Hey folks, Harry here with Memento Man near the end of his reports from this year's Sundance and the lucky bastard got to see ZATOICHI (Click Here To Check Out The First American Trailer For Kitano's Epic) and I get the feeling it will be forever till I see this sucker. Alright, here's Memento Man...

Hi Harry!

The final day of Sundance!  I've seen 25 movies this time around.  I kept wondering what was missing this year and then I realized it: Ebert!  The Festival just wasn't the same without him here this year (although I did sit in his favorite seat in the Eccles Theater a few times!)

Here are some more takes on films:

ZATOICHI (Takeshi Kitano, Japan, 2003) (***1/2)

Very cool but very bloody Samurai comedy with big helpings of THE GODFATHER and STOMP! thrown in for good fun.  Writer/director/editor Kitano plays a blind masseur who is able to slice five oncoming ninjas without blinking an eye.  Meanwhile, the town is being taken over by a powerful gang leader who hires a powerful ronin and then is able to wipe out rival gangs.

Kitano, who is huge in Japan but just coming to prominence in the states, creates a very stylized milieu where we experience such things as workers in a field whose tilling of the soil becomes part of the exhilarating, rhythmic soundtrack.  The film ends with sizzling dance number that feels like a Japanese STOMP!  But be ready for some of the most graphic CGI sword-slicing and blood-splurting you may have seen.

RIDING GIANTS (Stacy Peralta, 2004) (***)

Well-constructed, adrenaline-rushing documentary about big-wave surfing by Stacy Peralta who gave us DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS.  The film opens by giving us "1000 years of surfing history in two minutes" and we learn that surfing began in Hawaii 1000 years ago, was observed by Captain Cook in the 1700s, was surpressed by the Calvinist missionaries who thought it unseemly, and was brought back in the twentieth century by a man interested in improving tourism.  The documentary then spends the rest of its time looking at surfing from the 1950s on the North Shore of Hawaii, to the 1980s in Northern California, and then to the very recent past with Laird Hamilton in Hawaii who then rides one of the most amazing waves ever recorded off the coast of Tahiti.  Informative and exciting, even for non-surfers.

BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS (Stephen Fry, UK, 2003) (***)

Tales of the young who frequent high-society parties in 1930s London.  Stephen Fry adapts and directs the book VILE BODIES by Evelyn Waugh.  With a breathtakingly sparkling opener, the film loses some of its fizz by the second half and wanders a bit.  But the dialogue and mise-en-scene is sharp and exciting and is almost able to make this a good movie.

Of course, the Sundance Awards were announced on Saturday night. Here's the full list of awards: CLICK HERE TO READ THEM ALL!

Everybody I talked to was very disappointed in the jury awards because they just didn't agree with the jury's picks.  I was surprised that a great film like THE WOODSMAN didn't fare better.  In any event, here are a couple of the jury-prize-winning films that I saw:

DOWN TO THE BONE (Debra Granik, 2004) (**1/2) (Winner of the Dramatic Directing Award)

REQUIEM FOR A HOUSEWIFE.  Irene (Vera Farmiga, who also had a small role in the triumphant IRON JAWED ANGELS at this year's festival) finally goes into drug rehab when she sees toll her problem is taking on her two sons and husband.  She soon loses her job and starts a sexual relationship with a male nurse who also has a history of drug problems.  And things only get worse from there.  A powerful performance by Vera Farmiga, perhaps with the help of Granik's directing, makes this film better than it deserves to be.

WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (John Curran, 2004) (**)  (Winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award)

Screenwriter Larry Gross puts two couples (Mark Ruffalo & Laura Dern and Peter Krause & Naomi Watts) into a pot, allows adultery to boil up between the husbands and wives of each couple, and then sits back and lets the mess spill out all over the carpet.  The performances are strong but the film just never really works.  This is the film that has split opinions at Sundance–you either love it or you hate it–and I can't say that I loved it.

MEMENTO MAN