Monday, 31 January 2000

SUNDANCE - WRAP-UP

Well, I wish I could tell you that I've wrapped things up and that I'm writing to you from the warmth of Los Angeles, but I'm not. I watched my plane take off from SLC Airport and then watched the next flight and the next. Fortunately, my luggage has made its way back to L.A., as did my airport passengers Jeff Wells and Rod Hewitt. Frankly, it wouldn't have been so bad to be here for an extra day, except that by spending a day at the airport, I missed the "Best of" screenings and managed to drop another chunk of TNT's money for no good reason.

In any case, you URLed in for a wrap up, so here we go...

If there was one movie truly branded by this year's festival, it was Karyn Kusama's Girlfight. Critics of all stripes seemed to be in tune in their admiration of this film. The word is that Sony's Screen Gems division paid $4 million to buy rights to the film. And to top it all off, the film split the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize for dramatic feature with my beloved You Can Count On Me as well as snagging the Dramatic Directing Award for Karyn (pronounced "Car-in," as she announced to the Awards Ceremony audience) Kusama.

But there is more. The film is about a young girl who isn't the easiest going gal at high school and ends up finding a certain peace in the boxing ring. The girl is played by Michelle Rodriguez, who bulks up to fighting weight and spends much of the movie scowling. As she finds more peace in the movie, she gets more and more attractive. (It's not just my perception...it's something that I've found agreement with amongst other writers.) As so often happens, when we in the media like something, as "we" like Girlfight, suddenly there is a perception of real box office potential for a film with no movie star and an unglamorous performance by its female star. I have taken a somewhat dubious view of that idea. Not to say that Girlfight isn't a clear "indie hit", but that means $4 million to $8 million gross and on a $4 million sale, that means all the profit is in video. The trouble is getting young women to go see a movie that is really about young women, and is not a glamorized version of who they are. They just won't go. I wish I was wrong, but I'm not.

However, that was all before the awards ceremony. When Ms. Kusama won her first award, for directing, her star, Ms. Rodriguez, and others came up to the stage. And suddenly, the marketing that will work to make Girlfight something more became clear. This girl is a knockout! (Pun unintended, until after I read it back.) She is young, lithe, beautiful, sexier than she is in the movie and she has a personal energy, on-stage and (later observed) off-stage that is remarkable. If one male journo said to me, "I don't want to be a dirty old man, but...," a dozen did. Unlike the great The War Zone that has never gotten started here in the U.S., Girlfight can exploit its female star without breaking any rules of political correctness. (For the record, I think that if War Zone female lead Lara Belmont was willing or asked by director Tim Roth to do Maxim, Cosmo, Playboy, etc., the film would have at least gotten proper U.S. distribution...on the other hand, God bless Roth for honoring his and her work.) So do it! Get her on Leno. Get her on Howard Stern. Get her on the cover of Cosmo Girl (or whatever their teen rag is called.) She can carry that load, it seems to be, without becoming an object. And if anyone can become a role model for a wide range of girls, Ms. Rodriguez is the one. And once they love her, they will work a little harder to love the bulked up, angry young woman she plays in Girlfight.

As I wrote earlier, one of my Sundance favorites, You Can Count On Me (reviewed on Day 4,) split the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize with Girlfight. But the film also grabbed the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for its writer/director, Kenneth Lonergan. I have to tell you...I was really surprised. I thought it was too popular to be awarded. So much for festival cynicism. Lonergan did his very best "geek writer" for the crowd, speaking eloquently through mumbles and a bobbing/bowed head. Not exactly the Todd Solondz routine, but...

The big surprise of Award Night was Dark Days, the documentary about the homeless that took three awards on the evening (Audience Award/Excellence in Cinematography Award/Playboy's Freedom of Expression Award). Everyone I spoke to who saw the film really liked it (well, as much as you can love a depressing doc.) But its success with the audience came as a surprise, especially given its dark subject. (Word is the infinitely more pleasant The Eyes of Tammy Faye sold after a bidding war on Sunday.) And three awards was a festival best. So expect that the film will make it to some major market theaters before heading to cable.

Perhaps less of a real surprise was Donal Logue's Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Performance, garnered for his role in Tao of Steve. Logue was mysteriously recalled from his wife and newborn child to accept the award. How did it happen? Does Sundance tip off winners? I don't know and I really don't care that much. Donal Logue is a guy who the industry loves. He is a terrific actor and seems to be a truly terrific person, and as I told him after the ceremony, every once in a while, the industry decides that Person X is going to be a major star and will, mostly by way of admiring casting directors, keep dragging him/her through every possible role until it happens. The last person I really remember this happening to was Sandra Bullock. Will Tao of Steve make Donal Logue a star? No. Not by itself. He's too much better than the movie. (Sorry, but that's how I honestly feel.) However, it will show Hollywood how he can take control of a movie and bring the entire audience into his arms. Perhaps the next step is a role like Jon Favreau's in Love and Sex, which Logue could have hit out of the park. Perhaps it's a bigger role in a studio movie. Who knows...maybe with a baby in the house, he'll do a high-end TV series. But despite Blade's successful efforts to do hi-m harm, watch Logue's star rise in the west.

The Audience Awards, as they so often do, turned my head this year. Like Linda Blair's. Dark Days seems to have been a wonderful choice...didn't see it, so my head remained unswiveled. However, Dramatic Audience Winner Two Family House and Wold Cinema Audience Winner Saving Grace were two nice films. Nice. Neither was nearly as good as they could have been. Both told about half the story they could have within the parameters set by the filmmakers. But they didn't. Saving Grace was no Waking Ned Devine. And Two Family House missed out badly by not getting to its point until the third act. And once it got to its point, you realized how the film didn't push itself at all. And it is a wonderful subject. This is a movie I could have and should have loved. Small man with big dreams takes a chance that, for the first time in his life isn't driven by pure vanity, and settles for more (which would be less in the eyes of many around him.) Nice. Not great. Oh well.

The most confusing award to me was Excellence in Cinematography to Committed. It wasn't ugly, but "best"? And then there were the documentary awards. There was lots of talk about Tammy Faye, The Sex Pistols, Well-Founded Fear, Dark Days and The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack. Okay...so Dark Days won three and Ramblin' won one (Special Jury Prize for Artistic Achievement.) But the "big" winners were Long Night's Journey Into Day (Grand Jury Prize,) Paragraph 175 (Documentary Directing Award,) Americanos: Latino Life In The United States (tied with Dark Days for Excellence In Cinematography) and George Wallace: Settin' The Woods On Fire (Special Jury Prize for Writing,) three of four which were so little talked about that I wasn't even bending my schedule to try and see them. (I saw the George Wallace doc, which is headed to PBS and really enjoyed it - see Day Five, pg. 2.) That's not to say that they didn't deserve the praise, just that it's always odd to go 10 days not hearing a film brought up once only to see it win major awards.

I guess that the only award winners that I haven't mentioned are SongCatcher (Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Performance,) Herod's Law and No One Writes to the Colonel (sharing the Jury Prize in Latin America Cinema) and Five Feet High and Rising (Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking.) So, now I have done that happy duty. Sadly, I've seen none of the four films, though I had a variety of people sing their praises throughout the week.

Besides sales (which mostly bore me as "news", sorry) and awards, the tone of Sundance this year was of interest. It was definitely different. Perhaps it was partially my attitude this year, which was to focus on the films more than on the interview and schmoozing opportunities. But this seemed to be a year where almost none of the "big" films were really big. Hamlet had some nice buzz among the doubters, but it seemed like everything from The Big Kahuna (breaking at its second festival) to Rated X (here against, I hear, Showtime's wishes) to American Psycho (no one got too excited one way or the other) to Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (you could hear a pin drop around the buzz) to Boiler Room (an imitation too shallow for Rich Little, wasting a mine of great young talent) to The Virgin Suicides (think of the title irony for a first time director) just sat there and gathered emotional dust while Girlfight and yes, the-much-hated-by-me Chuck and Buck stirred the pot of real excitement.

Also receiving love though so far unmentioned in today's column were documentaries Just, Melvin (which made audiences squirm in admiration of the self-family-examination of a child molestation victim) and The Filth and the Fury (one on my personal favorites.) And receiving a lot of criticism from critics who I simply have to assume have agendas rolling was Brad Anderson's Happy Accidents. This movie may have been my very favorite fictional film of the festival. And no, I was not a fan of Anderson's first effort. But this screenplay is extremely smart. Vincent D'Onofrio is still one of the best (and undervalued) young actors in the world. And Marisa Tomei got me as much as she got me in My Cousin Vinny. She is very sensitive about the idea of needing a comeback film, but this could be the one. But it would be a damned shame if a bunch of middle-aged males take out their frustrations on her just because she is an easy target. Or maybe they are just pissed because the film tricked them. (Critics hate that even more than not being able to get laid at Awards Ceremony parties!)

One last word on hatred before I get back to traditional Hot Button business tomorrow. Miramax hates the title of Butterfly's Tongue, the wonderful Spanish film that they will release domestically. So, they asked audience members to write down and hand in suggestions for a new title for the film during a public screening this weekend, offering an award for the winning title. Here's mine for public consumption: Eyes of A Child. Why? Because that's exactly what the movie is about...the way the world evolves in this one child's beautiful, sad, searching eyes.

Thanks for sticking with Sundance for 10 straight days. And keep an eye out on the left-hand bar of the column for the Sundance columns of Ray Pride and the "Other Dances" coverage by Rod Hewitt. I think you'll enjoy reading both.

E ME: What have you heard? What do you want to hear? What do you think about festivals in general?