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January 24, 2008
Sundance: The Pre Wrap-Up
I returned from the Sundance Film Festival very early yesterday morning, but my brain is still adjusting to the sea-level environment, not to mention jet lag. My formal wrap-up piece will be appearing in tomrrow's Post. I'm tempted to call this year's program a disappointment, but it's probably not fair to do that when you've only seen 17 movies out of many, many more. I wish I could have fit in "Ballast,'' "Frozen River'' and "Choke,'' three films some of my colleagues singled out for praise. I was planning to see the latter Tuesday morning after the Oscar nominations announcement, but sheer fatigue turned a 20-minute cat nap into a three-hour coma. Those 17 titles don't include four major movies I saw at screenings in NYC before the festival.
Kyle Smith has already published a
3.5 star rave of the concert film "U23D,'' so I'll only gripe that I found the use of 3D overly gimmicky and complain the extensive use of rapid cutting and superimposed images gave me a huge headache. I much prefered
Michel Gondry's surprisingly sweet fantasy "Be Kind Rewind,'' which New Line will open theatrically on February 22. I'll have a full review then, but
Jack Black and
Mos Def are endearing as clerks in
Danny Glover's Passaic, N.J. video store, who accidentally erase the entire stock of VHS tapes and make their own low-tech versions of movies like "Ghostbusters'' and "Driving Miss Daisy'' (pictured) for their customers, who include
Mia Farrow. I also got an advance look at "Savage Grace,'' the first feature-length from from
Tom Kalin since 1992's "Swoon.'' Like that one, "Savage Grace'' is inspired by a real-life crime, the murder of socialite
Barbara Baekeland by her gay son
Antony. In this uneven but very provocative movie set for release in May (a year after its premiere in Cannes) they're played by
Julianne Moore and the stunning
Eddie Redymayne. Their sex scene together (she's trying to "cure'' him) is a real talker. And finally, there's "August,'' a drama from Austin Chick ("XX/YY''). This one has a great premise -- an Internet startup struggling for survival in the days just before 9/11 -- and even a cameo by
David Bowie. Unfortunately, it has a fatally miscast lead in the hapless
Josh Harnett, making his umpteenth comeback attempt. He's supposed to be playing someone who can raise millions on a sketchy premise, but it's hard to believe anyobody would buy a pair of shoes from his character. And as is Mr. Hartnett's wont, he has three gratituous shirtless scenes (plus another one where he is actually having sex). You know Hartnett wasn't the first (or even the third or fourth) choice for this role.
Posted by Lou Lumenick on January 24, 2008 03:46 PM
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