Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Ahhhh... finally. The Sundance reviews have begun to come in. This is one of our favorite times of the year here on the site, because some of these films are the ones we’ll be talking about for the rest of the year as they trickle into release. And Memento Man’s been one of our spies at the fest for quite a while now. I regret not meeting him face to face when I was there in 2001. Maybe next year,eh? For now, I’ll let him kick things off...
Hi, Harry!
Memento Man here, your spy at Sundance for 5 years now! If you remember, last January I alerted you to the powerful films that were THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, THE DREAMERS, and THE WOODSMAN. I’m ready to find some more good ones this year.
Sadly, ON A CLEAR DAY * * ½ [out of four] (Gaby Dellal, U.K., 2004), probably won’t be at the top of the list. I saw this at the special opening night screening at Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City. Robert Redford came out beforehand and thanked the state for letting Sundance be here. He explained that this year they are adding a "World Cinema" category that will be voted upon for awards. In honor of that, they wanted to open with this film from the United Kingdom. Redford then introduced the director who told some funny stories about the making of the film and then introduced several from the cast and crew.
ON A CLEAR DAY could be subtitled: THE FULL MONTE SWIMS THE ENGLISH CHANNEL. The film opens in working-class Scotland where Frank (Peter Mullan) has just been fired from his job. He also has a strained relationship with his son. He soon gets the idea to swim the English Channel, and enlists the help of four of his friends in the training process.
Peter Mullen’s performance is particularly strong here. What doesn’t work so well, though, is the easy solution to family reconciliation that the film portrays. While the film has some genuinely charming moments, it sinks a bit into over-simplifying and sentimentalizing complicated family dynamics.
It is fun to see Billy Boyd, playing one of Frank’s friends. He has essentially the same role that he had in LORD OF THE RINGS---provider of light comedy relief. Not only that, but imagine our surprise during this film tonight at getting to see Peregrin Took wearing girls pink panties!
More reports will be coming your way.
Until then, this is:
Memento Man
Way to go, man. Nice to have you back.
"Moriarty" out.
