Harry here. I really really wish I could have seen RUN LOLA RUN while I was in Rotterdam, it was the film that most of the 'cool' types I met were saying 'cool' things about. I don't know, that and BULLET BALLET were the films I was most looking forward to... Oh and a curiousity towards a documentary called HOME PAGE.... But alas it was not to be. So here we are with a more successful spy....
I've been surprised to see so little coverage of this year's Sundance festival on your site, other than The Blair Witch Project, one of the few movies I didn't see. I did see about 32 films in 10 days, however. As a four-year veteran of the festival, I can say that while there wasn't one film this year that knocked my socks off, the overall quality of the films was the best it's been since I started attending. Here are my personal highlights and recommendations:
"Run Lola Run" - The one film in the festival that will be a big hit, mark my words. Ok, so it's in German, but it has an incredibly cool soundtrack, hyperkinetic editing style, and the best mixture of live action and animated footage since "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." It's the story of a German punk rocker who has to raise 100,000 deutschmarks to save her boyfriend from some gangsters, and features three possible outcomes. Way, way cool.
"American Movie" - The documentary prize winner wasn't everyone's cup of tea - I got in a fairly heated argument with one guy about whether the movie was laughing at or with its subjects - but this story of an aspiring filmmaker's attempt to film his dream movie on peanuts and beer was funny, touching, and captured the anything-goes mentality of a lot of the indie world. I, for one, plan on buying the video of "Coven," the horror movie shown being filmed, as it looks like cheesy fun.
"Trick" - Well made comedies never get recognition at Sundance (the winners all tend to be earnest, p.c., and plodding), but this one should have won some award, as it was one of the best films in the festival. The story of two gay men who are trying to find a place to spend the night and keep getting thwarted in their attempts by various friends and roomates, including, in a hilarious performance, Tori Spelling, this was, laugh-for-laugh, the funniest film of the festival. You gotta love a movie that has Tori Spelling playing a bad actress as well as a drag queen playing Tori Spelling!
Other good stuff included "Happy Texas" (the big winner in terms of distributor pick -up), the Australian gangster movie "Two Hands," Errol Morris' brilliant new documentary about the man who tried to prove the gas chambers at Auschwitz didn't exist ("Mr. Death"), the Kate Winslet Morrocan movie "Hideous Kinky," Doug Liman's follow-up to "Swingers", entitled "Go," featuring every hot young actor in Hollywood, and "The Item," a bizarre movie that features the best sex scene between a woman and a giant worm that I've ever seen.
"Joe Bradley"
