The Sundance Film Festival
© 2001 Sundance Institute

Related Links

0

Seven Days In January Part Four

It was the best of times, it was... uh, O.K. No big revelations unspooled at this year's Sundance 2002 Film Festival, but there was a minimum of walkouts if that's any consolation. Here's a big pile of movies that were featured...

The Sundance Film Festival

© 2001 Sundance Institute

NARC

Overwrought and overshot by the number of cop dramas set in Detroit, NARC stars Jason Patric (who has one really funny scene when he's trying to talk street slang to Busta Rhymes) and Ray Liotta (who co-produced so he could chew up all the scenery). For the most part, the acting's fine and the colors vibrant, but the action is all hackneyed. Blame BLOOD, GUTS, BULLETS AND OCTANE writer-director Joe Carnahan who can't seem to decide if he wants to be a Quentin Tarantino knock-off (how very 1995) or just MTV obnoxious.

RAIN

As if things weren't confusing enough, this year two films were titled RAIN, one from the U.S. and one from New Zealand. The one I saw would be the pretentious, gloomy, overly arty U.S. one. Nicely shot and drearily acted, writer-director Katherine Linberg shows a real contempt for small towns in this Iowa-based soaper starring Melora Walters, Jamey Sheridan and Diane Ladd about murder, affairs and creeps who go bump in the night. It should have been called PERMANENT FROWN.

NARC

© 2002 Paramount Pictures / Lions Gate Films

BLUE CAR

Slow and assured coming of age film filled with great details about a gifted teen writer (Agnes Bruckner) who falls for her high school teacher (David Strathairn). First time director Karen Moncrieff shows a sure hand with both veteran actors (Strathairn and Frances Fisher have never been better) and newcomers alike (besides Agnes, Regan Arnold and A.J. Buckley really shine in smaller roles). Picture BLAME IT ON RIO if Roman Polanski had directed it and you've got an idea of just how unique and satisfying this film is.

EXECUTION OF WANDA JEAN

Filled with a sense of dread this downbeat documentary about a woman on death row is ripe for debate. Was Wanda's diminished mental capacity an excuse for Oklahoma to commute her death sentence or is the fact that she'd killed before reason enough to have her leave this Earth? You'll change your opinion every few minutes in this fine film from Liz Garbus (THE FARM: ANGOLA, USA).

THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE

©

THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE

Based on the notorious Hollywood tell all autobiography of uber producer burnout Robert Evans (GODFATHER, ROSEMARY'S BABY, CHINATOWN), directors Brett Morgen and Nanette Burstein mix media (rear projection, wild stills), use Evans bombastic narration to its fullest (his reading the book on tape was a cult sensation in the mid-1990s) and create, dare we say it, a new kind of film.

SISTER ELLEN

In her mid-50s and following the death of her husband and two sons, Helen sobered up and entered the Benedictine order of nuns. Then she opened a private home in the Bronx for recovering addicts and alcoholics. Ruling with a barbed tongue and iron fist, Sister Ellen recounts her tough love approach to the people society has given up on. By turns moving and hilarious (Ellen still has the bar bitch tongue and a fascination with Frank Sinatra), this inner city documentary is a gritty and uplifting look at humanity.

TWO TOWNS OF JASPER

©

TWO TOWNS OF JASPER

In 1998, Jasper, Texas (population 7160) garnered world attention when three white men chained a black man to the back of their pickup truck and dragged him for three miles until his body disintegrated. That is the stuff of great documentaries. Unfortunately, TWO TOWNS OF JASPER is only good. To fully illustrate Jasper's divided nature, a black director interviewed all the black denizens and a white director all the white folk. The results are fascinating, but by skimping on facts and photos of the actual act the brutal reality comes off as almost an abstract.

TADPOLE

The digital video find of the festival. Shot in just 14 days for less than $200,000, TADPOLE is a romantic comedy about a confused New York high schooler that falls for his step mom during Thanksgiving break. As the object of his desire, Sigourney Weaver is all pleasant smiles and winks; Bebe Neuwirth, on the other hand, steals the show as the best friend not above seducing minors. It's all frothy stuff (we're not talking about SPANKING THE MONKEY obsessive sexual entertainment here) and the real find is newcomer Aaron Stanford as the lovelorn Oscar. He's in every scene and following TADPOLE should develop into a major talent.

Check tomorrow for the conclusion of CINESCAPE's Sundance coverage.