisted her father with the circumcisions she decides that the only suitable young man to father the child is the one who was not circumcised.
I know enough to get a lot of the references, but I wish I knew more about Philippino Catholicism and its relationship to native mysticism so I could've caught even more.
The rural landscape of this film is idylic, especially when it is compared to the macho culture that inhabits it. Daisy and Botchok are very strong young women to defy their community and grasp for happiness.
The story in the movie "Tuli" is not a happy one, but its ending is filled with love and a hope for the future.
It begins with four young boys going the the village circumciser, Daisy's father (Bembol Roco). The father is an abusive drunk baker in his daily life. Daisy's best chance of escape is marriage. She is being courted by a young man whom she does not want to marry, because she is in love with her best friend Botchok (Vanna Garcia). Botchok moves in with Daisy and her family. When Daisy's father dies the two girls decide that the best way to pull Daisy's disapproving mother out of her grief is to give her a grandchild.
Since Daisy assisted her father with the circumcisions she decides that the only suitable young man to father the child is the one who was not circumcised.
I know enough to get a lot of the references, but I wish I knew more about Philippino Catholicism and its relationship to native mysticism so I could've caught even more.
The rural landscape of this film is idylic, especially when it is compared to the macho culture that inhabits it. Daisy and Botchok are very strong young women to defy their community and grasp for happiness.
Sundance 2007: Welcome Europa
Once more the plight of illegal immigrants reared its head at Sundance, this time in the documentary "Welcome Europa."
Bruno Ulmer tells the story of young, male illegal immigrants from Morocco, Iraq, Turkey, Romania etc. as they wander Europe looking for a better life and work. They travel, usually north, hoping that the next country will be more welcoming.
These are all once proud men who take to assorted lives of crime (prostitution, theft, whatever), because they cannot get jobs without papers. They sleep in boxes and abandoned cars when there isn't a shelter available.
Ulmer follows these men with his camera and also gives them candid opportunities to talk. Except for the ones who have been in Europe the longest and have given up most of their hope, each of them wants to work and send money home to help support his family.
There are moments of humanity and humor, of sudden friendship from fellow illegals, but mostly this is a harrowing story of poverty and inhumanity. It doesn't matter if the subjects are Kurds, Roma or Arabs, Ulmer reminds us that they are people.
Bruno Ulmer tells the story of young, male illegal immigrants from Morocco, Iraq, Turkey, Romania etc. as they wander Europe looking for a better life and work. They travel, usually north, hoping that the next country will be more welcoming.
These are all once proud men who take to assorted lives of crime (prostitution, theft, whatever), because they cannot get jobs without papers. They sleep in boxes and abandoned cars when there isn't a shelter available.
Ulmer follows these men with his camera and also gives them candid opportunities to talk. Except for the ones who have been in Europe the longest and have given up most of their hope, each of them wants to work and send money home to help support his family.
There are moments of humanity and humor, of sudden friendship from fellow illegals, but mostly this is a harrowing story of poverty and inhumanity. It doesn't matter if the subjects are Kurds, Roma or Arabs, Ulmer reminds us that they are people.
Sundance 2007: Three Comrades
"Three Comrades" is the story of three friends from Grozny. They met in school and listened to Western Rock Music together as young adults. Islam becomes a doctor, Ramzan a TV cameraman and I never did quite figure out what Ruslan did but his wife is lovely.
In 1994, when the first Chechen war broke out, Ramzan became the eyes of the world as he worked for Chechen TV. He also filmed his family and friends all of the time, as he had since he got his first camera. Islam left his cardiologist training to work in the hospital in Grozny as an anesthesiologist. During this war Ruslan was taken away to be questioned by the Russian Army and later found dead.
The second Chechen war broke out in the fall of 1999. Ramzan and Islam followed their callings again.
This is a link to the CNN report of Ramzan's death http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9911/11/chechnya.02/. Islam is in exile in the Netherlands.
Masha Novikova has made a touching personal portrait of these three friends using Ramzan's footage over the years and interviews with Islam and Ramzan and Ruslan's beautiful widows and other family members.
This is probably the best documentary I saw at Sundance.
In 1994, when the first Chechen war broke out, Ramzan became the eyes of the world as he worked for Chechen TV. He also filmed his family and friends all of the time, as he had since he got his first camera. Islam left his cardiologist training to work in the hospital in Grozny as an anesthesiologist. During this war Ruslan was taken away to be questioned by the Russian Army and later found dead.
The second Chechen war broke out in the fall of 1999. Ramzan and Islam followed their callings again.
This is a link to the CNN report of Ramzan's death http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9911/11/chechnya.02/. Islam is in exile in the Netherlands.
Masha Novikova has made a touching personal portrait of these three friends using Ramzan's footage over the years and interviews with Islam and Ramzan and Ruslan's beautiful widows and other family members.
This is probably the best documentary I saw at Sundance.
Sundance 2007: Smiley Face
I ended Friday with the very silly "Smiley Face."
Anna Faris plays Jane, an out of work actress and pot head who is living off residuals and unemployment. One morning, stoned to the gills, she eats some cupcakes that her roommate has told her not to touch. The cupcakes are loaded with pot. Realizing how stoned she is she makes a list along these lines:
1. Buy more pot
2. Go to audition
3. Buy supplies to make more cupcakes
4. Pay the electric bill
Her dealer shows up at the door and she buys more pot, with the cash for the electric bill which isn't enough but she'll pay her dealer back that afternoon. That's ok, she'll just stop by the ATM after the audition and have to buy even more pot since she ruins the first purchase when she's trying to make the cupcakes.
She makes it to the audition, late, but after that everything else goes wrong until she finds herself at point Z - a Ferris wheel on the pier at Venice Beach.
The movie is silly, the premise sillier. I didn't expect anything more. I was delighted Anna Faris and her supporting staff are all very funny and likable (except the roommate - but we aren't supposed to like him). Unlike so many comedies the pace of the movie never drags and even the old jokes feel fresh. It isn't high art (no pun intended) but "Smiley Face" is good fun.
Anna Faris plays Jane, an out of work actress and pot head who is living off residuals and unemployment. One morning, stoned to the gills, she eats some cupcakes that her roommate has told her not to touch. The cupcakes are loaded with pot. Realizing how stoned she is she makes a list along these lines:
1. Buy more pot
2. Go to audition
3. Buy supplies to make more cupcakes
4. Pay the electric bill
Her dealer shows up at the door and she buys more pot, with the cash for the electric bill which isn't enough but she'll pay her dealer back that afternoon. That's ok, she'll just stop by the ATM after the audition and have to buy even more pot since she ruins the first purchase when she's trying to make the cupcakes.
She makes it to the audition, late, but after that everything else goes wrong until she finds herself at point Z - a Ferris wheel on the pier at Venice Beach.
The movie is silly, the premise sillier. I didn't expect anything more. I was delighted Anna Faris and her supporting staff are all very funny and likable (except the roommate - but we aren't supposed to like him). Unlike so many comedies the pace of the movie never drags and even the old jokes feel fresh. It isn't high art (no pun intended) but "Smiley Face" is good fun.
Sundance 2007: Blame it on Fidel
It's 1970 in Paris and 9-year-old Anna (Nina Kervel-Bey), whose father, Fernando (Stefano Accorsi) is a Spanish lawyer and mother, Marie (Julie Depardieu,) writes for magazines, is about to have her world knocked on its ear - though her younger brother François (Benjamin Feuillet) is young enough to just go along with the adventure.
Anna's world changes with the arrival of her widowed aunt Marga (Mar Sodupe) and cousin Pilar (Raphaëlle Molinier). Her uncle was killed fighting Franco in Spain. This shakes Anna's parents out of their middle class complacency and makes them take a look at their lives.
Marie becomes a women's rights activist who is fighting the 1920 anti-abortion law and Fernando takes even bigger steps. He quits his job and starts working for Chili and Allende. The family moves to a smaller house which always seems to be full of communist Chilean exiles.
This really shakes up Anna whose Cuban nanny told her that Communists are bad, red men with beards. She slowly comes to terms with the changes in her world when she takes a liking to three of the Chileans (who explain Communism to her with oranges in a side-splittingly funny scene) and when her school friend comes to visit and is appalled that Anna now lives in a small apartment without a garden and they eat strange food (the nanny is Vietnamese at this point).
At the end of the film, in September 1971, Anna is still a spoiled princess, but one who is learning that the world is not centered on her.
I was delighted by this movie.
Anna's world changes with the arrival of her widowed aunt Marga (Mar Sodupe) and cousin Pilar (Raphaëlle Molinier). Her uncle was killed fighting Franco in Spain. This shakes Anna's parents out of their middle class complacency and makes them take a look at their lives.
Marie becomes a women's rights activist who is fighting the 1920 anti-abortion law and Fernando takes even bigger steps. He quits his job and starts working for Chili and Allende. The family moves to a smaller house which always seems to be full of communist Chilean exiles.
This really shakes up Anna whose Cuban nanny told her that Communists are bad, red men with beards. She slowly comes to terms with the changes in her world when she takes a liking to three of the Chileans (who explain Communism to her with oranges in a side-splittingly funny scene) and when her school friend comes to visit and is appalled that Anna now lives in a small apartment without a garden and they eat strange food (the nanny is Vietnamese at this point).
At the end of the film, in September 1971, Anna is still a spoiled princess, but one who is learning that the world is not centered on her.
I was delighted by this movie.
Sundance 2007: Acidente
"Acidente" is an oddly pretty little film about nothing.
The Q&A on this was very helpful. The filmmakers, Cao Guimarães and Pablo Lobato, took interesting name of 20 towns in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, made a poem out of them and then took a road trip to each of these towns.
The ensuing poem/film has snippets of life in each of these places. Some are probably no more than two minutes long and others are as long as maybe 10 minutes. Sometimes they talked to locals, but mostly they just watched. There's a truck driver swimming, an old woman telling the story of the town, gas stations in the middle of the night, whatever caught their fancy.
I nearly left more than once, in part because of a large man with a large head that was blocking the screen. I always stayed because there was something stunningly beautiful right then.
There's not much to say about this one, other than it's pretty. The kind of thing which would catch my eye if I were flipping channels in the middle of the night.
The Q&A on this was very helpful. The filmmakers, Cao Guimarães and Pablo Lobato, took interesting name of 20 towns in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, made a poem out of them and then took a road trip to each of these towns.
The ensuing poem/film has snippets of life in each of these places. Some are probably no more than two minutes long and others are as long as maybe 10 minutes. Sometimes they talked to locals, but mostly they just watched. There's a truck driver swimming, an old woman telling the story of the town, gas stations in the middle of the night, whatever caught their fancy.
I nearly left more than once, in part because of a large man with a large head that was blocking the screen. I always stayed because there was something stunningly beautiful right then.
There's not much to say about this one, other than it's pretty. The kind of thing which would catch my eye if I were flipping channels in the middle of the night.
28 January 2007
Sundance 2007 - the second weekend
Well, it's Sunday morning and I'm behind on chatting about 9 films, let's just be honest here and say I'm not getting to them this morning since the first of three movies begins in about an hour. I'll try to get all 12 caught up this evening and tomorrow.
Protein and caffeine are what it's all about. That and dried apples for sugar.
Protein and caffeine are what it's all about. That and dried apples for sugar.
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