My ten day stay in Park City was an experience I won’t soon forget. Though I have no other winter terms to compare it to - yes, God help me I’m a freshman - it was the perfect blend of an exciting and relaxing trip. I dedicated myself to doing nothing but movie hopping, and the result was a (to me) staggering 25 films viewed during the trip. Thinking them all over there were definite front runners. Movies that resounded to me as a viewer for their original plot lines, jokes, filmmaking and informative q and a. For my own amusement, I tried to rate my 25 films from favorite to least, for there were also some movies that completely missed the mark! (more…)

Seeing movies at Sundance is fun - the excitement, full crowds and premieres are great - but what makes the moviegoing experience even more special at the festival is seeing the people involved in the film for the Q and A. After almost every movie, the director, cast and some crew would mount the stage to answer any queries that the audience had about their film. Besides the fact that the audience inevitably asked the same questions,  “so what exactly inspired you to make this movie?” To which the only answer is “the story just really spoke to me…bla, bla” there was also an element of seeing the spirit of the film through the creators that made the experience special.

When the director comes on stage the general character of the movie is instantly explained. For example, the writer, director of The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, was as crazy, eclectic, and inspired as the movie itself. In the movie janitors stumble upon and try modified cookies, that subsequently make them give birth anally to florescent blue fish. The plot is very unique but not mindless and self-indulgent like independent movies of its kind can be. It was fresh and exciting, a surprising breathe of fresh air, like David Russo himself.

The director of Adam, as sensitive love story involving a schoolteacher and her neighbor who had Aspergers, was grounded, sensitive and eloquent. He explained the great care with which he broached the topic of an autistic love story, and his vision was clearly expressed in the memorable movie. (more…)

This Is Her

At Sundance we all willingly pay a jacked up priced to sit in the theater and watch innovative new cinema, but what about the sixth finger, the extra nipple, if you will, that comes along with the film we paid for? Ah yes, you know what I’m referring too, the short film preceding the feature that often leaves me saying, “um…ok, now play the movie.”  I have seen more short films in the past seven days then ever in my life, so I now feel I have some sort of reference point when it comes to judging what I mostly consider little nuggets of uselessness.

Ok, so that may be harsh, I have in fact seen some shorts that I liked as much as a feature, or in one case even more then the main film that came after, but there does seem to be a theme of the shorts being more personal then relatable to the audience. I was constantly frustrated by watching shorts programs because, for most films, I felt empty and slightly peeved after they ended, and for the ones I really enjoyed I just wanted them to continue. I wanted the characters to be developed instead of just revealing a glimpse and then rolling credits. For instance in shorts program five I was very intrigued by the little boy who was obsessed with rabbits in Netherland Dwarf, but I still felt slightly uneasy when the film ended because my time with the character was cut short.

Many shorts I saw felt completely indulgent on the part of the creatures. For instance Horsefinger3: Starfucker, the short before Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead, was ten or so minutes of stupidity where an actor gets turned on by a girl wearing huge horse hooves on her arms. She dresses him in a porky-pine outfit was they have sex and then finds that he has fur under his skin. In my opinion a silly little film such as this just wastes time. But there are always those who think it is absolute brilliance so its objective I guess. (more…)

After a mind-numbing movie (Cold Souls, incidentally) I was ready for the lighthearted pseudo-documentary Paper Heart to help me remember why documentary film is so important. Paper Heart follows Charlyne Yi, a stand up comedian and musician who doesn’t believe that she can fall in love. She travels across the country interviewing people about their thoughts on love while she forms her own opinion. In the process of the documentary she herself experiences a surprising twist in her love life when boy heartthrob Michael Cera shows a romantic interest. This particular movie experience was unique in that I was one hundred percent enthralled by the movie.  I absolutely loved it, until the question and answer period. I felt like a little girl at a magic show who is suddenly shocked by the curtain being removed and the trick being proved as a fraud. But the movie, independent of the director’s comments, was one of the best I’ve seen while at Sundance.

Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera

When I believed Paper Heart was purely a documentary, there were so many wonderful, unique, believable aspects of the film. The whole audience was engaged; I have never heard such raucous laugher throughout the whole thousand-plus crowd, you really fell in love with this awkward, quirky tomboy in her quest for answers. There was a very natural, behind the scenes feeling to Paper Heart, often throughout the film it would show the sound and camera equipment. In the romantic scenes with Michael Cera it would sometimes pan over to the director and crew sitting near by which made the film all the more relatable and interesting.

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In the descriptions of the day-to-day experience of Sundance I was told that I would be meeting people, seeing stars, and watching interesting movies. I have thus far seen amazing movies, such as Mystery Team, Lulu and Jimi and Big River Man, met fun people, and seen some B-list celebs. But I had yet to experience the whir wind, surprising, spontaneous day that had been advertised…until today!

I did not have any movies scheduled until 8:30pm so I figured I’d go spend my time waiting in line for the 3:15pm premiere of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. I went to the theater an hour and fifteen minutes before the waitlist line was even formed but there was still a really long line. I sat on the pavement, listened to my ipod and started knitting a hat. A couple came in line behind me, the woman was wearing a huge, sweeping black coat with a fur collar and a black furry hat with cat ears. I watched as she made a mini snowman and had her husband take a picture of her while she laughed hysterically. We moved inside into the actual waitlist line, and I asked the man in front of me for the time in L.A so I could call my brother. It ends up he was a journalist in a major cinematography magazine in L.A. Soon the eccentric couple behind me in line joined the conversation and we discovered that the four of us got alone really well. We all have very absurd sense of humor and clicked instantly. We got numbers 72 through 75. (more…)

I am not a morning person. Any movie I have to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn for (excuse my lewd expression but 7:15 am deserves to be degraded) is not worth seeing. I don’t have a good track record with mornings; by the end of my senior year of high school I had 18 tardy detentions because I came to class fifteen minutes late without fail. I slept through fifteen dollars and what looked like a badass movie the day before, so Lulu and Jimi wasn’t in my good graces when I woke up after a 2:30am bedtime. Oh, Lulu and Jimi… from the first scene I was awake and damn glad to be, a true testament to what, by the end, proved to be a lifetime favorite movie for yours truly.

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Michael Moore in Roger in Me

Roger and Me, Michael Moore’s first documentary is personal look at the devastation of unemployment for the workers in the GM plants in his hometown of Flint Michigan. The film follows a young Michael Moore on his solo quest to speak to the head of GM at the time, Roger Smith, and convince him to witness firsthand the effects of his job cuts in Flint. Though in the end Michael does not achieve any sit down with Smith, the journey towards him, and the many local characters that we meet on the way, makes Roger and Me a quirky comedy with a dark subject matter.

After being fired from a four month writing stint in L.A Michael Moore was living on welfare back in his hometown when he set out to film Roger and Me. Moore had never attempted to make a movie before, had no training in the business, but he felt that as a citizen with a social conscious for is town what was happening needed to be documented. His whole family was GM workers and he had written extensive articles on the subject for his previous newspaper the Michigan Voice, so the subject was near and dear to his heart on many levels. In his commentary on the movie, Michael said that he and his wife (also from Flint) found it too painful to watch the footage back fifteen years later. To me the movie took on a really touching, special quality because I knew how personal a film it was.

Moore courageously brings his camera into some of the most intimate and passed over stories of middle class workers’ lives after being “let go” from their longstanding jobs. He consistently documents the deputy sheriff, Fred  Ross, whose job is to evict families from their houses if they cannot keep up with rent. Not even Christmas Eve is an exception as Moore interlays a screaming family being thrown on the street with a publicized charity Christmas speech made by Roger Smith. Moore even was present to film one of his high school buddies being evicted, and captures the desperation of being stuck in bad circumstances. (more…)

kids

The memorable 1995 film Kids is a day in the life of a youth culture where there are no parental boundaries and no consequences. As a viewer I found myself disturbed, dumbfounded and saddened over what I was viewing on the screen, but at the same time I was singularly transfixed. To witness a documentary style movie following children engaging in every sort of high-risk activity opened my eyes to the extent of corruption that can proliferate in youth.

Kids is the twisted buddy movie of a band of youth roving the streets of New York.  At the center of the company of users and abusers are Telly and Casper, two teenage boys with precarious home conditions and a taste for sex and drugs. Telly has made it his personal mission to deflower as many virgins has he can get his hands on. Within the course of the one-day that is portrayed in the movie, he sleeps with two extremely young girls. We find out through Jenny, one of the many virgins he has bedded, that Telly is spreading HIV through his many sexual encounters. (more…)

Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderbergh is an independent film icon for his making of sex, lies, and videotape which aired with great acclaim at Sundance and Cannes, also landing him an Oscar nomination for best screenplay in 1989. But like all other filmmakers struggling to make it in the new Hollywood tidal wave, Soderbergh’s persistence and vision granted him the entry to what would become an extremely successful career, both in the mainstream and off beat markets.

Steven Soderbergh was born in Atlanta Georgia, January 14^th, 1963. During his early childhood his family moved to Louisiana where Steven’s father was the dean of education at a local university. Steven began making short films at the age of 15 when he enrolled in a high school class on animation. His first break into professional film work came when the rock group Yes asked him to film a full length of their concert footage which he called Yes: 2012 live. He won a Grammy Nomination for his work, which propelled him to film Winston in 1987, as short subject film that was expanded to make his legendary sex, lies and videotape two years later. (more…)