Hey folks, Harry here... This is the first of several reports coming in tonight, and personally, I'm dying to see how ONE HOUR PHOTO did at the 'dance tonight. I've been dying to see Mark Romanek's big film coming off his run of videos that I'm sure many of you are familiar with. Well, I'm gonna go search for em. Right now... I just want to avoid this DOG DAYS thing... scary....
Hey Harry,
This is just the first batch of reviews I'm sending, as
I have 10 more flicks to see. So far, from what I've
seen, this hasn't been as good as last years festival
but things can only get better, as Dog Days was easily
the worst pile of shit I've seen in any festival, let
alone my entire life. I guess I'll open up with that
one.
Dog Days (0 out of 5)
This is a German film that I'd stay far away from if any of you are near Sundance or hear this name again in any festival. I'd highly doubt from the audience reaction (over half the audience left before it was over) that this film could even be considered to be picked up by a distributor.
Dog Days tells about 5 stories of life in the suburbs. Ones a woman who takes trips around the city with any driver willing to pick her up and drives them up the wall with how incredibly annoying she is, another woman is in desprite search of love and is first scene in an orgy and falling for an abusive alcoholic, another younger woman has the same problem with her overly protective boyfriend, then there's an old man who's retired and never leaves his home, and last another guy who is so fed up with everything that he threatens his friends with a pellet gun and is mostly seen walking around throwing a tennis ball. Yep, this is it folks. Not one of these characters is even slightly likeable and each of them are annoying, mean, cruel, brutal, or just flat out stupid. This has got to be the biggest slap in the face for any female sitting in attendence watching this film. Each female character is either incredibly stupid (a woman is beaten badly by two drunks and is given the opportunity by one of them to have revenge on the other but feels as though she loves the man too much) or just annoying (the woman seeking rides has got to be the most annoying character in film history). Oh, and how can I forget the older and overweight lady who carries one of the films most disgusting and embarassing scenes, giving the retired man a bare naked lap dance.
As the film closes that last piece of dialogue is "How
can people be so cruel?" For the next moment I
recapped the film and realized that each and everyone
of these characters was in some way shape or form
cruel. Perhaps this is the entire point of the movie;
with all of its disturbing and disgusting scenes that
only get worse as the film progresses that we are to
just see how cruel the world really is. But this is no
Clockwork Orange, the cruelest person in this film is
the director and how he got this film to Sundance is
beyond me. He wasn't to be seen after the film was
over - no wonder, someone probubly would have curbed
him before he could even begin to open his mouth for
any other purpose.
Time Out (2 out of 5)
This is another foriegn film from France about one man's struggle to tell his family he has lost his job and soon finds himself going deeper and deeper in debt. This character, Vincent, is a man who loves his family so much that he's to afraid to see their reaction if they found out he was fired from his job of 11 years. When questions need answering, he claims to have already turned in his notice long ago to leave that job and has already claimed another one in Switzerland. Soon he begins to develop a scam to tell his friends that he has connections with foreign markets that they can invest in, and uses whatever money they give him for himself. After he finds himself in debt of this he's soon selling sunglasses, t- shirts, whatever he can get to repay them so his family won't find out. I could go on but I don't think I need to, there just really isn't much to this story to be told and I can't really make is sound a bit intesting when it truly isn't.
The trouble with Time Out isn't its story, the same plot in another movie could work. It doesn't need to be any more complex nor any more simple, it just needs to be interesting. The film continues to go on and on and you wonder when the hell Vincent is ever going to just give it up - but in the end it takes two hours and twenty minutes before finally reaching its resolution.
All these actors in this film clearly have talent, but
the material that is given to them is so uninvolving
that they can't give their characters any real
dimension. There's so many cliched scenes in this film
that it could have been an hour long after school
special on FOX and still had the same effect. Harry, I
just hope your right about 'Better Luck Tomorrow' as
I'll be seeing it later this week and pray that it
gives some hope for Sundance's World Selection this
year.
Gerry (3.5 out of 5)
Gerry has already been reviewed here twice so I'll keep the plot short and sweet. Two guys, both named Gerry (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck) go on a hike and head off the trail to avoid tourists. Soon enough they find themselves lost and in desperate need of water. The story soon becomes about survival and we follow the characters through the emotion and pain they are soon find themselves into.
Gus Van Sant directed this film and co-wrote it along with the actors. What he offers here is a little bit of a mixed bag. Now as much as I loved both Good Will Hunting and Drugstore Cowboy I don't know if I could call Gus a truly great director. Even after meeting him person and shaking his hand I didn't feel like I was meeting one of the truly masterful and great directors that Sundance was making him out to be. But what he does here I have to give him credit for - this is truly a different piece of cinema that we haven't seen in him since Good Will Hunting. The acting here works in a great way because it just feels as though Matt and Casey are both improving the entire movie.
They have random conversations about things such as
Wheel of Fortune and Civilization that it makes the
characters much more realistic than they ever could
have been in any other hands. There are times where
the film is in silence for over 10 minutes as we just
watch these guys search for water and figure out where
they are - something you would never see in an industry
film. The film truly looks stunning as it's entirely
shot in the great outdoors and has incredibly long
shots that follow these characters walk close to 500
yards. But that is where this film also suffers, is
the length of some of these shots and how they truly
aren't that important. The film moves at a snails pace
and while that may be one of the points of this film
(to be on this journey with these characters) it simply
makes the film feel much longer and dragged out than it
actually is. But I still felt this was a powerful film
and one of the last shots of the film was so well done
that you could hear many people gasping in awe of what
they had just seen. I hope we see more of this from
Gus Van Sant in the future, because he's certainly
shown a new side of him that feels like the old.
The Laramie Project (5 out of 5)
Again, this is a film that has been reviewed multiple times on this site so I won't give an in depth plot. This film deals with the events that occured in the 90s surrounding the brutality and death of Matthew Shephard, a homosexual who was beaten and tortured simply because he was gay. This isn't 'Paradise Lost' however, it doesn't really spend too much time on the cases involving Matt's death and much more time on the town of Laramie, Wyoming.
This film is a rare gem, something you hope to find at Sundance and cherish it once when you do. There is so many great things about this movie that I don't know where to begin. The acting and the directing are both superb and the film moves at a pace that keeps it both tense and very emotional. For those of you near Salt Lake City/Park City - this is one of the films to see this year.
Alright Harry, I'll be back with more reviews in a couple days with LA Story, Run Ronnie Run, and hopefully Storytelling.
Castor777
