Tuesday at Sundance I saw two documentaries back to back that each deals with one of this country’s most pressing and complex political issues. Josh Tickell’s Fields of Fuel tackles America’s reliance on imported fossil fuels while Patrick Creadon in his follow-up to Wordplay, IOUSA, wrestles with the exploding United States budget deficit. Both films employ what is now a familiar doc style of exploring political and social issue subject matter: quick editing, talking heads, a chapter-by-chapter structure, use of humorous archival material, and energetic source cue-driven montages. Of the two films, Fields of Fuel is the slicker. It segues […]
Any festival you go to there’s going to be one film that most people don’t get and just spend their time discussing why they didn’t like it and question why it was ever made. Chusy (Anthony Haney-Jardine)‘s Anywhere, USA has become that film at Sundance ’08… but I’m in the minority. I thought it was one of the most fun viewing experiences I had there. Now, I won’t say that I got what Chusy’s three-part so-called autobiography was about because I don’t know if there’s anything to get. All I know is he has a bizarre imagination, gets great performances […]
Below is the complete list of Sundance 2008 Winners: Grand Jury Prize: DocumentaryTrouble The Water — directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal Grand Jury Prize: DramaticFrozen River — directed by Courtney Hunt World Cinema Jury Prize: DocumentaryMan on Wire — directed by James Marsh World Cinema Jury Prize: DramaticKing of Ping Pong (Ping Pongkingen) — directed by Jens Jonsson Audience Award: DocumentaryFields of Fuel — directed by Josh Tickell Audience Award: DramaticThe Wackness — directed by Jonathan Levine World Cinema Audience Award: DocumentaryMan on Wire — directed by James Marsh World Cinema Audience Award: DramaticCaptain Abu Raed — directed […]
Though documentaries are always what I’m most excited about when I go to festivals, none at Sundance really jumped out at me this year… except one. Brit filmmaker Chris Waitt came to Park City with a delicious doc that’s so funny and superbly structured it’s hard to believe that it’s non-fiction, but he insists that it’s all real. In A Complete History of My Sexual Failures Waitt has recently been dumped, and having never been good with women he takes the moment of emptiness to examine why his life has been full of failed relationships by deciding to look up […]
I’ve still got most of my Sundance commentary to get up and I’m on my way to the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where I’ll try to file some short reports on the fest and the concurrent Cinemart, which is a great financing conference that plans, this year, to begin a dialogue about how it can be reshaped for the future. (Full disclosure: I’m on the CineMart’s Advisory Board.) From the festival’s Tiger Daily: Eschewing conference and panel formats and instead deploying the tried and tested device of brainstorming towards a consensus, IFFR management and industry experts will sit down this […]
While Jamie Stuart has been here at Sundance shooting the goings on, NPR has been shooting him for a short video segment that’s now up on their website. We have no idea what Jamie will turn in this year, although we do know that it won’t be all shot in the Albertson’s parking lot.
Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden return to Sundance with another intimate portrait, this time looking at baseball, particularly a Dominican player and how the game not only can change his life but his family’s as well if he plays to his potential. Outside of documentaries, independent filmmakers rarely focus on sports, but you can tell Fleck and Boden are baseball fans, and being a baseball addict myself (three weeks till spring training!) it’s fun to see a sports film that isn’t sensationalized for widespread appeal. Their film Sugar shows the harsh reality of trying to get into professional sports and […]
Here’s a short piece on Clark Gregg’s Choke, one of the few Sundance pics to have secured a deal mid-festival. (Hat tip: Hollywood Elsewhere.)
Sharon Swart and Mike Jones in Variety are reporting that Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River, a character-based thriller starring Melissa Leo which was the first film I saw at Sundance and one of the best, has sold to Sony PIctures Classics for a low-to-mid six-figure sum. I’ll try to get some further thoughts about this film up on the blog before the end of the festival.
BONO AND THE EDGE IN CATHERINE OWENS AND MARK PELLINGTON’S U2 3D. COURTESY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ENTERTAINMENT. Though her body of work is famous, Catherine Owens — the woman behind the visual design of U2’s legendary stadium tours of the past 15 years — until now has maintained a much lower profile. Beginning with the band’s revolutionary ZooTV tour in 1992, Irish artist Owens used her expertise in many media (sculpture, video art, sound design, photography, etc.) as inspiration for their subsequent PopMart, Elevation and Vertigo tours, helping the band gain a reputation as the best live act in the world. […]