We have arrived at Sundance! Just during the flight into Salt Lake City I managed to have found myself within a three seat radius of various filmmakers involved in two separate short film projects being screened at Sundance! The first was a group from Canada who showing the short film Captain Coulier during the short film selection V. It looks like a hysterical spoof (or parody?) on the 1950-60’s popular Sci-Fi from film and television series. Yet another group of filmmakers hailing from our norther neighbor are bringing us a political thriller which is premiering this Saturday. The film is called Ten For Grandpa and based on the short trailer looks very interesting to say the least. I’m going to work on contacting the filmmakers so watch for more information on these films when we get our hands on them!

OK, I do have to finish this review of Drugstore Cowboy though so I’m going to do the film, and Gus Van Sant (one of my favorite working directors) a huge disservice and give a very brief impression and review of this beautifully made film.

Drugstore Cowboy follows four characters who meander from one town to the next, breaking into the local drugstores in order to raid their supplies and feed each of their habits. The four are clearly led by Bob (played by Matt Dillon) who seems the most hardened of the lot and appears to show little compassion for his band of followers with the possible exception of his girlfriend, who we later learn has been by his side since they were kids.

During the first half of the film these charachters are all seemingly stuck following Bob with no motivation to break themselves of this cycle. They are constantly being persued by an equally unlikable cop who is cearly as self-centered and closeminded as they are.

The film hits its stride at this half way point when one of the band of four overdoses after she thinks the group has abandoned her. This triggers a surprising turn of events in which Bob decides its time to go clean and checks himself into a methadone clinic. Where this film’s power lies is in how this change is presented. This is not the dramatic Hollywood drama in which we are cheering our hero at every struggle. In fact, the process and decision is relatively easy for him to make and his change is subtle showing us that Bob has really been this way all along. Yet these choices still come at a huge cost. He loses the love of his life and eventually ends up losing his own life as well.

It always takes restraint on the part of a filmmaker when making a movie about charachters suffering the grips of hard drug addiction (see Requiem For A Dream as an example of a lack of restraint), but Gus Van Sant never lets things go over the top and we are treated to a fantastic charachter study.

Tags: Captain Coulier, Drugstore Cowboy, Gus Van Sant, Jason Voss, Short Films, Ten For Grandpa

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.