PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Broken Mountain: Matthew Stanton's "North Starr"

A laundry list of missteps including sloppy editing, poor supporting performances and lethargic storytelling qualifies Matthew Stanton's directing debut "North Starr" as a gigantic bust. The fact that "North Star' tackles worthy themes involving racism and the need for tolerance makes its flaws all the more disappointing. After watching his best friend murdered, Demetrious (Jerome Hawkins) flees Houston. He pays a taxi driver to take him as far away as possible, ending up in Trublin, a small town in rural Texas. Some of Trublin's residents do their best to harass Demetrious. But Darring (Matthew Stanton), a local ranch hand, offers Demetrious work at the North Starr farm and a chance to adapt to a new place and lifestyle. Demetrious suffers from repeated nightmares and it slowly becomes clear that Trublin plays a role.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Chit-Chat Love: Geoff Haney's "The Last Word."

They banter constantly, the cerebral, soft-spoken Evan (Wes Bentley) and his high-energy, somewhat needy girlfriend Charlotte (Winona Ryder). Quiet or subtlety has no place in their relationship or in writer/director Geoff Haley's oddball romantic comedy "The Last Word." But constant chatter is not the same as fully developed storytelling. "Last Word," Haley's debut feature after his 2002 short film "The Parlor," claims a clever idea but never develops into fully drawn storytelling. Evan Merck (Bentley) lives a solitary existence as the writer of other people's suicide notes. His reclusive existence in a drab downtown Los Angeles apartment changes after meeting Charlotte (Ryder), a dead client's sister. An awkward romance blossoms but Evan keeps his job as a suicide note scribe secret. More importantly, he does not want Charlotte to know that her younger brother was a recent client.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Crazy/Beautiful: Anthony Haney-Jardine's "Anywhere, USA"

High Art crashes into "The Dukes of Hazzard" in writer/director Anthony Haney-Jardine's "Anywhere, USA," the most unusual of the dramatic competition films at this year's Sundance Film Festival. On one level, "Anywhere" is experimental hokum, a parade of Southern stereotypes and trailer park jokes. Yet, beneath the trashy humor and broad-stroke characters, "Anywhere" claims striking visual beauty, a standout performance and pride in its Ashville, NC locations and residents.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | American Wine: Randall Miller's "Bottle Shock"

Does every film festival get the wine movie it deserves? Four years ago, Cannes popped the cork on Jonathan Nossiter's "Mondovino," a rich and full-bodied documentary wherein the subject of winemaking was mainly a means to explore the buzz-kill of globalization and to toast anti-Americanism (at least according to tipsy American critics). Now, with a tip of the glass to "Sideways," Sundance is pouring "Bottle Shock," whose fact-based tale of a Napa vineyard's unlikely splash in our Bicentennial year, sending the French scurrying back to their grapes, tastes more "American" than freedom fries. As this year's very real market woes turn faith in our exports to escapist fantasy, successful distribution in the U.S. seems all but assured, a slot in Cannes or Venice about as likely as an award-winning Carlo Rossi.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Love Rollercoaster: Dennis Dortch's "A Good Day to Be Black & Sexy"

Six vignettes make up "A Good Day to Be Black & Sexy" and as is always the case with omnibus storytelling, some of writer/director Dennis Dortch's LA-based stories of men, women and their sexual battles are better than others. What's undeniably consistent about "Black & Sexy," premiering in the Dramatic Spectrum at the Sundance Film Festival, is its narrative verve, honest approach to bad adult behavior, visual pizzazz, easygoing performances and lively funk soundtrack.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Dancing Fool: Stanley Tucci's "Blind Date"

Ordinary conversations between actor/director Stanley Tucci and his past collaborator actress Patricia Clarkson would be joys to behold compared to Tucci's creative stumble, a backwards remake of late filmmaker Theo Van Gogh's 1996 couples drama "Blind Date." Tucci and Clarkson have displayed liveliness and passion on plenty of occasions. But as Don and Janna, an unhappy married couple that answers each other's fake classified ads as a means to re-spark their relationship, they surprisingly, fail to click.
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PARK CITY '08 NOTEBOOK | Overlooked Frontier and Midnight Sections Offers Standout "Half Life" and Well-Directed "The Broken"

While the Sundance 2008 comes to close and the air clears around the buzz for the big sales out of the premiere and competition sections, the often wrongly overlooked New Frontiers and Midnight programs float to the surface as some of the year's most interesting offerings.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Kicking and Screaming: Azazel Jacobs' "Momma's Man"

The year's prevailing Sundance theme--young males kicking and screaming their way into acceptance of adult duties and/or downward mobility--finds one of its fullest expressions in "Momma's Man," director Azazel Jacobs's exceptionally tender, funny, and poignant New York indie. Like "Sugar," and "Ballast," the festival's other great narrative films, Jacobs's low-fi third feature forges unique stylistic territory for the American independent film while specifically recalling such disparate classics as Alexander Sokurov's "Mother and Son" and Albert Brooks's woefully underrated "Mother." Jacobs's work is a rare cinematic expression of heartfelt matriphilia; someone in the industry with love to spare needs to pick up this gifted orphan right away.
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PARK CITY '08 NOTEBOOK | Slamdance Docs "Dear Zachary" and "My Mother's Garden" Offer Personal Stories; "Portage" and "Jetsam" Thrill

There's a certain intensity to low budget productions that often heightens their impact. At the Slamdance Film Festival, where singular vision overwhelms the importance of name talent and studio appeal, a number of sturdy entries achieve their cogent artistic intentions with focused minimalism. This is especially true for the documentaries and thrillers, two genres of filmmaking that work best with a heavy component of realism. The particular smallness of these movies fits their varying content.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Cat's Out of the Bag: David and Nathan Zellner's "Goliath"

"Goliath," co-directed by brothers David and Nathan Zellner, is an experimental film in appearance, tempo and most importantly spirit. Its tale, about a sad sack of a man (David Zellner) searching for his beloved lost cat Goliath, is something chancy filmmaker Harmony Korine would love. Yet, midway into the film, the Zellner Brothers (David Zellner also wrote the screenplay) abandon their film's lovely quirkiness for more conventional, beginning-middle-end narrative drama. It's a bold misstep because the subtle, lingering "Goliath," premiering in Dramatic Spectrum at the Sundance Film Festival, lacks the emotional heft necessary for ordinary storytelling. "Goliath's" strengths are its oddest qualities. When the Zellners attempt to play matters straight, even attempting a melodramatic climax, "Goliath" loses much of the spark that made it irreverent fun in the first place.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Up, Up and Away: Paul Schneider's "Pretty Bird"

Smart, sharp and lovely to watch, "Pretty Bird," premiering in dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival, is all one can hope for from an actor making the transition to feature filmmaking. Paul Schneider may not be a household name due to his starring role in another Sundance film, David Gordon Green's 2003 romance "All the Real Girls," or supporting roles in studio films "Elizabethtown," "The Family Stone" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." But by stepping behind the camera, writing and directing the lively huckster tale "Pretty Bird," Schneider enters a new chapter in his film career, one of promise, excitement and perhaps, the chance to make a welcome contribution to American independent film.
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PARK CITY '08 NOTEBOOK | Under Construction: The Nonfiction New Wave Takes Root at Sundance

At the end of a recent blog posting, Premiere film critic Glenn Kenny wondered aloud about some of the documentaries he'd seen at the Sundance Film Festival. Summing up his thoughts on Nanette Burstein's hit "American Teen" Kenny wrote "Burstein's trim, fast-moving film utilizes tricks and techniques that would give old-schoolers such as Wiseman and the Maysles Brothers rage attacks. The pop soundtrack, the voiceovers, the graphic collages, the animation sequences illustrating the dreams and desires of some of its subjects...none of it's a surprise, coming as it does from the co-director of the Bob Evans fantasia "The Kid Stays in the Picture," but all of it does raise the question of just how documentary is defining itself these days." Kenny's questioning reflects a decades-old discussion, often fueled by film critics (and sometimes by journalists or by some within the documentary community) over the use of construction -- created or recreated content -- within the context of nonfiction filmmaking. Often this is accompanied with a similar name check of a veteran filmmaker, with the implicit understanding that construction represents a shift in tradition within the genre.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Hope Despite A Cold Despair: Tom Hines's "Chronic Town"

A constant haze of icy mist and cigarette smoke brings director Tom Hines' emotionally raw relationship drama "Chronic Town" beautiful grimness and undeniable power. Yet, just as the sliver of a moon hanging over cold, harsh Fairbanks, Alaska is a sign of welcome beauty, there's also a sliver of hope for "Chronic Town's" troubled protagonist Truman (JR Bourne).
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PARK CITY '08 SHORTS COLUMN | International Shorts and Five-Minute-or-Less Flicks Dominate Sundance

In 2007, the Sundance Film Festival programmed 28 international short films. This year, a record number of 42 international shorts make up the 2008 Sundance Film Festival roster. While world cinema representation has expanded, running time of the 83 official short film selections has shrunk, with 25% clocking in at five minutes or less. And with only eight films exceeding the twenty-minute mark, it's clear that extremely-short shorts are enjoying a comeback in Park City. "I've always felt that anyone who is truly interested in independent film should pay attention to shorts," notes Sundance founder Robert Redford in this year's festival catalogue. "They are often an indication of what's coming down the creative pike."
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Surprisingly Ordinary : Clark Gregg's "Choke"

Comedy perfection. That's the reasonable expectation for "Choke," based on the great novel by rebel author Chuck Palahniuk and starring Sam Rockwell as a sex addict dealing with the illness of his mother, a role tailored to his manic strengths. But after a fantastically funny opening at a sex addict support meeting, "Choke" begins to slide, the gaps between laughs steadily grow and by film's end you're left wondering how something with so much potential could end up so ordinary.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | True Grit: Trygve Allister Diesen's "Red"

A scene of tranquil beauty and everyday leisure turns unsettlingly violent at the start of director Trygve Allister Diesen's engaging pulp drama "Red." Avery Allan Ludlow (Brian Cox) is a widower living alone in a rural Oregon town. A regular fishing trip becomes a crime scene after a group of teens rob Ludlow and shoot his beloved dog Red. The boys get away with the crime but Ludlow wants justice and it's not long before everything spins out of control. "Red," premiering in the Spectrum section of the Sundance Film Festival, is pure pulp fiction; a revenge tale, but one of dramatic substance and cinematic polish.
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PARK CITY '08 NOTEBOOK | International Films Shine At Sundance: "Abu Raed"; "Absurdistan"; "Mermaid"; "Stranded"

Movies made outside the United States can illuminate the individuality of distant cultures for American audiences--while simultaneously highlighting the similarities to our particular surroundings. In both its narrative and documentary components, the international entries of the Sundance Film Festival convey both possibilities. The best of them combine universal storytelling devices with a unique sense of places.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Bittersweet Dreams: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's "Sugar"

No one-hit wonders, "Half Nelson" writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have created another stunning, subtle achievement with "Sugar," a deeply resonant story about a Dominican baseball talent recruited for America's minor leagues. If "Half Nelson" showed off the duo's skillful attention to character, verite camerawork and progressive politics in their native Brooklyn, "Sugar" proves they are just as adept working on a wider canvas, away from home.
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PARK CITY '08 NOTEBOOK | Docs Shine at Sundance; "Teen," "Polanski," and "Myths" Among Hyped Titles

The buying frenzy that has engulfed a number of nonfiction films at Sundance 2008 is all the more remarkable for the fact that 'A,' everyone was predicting a hands-off approach to docs after a lackluster 2007 for theatrical documentary and 'B,' not a single narrative film -- as of this writing early on Tuesday -- had landed a distribution deal. While it's a well-worn idiom that the Documentary Competition lineup at Sundance is usually superior to the Dramatic Competition, that gulf feels especially profound this year. In fact, a number of industry insiders have been saying that many of the nonfiction titles in the Slamdance lineup are superior to the narratives here.
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PARK CITY '08 REVIEW | Looking for Stability in a Soggy Mississippi: Lance Hammer's "Ballast"

The cool, wet misty plains of the Mississippi Delta offer little comfort to the three protagonists of art-director Lance Hammer's bracing feature debut "Ballast." In fact, the desolate surroundings--yards with broken cars, fields with no harvest, decrepit gas stations--only further reflect their downtrodden condition. But by the time this remarkably sure-footed first film is finished, a slight glimmer of hopefulness arises among the psychological and physical turmoil.
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