Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
PRIMER sounds like a blast. Can’t wait to get a look at it. And HARRY & MAX sounds like this year’s JACK THE DOG, the movie you just can’t believe beat ANYTHING to get into a festival, much less Sundance.
Hey, Harry:
Sandy Cheeks here with a couple Sundance reviews I wasn't going to write till I read the review of PRIMER that got it all wrong, so...
PRIMER
This was one of those, "crap, I couldn't get tickets to anything good" screenings that turned into "oh, lucky me, here at the birth of real filmmaker" serendipity.
Four newly-minted MBAs, sort of like Japanese "company men" with their white shirts and ties, band together in "Aaron's" garage every night after their meaningless jobs to create a tech invention that will attract the attention of some slathering VCs. But, as filmmaker Shane Carruth pointed out in the Q & A following the screening, most truly breakthrough inventions are unexpected offshoots of the "real" thing, so...
In the course of creating whatever the hell computer chip/Spacely sprocket thing-y they're inventing, one of the four discovers a strange fungus that keeps growing on a Weeble they put inside this "box," a fungus that would take years to cultivate in the outside world, which means they must have stumbled upon some wrinkle in the space time continuum.
Faster than Cher can shake her ass on that aircraft carrier, two of the four friends are "turnin' back time" for their own rather selfish reasons (go back in time...score on a sure stock tip, etc.). The rub: while they are back in time (usually by several hours), their other "selves" continue on their original time track. Confusing? Yes, but the technical stuff is well-researched and plausible. However, the most interesting element of the film is the loyalties, and lack thereof, among the four friends. Who turns on whom.
The tension and suspense in this taut, little film...as previously noted, made for just under $7,000...recall Robert Rodriguez' swaggering debut with El Mariachi. Although grainy, the super-16 cinematography is amazing. There is no question that this is a filmmaker with a real voice and vision. It'll be interesting to see if/who picks up Primer for distribution...a film that best exemplifies the real Sundance spirit.
DIG!
I dug the hell out of this documentary about two bands, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols, shot over seven years as the Warhols achieve Def-Lepard-like success in Europe and cult status in the U.S., while BJM, led by true musical savant Anton Newcombe, keeps crumbling under the weight of Anton's massive ego and heroin addiction.
Featuring a standout performance by the best damn tambourine player this side of Cindy Partridge, BJM "percussionist" Joel, who displays the goofy, loopy charm of Keith Moon, DIG! employs an "Amadeus" construct as Warhols leader and DIG! narrator Courtney Taylor candidly acknowledges how vastly superior/influential Newcombe/Jonestown will forever be to his merry band of posers. Cross your fingers this gets picked up!
HARRY AND MAX
So, you're thinking, the films accepted to Sundance must be the crème de la crème of American cinema, right? Well, this theory is completely disproved by the execrable piece of crap that is Harry and Max.
How bad is Harry and Max? Let's just say I would rather be struck by a Sundance shuttle and dragged, kicking and screaming, through the streets of Park City, naked, than endure another screening of this "film." The premise (if you can believe it): two "pop star" brothers (tho we see no trace of detail supporting the assertion that they are pop stars) embark on a homosexual, incestuous affair...not that there's anything wrong with that.
But there is something wrong with a movie that treats a relationship that severely dysfunctional as a frothy romance...a movie in which there are no real characters and no discernible action, just the two leads talking here and there as we wait for the next excruciatingly uncomfortable, soft-core porn "love scene."
When asked by a member of the dumbfounded audience afterward why he didn't offer up any background or context on the characters, "filmmaker" Chris Munch said he didn't want to reduce "these great characters" (hey, we'll be the judge of that, buddy) to "TV movie clichés."
I have never seen a more contemptuous response by an audience to a film or filmmaker, who most agreed was completely delusional. The real question is, why Mr. Gillmore? Why?!
SECOND BEST
Even a winning performance by unexpectedly menschy Joe Pantaliano can't save this second-rate flick, though it could usher in the era of a new genre: the male menopause movie in which a bunch of middle-aged men sit around and kvetch about their careers, wives, divorces, etc.
NOBODY'S PERFECT
As a major fan of Azaria's (the voice of Mo and Apu on the Simpsons), I had high hopes for his short, but was severely let down. Pretty and glossy with absolutely nothing to say, no point of view or "vision."
Azaria plays a commitment-phobe who stumbles upon a pair of glasses that enable him to get a glimpse of the romantic outcome of every woman he meets. At the Q & A afterward, Azaria said he sparked to the idea as a metaphor for wanting assurances that everything will work out before you commit. But, therein lies the problem. There is only one woman to whom he is seriously considering committing...the rest he's barely met before he bails. Therefore, there's nothing at stake, he has nothing to lose. Considering that "Primer" was probably made for this short film's catering budget, it's a bummer that so much talent was wasted on so little.
Well, that's it! Gotta get back to the treedome...
Sandy
Thanks, Sandy. Nice work.
"Moriarty" out.
