January 13, 2004

Sundance season got rolling on Monday, just hours after the BFCA gave out their last award.

It wasn’t as though there wasn’t enough going on in the rest of the movie world, as a wave of news finally hit, with Bingham Ray leaving UA, Fox Searchlight leaving the clothes off and Big Fish lived up to its title, if only for one weekend.

Yet, every circus must keep moving. (You can check out those stories, including a great new photo of Gollum taking on Sony, at MCN.) And the big top is being set on the snowy streets of Park City, Utah, starting this Thursday.

For the first time, the festival will have a split opening night, with one film opening Park City (for us) and another In Salt Lake City (for them). It’s almost a nasty joke, as Park City gets the surfer flick (Riding Giants) while conservative Salt Lake City gets Chris Eyre’s multi-cultural tale of a black basketball coach at a Native American reservation high school, Edge of America.

Perhaps the most striking thing about this year’s line-up, still on the outside looking in, is the familiarity of it all. In the last couple of years, there has been a real dearth of quality indie product on the festival circuit. On the first page of “Premieres,” of six titles, there is one from Toronto, one made-for-HBO film that has a set HBO date and one commercial film that is due out hours after the festival premieres it. Only two of the premieres are exec produced by Robert Redford, so I guess we should be thankful for that.

There are some great films that some of us missed at other festivals, like Zatoichi, Los Angeles Plays Itself, The Five Obstructions, The Yes Men, Dogville and Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall… and Spring.

Just going through the guide, these are the 22 movies that jumped out me. As usual, there will be more consistency and surprises among the docs than the narratives.

Chisolm ’72 – Unbought & Unbiased – The story of Shirley Chisolm is a already too-soon forgotten history

The Corporation – Should probably be a double feature with The Yes Men - looks at the natural self-corruption of corporations.

Dirty Work – Three workers in three horrible jobs. Sounds like Errol Morris by way of Barbara Kopple.

The Hunting of the President – How seriously can we take a doc about the Clinton years by one of Clinton’s best friends, Harry Thomason? No very. But it should be fascinating to see what he comes up with.

Investigation Into The Invisible World – Iceland believes in ghosts and that’s got to be fun.

Neverland: The Rise & Fall Of The SLA – No, Michael Jackson is not involved. One of the most buzzed about films going into the festival, it’s been a decade or so since the last SLA hype and it is such a great story.

Word Wars – A clear riff on last year’s magical Spellbound, Word Wars goes into the hard-fought world of Scrabble championships. Festival attendees are being encouraged to challenge the attending champs to a game.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the features.

CSA: The Confederate States of America – What if The South won? This mockumentary is either going to be brilliant or crushingly disappointing. We’ll know in ten minutes.

D.E.B.S. – Screen Gems answer to Columbia’s Charlie’s Angels, including some of the girl-on-girl action that teenaged boys dreamt of while paying their $8.50.

The Dreamers – Bertoluci’s latest. After a bit of public whining, Fox Searchlight’s Peter Rice did what he would have done anyway and decided to release the film (and how it at Sundance) in its full NC-17 goodness.

Eulogy – It looks commercial. It’s cast commercial. But is it commercial fun or commercial crap?

Garden State – One of Jersey Films’ last ever project, this one promises to be a quirky delight.

The Machinist brings Brad Anderson back to Sundance, in spite of the underwhelming response to his grossly underrated Happy Accidents a few years ago. He seems to have gotten in a darker and darker mood since then and here, he puts our next Batman-to-be, Christian Bale, through the paces.

Marie & Bruce – Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick in a movie with a lot of talking. You make the call!

The Motorcycle Diaries – Walter Salles is back behind the camera, with white-hot Gael Garcia Bernal as a young Che Guevara.

Open Water – A low-budget drama about sharks. It has good buzz and in the end, will either be great or a so what.

Saved! – Another movie about being gay in a world of god-loving hypocrisy. Does this one have RuPaul too?

Speak - I am intrigued by this coming of female age film written and directed by the novelist who created the story. I could be wrong. Or it could be this year’s Blue Car.

Never Die Alone - Sundance’s first DMX movie, directed by Ernest Dickerson, distributed by Searchlight, kicking your ass if you say one mean word about it.

Tiptoes – This Matthew Bright film seems to have been around for a long, long while. But for anyone clamoring to see Gary Oldman as a midget….

We Don’t Live Here Anymore – Andre Dubus meets John Curran meets Larry Gross… marriage doesn’t stand a chance.

The Woodsman – Kevin Bacon is the child molester trying to get his life back in order. A fearless move by an underappreciated actor.

I would tell you about Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, the new doc from Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger, which I saw last night, but I have to get to bed. I’m in training for the festival.

READER OF THE DAY: COMING BACK writes: “It really bothers me that Peter Pan has been buried under kneejerk reviews and a crowded Christmas market. I know the box office total for the film isn't a complete disaster, but I really felt this one was a classic. Not a perfect film, but as close to classic as we get these days. "Magical" is used too often, but describes this one perfectly.

Do people really think garbage like The Cat in the Hat or Cheaper By the Dozen is better for their kids to see? Has it really come to this? Or did the moronic critics who cried foul at Peter Pan's non-existent sexuality turn off parents who initially planned on seeing it? All P.J. Hogan did was explore some of the story's themes a bit further than others had previously dared (or bothered). That didn't make it sexual. In this post-Michael Jackson climate, E.T. would probably suffer the same allegations about the alien's glowing, phallic finger.

Apparently a lifeless effects-orgy like Harry Potter is what everyone is ready to force-feed their kids. While Peter Pan is a fantasy that has its share of digital assistance, it has much more Heart than Hogwart, and actually SAYS something that one could take home and think about, be you child or adult. It's the kind of movie that a kid could learn more from every year he/she watches it. It was made by someone with an eye for wonder and a desire to honor the spirit of the source material, not an unnecessary fundamentalist devotion to a populist diversion. And incidentally, Rachel Hurd-Wood's Wendy makes Emma Watson's Hermione look like Natalie Portman in The Phantom Menace--how is she not getting mass acclaim for this fantastic debut?

There's a parallel here with The Iron Giant, which was smacked down by whatever sub-par Disney monstrosity came out that year; that was another instant classic that failed because it wasn't interested in playing by today's Hollywood rules. Not to mention Spirited Away, which was completely mishandled in the theatres, regardless of the too-late Oscar win. As much as I liked Finding Nemo (and Pixar's other films), you can't tell me that all this CG-realism carries the power of Old School-Disney's images, Miyazaki's images (as well as those of his Japanese peers), or even The Iron Giant's. While Pixar's scripts don't seem as dumbed-down and sanitized as Disney's current fare, I just feel like people are overexcited about what is still the novelty of computer animation. Would A Nightmare Before Christmas have ANY chance if it came out today?

Ultimately, are people emotionally moved by Harry Potter, Cat in the Hat, and Finding Nemo like I was with Peter Pan, Spirited Away, and The Iron Giant? Genuinely?

The old-fashioned is now seen as outdated, and we all suffer, children and grown-ups alike.”

E ME: Any tips?

Monday - December 29 - The Movies You Didn't See, But Should Have
Tuesday, December 30 - The Ten Worst Films Of 2003
Wednesday, December 31 - The Best Runnes Up Of 2003
Wednesday, December 31 - The Best Films Of 2003
Friday, January 2– Reflections on a New Year