Hey folks, Harry here with Memento Man and his look at a few films at Sundance today. Now he mentions a short film he cared for quite a bit called 2+2... I've seen this and truly it is far more intriguing and fascinating a look into the life of John Nash than the feature film telling in A BEAUTIFUL MIND. A masterful Documentary Short... Absolutely wonderful. Here's Memento Man's report...
Hey Harry!
DERRIDA
Today I started out seeing the documentary DERRIDA, which attempts to bring
us closer to the famous French philosopher Jaques Derrida, who, among other
important ideas, developed the notion of deconstruction (particularly useful
in literary and filmic criticism.) The documentary on him, however, was
fairly weak. The camera work was awful and the filmmakers didn't seem to be
asking him very intelligent questions. Although the voice-over quotes from
Derrida's writings were powerful, the film came off looking like a
documentary about a guy who didn't want to really be in a documentary.
2+2
However, the short film that ran before DERRIDA, called 2+2, about John Nash,
was excellent and taught me more about the famous Nobel-prize-winning
schizophrenic in eight minutes than all of A BEAUTIFUL MIND did.
STORYTELLING
Next I saw Todd Solondz' intriguing film STORYTELLING. Like his previous
efforts, WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE and HAPPINESS, STORYTELLING brings us into
the intimate space of the dregs of suburbia only to show us how its horrors,
though exaggerated, may contain fragments of truth from our own lives. This
film is actually two shorter stories, one called "Fiction," and another
called "Non-Fiction." Solondz continues to create interesting, even bizarre
characters who act in unpredictable ways. It also contains some pretty funny
digs about THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, AMERICAN BEAUTY, and even the Sundance
Film Festival!
THE GOOD GIRL
Tonight's film was THE GOOD GIRL, in which Jennifer Aniston plays a girl who's anything but. A married woman, she hooks up with a loner co-worker at a discount store, Holden, who's read CATCHER IN THE RYE one too many times. This is quite a departure from previous roles for Jake Gyllenhaal (of OCTOBER SKY fame) and squeaky clean Jennifer Aniston. The script by Mike White (who plays the security guard in this film and one of the title characters from CHUCK AND BUCK) was very funny, particularly the character of Cheryl (played by Zooey Deschanel who was in MUMFORD and ALMOST FAMOUS.) Miguel Arteta has made a nice little film here to go with his previous efforts, STAR MAPS, and CHUCK AND BUCK.
This is Roger Ebert's seatmate, Memento Man, signing off!
