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Gary Meyer
Co-Director
Telluride Film Festival
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Gary Meyer's Blog
DEAR FRIENDS,
We have two fabulous double features this week. We expect several Oscar nominations to be announced on Tuesday morning, especially for THE HURT LOCKER and THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX. Join us this week to see two top movies for the price of one. And it is a perfect time to buy our discount card which brings the cost to $3.25 per movie.
SUNDANCING IN THE DARK
I am back from 5 days at the Sundance Film Festival. It is quite a scene. Heavy snow most of the time made getting around less than ideal, often resulting in people missing films. Nothing can be done about uncooperative weather. The festival directors discourage people from driving by having only a few remote (and expensive) parking lots. They want people to take the frequent free buses. Usually jammed with journalists, filmmakers, distributors, agents and audience members, the windows steam up and it is hard to see where the bus is. Some drivers call out the theater stops (earning money in the tip box from me) and others do not causing people to miss their venues of choice.
The theaters are spread over a few square miles so one misses friends and associates we know are in attendance and run into others we haven’t seen in years.
Under the guidance of new Festival Director John Cooper (a head programmer for many years) and a continuing team of movie lovers making the choices, the number of movies screened has been reduced (partially due to budgetary cuts) and the percentage of really good movies has increased. In my 4.5 days I saw many features and two programs of shorts and I generally liked my choices.
Winters Bone director Debra Granik introduces cast and crew
The dramatic films I can recommend include San Francisco residents Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s HOWL, effectively covering the censorship trial over Allen Ginsberg’s famous poem. James Franco is perfect as Ginsberg while stunning animation brings his poetry to life; BLUE VALENTINE with intense performances from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a couple whose relationship is suffering from a lack of communication; WINTER’S BONE is a near perfect translation of Daniel Wodrell’s novel about a poor 17-year-old girl who braves the dangerous world of drug dealers and murderers in the Ozarks as she tries to find out what happened to her father; almost a companion piece is THE ANIMAL KINGDOM fro Australia with a shocking story of an extended family of criminals protected by an alternately protective and cut-throat matron; FOUR LIONS is an often funny but ultimately confused comedy about a group of British Jihadists who bungle every effort at terrorist attacks; PEEPLI LIVE from India is a scathing satire of the real life farmer suicides and the media circus that develops in one village; in CYRUS the indie cult favs Duplass brothers get a higher budget and John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill in a dark comedy about the strange directions a new relationship takes when Tomei’s grown-up but child-like son intrudes; PLEASE GIVE from Nicole Holofcener is another indie dysfunctional family comedy with big names including Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt as neighbors awaiting the death of an old lady so they can take over her apartment and the strained relationship with Amanda Peet and Rebecca Hall who each have different attitudes about their relationship with their grandmother; LOURDRES is a delightful story of a woman (Sylvie Testud) seeking miracles; SPLICE is certain to generate controversy as this science fiction horror film staring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley goes into some outrageous territory exploring human DNA experimentation.
Please Give Q&A - Amanda Peet, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Catherine Keener, Rebecca Hall, Sarah Steele, Director Nicole Holofcener
Robert Redford has always put an emphasis on providing a high profile on documentaries and this year was no exception. They tend to have large enthusiastic crowds.
Excellent non-fiction films generating big buzz that I liked: EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP starts out as a survey about street artists with a focus on the illusive Banksy but when the artist takes over the film the focus changes to Mr. Brainwash in a study of art and hype that informs and entertains like the best films should; FREEDOM RIDERS follows the college students who bravely bought tickets on a Greyhound Bus to the deep south in 1961;THE OATH offers the amazing tale of two brothers-in-law and how their relationships with al Qaeda send their lives in different directions; RESTREPO, Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington’s visceral film that plunges audiences into what war is really like; SMASH HIS CAMERA is an eye-opener about paparazzi; WAITING FOR SUPERMAN explodes many assumptions about our education system and explores options that offer hope in a film from the director of AN INCONVENIENTTRUTH and IT MIGHT GET LOUD that was the first film to get a distribution deal at the festival; HIS & HERS, the first feature from Irish shorts maker Ken Wardrop who lets 70 women tell stories of growing old with humor and insight; SECRETS OF THE TRIBE shocked audiences with new revelations about the abuse on the Yanomami Indians by famous researchers; SPACE TOURISTS, while a bit slow was a fascinating look at Anousheh Ansari who paid $20 million to fly into space; KICK IN IRAN follows a 19-year-old Taekwondo superstar who is the first female athlete from Iran to qualify for the Olympics; LUCKY was disappointing compared to so many other terrific movies as the director of SPELLBOUND and ROCKET SCIENCE visits a range of people who hit it big winning the lottery. The laughs and amazement of what some of the eccentrics do with their money made it entertaining but there is no tension since they have already won. DOUBLE TAKE is not easily put into any category as it compares the works of Alfred Hitchcock and the develping cold war in the 1960s.
High on my doc list to see are CATFISH about the most unusual story of the relationship that develops on the internet between a 24-year-old photographer and an 8-year-old and her family; 12th & DELAWARE about the two passionate sides on the abortion issue; CASINO JACK AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY, a portrait of Washington super lobbyist Jack Abramoff; FAMILY AFFAIR about childhood family abuse; CANE TOADS:THE CONQUEST; Sam Green’s UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS;TEENAGE PAPARAZZO by ENTOURAGE star Adrian Grenier; I’M PAT….TILLMAN explores what happened when the successful football player joined the military to serve his country….only to be killed in what appears to be a government cover-up about what really happened.
And dramatic films I hope to catch soon, maybe at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April are DOUCHEBAG, happythankyoumoreplease, HOLY ROLLERS, WLCOME TO THE RILEYS, GROWN UP MOVIE STAR, THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, THE COMPPANY MEN, THE EXTRA MAN, GET LOW, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s JACK GOES BOATING, Sam Taylor Wood’s NOWEHERE BOY,THE RUNAWAYS, THE FREEBIE, THE TAQWACORES, and TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL.
It was great to see Roger and Chaz Ebert, catching up on the films we liked (big thumbs up for HOWL and our local filmmakers) and planning to get together in Cannes.
Cyrus Party Frenzy With Marisa
I am not a big fan of the jam-packed parties with watered-down drinks, skimpy food trays and DJs [playing music so loud you can’t hear much) but I did attend the one following CYRUS where I enjoyed conversations with the film’s young star Jonah Hill and CRAZY HEART director Scott Cooper. Also a young friend, Gabe Sunday, who’s film MY SUICIDE won several awards at New York’s GenArt festival was asked to make a short film on the spirit of ping pong that premiered at their party also featuring a ping pong tournament with 4 hot new talents feature at Sundance. Take a look and his short
Sundance always in exploring new directions in media with their “New Frontiers” program where I experienced a variety of installations (especially liking Tracey Snelling’s BORDERTOWN, Eric Gradman’s CLOUD MIRROR, the works of Michael Joaquin Grey and Gina Czarnecki. Several panel discussions provided interesting scenarios of the future of movies. After one called “Migrating Imaginations” with artist/filmmakers Shirin Neshat and Pipilotti, Robert Redford came up to the platform where I was speaking with Neshat. He was very interested in their ideas regarding the intersection between art and film. Since I spent a year doing consulting work for Redford, it was a nice reunion as well.
Learn more at www.sundance.org/festival
Slamdance, the alternate festival founded 16 years ago by two frustrated filmmakers whose films didn’t get into Sundance, was in full swing at the top of Main Street featuring a new Steven Soderberg film about Spaulding Gray, a drama about the last relative of H.P. Lovecraft, and new docs on William Burroughs and Bolivian female wrestlers. The whole show is located at the Treasure Mountain hotel and you never need to go outside into that snow dance.
