Today's Locals Best Bet: Good Hair

[Film Fest] If you're a Locals Quick Pass Holder--or just a local movie-lover deciding what to wait-list--you've got some good choices tonight. Jeremy Mathews commented earlier today on The Cove, and I touched on the documentary Burma DJ over the weekend.

But you'll probably have the best time if you make a run at Good Hair (tonight, 9:30 p.m., Rose Wagner Center) – and not just because of the off-chance that Chris Rock might show up at the Rose. Rock serves as tour guide through a documentary exploration inspired by his young daughter’s question: “Daddy, why don’t I have good hair?” What follows is a frisky, enlightening 90-minute trip through the multi-billion dollar industry that caters to (primarily) black women, selling them toxic chemical “relaxers” and weaves that can cost thousands of dollars a year to maintain because “if you’re nappy, you’re not happy.”

As a piece of filmmaking, it’s somewhat uneven. Director Jeff Stilson spends an inordinate amount of time on a bizarre hairdressing competition at an annual expo for black hair-care products, a freak show with little to do with the actual subject at hand. And Stilson and Rock ultimately go a little – okay, a lot – easy on the question of whether this obsession with long, straight hair is actually a problem. But did you know that most hair-weave hair in America comes from a temple in India, where it’s ritually sacrificed by Hindus and becomes a pure-profit industry? Or that the artificial nature of so many black women’s hair makes it, er, problematic during sexual relations? I sure didn’t – and I sure didn’t expect to laugh so much while discovering it. (Scott Renshaw)

Sundance 2009: Let's Misbehave

[Film Fest] There have always been politically charged movies at Sundance, but this year's festival showcases filmmakers – like The Yes Men – who decided to make their point by misbehaving. These rogue documentarians are up to no good, and they let you in on the adrenaline rush.

Louie Psihoyos' The Cove could lend its setup to a Hollywood action movie. In the seemingly quaint, dolphin-loving town of Taiji, Japan, the townspeople mask a deep secret. The fishermen, the mayor and the police are all in on it. As dolphin-rights advocates travel through the town, they see cars following them and men videotaping them.

Ric O'Barry, the former dolphin trainer on Flipper who became a dolphin-rights advocate, has been trying for sometime to bring attention to the slaughter that occurs an unseen cove that no one can ever see. So the activists embark on a dangerous undercover mission to steal the footage they need. Like any good heist, there's a crack team of specialists including divers, gadget men extreme athletes. Using thermal cameras and night vision, they plant hidden cameras, and capture all the drama of the operation on video. The tense, thrilling mission is more exciting than most Hollywood action sequence. (Jeremy Mathews)

Sundance 2009: Pop Cultures

[Film Fest] For years, I've repeated the mantra that, on the whole, the documentaries at Sundance are more satisfying than the dramatic films. But I'm beginning to re-evaluate why I espouse that point of view. Maybe the movies themselves really are that much better. Or maybe I just love the experience of walking out of a theater not merely entertained, but having learned something.

I've learned a lot about the world by watching Sundance documentaries, and if there’s one constant, it’s that you can learn the most about another country through two primary sources: its spirituality, and its popular culture. And when the two overlap, it can be particularly fascinating.

The World Documentary Competition Films Afghan Star and Nollywood Babylon took on subjects that I couldn’t resist simply from the film guide summaries. The former, from British director Havana Marking, follows four of the top 10 finalists on Afghanistan’s newly created, post-Taliban version of American Idol. At the outset, a viewer might fear that it’s going to be nearly as painful as early season episodes of the American American Idol, full of shrill failed auditioners. But the film gradually segues into what makes the phenomenon—and it is just as huge there as it is here—distinctive in Afghanistan. Will the viewer-voting for the Tajik, Hazara and Pashtun finalists echo the country’s historical schisms? Will a woman who dares to perform—and dance!—on television risk her life in a country that’s more secularized, but still deeply Islamic? I couldn’t honestly tell you whether any of the finalists are actually talented—Middle Eastern singing is still far too alien to me—but I definitely learned something wonderfully bizarre: In a country where overt sexuality is taboo, for some reason eyebrows are a subject of physical admiration in love songs.

Nollywood Babylon also finds an unexpected crossover between the secular and the spiritual as Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal look at the burgeoning local film industry of Nigeria. The film's primary subject is Lancelot Imasuen, a director making his 157th down-and-dirty feature in the capital city of Lagos, and its fairly evident that great artistry is less important in this world than telling African stories to African people. But more compelling is the nature of most of those stories: Largely financed by the impoverished country’s evangelical mega-churches, the plots consist primarily of morality plays and fairly blatant attacks on the animist/pagan traditions of the country. Do the filmmakers derive cheap entertainment simply from showing the ultra-low-budget trailers and special effects? Sure. But as a way to learn something about a country’s faith, economy and art, it sure goes down easy. (Scott Renshaw)

Vanzetti Crime's Last Gas

Utah's punk scene has a heart attack every winter. Never one single explanation for it all, some bands just call it quits. And at the end we either get some of the genre's best work from departing groups that will never be heard again live, or a bunch of pissed off kids who hate each other because they could get their act in gear to make a single EP. A few local punk groups (including another one of my favorites, The Explicit) announced their breakups in the past couple months. Leaving a void for other bands to fill, some of which will probably be going though the same process twelve months from now. But as the annual changing of the guard finishes up, we got one damn fine album out of the process.

SLC's own Vanzetti Crime have been keeping the scene alive for about a year and a half now. Putting on killer shows from The Outer Rim and the late Red Light Books, producing two EP's out of the DIY music handbook, and becoming one of the leading bands of the ever changing punk and ska scenes. The band formed in late 2007 out of the dismantling of another group that left bassist Austin Wood and drummer Trey Bird in search of a new formation, grabbing guitarist Mike Westbrook from a three year friendship and finding singer Erin Tooke through a mutual friend in an all acoustic project. They quickly started playing shows around the city and made a name for themselves amongst their peers.

So it came as quite a shock to the group's fans when they announced they'd be breaking up, due in large part to Mike being called to go on a mission. “We've known that Mike was going on a mission since before we even started to play together” says Trey. “But as time went by it became clearer on how soon it was actually going to happen. He received his call at the end of September for Mexico City, Mexico and leaves January 21^st.” Normally a move like this would devastate any other ensemble and would force an immediate split or at least a change in the lineup. But instead the band pressed on with plans to do the exact opposite, record a full length album before his departure!

“We started work on the album the second week of December and finished everything up in three days” said Mike. “We recorded live, meaning the drums, guitar and bass were all recorded together, and then vocals were done separate.” For their last project the band went out in search for help to make the album the finest it could be, and found one of the best men they could have for the job. “We recorded with Andy Patterson, he was really easy to work with, and knows what he's doing. It was a really good experience, and was much easier than we had anticipated.”

When all was mixed and finished, the band came out with the eighteen song album “Unity.” A polished collection of almost everything the band had to offer. According to Trey, “We always knew that when we recorded we would record pretty much everything we had, since this will be our only album, it's almost like a discography of all the songs from the past year.” Featuring songs like “Communicating Through Bombs” and “Untitled” that call back to the feeling of early 80's punk along side bouncy tunes like “At Peace” and “Solidarity” that hit the ska sound at its core elements. The album itself is a great addition to the current Utah music scene, and a fitting end chapter to the band's brief but loud memory.

The final hurrah for the group came to a packed crowd at Boing! Collective this past Friday night, playing along side up and coming acts like The Mooks, Talking Bombs and The Skaficionados.

“We all really love intimate shows, with no stage and a bunch of sweaty people bumping into you, it makes for a very fun and memorable experience and that's exactly what you get at Boing!” says Mike. “The Boing House has been a major part of our lives, not just as a band as people as well. It's great to go somewhere that sincerely cares about what's happening in community and the music scene.”

The crowd all knew the end was at hand and celebrated it for all it was worth, dancing, moshing and bouncing throughout the home. All topped off with in-house crowd surfing harking back to the early 90's venue days. Halfway into the set the crowd was asked to calm down as the floorboards to the home could be felt moving up and down. Which might have been an interesting moment, to see the group's final act of punk rock in Utah end up being their fans breaking Boing in half. Playing almost their entire album over the course of an hour, they closed up shop to a crowd singalong and a final thank you. No encore, no tears, no apologies.

As for a reflections on the band as a whole, Trey's says, “It's been a great experience. There's been a lot of good memories and we've met some really cool people along the way. We're sad to see it come to an end, but the past year has been one of the best years.”

“We've had some great moments, starting at Red Light Books and playing shows with local acts and touring bands as well” says Mike reflecting on their time performing. ”One thing we wish we could've done was tour out of Utah and get other people to hear our music. Overall though, it's been amazing.”
(Gavin Sheehan)

Sundance 2009: The Fandom Menace

[Film Fest] Genuinely interesting screenwriters often develop an artistic thumbprint as distinctive as any director's. For Robert Siegel (The Wrestler), if you throw away The Onion Movie—and he probably wishes he could—that calling card could be the psychology of losers whose sense of self is connected to something superficially inconsequential.

Big Fan—Siegel's directing debut, in addition to his latest screenwriting credit—casts Patton Oswalt as Paul Aufiero, a Staten Island parking garage attendant who lives and dies based on the success of his beloved New York Giants. One night he and his pal (Kevin Corrigan) spot the team’s star linebacker Quantrell Bishop, and impulsively follow him to a nightclub, where an attempt to get chummy results in Paul getting his ass kicked. But when Bishop’s legal fate threatens the team’s chance for a playoff spot, Paul has to choose between the Giants' well-being and his own.

Siegel treads dangerously close to caricature in portraying Paul as a lives-with-mom, no-girlfriend sadsack, and shows a bit of a tin ear when it comes to the heavily-scripted rants of the guys who call in to sports-talk radio shows. But Big Fan nevertheless proves both funny—and sad—when it comes to exploring the sense of power-by-proxy that comes from cheering for a winning team. Like The Wrestler’s protagonist, Paul can’t envision himself as having any sort of intrinsic worth as a person, and his most absurd decisions show a perverse sort of integrity. As tragic as Siegel’s perspective on this kind of character may be, at this point it’s distinctively his own. (Scott Renshaw)

Sundance 2009: Soderbergh's Surprise

[Film Fest] "You were never here, and you never saw this film." Steven Soderbergh told the audience this after he premiered his The Girlfriend Experience Tuesday night, under a sheer veil of secrecy.

Some audience members were anticipating the film's unadvertised screening, while others expected a special extended sit-down discussion with one of the festival's top alumni. Sundance first billed the night first as "Sneak Preview 2," then as "A Surprise Evening with Steven Soderbergh." "Don't miss this special chance to meet the Academy Award-winning director," a ticket sales email said, "and hear first-hand the tales of his unique career ranging from sex, lies, and videotape to Traffic, from The Limey to Che, and beyond." Such an event isn't unheard of at Sundance, and Soderbergh was already in town for the celebration of sex, lies, and videotape's 20th anniversary. But with the screening scheduled at Eccles Theater's prime time slot, most people expected something more.

Before the screening, Soderbergh sat on a stool next to festival director Geoffrey Gilmore to begin the special evening. Soderbergh said that people kept approaching him during the festival to say that they were looking forward to seeing his film, and he had no idea why they thought he had a new film. "Maybe it's because we do have a film to show" he added.

Many in the audience may have found the stunt more entertaining than the film. The Girlfriend Experience revisits some of the structural experiments Soderbergh conducted in films like The Limey, but fails to craft an interesting story to scramble. While compelling for its compositions and labyrinthine restructuring of a simple story, the film can't shake the suspicion that the core story is rather tedious. Porn star Sasha Grey stars as a high-end call girl who goes from client to client while her boyfriend (Chris Santos), a personal trainer, tries to find financial stability. Working mostly with non-actors, Soderbergh often had them speak without any pre-written dialogue. Unfortunately, they don't always have interesting things to say.

The Girlfriend Experience is one of the most unique films of the festival, but in the end may be more interesting to talk about than to watch. (Jeremy Mathews)

Sundance 2009: Straight Outta Brooklyn

[Film Fest] No Sundance experience beats that of wandering into a film with an unknowncast and director and finding yourself completely wrapped up in the joys andturmoils of its characters' lives. For a couple hours, you forget all thefestival cynicism, the sleep deprivation, the hour-long shuttle rides andbask in the discovery.

The Dramatic Competition entry Don't Let Me Drown delivers such an experience. Cruz Angeles' film focuses on a story of young love during troubled times. It weaves through the lives of two Brooklyn families as they struggle in themonths after the Sept. 11 attacks. Lalo and Stefanie, the children of these families, find solace in one another.

While certain plot developments feel somewhat out of place, we never lose our affection for these great characters. The World Trade Center attacks impacted both families. Stefanie's sister died in one of the towers, causing her father to turn mean and overly protective; Lalo's father worked as a janitor in the towers, and now spendshis days inhaling harmful dust while trying to clean-up the wreckage.

But Don't Let Me Drown refuses to fall into despair. It instead evokes the loving relationships between friends and family, allowing extremely funny organic humor to grow out of the character interaction. Angeles' greatest asset is his cast, especially the teenagers. They play well-meaning kids who laugh at and tease one another, but ultimately have each other's interests at heart. The past may be haunting, but they know that their happiness depends on how they go into the future. (Jeremy Mathews)

No MoTabs at the Inauguration

[Inauguration Inventory] The University of Utah marching band made the trek to Barack Obama's inauguration. But what of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?

The small observation party in our living room today noticed the conspicuous absence of the choir, which has made five inaugural appearances for five modern presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and both Bush 41 and 43.

Of course, it's pretty likely none of those guys would have invited Usher to join inauguration festivities, either.

The MoTabs' absence left us chewing on this: With all the fallout the new president faced over asking the Rev. Rick Warren to open today's historic event with prayer, could Obama's posse have sensed the bad political mojo over aligning even slightly with the pro-Propostion 8 Mormon Church?

Steve Fidel, writing for the Deseret News online vehicle Momon Times, put it this way:

"Overall it appears that involvement in the Obama inauguration by LDS Church members will be significantly less conspicuous than in some past inaugurations." (Holly Mullen)

Sundance 2009: Caught in the Activism

[Film Fest] Plenty of Sundance documentaries over the years have been intended to motivate viewers to some kind of action through awareness. But there has been a special sub-section of that category: the documentaries about people engaged in some kind of high-concept project to make a point. Think Super Size Me, and you’ll be get a sense for what I'm talking about.

Or in the case of this year's No Impact Man, think Super Downsize Me. Writer Colin Beavan, as part of a project for his latest book, decides to spend one year attempting walk his progressive talk by having zero environmental impact, and brings his wife Michelle and 2-year-old daughter Isabella along for the ride. And by “zero impact,” he means zero: no electricity, no fuel-powered vehicles, no food that isn’t local and seasonal, no new purchases, no trash generated, not even toilet paper.

There’s certainly some fascinating conflict in Laura Gabbert and Justin Schien’s observation of the family’s year, both external (the blogosphere haters accusing Colin of grandstanding) and internal (hard-core urbanite Michelle’s struggle dealing with coffee withdrawals and attempting to cook an actual meal for the first time). But as the experiment unfolds, it becomes less about what they’re depriving themselves of than what they’re gaining in the process: a greater sense of connection with one another as a family, with their community, and with the rest of the world around them. If it’s just a stunt, it’s a stunt that brings a family closer together, and it's as emotionally affecting as it is practically inspiring.

The Yes Men – Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano – also attempt to live their principles through stunts, as they first showed in their self-titled 2003 film that played at that year’s Sundance. In their follow-up The Yes Men Fix the World, they’re once again out to expose the follies of corporate America by passing themselves in various elaborately-staged hoaxes as representatives from major corporations. And once again, they show primarily how hard it is to say anything so absurd that someone in the corporate world wouldn’t consider it a real good idea. The film record of their latest exploits – pretending to have made candles from human tallow; announcing that Dow Chemicals is compensating Indian victims of the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster – is certainly self-congratulatory, and more than a bit disjointed. It’s fascinating mostly to watch real corporate spokespersons attempt to portray the Yes Men as being cruel to those who to whom they’re giving “false hope.” But it’s still bracing to watch movies about people who live their lives as though there still is hope. (Scott Renshaw)

Sundance 2009: More Quick Hits

Arlen Faber: I'm not sure whether I'm more upset at writer/director John Hindman for squandering a good idea or a great cast. His Dramatic Competition film is about a grumpy, reclusive author (Jeff Daniels) who wrote one of those hollow self-help sensations like The Secret 20 years ago. The phenomenon never faded, however, because the book was purportedly transcribed from the author's conversations with God.

If you accepted that last statement without an ounce of skepticism, you'd fit in nicely amongst the ensemble of characters who encounter this jackass yet fail ask him any interesting questions about his life or book. This is the kind of movie in which no one ever says the things that they obviously should – not for lack of motivation, but because if they did, the movie would be only five minutes long. Any viewer of mild intelligence will deduce Arlen's shocking revelation at the outset, but must listen to 90 minutes of greeting cards before the big unveiling.

The Greatest: A substandard mainstream screenplay hiding in a very well-made and well-acted indie film, this drama grows farther from the truth as it progresses. It opens with a rather touching depiction of teenagers in love, but then one of those teenagers dies a tragic death. The deceased didn't know his new girlfriend (Carey Mulligan) very well, and his family never met her, but he did manage to get her pregnant on the night of his death. With nowhere else to go, she moves into the boy's family's house, and into a storm of emotional turmoil.

Grief manifests itself in vastly different forms. Susan Sarandon's mother has become obsessed with discovering all the details of his son's death. Did he suffer? What was he saying when he died? Pierce Brosnan's father went the opposite direction to an equally unhealthy extreme, wishing to avoid discussion of his son at all costs. And his younger brother (Johnny Simmons) masks his feelings with animosity toward his brother, the family's favorite child.

While writer/director Shana Feste's dialogue tends toward the obvious, the interaction between these clashing characters is fascinating. Less fascinating is the third act, which sets out to neatly resolve every hang-up and loose-end. The truth, which the film approaches in its first half, is that death leaves unanswered questions, and that that’s okay. Too bad The Greatest takes the easy way out. (Jeremy Mathews)

Sundance 2009: DFWTF?

[Film Fest] There are people--plenty of them, and most of them smart--who considered David Foster Wallace a true American visionary, and mourned his death last year like the passing of a guru. Me, I've read virtually none of his work. So I'll have to leave it to others to decide whether John Krasinskils adaptation of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a misguided mess on its own terms, or on DFW's.

Krasinski (The Office's genial Jim) wrote and directed, and he does what a lot of actors-turned-filmmakers do their first time out of the box: creates something full of showy, actor-y moments. Familiar faces like Bobby Canavale, Will Forte and Josh Charles are among those who get to deliver monologues, mostly about their relationships with women, to an anthropology grad student named Sara (Julianne Nicholson) doing research about the male psyche.

The framing narrative reveals that her motivations are less than clinical – she was recently left broken-hearted by a man played by Krasinski – but it’s fairly tough to care about Sara as a character. It’s nearly as hard to understand what Krasinski is doing with flourishes like having his pair of wandering minstrel bartender/narrators addressing the audience directly. And it’s damned near impossible to justify Krasinski giving himself a five-minute monologue, considering that 1. he’s not adept enough a director to make the scene cinematically interesting, and 2. he’s actually not adept enough a dramatic actor to make his character interesting.

Only once – during a segment involving one interviewee's recollections of his hard-working father – does Krasinski blend visual style with emotional connection. For the other 70 minutes, he’s merely giving Wallace neophytes like me reason to explore how work so beloved could go so wrong. (Scott Renshaw)

Dead Zephyr: Week 271

(Bill Frost)

Sundance 2009: They Are Family

[Film Fest] I know that it's not a completely new phenomenon, but for some reason it feels more prevalent at Sundance this year. In the documentary competition, filmmakers apparently have decided that the most compelling subjects are in their own home--or at least in their own genetic lineage.

Who's making a movie about rabble-rousing civil rights attorney William Kunstler (William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe)? His kids. Who’s interviewing Martin Garbus about free-speech issues (Shouting Fire)? His daughter. Who’s exploring the story of Mexican revolutionary hero and one-time president Plutarco Calles (El General)? His great-granddaughter.

Now maybe it’s a quaint notion in a post-Michael Moore movie universe to think of documentaries as works of cinematic journalism. But you have to question, even more so than usual, what happens when a filmmaker is approaching a subject about which they can have little or no objectivity. Or is it worth asking whether it’s even desirable for a filmmaker to attempt journalistic distance, no matter the project? I have only seen one of the three films in question as of yet, so this is not about their specific merits. I’m just left uneasy by what happens when the eye on the other end of the viewfinder is daddy’s little girl (or boy). (Scott Renshaw)

Sundance 2009: A Good Year?

[Film Fest] By Monday every year, just like clockwork, the consensus is already beginning to develop: Is this year a good year or a bad year for Sundance films?

And sure, it’s an arbitrary and completely subjective evaluation. All I can say is, I have yet to walk out of anything in disgust. That, for me, marks a better year than average.

It helps as well, of course, to have a few things to rave about. Sometimes they’re the things everyone seems to be raving about; I’ve yet to encounter too many people who don’t love Humpday. But occasionally I get to go out on a limb for something that either hasn’t been widely seen, or hasn’t been widely loved.

From the Spectrum category comes 2009’s first out-of-nowhere find for me: The Vicious Kind. Writer/director Lee Toland Krieger’s drama sets up a distinctive dysfunctional-family scenario from that time-honored backdrop of the Thanksgiving weekend gathering. Caleb (Adam Scott) still lives in the same small Connecticut town as the dad (J. K. Simmons) he hasn’t spoken to in eight years. He’s done his younger brother Peter (Alex Frost) the favor of driving him home from college, along with Peter’s new girlfriend Emma (Brittany Snow). But Caleb’s got more demons than we can count, and the relationships between these four people are more complicated than it’s possible to guess.

And that’s where I knew Krieger was on to something: Every time I was sure I knew where the characters were headed, and why, I was proved wrong. Caleb’s an odd conglomeration of emotional drama, but Scott’s performance somehow brings this mess of a guy together. Every interaction strikes just the right tone, and even the minor supporting characters feel completely lived in. That, too, can be a marker of a better year than average—pleasant surprises from unlikely places. (Scott Renshaw)

Rabbi Cancelled

Better have a Plan B in case you were hoping to see Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (The Kosher Sutra) tonight (Jan. 19) at the Jewish Community Center. Sam Weller Books has let us know the event's been cancelled. (Jerre Wroble)

Rock of Love Bus: Kelsey's Still Rollin'

[Locals on Reality TV] Salt Lake's Kelsey has survived another cut on VH1's Rock of Love Bus, wherein "ladies" vie for the "love" of "rock star" Bret Michaels and his "hair." As we learned in last night's episode, Kelsey has mad skills on the ice, if not with math:

VH1 TV Shows Music Videos Celebrity Photos News & Gossip

That's Kelsey going in for the first hug, up front, gum a-crackin,' then later commenting on "the devil" Lacie. (Bill Frost)

Sundance 2009: Coming to America

[Film Fest] I don't mean to bang yet again on Sundance's knee-jerk liberal biases--OK, yeah, I sort of do – but if there's anything the audiences here might love more than a movie about people trying to lift themselves out of their disadvantaged lives, it's a movie in which the people trying to lift themselves out of their disadvantaged lives are immigrants.

That’s not to issue a blanket dismissal of such plots. Just last year, Sugar did a wonderful job of dealing with an impoverished protagonist’s culture shock. But we’ve also seen a lot of movies in recent years – particularly at Sundance in recent years – about newcomers immersed in the slow boil of our American melting pot. And as individual as some of these stories may be, you start to wonder how many different ways there are to talk about what it’s like to get to – and be in – 21st-century America for the first time.

Cherien Dabis’ Amreeka certainly comes at the subject from a solidly intriguing point of view. Palestinian single mother Muna Farah (Nisreen Faour), fearing for the future of her 15-year-old son Fadi, takes advantage of receiving a long-delayed visa request and moves to Illinois, where her sister and her family live. Many of the expected challenges ensue – Fadi facing bigoted classmates; well-educated Muna winding up underemployed at a fast-food restaurant – while compounding them by setting the story in 2003 during the early days of the Iraq War. Faour delivers a rich performance, somewhat making up for a narrative that races through Fadi’s Americanization from fresh of the boat to getting stoned and wearing hip-hop gear in seemingly a matter of days. It’s understated, and only a little bit familiar.

More familiar – though only partly – is the milieu of Sin Nombre. Writer/director Cary Joji Fukunaga follows three primary protagonists over several days: Sayra, a Honduran teenager attempting to get to New Jersey with her estranged birth father; Casper, a young gang member in southern Mexico; and Smiley, Casper’s 11-year-old protégé. After Casper saves Sayra by killing one of his own fellow gang brothers, the two wind up on the run together, leaving Smiley’s story mostly in the dust – and that becomes the movie’s biggest frustration. The hardships of the illegal immigrant journey to America have been covered in many other movies (most recently something like La Misma Luna); far less so the way a pre-adolescent would-be gangsta has to make adult choices far too soon. The gang angle gives Sin Nombre a distinctive point of view, but it’s also the point of view that sometimes gets lost in the river crossings and immigration raids. (Scott Renshaw)

Sundance 2009: Cold Clones and Returning Souls

[Film Fest] This could be the Sundance of the surreal metaphysical science-fiction film. When I watched Kanji Nakajima's World Dramatic Competition film The Clone Returns Home, I didn't imagine I'd see many films like it during the festival. But at least two Sundance films beg comparison to it.

Scott already wrote about the commonalities between Moon and The Clone Returns Home, although I didn't read his spoiler-warned blog entry in its entirety because I haven't seen Moon yet. I did, however, see Sophie Barthes' Cold Souls, and I couldn't get its Japanese counterpart out of my mind.

A poetic and philosophical meditation, the beautifully photographed Clone spends much of its second half pondering a cloned man's connection with his soul. What is he like without it? What about when it's just lingering around outside of him?

Barthes' film touches on the same questions. It's sure to earn comparisons to Being John Malkovich for its humorous existential sci-fi and the casting of a well-regarded actor—this time Paul Giamatti—as himself. It's also unique and memorable in its own right. The on-screen character of Giamatti feels twisted up inside, so he decides to have his soul removed and put into storage, based on reports that it will make him happier. But the bizarre procedure of course creates greater conflicts of despair and identity. Maybe next time Giamatti will try getting a clone instead. (Jeremy Mathews)

Sundance 2009: The Kids Aren't Alright

[Film Fest] Some Sundance "double-features" --like the one I suggested on Friday for Moon and The Clone Returns Home--are kind of fun and silly to contemplate. And then there are pairings like Over the Hills and Far Away and Boy Interrupted that would exist primarily to give any caring parent nightmares.

In Over the Hills, filmmaker Michel Orion Scott chronicles a journey undertaken by writer Rupert Isaacson and his wife Kristin with their severely autistic 5-year-old son Rowan. Drawing from his experience with shamanistic cultures in Africa and Rowan’s affinity for horses, Rupert comes up with a seemingly crazy notion: dragging the entire family to Mongolia to attempt healing rituals with the remote shamanistic natives. The details of the trip are certainly compelling, but even more compelling is the portrait of parents who can begin to reach for desperate measures when they believe their child is in pain. And to the parents’ credit, it always feels more like their efforts are more about Rowan’s pain than their own.

There’s a reasonably happy ending to Rupert’s journey, but not so for the grieving parents who are both the subject and the creators of Boy Interrupted. Documentary filmmakers Dana and Hart Perry tell the wrenching story of their son Evan, who committed suicide at the age of 15. It’s a devastating portrait of a child with bipolar disorder, but the Perry’s manage to tell their tale without ever wallowing in pathos. It always feels more like an attempt to let other parents know that they’re not alone, rather than some guilt-purge. If you are a parent yourself – or maybe even just an empathetic human being – prepare to deal with a lump in your throat. (Scott Renshaw)

Sundance 2009: Quick Hits

[Film Fest] An omnibus post to catch up on a backlog of Sundance titles:

Paper Heart: Remember actress-comedian Charlyne Yi from those 30 seconds in Knocked Up where she’s hilarious as Martin Starr’s stoned girlfriend? Apparently that’s about the limit of my tolerance for her spacey persona. In this Borat-style fake-umentary, Yi plays herself as a never-been-in-love gal using a cross-country, movie project as a way to find out what love is. In between interviews with actual couples that play like outtakes from When Harry Met Sally’s interstitial segments, she happens to start a relationship with Michael Cera, also playing himself (and also Yi’s real-life significant other). Cera continues to be effortlessly charming in almost everything he does, but a little bit of Yi goes a loooooong way. How much one enjoys this slight little comedy depends a lot on how much one believes its inventive scenes (like the attempt to stage a romantic walk along the beach) offset its star’s one-note goofiness.

Art & Copy: Irony alert! Director Doug Pray has made a movie about the advertising industry in which he suggests that behind the self-serving messages is a genuine artistry—and he has done so by applying a genuine artistry to an incredibly self-serving message. Some genuine innovators in the world of advertising are given an opportunity to talk about memorable landmarks in television and print commercials, and indeed the ads about which they enthuse were game-changers: Nike’s “Just Do It;” Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America;” “I want my MTV.” But aside from offering the occasional anecdote about the inspiration behind some of these taglines (like Gary Gilmore’s pre-execution plea leading to the “Just Do It” campaign), Pray doesn’t dig much deeper into either the history or the ethics of the industry, and gives his subjects a whole lot of time to pat themselves on the back. It’s entertaining, but if it’s not actually a blowjob to Madison Avenue, it’s at least a little close to the beltline for comfort.

Big River Man: For about an hour, I thought director John Maringouin had taken an already fascinating subject – Slovenian distance swimmer Martin Strel’s 2007 attempt to swim the 3,300-mile length of the Amazon River – and knocked it out of the park. Strel makes a wonderfully complex protagonist: a 52-year-old, overweight functional alcoholic with high blood pressure whose compulsion to swim these rivers may have as much to do with his own troubled history as with his stated goal of drawing attention to environmental issues. But as Strel’s sanity gets progressively wobblier over the course of his two-month journey, so does Maringouin’s grip on the story. His efforts to convey Strel’s mental state visually distract him from the fact that the movie itself starts to feel about 20 minutes too long, even at only 105 minutes. Sometimes, though, 60 terrific minutes can make up for a lot. (Scott Renshaw)