Hey folks, Harry here... Memento Man here sent this in with a subject line stating that he was going to have: EULOGY; THE DREAMERS; REDEMPTION; SPRING, SUMMER, FALL,...; SAVED!. Well, all I got was his pieces on the first two, but... given his intro - I have no doubt that as he was grasping vainly at conciousness after putting his love into the blurb on THE DREAMERS - that the title began to make him... dream, and his last concious thought must have been clicking the send button before drooling and frying the keyboard. Ahhhh... Film festival coverage... It's a marathon! Here ya go...
Hi Harry!
Today I saw 5 movies in a row! I was up at 5:00am in order to be in the wait-list line at the Egyptian theater for an 8:30am movie and then saw four more after that straight through until 11:30pm. It's now almost 2am as I'm sending you these blurbs. But such is the joy of a film festival!
Here's the lowdown for today:
EULOGY (Michael Clancy, 2004) (**?)
Drop-dead funny comedy about a funeral. When Grandpa Collins (Rip Torn) dies, his quirky family assembles for the occasion. Granddaughter Kate (Zooey Deschanel) is given the assignment to write a eulogy for the funeral but can't seem to get any good stories about him from any of his four children (Hank Azaria, Debra Winger, Ray Romano, and Kelly Preston). Instead, everybody seems to be at each others' throats. Particularly hilarious are Ray Romano's two twin sons who (as director Michael Clancy told us this morning) were even more mischievous on the set than their troublemaker characters were.
THE DREAMERS (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy, 2003) (****)
This film is Bernardo Bertolucci's "love letter to Paris." Matthew, an American in Paris in May 1968, meets up with Isabelle and her brother who soon bring him back to their house while their parents are on vacation. The three grow closer mentally (exploring how much trivia each of them know about classic films), emotionally (exploring each other's feelings about politics), and physically (exploring each other sexually [which, as has been described on this and other sites is extremely graphic]). Meanwhile, out in the streets of Paris the revolution of 1968 is reaching its apex. Matthew, Isabelle and her brother are able to talk about radical change but are they going to be part of making it happen or are they just dreamers?
This film is also Bertolucci's "love letter to cinema." Bertolucci intercuts his film with clips from films like FREAKS, QUEEN CHRISTINA, BLONDE VENUS, SCARFACE, BREATHLESS and many others. There's a particularly stirring moment when the three lead characters race through the Louvre, trying to beat the record that was set in the film BANDE A PART, and Bertolucci intercuts their race with perfectly matching clips from the earlier film. Also wonderful is the soundtrack, which is made up completely of songs from the period or from the soundtracks of films such as 400 BLOWS, PIERROT LE FOU, etc. Not only does THE DREAMERS quote important films of the past, it feels as though it is already a classic, ready to be quoted by films in the future. For those who love the cinema, this movie is like a dream.
Bertolucci was scheduled to be in attendance at these screenings in Park City, but on the first leg of the trip (from Rome to London) had serious back pain and had to cancel. Nevertheless, he filmed a short intro for everyone who would be seeing the film at Sundance explaining how he was happy that they would be able to see the film "in its integity." Since this was filmed, it seems, Fox Searchlight has made the decision to show it this way in the United States.
Memento Man
