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Take a look at the most talked about video on You Tube right now.  And in light of the big wedding spectacular tomorrow, perhaps this will be like a prequel.  But I consider it less of a commercial and more social commentary on our willingness to watch a fun, entertaining dance that makes fun of the biggest event this week (this month?), whether it is produced by an enterprising young videographer (with some money) or a big, corporate giant like Verizon.  Free is free, and this is worth burning a few minutes at your desk today.

Out on a great note with MY IDIOT BROTHER

 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2011

DAY THREE

In a rush to pack for leaving and get to the movie, it was a whirlwind morning.  Jim and I awoke early to see My Idiot Brother.  By today we had figured out not to count on the Film Festival’s shuttle service to the Park City hotel, and grabbed a cab as Eccles Theatre was a bit of a hike.  We grabbed breakfast bars on our way out (courtesy of the gift basket from Chase Sapphire), and ran.  The theatre was a madhouse.  This was truly one of the most “Hollywood” movies we were scheduled to see, and with such accomplished and well-known actors as Paul Rudd.  Zooey Deschanel (multi-talented, you’ve never heard a better rendition of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” than she did with Will Ferrell in Elf,) Elizabeth Banks  (Zack and Miri Make a Porno but I always mix her up with the “Modern Family” actress Julie Bowen), and Emily Mortimer (Whip It!), it was bound to at a minimum have some great acting.

Peretz said in the Q&A that he had always had a vision of Paul Rudd playing this kind of character.  He enlisted his sister and brother-in-law,  Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall, to write it.    He pictured Paul as an open, un-cynical guy, and then made him a fish out of water.   He used Hannah and her Sisters as a reference point for tone.   Paul Rudd brought down the Q&A when someone asked about what kind of research he did for the part and he responded, “I caught the first part of your question, but I’m so high I didn’t hear…” Mr. Rudd did go on to say that he liked Ned because he appealed to people’s best side, and that is “ultimately a gratifying way to live.”

Jesse Peretz did not fail to deliver a Hollywood-style movie.  It was very evenly written, great character development, a happy ending, and a comfortable 95 minutes long.   Paul Rudd has a truly great performance as a stoner/hippy whose naïveté’ and honest efforts to right some wrongs reminds us constantly why people tell white lies.  The cast was fabulous, and it was not a one-man show as Rudd’s character sisters, brother-in-law and mother really made the show.    It’s light fair, what I would call a beach-read if it were a book, but some out loud laughs truly put us in good humor as we embarked on a tough trip home.  (One trip, 19 hours and 5 airports later, reminded us why we banned USAir the first time from our list of possible airlines to fly.  Never again.) 

Director:  Jesse Peretz

Screenwriters:  Evgenia Peretz, David Schisgall

And it is with contentment that we big a fond fairwell to this year’s Sundance Film Festival. 

Thanks for the memories, Sundance.  

INCENDIES is nominated for an Oscar, SENNA Wins Sundance World Documentary Audience Award!

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 

DAY TWO

A day of movies, my favorite!  With the snow coming down in big flakes on a bright sunny day, we decided to forgo the lines at Sundance Film Festival shuttles and walk through the beautiful town to the theatres.  It was a treat to watch our first movie of the day, Attenberg, at the infamous Egyptian Theatre in Park City. However, an early morning after an evening spent at the Sundance Film Festival’s Opening Night Party may not have been my best scheduling!  My wet hair froze as we stood in line awaiting the opening of the theatre.

Attenberg, was funny, quirky and intelligent.  But it really took the Director’s insights in the Q& A after the film to put it all together.  In a discussion the next week about art, friends and I discussed that art is often more engaging after hearing what the artist has to say about the painting/sculpture/etc. I’m not sure whether I agree or not that the same should be necessary to enjoy a feature film.  But to enjoy this film to its fullest, the comments from the Director were invaluable.

Attenberg opens on a funny scene where two girls stab their tongues together in what seems to be an awkward experiment, or a bizarre kiss.  When Bella asks, “Did you like it,” Marina replies “It felt like a slug.”  This sets the tone for the entire movie, a bit sad and a bit curious.  Marina lives in Greece, but not the beautiful blue ocean travel brochure Greece but a rather dismal industrial area along the coast where she is torn between the excitement of her sexual awakening and the miserable terminal illness of her father to whom she is very close.  The cinematography is out of this world, you can almost feel the hum of the fluorescent lights overhead when the father visits the hospital, making it both heart wrenching and gruelingly realistic.

During the Q&A, the Director, Athena Rachel Tsangari was quite thrilled that someone asked about the meanings of color throughout the film.  It was really interesting to learn that the reds represented both death and sex, and the whites were reminiscent of Greece and the modernist aluminum factory town.  Dancing scenes between Marina and Bella were funny albeit out of place until you learn that Ms. Tsangari fashioned these dances like the breaks in a Greek tragedy, like a chorus in a narrative, giving the audience a chance to take a break before joining the story again.  The dialogue was completely on point, a little like the dialogue in Juno, but you had to keep up when reading the subtitles.   

I loved seeing so many wildly different movies and yet seeing so many commonalities. Tsangari noted that “casting was torture.” Casting came up again when the Director of Circumstance noted that she looked at 1000 actors until she found the right ones.  But casting seemed a critical, yet small task for the low budget Uncle Kent where one of the two main players was found online and hired from a Skype interview.  Language was an issue for many Directors, in Circumstance actors had to speak at least two languages in case in real life they had to relocate when the movie pissed off the Iranian heads of state, and Ariane Labed, the actress that played Marina in Attenberg, is French, and was only in Greece one year before the movie, yet she did such a great job with the language and the part that she won a best actress award at the Venice Film Festival. 

Between movies we grabbed at bite at Robert Redford’s restaurant, Zoom, where the menu was exceptional.  Harry Belafonte and his posse sat at the table next to us.  Lots of good energy as it turned out to be a seen/be seen kind of eatery, and I would bet multiple movie deals were made there. 

Next on our agenda was a really terrific film, Incendies, directed by Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve.  (A regular on the festival circuit, with most recent awards for his short, Next Floor 2010 and Polytechnique 2009.)  Mr. Villeneuve, coming straight from the airport, jumped onto the stage wearing a giant parka and what he referred to as his “plane hair,” which he acquired during his delayed flights into the festival.  I loved his down to earth attitude, which seemed to seep into this film and its characters.

Incendies is based on a play of the same name, which is based on a book titled “Scorched.”  Both the book and play were written by Wajdi Mouawad, and the screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Valerie Beaugrand- Champagne. 

Mr. Villeneuve highly recommended the play insisting audience members “…run to see it,” and after seeing the film I am very curious to see the play and how the story changed.

The film Incendies follows the story of Nawal Marwan’s children who try to complete the challenge she has left them in her will. It is a journey of sadness and pain, and finally redemption as they learn the terrible things that have shaped their mother. It’s an incredible story, and true theatre fans will fully enjoy the dramatic ending that piles tragedy upon tragedy, then ties it all in a neat package.  (It’s a little too pat for me, and I understand the real life story on which the book is based does not end this way.)  The casting was amazing, using both professionals and amateurs. Just try picking out the two professionals among the crowd of women in Nawal’s hometown during her daughter’s visit.  Lubna Azabal who played Nawal, is also at Sundance with another film in which she stars, called Here.

I was quite surprised to learn that Mr. VIllenueve shot the film in a very quick forty days, on what he referred to as a “Quebec budget.”  He said the film was not quite what he imagined, regretting the little time he got to spend working with the actors.  Given the final product, I suggest it was an almost perfect use of limited resources. 

Our last movie of the day was Senna, a movie about one of the greatest racers of all time, Ayrton Senna.  Jim’s love of Formula One racing drove us to this film and it was absolutely captivating, a story of skill both on and off the track.  Senna is not only one of those great documentaries that pulls you in even though you know the outcome, but it was all done using only archival footage.  Asif Kapadia, the Director, and Manish Pandey, the screenwriter, did an incredible job piecing together the story.  And it was interesting to note that they were originally afraid there would be no dialog because all the footage was of the races or drivers wearing helmets, and obtaining the Drivers’ Meeting and family footage was a big coup.  After seeing it, it is no surprise that Senna won the World Documentary Audience Award at Sundance.

We caught a late dinner at Chez Betty.  Dinner was solid, the décor was similar to that found in older restaurant in Florida.  Service was amazing. 

ATTENBERG, Presented at Sundance as its first US showing,

Directed/Written by Athina Rachel Tsangari

1/21/11, Spotlight

INCENDIES

Directed Denis Villeneuve

Written by Denis Villeneuve and Valerie Beaugrand- Champagne,

1/21/11, Spotlight

SENNA

Directed by Asif Kapadia

Written by Manish Pandey, presented at Sundance as its first US showing, 1/21/11, Documentary

One Person's Journey to Sundance Film Festival

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Our recent escape from day-to-day winter blues took us to an event I have always wanted to attend, the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, or “Sundance 11” as the regulars referred to it.  It was a fascinating conglomeration of films, food, people and outdoor adventure.  We will definitely return, and I highly recommend it to videophiles and skiers alike.  Following you will find reviews of some of the many great films at Sundance.  If you have comments, drop me a line, we'd love to hear all points of view.

OPENING DAY... 

Anticipation was high the first day.  The streets of Park City teemed with Sundance banners flapping in the brisk wind, people on cell phones wearing Ugg boots, film crews and production companies setting up, water bottles and Brita water stations all over the place, and various street performers.  (The water bottles were a nice touch, and I understand were instituted by the Festival at Mr. Redford's request to help reduce plastic bottle waste.)

The crowd cheered as Sundance patriarch Robert Redford took the stage the first evening to open the premiere of Sing Your Song.  Redford spoke about how the Sundance Film Festival and the movie are on parallel paths, trying to make the world a better place and draw attention to those in need.  Sing Your Song was an absolutely beautiful film with a very smooth pace and unbelievable footage of Belafonte’s rise to stardom in television and movies, his meetings with MLK and Nelson Mandela, and his work on Aid to Africa, all laying out Belafonte’s journey as a showman and an activist.  But what really struck me is Harry’s amazing eloquence, his ability, both in the film and after at the Q&A, to give the most heartfelt impromptu speeches, ones that make you want to drop everything and join him in his crusades to fix all that is wrong in this world.  Director Susanne Rostock and Producer Michael Cohl got the tone just right.  

Belafonte has been at the forefront of a plethora of social justice issues, working in the civil rights movement, working to end famine in Africa by mobilizing celebrities for “We are the World,” and most recently, working to solve the puzzle of youth in prison.  Sing Your Song documents his work, and it was a treat to see it at Sundance with so many other movie enthusiasts.   The only thing that could have made the movie better, I believe, was if we had gotten to see more of the inner workings of how Belafonte achieved such success for social justice. 

During her Sundance Director's talk on the Sundance app, the film's Director, Susanne Rostock said that Harry did the movie to call attention to all the social justice work that still needs to be done.  It would have been powerful ending if the film included a specific call-to-action, or if Harry had spoken during the Q&A about how viewers could get involved.  (As an actress in the Sing Your Song said, “Give us an assignment!”)

After the film, 1300 people sat on the edge of their seats as Harry took the stage for Q&A with an introduction by John Cooper, Director of Sundance Film Festival.  Although the majority of the Q&A was held hostage by some rambling young man with a camcorder, it was quite apparent that the whole audience hung on Mr. Belafonte's every word.  Whatever the film’s intentions, Harry Belafonte’s journey is inspirational. 

Sing Your Song, presented at Sundance, 1/20/11, Documentary

Directed by Susanne Rostock

Produced by Michael Cohl, Gina Belafonte, and others

Columbus Film Guild Welcomes the Best Movie Compilation of 2010

The Columbus Film Guild nails the latest in film again!

Thanks to Juan for telling us about "Filmography 2010."  A perfect compilation of movies from 2010, it's a g-whiz production, and it's a gas!  And you don't need all year to watch this 6 minute YouTube video featuring clips from 270 movies, giving you many of the best and most memorable scenes.  A great game around our house is trying to name either the film or actor before it changes to the next one.   The music and films flow beautifully.  A very professional job.  And I hear g-whiz is actually a lone woman from Canada.  This video could truly be used at the Oscars. And now I spend time trying to figure out what films of 2010 she did not include that I wished she had.   We at the Columbus Film Guild hope to see more from g-whiz productions.

Due Date

Director: Todd Phillips
Writers:
 Alan R. Cohen
 Todd Phillips
 Alan Freedland
 Adam Sztykiel

© 2010 Warner Bros Ent. All Rights Reserved.

Due Date provides some laugh out loud fun. Zach Galifianakis steals the show, and the Film Guild discussed whether Robert Downey Jr. was held down by his part or just didn't bring his all to this role. Most agreed the opening scene where Robert Downey Jr. recounts his dream is not funny, and really not that engaging. But he had some great lines delivered with real style (think Arie Gold of Entourage), especially when insulting Zach's character, Ethan Tremblay. There were some comparisons to older movies by the group (the film critics named "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"), but Due Date did bring a lot of new material such as plot point about Zach's father's ashes which Zach lovingly carries around in a coffee can. In the end, some of us felt the humor was uneven, from repulsive, to slapstick to cerebral.

To see the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1231583/

Shutter Island, a study in old thrillers

Scary...not really. Plot twists...a big one. Great performances...all around including a very brief but excellent performance by Patricia Clarkson. References to past movies...like watching a "Where's Waldo" book.

The Columbus Film Guild attended the most recent Scorsese flick, "Shutter Island." Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, the movie gave us much to talk about. Paying homage to so many past thriller classics like "King Kong" and "Vertigo," we spent an hour discussing all the references ... I even rented "I Walked with a Zombie" to see what Anthony Lane/The New Yorker and John Anderson/WSJ were referencing when they said the film was similar to this old thriller from the 40's. And much to Shannon Duffy's, Laura Rees's and my delight, the film was not dreadfully scary, because even though they set us up for huge scares (see the trailer), there was never any payoff. A poor effort by the marketing team when trailers do not align well with their movie, but those of us that want to sleep through the night still appreciated this big shortcoming over what was advertised. SPOILER ALERT: Columbus Film Guild Member Paul Hill enjoyed seeing it a second time to note all the places where we were tipped off about Teddy Daniels' sanity. I never saw the ending coming, but about half the Guild did. As to the film's length, almost all the Columbus Film Guild members said it was far too long. The two members of the Columbus Film Guild with children, (I'm not sure whether this was coincidence or not), really hated the great detail of the children at the lake. I personally felt like it could have been a little less graphic and not affected the film at all. Shutter Island was the most confounding Scorsese film yet, and still has me thinking about it.

Join us for the next Columbus Film Guild movie viewing, March 28th. Film and time TBD.