Quick hits, because local wireless is overwhelmed by Sundance attendees:
“HERE” is gorgeously shot, but an inexplicable two full hours. The male and female leads are compelling, and good actors.
The story is incredibly thin, and so little happens you wonder if a 90-minute version would have saved this.
“Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest” is directed by Michael Rapaport. Yes, that actor.
And it’s good! The first half is raucous and fun. The second half drags with some extended personal drama, but as a whole, this is well worth checking out.
But I concede that — apart from Virginia being impossibly cute, adorable and brave — this teaser doesn’t say much about the “Life in a Day” feature. Let’s try one more:
For the rest of us, YouTube will make it possible to collectively share the world premier of the “Life in a Day” documentary as it’s screened in Park City, Utah.
Following the screening there will also be a live Q&A with the documentary’s director, Kevin MacDonald, along with a small group of specially-invited contributors to “Live in a Day”. (Impressive stats: this project drew more than 80,000 clips, and uses 1,125 of them. I’m sure the project probably shortened the lives of about 10 editors…)
Note, though, that the film WON’T be freely available on YouTube after that (it still has a theatrical run coming up this year), although you’ll be able to see a re-broadcast 7pm on Friday, January 28, in your local time zone.
But Sundance and YouTube have worked out something else that can keep you captivated through the rest of the long winter months.
Check out The YouTube Screening Room, which is showing a total of 12 shorts from Sundance 2011, plus four “career-starting” shorts from past festivals (!), and four shorts from the Sundance Directors Lab* (*no guarantee these won’t suck…). And they’ll add more on January 27 and February 3.
Meanwhile, here’s a loving tribute to 8-bit video game heros:
Want something a little more significant from your short films?
Oh, and full disclosure — I’m not at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival YET. We get there Tuesday, and I prefer to avoid the insanity and overhype of the opening weekend blitzkrieg, and focus instead on the week that follows (including the awards). I feel compelled to note this because Friday I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in several years, and the first thing he said was “What are you doing in town? I was reading your blog and thought you were already at Sundance.” I have no idea how his wife and kids are doing, but my bad — I’ll slap up a dateline when I’m in Park City.
Five feature films with early buzz:
All that said, early word of mouth — which still has to be filtered through the reality of aggressive publicists pushing and tugging to get their spin out before multiple screenings and hundreds, even thousands of festivalgoers have had a chance to separate the good from the merely well-publicized — is placing a few feature films into the spotlight. (I’ll have something on docs next time.)
Again, early going. This could be laughable in one week, but here we have it:
Red State —
I’m still holding out hope for Kevin Smith. I love the guy, but I don’t think he’s honed his directorial skills in terms of cinematic eye and character motivation.
But I will stand on Ben Affleck’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and declare that “Dogma” is not only Smith’s best film, it’s also a great film, period. My many reasons are a whole other discussion, but at the core I believe Smith loves the idea of all the good religion can do, and is horrified by how we mere mortals actually use religion for our petty power/control issues. This passionate belief might also make “Red State” stand out from his usual work. Here’s hoping.
Oh, and JOHN GOODMAN!! Melissa Leo! Kevin Pollack. The acting talent is there.
Higher Ground — I previewed this earlier — it’s Vera Farmiga’s directorical debut, and she’s acting in it as well. (She starred next to George Clooney in “Up in the Air”, and played the counselor/girlfriend in “The Departed”.) This film has a good pedigree.
Like Crazy — Directed by Drake Doremus (“Douchebag”, 2010), it’s a dramatic romantic about first love. Awww.
But the buzz is far less about the film itself, and far more about the female lead, British actress Felicity Jones. She’s been in Julie Taymor’s “The Tempest”, Stephen Frears’ “Cheri'” (with Michelle Pfeiffer), and a lot of BBC productions. But word is she burns up the screen.
The Future — It’s a “quirky” “offbeat” romantic comedy written, directed and starring Miranda July, who did “Me and You and Everyone We Know” (2005). Which I liked, and I didn’t expect to.
One of the twists of “The Future” is that the couple in the story are brought together by the woman’s cat — who also narrates the film. And, wait for it — Miranda July also provides the voice of the cat.
Yes, I know. On paper, enough to have me running screaming out of the theater. But this is Miranda July. I like her work. She might nail this one.
And please God, let’s just hope it’s not a misfire on scale with Cindy Sherman’s “Office Killer”… speaking of cool artists that completely failed on film.
Martha Marcy May Marlene — I also previewed this earlier, as another Sundance Institute “homegrown” project in this year’s competition.It stars a THIRD Olsen sister, Elizabeth, who by all accounts does pretty well. It could be the next “Winter’s Bone,” down to a shared actor, the always-good John Hawkes (I know; great name for an actor!). He’s also been in “Deadwood”, the previously-mentioned “Higher Ground,” and was in “You, Me and Everyone We Know.” That dude is all over this year’s Sundance.
Anyway, another religious-folks-gone-bad theme, which is yet another current of the 2011 festival. Keep an eye on this one in terms of jury voting, but it may not make it through the clutter of the audience award.
Also keep in mind not all these films are in competition. “Red State” and “The Future” are premiers, so the only awards they’ll be going after are distribution and ticket sales this year, but they may arrive at your local arthouse sooner than the three on this list that are in competition.
This is an interview with first-time director Elgin James, whose film “Little Birds” is in the Dramatic Feature competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
“Little Birds” is also the film Robert Redford hopes will win the competition, not that there’ll be any undue influence with the judges or anything. Has Redford come out and said that? Not in so many words, but the will and intent is there.
What Elgin James’ film represents is a shifting of the festival’s focus by Redford and Sundance’s leadership (speculation on my part). James is a product of the Sundance Institute’s filmmaker lab, and “Little Birds” is one of six films in competition this year that came out of the labs.
— In previous years, it wasn’t a given that being selected for the directing, screenwriting or producing workshops held by the Institute would be in any way a ticket into the festival itself.
(Background: the two things are essentially separate entities. The Sundance Institute is actually based in Sundance, Utah, not Park City, although it also has offices in Los Angeles and New York. The festival is an offshoot of the Institute, but it’s firmly based in Park City, although there are some screenings in Salt Lake City, and this is the second year the Festival is conducting a multi-city, same-day screening of feature entries. This year it’ll be Jan. 27.)
Back to topic, it had actually become kind of a knock on the prestige of Sundance that much of its carefully selected and nurtured talent hadn’t really broken out into successful (read, “popular”) careers — although Institute folks will tell you that’s not their focus at all — but these “homegrown” films weren’t even represented significantly in past festivals.
For whatever reason — perhaps it’s a great, breakout collection of young filmmakers this time, perhaps not — one of the narratives of 2011 is this is the year of Institute-nurtured films competing with the rest of the world.
How will they do? The festival just started, so there are 9 more days for word-of-mouth to generate, but “Little Birds” has buzz. Is it buzz based on a great film? Too early to say.
For a film placed in the documentary category, it’s done well at the box office: nearly $5 million worldwide so far, which places it in the Top 40 gross of all documentaries released theatrically. (Trivia: “Farenheit 9/11”, “March of the Penguins” and “Earth” are the top performing docs. I knew you’d wonder…)
I got on the “Exit” tangent because I mentioned to a friend recently that I’d hoped to be blown away by “The Philosopher Kings” — but wasn’t.
They followed with “Hey, you know what’s a great documentary? ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’. That was a great documentary.”
After I stopped pulling out my hair, I mustered a “You really thought that was a straight-up doc?”, and got just a quizzical look in return.
— Don’t get me wrong. If you haven’t seen this film, definitely check it out. It’s incredibly entertaining. But while the filmmakers themselves will be loathe to ever tell the whole and full story about how it was made, I’ll bet everything in my 401(k) that it ain’t what many believe it to be: a real documentary.
It IS a fascinating look at the history of street art (think Banksy, of course, but also Shepard Fairey, Space Invader and Zevs, to name a few); Andy Warhol and his continued influence on contemporary art and contemporary society; and then, essentially a one-sided pissing match between the street-art community and contemporary, famous and well-paid “established” artists. Guess who comes out on top?
Oh, and this fight is cleverly wrapped inside another “fight” between alleged original director
“Thierry Guetta” and Banksy himself — who claims he had to take the project over because of “Guetta’s” incompetence as a filmmaker. Incompetence like this, which I challenge you to match yourselves:
Anyway, Banksy says you can, at home, in a couple hours or so. and that’s why he took over the project.
But let’s move on to the REAL controversy.
— Will “Exit Through the Gift Shop” get nominated in the Best Documentary category at this year’s Oscars? (It’s on the short list of 15 docs, although only 5 will make the final selection…)
— If it does, is that like Milli Vanilli getting nominated for and winning a Grammy? Okay, assume Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus actually were self-aware and in control of their careers, if you wanted to make it a better comparison.
It could win (the event is Feb. 26), but if I were Banksy, I’d keep a wide berth from Sebastian Junger if “Restrepro” loses to him. Something about all that time spent at a forward operation base in Afghanistan, real bullets, real death, etc…
Get ready for the hype overload that will be the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. It officially kicks off Thursday, Jan. 20, opens for business Friday, Jan. 21 and continues for 10 days, with winners announced Saturday, Jan. 29.
Between now and the first of February, it will be hard to get away from the media coverage. That said, here’s a discussion by actress Vera Farmiga, who’s starring in “Higher Ground,” a film in the U.S. Dramatic Competition produced by my friend and indie film legend, Gill Holland:
To see this particular film during the next two weeks, though, you have to be in Park City, Utah.
— But don’t despair if you don’t have an incredibly overpriced hotel room booked for the gala.
*If you live in Ann Arbor, MI; Brookline, MA; Brooklyn; Chicago; Los Angeles; Madison, WI; Nashville; San Francisco or Seattle — the Sundance 2011 festival comes to you.
This is the second year Sundance has managed this event, and its intent is to promote the Institute, the individual films and filmmakers, and the independent, arthouse theaters where the screenings are held.
And Park City will be directly involved: the “Life In A Day” documentary that kicked off on YouTube this summer — inviting submissions for ordinary people to record what was happening on July 24 around the globe — will be shown there as part of the connected, nationwide experience.
“A major component of the Sundance Institute mission is to expand and engage audiences for independent storytelling,” Keri Putnam, Sundance Institute Executive Director, said. “Sundance Film Festival USA is an extension of the Institute’s year-round support of independent theaters across the country – designed both to provide people with access to films premiering at the Festival, and to encourage interaction between artists and audiences.”
Oh, and the Sundance Channel might possibly provide some information about what’s going on during the festival. Plus CNN, MSNBC, Fox, USA Today, the New York Times, etc etc etc. And let’s not forget US Weekly.
If you work in higher education, you should take the time to watch “The Philosopher Kings” documentary. It’s available on iTunes and Netflix (streaming and DVD). Consider it a homework assignment, or a continuing-education requirement.
For those not in the sector, I’m somewhat torn about recommending this documentary, which focuses on the lives of janitors and custodians at a handful of prestigeous, well known universities — including Caltech, Cornell University, Duke University, Princeton University and U.C. Berkeley, to name most of them.
I was led to this doc by a friend who knew about the Duke University connection: one of the people profiled is Oscar Dantzler, who takes care of Duke Chapel itself.
Don’t get me wrong — it’s certainly well shot (in fact, some of the visuals are absolutely gorgeous), has a fantastic music score, is well edited, and the people featured have interesting life stories (but of course; otherwise, they wouldn’t have made the final cut).
In my opinion, while “The Philosopher Kings” is a good documentary — it simply isn’t a GREAT documentary.
And that’s problematic.
“The Philosopher Kings” was initially pitched to me as a story about these custodians/janitors, who worked at these great colleges and universities — and described what THEY learned while at work.
The documentary barely touches on that theme before pulling back and showing the real story, which is the disconnect between these people who are seen every day by faculty, staff and students — but aren’t really seen by them at all.
Where this project falls short is its nearly complete lack of interviews with some of these same faculty, staff and students, to find out what they know, if anything, about the lives of those also in service to the institution, and whose daily efforts make the offices, restrooms, lecture halls and labs habitable and useable.
In fact, if it weren’t for a sound bite delivered by former President Bill Clinton, who spoke at Duke University about this exact subject — but as part of a speech a different focus — there may not have been such a concise summary of this theme of seen but not really seen.
The exploration of the lives of the subjects is astounding. Most all of them have heartbreak in their past, and seem to have conquered that as they sought out normal lives.
It also seemed readily apparent that few if any people at these universities knew anything about these personal struggles and triumphs. Maybe that’s appropriate to a point — work is work, personal is personal, right?
But a university, a college, a place of higher learning is supposed to be about sharing ideas and experiences, building on knowledge from the past and the present, and moving society into the future with this foundation.
In a way, though, I want to promote “The Philosopher Kings” because it actively (and perhaps unknowingly) demonstrates a theme that I’ve been promoting for years. (And yes, I’ve worked in the higher education sector for a number of years, so I’m not simply shouting from the bleachers here).
Most colleges and universities are loaded with great stories, generated by their own people — faculty, staff, students, alumni and local residents.
And most colleges and universities do a poor job of identifying all but the most obvious stories (superstar faculty, high-achieving students, successful/famous alum) and getting these great stories out into the world.
Technological restrictions have fallen. True, budgetary constraints in this economy may be real factors.
But the limitations of imagination, the focus on how things have traditionally been done, and the will to move past categories, class and caste designations seem to be very real, if usually unspoken, barriers.
And it doesn’t require a philosopher king to realize that’s a shame.
This isn’t what you think — I’m not trying to be deliberately provocative just for the sake of it.
And in fact, I celebrated Christmas with a big collection of family (I have a HUGE family, so it’s possible to fill a house and have plenty left over, unaccounted for, probably wandering around in the snow lost and abandoned. Not that I would ever do that.)
I also had a great, reasonably low-key New Year’s Eve with my “other” family and a group of interesting, engaging friends. So I can lay down the sentimentality.
During Christmas, though, I broke up the spaces between family events by re-reading Dubliners by James Joyce.
— Scoff if you want, claim that a dead white Irish male writer isn’t relevant to modern multicultural society, note that a collection of short stories first published almost 100 years ago might not stand up that well.
All I know is this:
Dubliners kicked me in the head. With no fanfare, it was an unsentimental wake-up that was a perfect antidote, to me, for what had been a heavily commercialized holiday.
I first read this in college. That event was pretty much lost on me, since it was an assignment rather than an exploration. I picked it up again in my early 30s, but I had to put it down because I was still dealing with my father’s recent death and some of the stories hit too close to home.
More recently, a co-worker lent me a copy of “The Dead”, the novella that closes Dubliners (and which John Huston made into a film, along with his son, Tony, and daughter, Angelica). That same co-worker, Patrick, believes the final paragraph of “The Dead” is one of the most astounding pieces of English literature, period. Personally, I believe it’s great, but give the edge to the closing of The Great Gatsby.
So for about a year, I’ve been primed to take on Dubliners as an adult. I just wasn’t expecting its bleak AND beautiful nature.
My point? I’ve unexpectedly found inspiration from a great artist, reaching out from a different world and a different century. I’m going to use that inspiration this new year to better attempt looking at things as they are, not as I want (or hope) them to be.
James Hyatt 