#29: Frozen River (2008)

#28: Two O'Clock Courage (1945)

#27: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1955)

2009 Sundance Film Festival Round-Up

This was the best of Sundance Film Festival I've attended since I started in 2006. As if the organizers were insistent on making sure it wasn't quite a perfect one, they didn't sell any fleece jacket or pullover souvenir. I've gotten them every year and meant to continue it as a tradition. Bastards. My friend James is smarter; he buys caps every year instead.

Favorites (in no order):

• We Live in Public (2009)
• El general (2009)
• Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)
• Helen (2009)

Duds:

• The Killing Room (2009)
• Heart of Time (Corazón del tiempo)(2009)

Ones I need/want to see again for a proper assessment:

• Rought Aunties (2009)
• 211: Anna (2009)
• The Clone Returns Home (クローンは故郷をめざす)(2008)

Wishlist: Not counting docs; I'd have love to see all the docs

• Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire (2009)
• The Maid (La nana)(2009)
• An Education (2009)
• Bronson (2009)
• Cliente (2008)
• Mystery Team (2009)

#26: Nollywood Babylon (2008)

#25: Rough Aunties (2009)

#24: Cold Souls (2009)

#23: Kimjongilia (2009)

Movies on refugees can be difficult to make. I think it's important to show the plight of them, but what if the movie is all about it? Audience is likely to be turned off and stop paying attention. That was basically what happened to me, as Kimjongilia consists mostly stories of the refugees. Their stories are told in many fashions, but the movie is still ... just that. Segments are separated by dance sequences, which I found amusing but it irritated a friend.

Q&A with Director N.C. Heikin, part 1


Q&A with Director N.C. Heikin, part 2

#22: Sergio (2009)

#21: El general (2009)

#20: We Live in Public (2009)

Much has been said about how the film explores voyeurism in the Youtube age, but not enough has been said about why I love this movie. This is one of my favorite movies of 2009.

Despite having 10 years of video to cull through, director/writer's main interest in this film is The World According to Josh Harris. In fact, in the Q&A she said that the film took so long to make because she "just didn't see a movie in this," from all the outrageous stunts that Josh Harris has pulled. You rule, Ondi Timoner. Why did Josh Harris do all this? How did he see the people and his projects? Is he an ultra-nerd who just wanted to be loved, or a master puppetmaster who enjoys ridiculing these so-called artists?

Timoner also doesn't splurge on video footage, truly impressive considering she had thousands of hours of it. What's included moves the story and punctuates certain ideas. Both the movie itself and filmmaking behind it are truly fascinating -- you might say that I was equally piqued by What's Ondi Thinking? -- that it's why I love documentaries.

Q&A with director/writer Ondi Timoner and subject Josh Harris, part 1 of 2


Q&A with director/writer Ondi Timoner and subject Josh Harris, part 2 of 2

#19: The Clone Returns Home (クローンは故郷をめざす)(2008)

#18: The Big Lebowski (1998)

#17: 211 - Anna (2009)

#16: Big Fan (2009)

#15: Helen (2009)

As much as I enjoyed and admired Helen, I couldn't help but thinking, Who is the intended audience for this movie? It can't be for a movie nerd like me. I appreciated the acting by the entire cast, particularly Ashley Judd (who plays Helen) and Lauren Lee Smith, beautiful cinematography, carefully constructed scenes, and most of all, the courage of Sandra Nettelbeck (writer/director) to present depression as-is. We are told almost nothing of Helen's cause. Helen tries and tries but could not overcome it. Family and friends sympathize but are helpless in provide any comfort. The only comfort and support Helen gets is from another chronically depressed woman, Mathilda (Smith). Helen just has to keep on trying because... because... she must.

I was very curious to see how they would market this movie, and managed to find a trailer. Surprise! It's a total fraud. Ah, the magic of editing.

#14: Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)

#13: Louise-Michel (2008)

#12: Heart of Time (Corazon del tiempo)(2009)

#11: Zion and His Brother (2009)

#10: The Killing Room (2009)

Because my random pick, Time Crimes, last year in the Park City at Midnight program worked out so well, I decided to do the same in picking another movie specifically from that program. I wasn't so lucky this time. Oh there were plenty of good movies in this program -- Mystery Team, Grace, to name two -- but just not The Killing Room. Ah, well, I also place the blame on the truly painful ticket selection process.

The movie has a great premise, an unknown, likely evil government experiment performed on arbitrary citizens. A specialized psychologist, as part of her hiring interview, is asked to explain the purpose of this experiment from earlier video footage and computer data. Early scenes, creepily but cleanly constructed with the help of a mind dueling between Peter Stormare and Chloë Sevigny, carries this premise to a tantalizing bait. Then things get ugly, violent, and no longer psychological. It deteriorates into just another slasher movie. By the time the ending comes and the secret is revealed, I no longer cared. Well, ok, I have to admit that the ending was quite clever, but I really resented the middle hour or so. The bottom line is that there just wasn't enough script to make this an 100-min movie. I told my friends, who also attended the screening, that this could have been a truly awesome short. Sadly, you can't really market a short, in which case they really should have worked more on the script.

The movie is also extremely loud, so be forewarned.

#9: The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court (2009)

#8: The Girlfriend Experience (2009)

Do you remember Bubble (2006)? If so, you will know if you want to see this movie.

Shot in nearly the same style, this movie is difficult to watch because I had a really hard time telling apart the characters. After a while, you realize that the scenes are meant to gradually portray Chelsea's conflicted emotions; she's a high-priced call girl, but she's still a human being. Not everyone's can be as forgiving with so many scenes that didn't appear to do anything.

I saw this at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where it was surprise as it was billed as only An Evening with Steven Soderbergh. It's a preview cut (finished one was recently debuted at Tribeca Film Festival) but unless they re-edit it completely from scratch, not much would change to the feel of the movie. By the way, Soderbergh is a lot of fun in person, so don't ever miss a chance to see him in person.

Soderbergh on the film's visuals:


Soderbergh on Sasha Gray:

#7: Silent Light (Stellet Licht)(2007)

#6: Jerichow (2008)

#5: Nacht vor Augen (2008)

#4: Der Freund (2008)

This movie has a cute and clever premise but doesn't dwell on that rest of the way. It starts off with a lonely young man, having a crush on a female guitarist, was approached by her to be her boyfriend. Only they never spoke again after he agreed, and shortly she commits suicide (we assume). Rest of the movie deals with how he handles her family -- particular her sister -- but the movie was smart to not pound on this premise endlessly. It's not meant to be just a comedy, but also an introspection of the lead character. Beautifully photographed and composed of mostly quiet scenes, the movie succeeds in eliciting empathy toward the characters. I will say though, that the ending is rather hastily done, giving me the impression that the director/writer wasn't sure how to end this.

I think this might be the first movie where I got to hear Swiss German. I would not have noticed it were it not pointed out by the festival host and the director during the introduction. It definitely doesn't sound anything like (high) German. Also, the official English title is "The Friend" but I'd have preferred it being "The Boyfriend." In the scene where the lead first met the family, the mother asked if he were her "freund." She certainly did not mean just any friend in this context.

#3: Bolt (2008)

How about that, a non-Pixar Disney CGI movie. It's great entertainment, briskly paced, and just enough melodrama to make some people happy. Yeah the story isn't much, but no harm done there. Finally, Susie Essman is cool.

#2: I.O.U.S.A. (2008)

I saw this movie as part of some CNN financial crisis special. Big Mistake. I don't know if there were cuts, but comercials aside, CNN also added its own talking heads, current updates, and some random video feeds. What can I say? I wish this movie were more widely available, or at least available on a saner network like PBS. I'll probably watch it again when it's available on DVD.

The movie provides a lot of alarming stats, with some background stories. It's educational and all but it's hard for me to feel tangible when numbers quoted are like $3,459,582,392,204,392,482,284.58. Ok, I made that one up. It's probably beating a dead horse talking about BushCo (which the movie is wise to only do so sparingly), or telling us how tax cuts contributed to the problem at this time of recession (although this was made in 2007). Well, we are all screwed, China is going to own us, etc etc. We are assured that it's not a lost cause, but if it weren't for the incomprehensibly large numbers being tossed out, this would have been a really really depressing movie.

#1: Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet (2005)

A travelogue documentary -- through both time and land in Asia -- on a rebel Tibetan monk and early-to-mid twentieth century Tibet, this movie is informative but feels lacking in depth. Movies on Tibet are still far and in between, and this one is definitely worth a look. The lifestyle in Tibet, inside and outside monasteries, are fascinating. Gendun Choephel is definitely one curious philosopher, and I wanted to learn more about his ideas. Oh well. Finally, there isn't much about Tibet-China conflicts, so look elsewhere if that's the intent.