Craig Zobel‘s Compliance made me want to walk out of the theater. Not as a reaction to the film’s quality, however. On the contrary, Compliance is actually quite accomplished. Actually, it’s so effective it made me want to walk out because the real life events portrayed were so enraging, so unbelievable, so easily avoidable and painted such a bad light on humanity that I could almost not stomach sitting in the theater.
In the film, a man posing as a police officer calls a local fast food restaurant and accuses an employee named Becky (Dreama Walker) of stealing from a customer. The man asks her manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) to at first detain, and later search her employee. From there things devolve to almost unbelievable and upsetting depths. I say “almost unbelievable” because the film is based on true events that happened at a Kentucky McDonald’s in 2004. (In the film, however, McDonald’s isn’t mentioned for obvious reasons.)
At the first public screening of Compliance, Zobel was screamed at by audience members and accused of misogyny. Other Q&A’s also featured awkward and uncomfortable questions/comments as people wrestled with the disturbing events in the film. Read more about the film and its purpose after the jump. Read More »
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If Stanley Kubrick were still alive, Room 237 would make him extremely happy. Directed by Rodney Ascher, the experimental documentary gives the legendary filmmaker a ton of credit, maybe too much at times, as it explores several wild, and not so wild, theories about his 1980 horror masterpiece The Shining.
Some theories, such as the suggestion that the film is a metaphor for the murder of Native Americans, are almost plausible. Others, like that insinuation that Kubrick made the film to clue everyone in that he faked the footage of the Moon landing, are much less believable. But no matter the case, Ascher’s film is a fascinating, funny and incredibly well made ode to a film that’s obviously way more dense than most of us give it credit for. The documentary is an absolute must-see.
Room 237 played as part of the New Frontier category of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and, after the jump, you can check on the poster and read more about it. Read More »
As I’ve started to read about the Sundance film Beasts of the Southern Wild (check our review here), what keeps coming to mind is something like the early films of David Gordon Green filtered through the sensibility of author China Mieville. The film shows us the world through the eyes of a six-year old girl, but that world isn’t quite ‘real.’ It is the creation of director Benh Zeitlin. His landscape is based in part on a post-Katrina Louisiana landscape, but it also has many other elements, some realistic and some fantastic, woven into its fabric.
But rather than looking to some esoteric and possibly way off-base comparison to get an idea of what Beasts of the Southern Wild might be like, let’s look back to the 2008 short film from the same director. Glory at Sea is also by Zeitlin, and like his new feature the short is also set in a landscape that is at least influenced by the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina. But this is no When the Levees Broke; rather it is a film that uses images that suggest a devastated Louisiana as part of a story about following faith and vision even in the aftermath of apocalypse.
Zeitlin breaks many rules of shooting low-budget indie films: he shoots with kids, and on the water, and with a couple of wild, homemade sets. Well, ‘sets’ is a loosely applicable term, but you’ll see what I mean. Glory at Sea is a pretty fantastic 25-minute short, and I highly recommend giving it a look. Read More »
When the film world converged on Park City, Utah for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, several movies were highly anticipated. Beasts of the Southern Wild was not one of them. But in the truest and most exciting tradition of this legendary film festival, word of mouth after the first screening spread like wildfire and Benh Zeitlin‘s directorial debut became the talk of the town. Fox Searchlight purchased the film for distribution and screenings later in the week all sold out.
So does Beasts of the Southern Wild live up to those wild expectations? Absolutely. It creates an entire new world where a six-year-old girl named Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis) lives in squalor with her father Wink (Dwight Henry). When Wink gets sick, Hushpuppy’s world is almost literally turned upside down and she must come to grips with her inner strength, her mortality, and a whole lot more.
After the jump, read more about this fantastic film or – if you aren’t in a reading mood – watch a video blog featuring Peter and myself. Read More »
Six days down, four to go. The 2012 Sundance Film Festival is a little over half way done and Peter and I have been working our butts off trying to bring you our opinions on the most buzzed about and potentially biggest movies at the festival. We’re not done yet, as the festival doesn’t end until Sunday. In case you missed anything, here’s what we’ve posted so far:
Thursday
I explain why you should follow and care about the happenings at the Sundance Film Festival.
The documentary Searching for Sugar Man is about a ’60s rock star, but shares more in common with Harry Potter than you’d think. My review is here and you’ll get a chance to see it soon as Sony Pictures Classics picked it up
Friday
You’ve heard about The Raid, you’re dying to see The Raid, and myself and Jordan Raup from The Film Stage tell you why it lives up to the hype in our video blog.
The director of Buried, Rodrigo Cortés, is back at Sundance with the polarizing but awesome Red Lights which, at its heart, is a spiritual sequel to Ghostbusters.
The untraditional musical I Am Not A Hipster has a narrative from the soul, according to Peter, with music that’s “beautiful yet raw and full of emotion.” Check out the trailer here.
I talk with Ethan Anderson from First Showing, on video, about why we love Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie. Look below for an interview.
Saturday
What happens when a young American student loses his mind in France? Antonio Campos‘s Simon Killer gives us a disturbing look at just that.
Peter said “The First Time is the kind of movie I hope to see at Sundance each year.” Read his review here.
The wonderful Celeste and Jesse Forever cements Rashida Jones as the leading lady we all knew she could be. It was later picked up by Sony Pictures Classies.
Sunday
The writer and director of the off-beat comedy Rubber, Quentin Dupieux, is back with a film that gets a ton of laughs for “no reason,” Wrong.
Richard Gere gives one of the best performances of his career in the financial morality tale Arbitrage.
I spoke, on video, with Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim and Will Forte about their upcoming comedy Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie.
Produced by fellow film journalist Brad Miska, Peter thought the horror film V/H/S marks “the return of the horror anthology film.”
Monday
Josh Radnor‘s Liberal Arts is heartwarming, funny and provocative. It’s my favorite film at Sundance to this point and you can read about how Radnor harnesses his inner Cameron Crowe.
Even with her amazing co-star Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Peter thought Mary Elizabeth Winstead‘s performance as an alcoholic in Smashed was “a must-see tour de force.”
The characters in Safety Not Guaranteed, including one played by Aubrey Plaza, go on a comedic journey to figure out if time travel exists. It took Peter on a ride too. He loved it.
Before Sundance, Spike Lee‘s latest, Red Hook Summer, was best known for Lee reprising his role from Do The Right Thing. Now, as stated in this review, people know it as a swing and a miss from the filmmaker.
The Surrogate, starring John Hawkes, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy, wowed not only audiences, but me too, with its humor and honesty. Fox Searchlight agreed and picked the film up for $6 million.
For A Good Time Call… is one of the big buzz films of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Today Focus Features acquired worldwide rights to the comedy for a reported $2+ million. The film tells the story of two women who start a phone sex line.
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Bart Layton‘s The Imposter might technically be a documentary, but it feels like a narrative feature. The film tells the story of a Texas family whose 13-year-old son goes missing, only to show up three and a half years later in Spain with a story about kidnap and torture. He is returned home to his family where he lived for a few months before it was revealed that he was an imposter — a frenchman named Frédéric Bourdin.
Read More »
Fox Searchlight has become a big buyer at Sundance in the past couple years, and this year has already picked up two of the most acclaimed films playing the fest. Last night the company grabbed the rights to the John Hawkes/Helen Hunt film The Surrogate, which is already generating Oscar talk for next year thanks to the strength of Hawkes’ performance.
And now Fox Searchlight has finalized a deal to distribute the film Beasts of the Southern Wild. Neither Pete nor Germain has seen the film yet, so we haven’t covered it up until this point, but the movie quickly became one of the Sundance films I’m most interested in seeing, as early reviews have used language like “remarkable, beautiful, moving and astonishing” to describe the story that gets inside the head of a young girl worried about the end of her universe. Read More »
