Hey folks, Harry here... with another report from Jankypryck... Who seems to love being a bit of a pryck... hehhehe and a Janky one at that. He gets into 3 films today and it seems that well... he stayed in character today. Here ya go...
Hey guys it's me again. Back with my input on my third day at that place of
places, the Sundance Film Festival. Today i slowed it down a little and stuck
to only three movies ("Pumpkin", "Love Liza", and "One Hour Photo").
Yesterday's five films had me feeling tired, so it was time to chill it back
a bit. Today i started off with a film that i was prepared to loathe from the
get-go.
PUMPKIN
Hot damn. The star gazing just won't quit. And this time it actually affects my viewing times. But more on that in a minute. We arrived in time to be haulted at the door in the arctic temperatures so that whatever stars were strolling around could get bumrushed by autograph starved fans. After my feet went numb, they decided to let us ticketholders in (those without tickets in the "waiting for tix" line went in first... bastards). So everyone scrams into the Eccles theater and prepares to watch a retarded love story.
Honestly, thanks to Aintitcool, i was prepared for the worst. The reviews that i had read on here were nothing short of horrifying and therefore i was not exactly dying to see this. But there is that whole train wreck thing. You can't look away once it starts no matter how jacked up it gets.
Pumpkin stars Christina Ricci as a college senior who's little miss perfect. She's loaded, dates the hottest guy around, and is alltogether perfect. Her life gets thrown for a loop when her sorority gets involved in a charity helping "challenged" athletes prepare for the upcoming "Challenged Games". She feels completely uneasy about working with these special little campers and therefore starts to freak out when her "challenged" buddy, Pumpin (Hank Harris), takes a liking to her. One thing leads to another and she falls in love with him and all hell breaks loose in her life.
This is a promising enough synopsis for a Farrelly Brothers film, but this is not a Farrelly film. This is an Adam Larson Broder and Tony Abrams film. Which means you are in the wrong theater. I will admit that i chuckled at a few of the choice laughs in the opening ten minutes or so. I wanted to laugh a lot. Really i did. But after that humor got old at lightspeed, i just couldn't bare it anymore. This film got really screwy, really fast. It also became boring as hell. Watching Ricci scream at the sight of a retarded chap was not funny. And it kept happening. Watching Pumpkin get knocked over like a ragdoll was not funny. But it kept happening. These bullshit jokes were mild chuckles the first time it happened, and absolute crap the following times.
I know what you're thinking. I didn't get the film.
Well you're wrong. I got the film. In fact, i enjoy a good John Waters movie from time to time. I enjoy the Farrelly brothers from time to time. This was not as good as those guys on their worst days. Hell, in fact, John Waters was sitting behind me the whole time and i was dying to know what he thought about seeing a shitty film that his types so obviously inspired.
By the middle of the film, it became painful to watch. The only laughs in the whole film after the first ten minutes or so, belong to the Poetry professor. He's got some great lines, but there's just no room for his in the cluttered mess of a shock-film.
Don't bother with this one. Really. It's not breaking any taboos. Its not gut wrenchingly funny. Its not even a trainwreck of a bad film. Its just poor. Piss poor even. Listen to me people, do not waste your time.
And to make matters worse, it got started extremely late because of yet more
stargazing assholes and i had to bust ass a couple of miles away to make my
2:30 film. This one showed a little more promise.
LOVE LIZA
All i knew about this film was that it starred Phillip Seymour Hoffman, was written by his brother, and was directed by the quiet bald guy that worked with John Cusack in "High Fidelity".
I busted up in there with a Coca-Cola and a Snickers Crunch bar to get re-energized and awaited the start.
The basic premise goes like this. Hoffman plays "Wilson", a man trying to cope with the suicide of his wife. His job is suffering. His relationships are suffering. And he's turned to huffing gas fumes to take his mind off of his emotional pain.
Sounds relatively boring and melodramatic, right? Well its actually extremely touching and well made. Todd Louiso has directed a slow-burning meltdown of a film that is heartbreakingly anchored by a wonderful performance by Hoffman (honestly, can this guy do wrong these days?).
The movie itself does a great job of showing a man trying to deal with a suicide when there are no answers available to him. A suicide that is completely out of the blue. It also does great job following Wilson's self-detruction involving his new addiction.
There were definitely some pacing issues here (this year's theme at Sundance) as the film crawled for about thirty minutes. And i kept forgetting Kathy Bates was even in the film (she plays Wilson's equally suffering mother-in-law), but that could be because Hoffman was just that good.
I would not be surprised to see him snag the Acting award at this year's festival for this film. He certainly deserves it (atleast with what i've seen so far).
This is not the best movie i've seen so far, that would be "The Good Girl", but it definitely is up there. And it has a great big broken heart that is charming and sad and sweet and painful. It's definitely worth keeping your eyes peeled for.
But one big gripe here... the place that i saw it (the Library), has the most uncomfortable seats that i have been involved with in ages. There was a point where i wanted to saw off my privates just to give myself something more uncomfortable to deal with than the seats.
I decided to keep my genitals and move on to my last film of the day.
ONE HOUR PHOTO
Mark Romanek's twisted little suspense thriller that will make you really second guess having your film developed.
This film stars Robin Williams, so naturally the film started way late so that everyone under the sun could shake his hand and hold up the start. Sonofabitch this is annoying.
Anyway, Williams plays Sy the photo guy. A middle aged loner who's life is film development. He takes immense pride in this process. He also takes an unhealthy interest in a local family that brings their film to him to have it developed (he makes three prints so that he can keep one set for himself)
He's not an out and out psycho, he just really admires the family for what it appears to be. A solid happy union. He wishes that he could have that, but he doesn't want to take it.
The family in question is Connie Neilson (who manages to become more beautiful in every role she plays, holy shit she's incredible) and Michael Varten (Never Been Kissed). They have a 9 year old son who's a good kid but is a little neglected on the father side of things.
Anyway, this is all good and well, but eventually something has to give and good old Sy comes across some evidence that Michael Varten is cheating on his wife. This is where shit hits the fan. Sy's unhealthy interest soon gets him canned from his precious gig at the photo place and he feels the need to take measures into his own hands.
I'll leave it at that.
So how is it? It ain't bad. The story is a little loose and there are some coincidences that i wasn't quite sure about, but its definitely entertaining to watch Robin Williams play a different role from his usualy crap. He's pretty good in this. Not as good as he was in "Good Will Hunting", but definitely the best he's been since then.
The directing is a hair about mediocre. And the cinematography was done by "Fight Club"'s Jeff Cronenweth and like that film, it was fantastic. But this film is no "Fight Club", its a smart stalker film. That's about it. Entertaining yes, groundbreaking no. I wanted it to be better because i really respect Romanek's video work for Nine Inch Nails and Madonna and the others. Even though i was never into the music, i definitely enjoy his videos.
The ending was a little "been there, done that" but i guess it was fitting. And did i mention Connie Neilson? Holy cow.
Anyway, strong perfmormances. Not so strong story and mediocre direction. It's worth a look, becuase i'm fairly positive that when this is released nationwide it will make some nice bank, but i wouldn't say that its gonna make anybody shit themselves in glee.
The real pisser came in the film's Q&A when Robin Williams stole the show from Mark Romanek and didn't allow him to answer any questions. Instead, Williams just ran around the stage in his usual style and made poor jokes and dodged any relevant questions by making jokes out of them. Hey Williams, chill the fuck out please. I realize that you're more than likely on some other plain of thinking that's way beyond mine, but can you please bring it down a notch, you gave the whole audience a friggin headache.
All in all. "Pumpkin" ate the ass out of a dead rhino. "Love Liza" was touching and featured a fantastic performance. and "One Hour Photo" was interesting and worth seeing, but just too Hollywood to be at Sundance.
Oh yeah, and on the Ebert watch, today he was spotting arguing with an usher who wouldn't immediately let him in before everyone else. "Don't you know who I am?"
Yeah, i know who you are. You're the guy who said "The Cell" was one of the best films of year and can eat a sandwich thats twice the size of his head.
Tomorrow i will be seeing the Todd Solondz film "Storytelling" as well as some documentaries. I will also finally make sure i write in about the wonderful film "The Good Girl".
Take care folks. And as always if you want to bitch and moan and call me names, i'll be here all night. Email away.
