Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a veritable potpourri of Sundance mini-reviews courtesy of Dingleberry. We got SON OF MAN, the Christ story set in South Africa, OPEN WINDOW, a tale much like HISTORY OF VIOLENCE about the ripples a violent act can make in the lives of those it touches (and also one that Dingleberry calls the best film he's seen at the fest so far), indie IN BETWEEN DAYS, Maggie Gyllenhaal in SHERRYBABY, a film he didn't like called SONGBIRDS, a supposedly adorable flick LITTLE RED FLOWERS and the Doco WORLD ACCORDING TO SESAME STREET! Whew... tons of stuff here! Enjoy!
Cool. I had no idea you were going to post what I had sent. I am still going to be hitting about twenty more films before the festival is over. Red Bulls are the only things pulling me through this.
-Dingleberry
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Son of Man - ****
If you didn’t care for Mel Gibson’s version of Christ, perhaps this film will be more to your liking. It is basically the story of Christ told starting with his birth and going through his life but all changed to South African culture. It is beautify shot with really rich and saturated colors. It is also compelling to see the politics of Christ's time reinterpreted into South African history. There has been a lot of buzz about this film and can now be added to a growing list of great films emerging from South Africa (Totsi, Yesterday). Plus this is the first film I have seen in the Xhosa language. I loved it.
Open Window - ****
This is the best film I have seen so far. The film is about an engaged couple who struggles to overcome their problems after Robin Tunney's character is raped. The film is very moving and expertly crafted by Mia Goldman who is an editor turned director. She handles this hard subject perfectly and gets amazing performances from all the actors. This is a perfect movie.
In Between Days - **
We have seen this film a million times before. The story follows a young girl and her relationship with a boy through their daily lives. The director shot it documentary style. The problem is nothing really happens in this film.
Sherrybaby - ***.5
Sherrybaby is Maggie Gyllenhaal at her best. She plays a Mom who just gets out of jail and struggles with gaining acceptance in society as she tries to stay clean so she can be a mother to her child. Well written and well acted. This gritty film really lets you sympathize with recovering addicts.
Songbirds - *.5
I don't see where the story is in this. The female inmate’s stories of why they are in prison offers nothing compelling and the songs they express themselves in are really bad. It was if the music was quickly pumped out on a computer and made into an amateurish music video.
Little Red Flowers - ***.5
I loved this film. Sure it has the cute factor going for it since all the kids are so adorable. But it helped me to remember what it is like to be a kid again and the amount of imagination that kids have. This could have easily have gotten four stars from me if it had been cut down a bit since they seem to start repeating many of the scenes. Hopefully this will be distributed in the US because it is something everyone is sure to fall in love with.
World According to Sesame Street - ***
This is a good documentary about how Sesame Street changes to fit the needs for each country. What kept this from being a great documentary is they started focusing too much on how hard it was to get the new shows aired in some countries (Bangladesh) rather than showing the more interesting clips on what they had changed to fit the culture and the impact it had on the kids.
