Sundance - Day Seven

Suddenly, Sundance 2K took shape for me. Maybe it was the fact that I finally got some sleep (if you qualify 6 hours as some sleep.) More likely, it was that age thing I wrote about yesterday. Not the part that I feel old. The part where I am finally old enough to have some natural perspective on the industry.

Everyone seems to have come up here this year expecting a dud. That's probably because, for the most part, the big premiere screenings haven't delivered much commercial promise. Of course, money isn't everything. But if people don't see your movie, the revolution will not be televised.

And then, a series of films turned up that have real energy, real focus and real potential to breakthrough. Julien Temple's The Filth and The Fury could become the most popular documentary in years. Brad Anderson's Happy Accidents is as good as any studio romance you have seen in years and, handled properly, could be a $50 million-plus grosser. Greg Harrison's Groove, which is light years more conventional than you might be led to believe, could do serious indie business and run at midnight in some markets for a long time. And most extraordinary of all, a Slamdance film called Dolphins may be the launching pad of the most important directorial career ever to come out of Park City.

This is the story that Entertainment Weekly should have been covering when they theorized wildly about the future of film. It's not digital that will change the world. It's not Darren Aronofsky's 2000 cuts in his next movie. And it's not the deconstruction of three-act structure.

It's the filmmakers, stupid!

Brad Anderson says that he hasn't seen a Soderbergh film since Sex, Lies and Videotape. But there must be something in the water. Happy Accidents is to Out of Sight as Next Stop, Wonderland is to Underneath. The future is here. As a distributor, would you like a crack at selling Out of Sight the right way? I sure would. Happy Accidents is that opportunity. A great, complex story told with style to burn, but without making a show of itself. D'Onofrio is, as usual, extraordinary. Marisa Tomei should find her way back onto the A-list after this one. But it is Anderson who keeps this film afloat, against a tide of potential pitfalls, always avoiding the opportunity to become just plain silly. By the end, this is the most passionate romance you could ever ask for. You have to tip your hat to IFC Films here too, who left Anderson alone to do his work. That attitude has made IFC the leader in films most talked about here at the festival, including the very indie, but very good Girlfight from Karyn Kasuma and Our Song, SongCatcher, Sound and Fury and Spring Forward.

As I wrote yesterday, Groove is really Thank God It's Friday for the rave set. And while TGIF has become a film that gets smacked around without much thought, it is still, for those of us of a generation, a seminal movie. If you want to go back another generation, it's American Graffiti. Another generation, West Side Story. Keep going back and you have to do a show in a barn. But there is always someone looking for the latest sensation, there is always rebellion, there is always lust and love.

The Filth and The Fury is another reflection of generational passion. For the first time, the music business, like the film business, is old enough to have perspective on itself. The story of The Sex Pistols is as clear a view of the cycle of fame and rebellion as a Shakespeare play. The last great rock-n-roll documentary, The Compleat Beatles, was great because it was The Beatles. This one is great because it is both one movement and at the same time, all rock-n-roll.

Dolphins, Evolution & ROTDs

And take note, Hollywood. Farhad Yawari, the director of Dolphins, is the next great director. That is, if you don't destroy him. Based on his 40-minute film, he has the potential to become the next Terrence Malick, the next Bernardo Bertolucci or the next Luc Besson (not that that's the best thing to be this year.) This is no joke. This kid is the real thing. He made a film in 22 days for around $100,000 that looks as good as any studio film you could find. And he manages to keep the audience glued to their seats for 40 minutes without a single word of dialogue. His vision was so strong that he ended up getting kicked out of film school for being unwilling to make a more conformist screenplay. And now that he has a festival hit (it also played at the New York Film Festival and some others,) an agent at ICM (Nick Reed) and a visa into the U.S., he will likely be given a wide array of opportunities. Don't expect this guy to self-destruct like Kinka Usher did, making an unfinished script like Mystery Men. Yawari on his Hollywood future: "I don't want to break my neck with what people want me to do for money." How many filmmakers have that kind of perspective at 25?

There are other films that I really like and some will surely step forward with some box office success. And there are still a lot films to see. But these four films are at the core of what can be a real generational shift for the indie world. These are commercial movies that push you to feel and think. The remnants of the Altman generation are now enjoying a reflected glory with P.T. Anderson and others. The Spike Lee era is beginning to also show bounce. Tarantino's world view has been chewed up, ingested and spit up, as someone will now have to find out the next way to make the gangster movie. But now, without an overt icon at whose feet we can bow (since Steven Soderbergh would never allow himself to become iconized), the new clothes may have arrived for the Emperor of Film this week. Long live the Emperor.

Besides being inspired by Dolphins and Happy Accidents today, I also caught Girlfight, which was just bought for a reported $2.5 million. I'm not sure that this very independent feature is going to be a big moneymaker, but screenwriter/director Karyn Kusama has clearly put herself on the map. She manages, while telling a dramatic story, to shoot amateur boxing on a budget better than Oliver Stone shot football in Any Given Sunday with almost no budget constraints. I used to box and you can smell the sweat, feel the burn and hear the bells in your head in this film. And this is one of those wonderful experiences where a person becomes more and more beautiful as the film progresses, not because of make-up or weight loss, but because you connect more and more with her spirit.

READER OF THE DAY: The Brawny One writes: "I am in agreement with you in regards to the lack of significance of the Golden Globes, which, in my opinion, are the Clippers existing in the shadow of the Lakers in comparison to the Oscarsâ. As it stands, most serious film buffs have probably already seen most, if not all, of the Golden Globe winners, although one I would like to see again is Being John Malkovich, a film of which I believe I missed out on some of the jokes upon an initial viewing due to being tired. A Sundance appearance is something of a draw for me at the box office, mostly due to the press some of the films being screened receive. A good number of the Sundance selections, though, carry the cache of a film that earns the highest grosses on a given weekend. Thusly, a Sundance appearance or deal is no guarantee of quality and the only way to be sure if a film is worth seeing is by reading the opinion of trusted people and critics who have seen them or if a film is strongly appealing according to one's tastes. One of the positive aspects of Sundance, however, is the abundance of documentaries that are screened. A great way for them to be seen would be via a traveling film festival; the same of which should be considered for live-action and animated short films, which deserve to be seen by wider audiences. If anyone from Good Machine, The Shooting Gallery, or any other production company or distributor is reading this, I hope you consider giving these films greater exposure."

And this from PB&J: "OK, Dave, saw you on Ebert, just read your DGA/Globes reaction column. I have three observations:

1. Fire whoever dresses you. You're a great looking man, but that ratty sweater (with nothing underneath) made you look bad. Next time, at least put on a shirt.

2. Are all critics bored? Is that why you keep recommending noisy, "outrageous", insipid movies? After sitting through The Matrix, Three Kings and that horrible piece of sh** Malkovich (the three worst movies I have ever seen in this lifetime), I'm beginning to think you were all raised on video games and don't care about content, or performances, or story. The recommendations you and Ebert made for the Oscars confirmed this--are you so bored with intelligent movies that you feel compelled to point out dumb ones? Eddie Murphy in Bowfinger? Gack.

3. That said, I think you're a terrific writer and I enjoy reading the column every day. I'm just afraid to see any movie you enjoyed."

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E ME: Thanks for "3." I'd like to think that I can love serious films and quality action movies and silly comedies that are funny all in the same lifetime. Keep in mind that my top two films for the year were The War Zone and Titus, neither exactly lightweight fare. Roger and I agree on Eyes Wide Shut, for instance and have battled for months over Fight Club. I'm sorry you didn't like Malkovich, but I can assure you that the e-mail will run 9 of 10 saying that you must be somehow off if you didn't like it. The battle over Magnolia is equally vicious on both sides. But that's why they make Melba Toast and Pop Tarts, right?