Sundance: Day 4

1.24.09

Rosie and Scotty join me for the final movie of Sundance, Dead Snow: Norwegian Nazi zombie thriller. Which actually turns out to be just as much of a comedy as a horror movie. Frankly they could have done more with the Nazi thing to make it scarier. Best part: the hero hangs from a cliff by Nazi zombie intestines which are still connected to the Nazi zombie on the other end. Worst part: love scene in the outhouse.

Now it's time to catch up on all the regular movies. Maybe I should not spend hours watching SAG Awards fashion recaps.

Sundance: Day 3

1.23.09

Leave before dawn. I actually have a ticket for "The September Issue" but don't get in thanks to all those special pass holders who show up. 100 angry fashion junkies and Park City retirees are turned away.

Barely stay awake for "The Reckoning," a documentary about the International Criminal Court. Learn about crimes about humanity and war crimes in places like Rwanda, Congo, Uganda, and Columbia. Think the U.S. looks pretty shady in refusing to join the ICC. Best part: the sweet old man (what is his name??) who's first trial as an attorney was as a prosecutor at Nuremberg at age 27. Unbelievable. Worst part: the camo-wearing fan gushing at the Q&A. See ijcentral.org for more on the international justice movement.

"Adam" turns the audience into big babies, including that camo-clad doucher again. It's a romance about two neighbors, one of which has Asberger's Syndrome. Best part: Hugh Dancy. Worst part: the tinge of Lifetime Movie Networkishness. "Adam" will come out later this year via Fox Searchlight.

I giggle and grin all the way through "Paper Heart," the project of that stoner girlfriend from Knocked Up, Christine Yi, who is on a search to make sense of her disbelief in love. It's part documentary footage and part narrative about a budding romance between her and Michael Cera. Completely hilarious and touching. Best part: Charylyne and the kids at the playground in Atlanta questioning each other, and pretty much every other second of the film. Worst part: that Michael Cera is actually dating Charlyne Yi in real life instead of me. "Paper Heart" has distribution; please do see it when it comes out.

It is a slow year at Sundance. Only sighting today: Greg of Misshapes. He stands next to me in line forever, and I still don't talk to him. Meanwhile, a friend sits next to David Bowie in a screening.

Sundance: Day 2

As in, my second day at Sundance, not the second day of the festival.

1.19.09

Randi and Matt join me for The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, a totally bizarro movie about janitors who eat prototype cookies and get impregnated with little blue fish. Well, just the guys get pregnant. Love everyone in it including Vince Vieluf and Marshall Allman. It is a treat to see Tania Raymonde in it, the actress who plays Alex on Lost, and whom I have had a girl crush on since she her first episode.

Become obsessed with that Pendleton blanket-turned-sweater.

Jump out of the car at Holiday Cinemas just in time to meet Dirk and Kathryn going inside for Short Program III. Worst short: the one by former BYU film students. Sorry. Best shorts: Pencil Face, which luckily for you, can be watched here. The opening images are amazing. 2 Birds, from Iceland, horrifying but totally beautiful. And Instead of Abracadabra, from Sweden. Of course my favorite is Swedish. About a 25 year old mustachioed magic freak living with his parents. Completely charming and hilarious. You can download if from iTunes for free until 1/25, along with a handful of other shorts, but I can't vouch for any of the others yet.

Late night shuttle ride to the lot.

Will we survive Friday?

Sundance: Day 1

1.18.09

Crying baby and apathetic mother on the shuttle. Who brings a baby to Sundance?

French film Louise-Michel about a lady who can't read who used to be a guy who works in a factory that gets shut down and hires a guy who used to be a lady to kill the boss. Best part: he dresses up his bald, dying cancer patient cousin in his old dance costume and sends her to kill the target. Worst part: a reenactment of 9/11 in a trailer park, which is later explained and is more benign that assumed.

While waitlisting Stay The Same Never Change, Dirk shows me the envelope for "Anna Wintour + 1" he found in the trash at The September Issue screening that he didn't get into. I get jealous that I wasn't there to catch a glimpse of her.

I like Stay the Same more than most. It stars teen girls the director found on myspace, in their own homes, with characters they collaborated on. Despite amateur acting, I kind of love the girls and really wish they'd been at the screening for the Q&A. Best parts: putting on a child's Hulk costume and pounding the floor, sewing a life-size man doll. Worst part: confusing kidnapper and mother characters.

The only celebrity sighting of the day is the guy from Amelie who produced Louise-Michel. But I get good parking spots.

Sundance: Take 3.5

I have never been more memserized by a moving picture than I was by Paradise, a short film that screened before Strangers at Sundance. This is why it was so important to be able to watch Neftlix online, and why I had to wait to post about it after I could watch it again (and again and again...)

Chinese artist Yi Zhou made this 3 minute animated film which Sundance describes thusly:

Based on Dante's The Divine Comedy, this lyrical look at an imaginary paradise is based on black-and-white nature, insects, and no human souls in the landscape.

It depicts a nature's paradise, but with shapes and movements more extranatural or fantastical. The music editing adds to the suspension of time and reality, but I also couldn't help but imagine if darker possibilities lie just outside what was depicted on film.

This is an absolute must see for everyone! Watch it and other Sundance shorts here on Netflix. Supposedly it's available on iTunes, but I can't find it with the the other Sundance shorts. Check iTunes for yourself.

Sundance: Take 3

Only made it to 3 Sundance movies all together this year. At least none of them were poo. Here's what I saw last weekend.

King of Ping Pong (Ping Pong Kingen)A Swedish film about a chubby kid who domineers the ping pong club at the youth center, gets picked on at school, has a nutty mom and an absent deep sea diving dad, and sucks at driving stick. It was too weird for some in the audience. I enjoyed it, especially for the production design, but it did seem a bit lacking. The funny and touching moments were a bit too few and far between. But worth seeing if you like foreign and quirky.

Strangers Somehow all my screenings were foreign this year. No complaints. Strangers is an Israeli film and was my favorite of the bunch. It is the story of an Israeli man and Palestinian woman who meet by chance in Germany and the relationship that ensues. The interesting thing about this film, other than the politics inherent obviously, is that it was made without a script in "real time." Meaning, the 2 actors got background information about their characters, there was somewhat of a treatment, but then they just filmed the actors around Berlin and let the story develop. The filmmakers were at the screening, and when they told us this, I was a bit worried. But my doubts were gone immediately when I saw the visual beauty of the film and heard the music. The film was expertly scored by Eyal Kazav in a traditional turned moody sort of way. I can't find any of the music yet, but hopefully the soundtrack will come out. Politics stress me out, so the political backdrop and wartime events that occured at the time of filming that naturally became part of the film (that whole real time thing) could have kept me from getting into the movie, but the truth was far from it. Rather, the focus was on telling a love story and there was no message of bias. Oh and another great thing about it, the actors are gorgy. Liron Levo was there at the screening and afterwards there was a throng of women wanting to take their picture with him and I didn't blame them. But I took my shot from afar.

Sundance: Take 2

Success! Monday we were able to see the German film Die Welle (The Wave) that we didn't get into Sunday. It tells the story of a high school lesson on autocracy gettting way out of control, exploring group behavior and politics in a modern interpretation of a true story. The movie is based on a novel that is required reading in German schools, about a teacher in Palo Alto in 1967 who taught the students about fascism by starting a movement. The true story is fascinating and the movie was incredibly well done, with great performances from the high school kids. According to the director they were very true to the actual events, other than to make it realistic for current times and the German context. Telling much more would be too much because I recommend seeing this movie. They have distribution in several countries and hopefully this will include the U.S. by the end of Sundance.

As I mentioned before, the story of this film brought to mind the Stanford Prison Experiment, mostly in the way they both expose a frightening aspect of human behavior: that you and I are capable of doing baser things than we ever would have thought possible. The prison experiment happened just a few years after the historical events that inspired The Wave, in the same city actually, and also got TOTALLY out of control. Stanford students volunteered and were assigned the role of either prison guard or prisoner to take on for two weeks. They totally embodied these roles and within just a few days this had done so much harm to them that the experiment was cancelled, though participants dealt with the effects for a long time. (That's the uberabbreviated summary. Learn more at the official site or trust wiki.) Because this story has also been made into a film in Germany, I had to ask the director of The Wave, Dennis Gansel, about it after the screening. He seemed to think it wasn't coincidental, but that in Germany they are especially interested in group behavior/social psychology particularly because of political implications. Given the history of their country this makes sense. So Das Experiment will be coming on my Netflix soon. The historical footage of the experiment, which many of us have probably seen in college, can be purchased for $100, which I may have to do one day since as a psychologist it should probably be part of my library....

And a big anyway, this is the producer and director during the Q&A after the screening.Apparently if you are a young foreign filmmaker you have to be adorable (the financiers are excempt from this rule). As we also saw later this week. More on that to come.

Sundance Film Festival 2008: Take 1

Katie and I had some bad luck at the Sundance Film Festival last night. We went to see Metric play, but apparently they had cancelled. Sondre Lerche was playing instead but they'd stopped letting people in. So we tried to waitlist a film screening. It was a German film called Wave based on a real story about a high school teacher's unique lesson on autocracy. Sounds like it could be a little Zimbardo Prison Experiment-ish, which made me really interested to see it. (Apparently the Germans like to dramatize the study of social psychology--they also made a movie based on that Prison Experiment.) But alas, the theater filled up right before we could get our waitlist tickets. Poo. Those were the two failures of the day.

But we also had two successes. First, sightings on Main Street, Park City:

David Wain of "The State" and "Stella"
Andrew Keegan of 10 Things I Hate About You with way too perfectly groomed eyebrows.
Giada from the Food Network
and
Jodie Foster who was tiny and looked great. I got conned into taking a picture for two nutty ladies who posed with her. Then as she walked away they yelled, "I love you! You're work is brilliant! You're a genius!" and I said "Oh gosh" in response to the ladies not Jodie and Katie said, "Thank you for Freaky Friday."

Second, discovered some delishy chocolates at The Village Candy Shoppe--shopping local rather than at Rocky Mountain. They have what they call an Egghead or something or other that is a homemade caramel covered in white chocolate and cinnamon sugar, which makes this place worth a visit. I also had a plain caramel that looked like a little weenie or snausage but that picture totally doesn't do it justice. I should have got a shot of them all stacked up together. And Katie had a giant cherry cordial supreme thingy.

Hopefully there will be better luck later in the week with actual movies and something interesting to report.