Hey folks, Harry here with that hard driven man of Sundance, Memento Man... The most interesting review out of this bunch was THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS, a Jodie Foster film with was not a particular fave of one dear professor... I believe you know him, he's taught all you apes a lesson or two. Here, Memento Man seems to have fallen insanely in love with the film. Well... We'll see.
Hey Harry!
Besides my having to wait almost 25 minutes for a "Theater Loop" shuttle
outside the Eccles theater when the temperature was 11(!) degrees, I had
another extraordinary day at Sundance today! (But forgive me if I type this
with frostbitten hands!)
CHERISH
CHERISH is a remarkable comedy/thriller doused with syrupy 70s and 80s pop
songs. It sounds odd, but it really is a film to be cherished. Zoe Adler
(Robin Tunney) is accused of a crime she didn't commit and is placed in an
electronic bracelet program while she awaits trial. Meanwhile, the real
criminal continues to try to find her. Zoe's incarceration in an apartment is
supervised by Officer Daly (Tim Black Nelson), but will he believe that she
really didn't commit the crime? Barry Stone's cinematography was beautiful
(especially an astounding shot where the camera appears to go all the way
under and around Zoe while she's working at a computer station.) Director
Finn Taylor (who did 1997's DREAM WITH THE FISHES) has pulled off what looks
to be an audience favorite at this festival. (In fact, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
today named this film and THE EXECUTION OF WANDA JEAN as two of the best
films of the festival.) During the Q&A afterwards, Robin Tunney, the lead
actress, called in on her cell phone and answered a few audience questions!
I also got a free copy of the soundtrack, afterwards, from the producer! Now
I can listen to everything from Soft Cell's "Tainted Love," to the Flamingos'
"I Only Have Eyes For You" to Noe Venable Trio's "Down Easy" and remember the
great time I had watching this film.
LOVE LIZA
LOVE LIZA is a fairly nice little film with some astounding performances from
Philip Seymour Hoffman (who's brother, Gordy, wrote the screenplay) and Kathy
Bates. Hoffman plays Wilson Joel, whose wife Liza has just committed
suicide. The loss, pain, and loneliness he feels drives him to huffing
gasoline to help numb the world. But then he begins to need that numbness
more and more. (This is a tiny bit REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, a bleak descent into
drug hell, albeit with perhaps the tiniest chance for hope that REQUIEM never
held out.) Hoffman's performance sent our audience into a state of awe.
Kathy Bates (as Hoffman's mother-in-law who begins to turn against him)
matches Hoffman's performance with her own.
TEKNOLUST
TEKNOLUST is a fairly mediocre film with a fabulous look. Tilda Swinton (as
fabulous as ever) plays Rosetta Stone, a biogeneticist who has secretly
created three clones of herself: Ruby (always dressed in red), Marine (blue),
and Olive (green.) Ruby the clone is often sent out at nights to harvest
sperm for her clone sisters. (I really am not making this up!) But somehow,
those from whom she harvests end up with a strange virus. And meanwhile,
Ruby is trying to understand the relationship between humanity vs. technology
even as she enters her own relationship with Jeremy Davies. I'm not sure the
film always worked, but it was certainly helped by some fabulous art
direction and costuming (as well as a cool scene where the clones dance
together.)
THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS
Roger Ebert has been complaining that no film at this year's Sundance Film Festival has seemed to hit a ball out of the park. At tonight's premiere screening of The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, he may just have found such a film. You, Harry, would love this movie, which mixes a moving coming-of-age drama (with painful issues alongside carefree, youthful exuberance) with some amazing sequences of comic-book animation that parallel the live-action sequences. Jodie Foster was her usual impressive self tonight at the premiere, wearing two hats, one as a producer of the film and another playing Sister Assumpta, a nun intent on disciplining this group of four students in a Catholic school during the 70s. These four boys love to create and draw comic book characters in their notebooks as well as try to come up with new and exciting pranks. One of them, Francis Doyle (Emile Hirsch, falls for a girl (Jenna Malone from CONTACT and STEPMOM) who has a secret to tell him. This is a STAND BY ME for a crowd with deeper, harsher issues to deal with. And it hits that home run out of the park.
And for today's Ebert story:
Today while sitting near Ebert before a screening, I heard someone ask him, "Do you ever have to leave a film to go to the bathroom?" Ebert replied, "Well, I just drank three cups of coffee and two diet cokes so I'll probably be heading there about an hour into this movie."
From the frozen arctic wasteland we call Park City, UT, this is Tilda Swinton's clone buddy, Memento Man, signing off!
