The Fest Ends On A Strong Note

Eight days and nights of watching films - always looking for the that perfect film. Or a bunch of perfect films. We have a lot of screens to fill over the next few months and of course, it's the run up to Oscar season. Normally we are going to see the quality movies that are shoe-ins to be nominees if not winners. As I reflect on all the movies I saw, I'm thinking there are a few standouts that we'll be proud to play (some of them are still waiting to be 'picked up'). Probably my favorite was 'Wild', for the film and the acting. A close runner-up was 'Rosewater' - and not just because a good guy named Jon Stewart directed it, but because it was based on a book written by a journalist who participated in one of his skits, filmed in Iran, where it was comically implied that Maziar Bahari was a spy. Guess what? The Iranian police don't have much of a sense of humor. I read that Stewart felt guilty and that was a huge motivation for making the film. Bravo, Jon - really well done.

The last few I saw were of pretty high caliber as well. 'While We're Young' with Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts who are feeling their middle age and meet a young couple who seem to be doing it all in such a cool way (Girls Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). Directed by France Ha's Noah Baumbach. 'Top Five' (famous for the highest sale price of 12.5 mil) written, directed and starring Chris Rock plus just about every other comedian in the galaxy was fun. Really rather dug the next film, 'Learning To Drive' with Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson as a woman whose husband has left her, and she engages an engaging Sikh driving instructor to help her overcome her fear of driving so that she can visit her daughter (Grace Gummer, looking and sounding more like her Mom Meryl everyday). The last move of the night was a pretty frightening 'Good Kill' about our use, overuse, morals concerning drones as the new most viable way to make 'surgical kills' 7000 miles away, from a dashboard that looks like a cross between a game boy and a pilots training room. Frightening in its truth.

I had to leave a little early before the end, but the other BIG movie is going to be 'The Imitation Game' .

Thanks to the millions of readers of this blog...shall return in January from Sundance!

Rosewater Made It All Worthwhile - And Trough Toilets

We Are But The Unwashed Masses on the Street

While students at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne, Les Misérables) and Jane (Felicity Jones, The Invisible Woman) fall deeply in love. His earth-shattering diagnosis leads him to embark on his ambitious study of the nature of time with Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, in this moving adaptation of Jane Hawking’s memoir 'The Theory of Everything' from Academy Award-winning director James Marsh (Man on Wire)

The Daily Show host and Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari discuss the story behind Stewart's debut feature Rosewater, which tells the true story of Bahari's five-month imprisonment in Iran after his appearance on Stewart's show.

In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living there with access to US media, he also appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn't like it — and that bit of comedy would come back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison.
In a remarkable stroke, Stewart himself took up Bahari's story. Making his directorial debut, the iconic media satirist crafts Rosewater as a chronicle of journalism in conflict with political power, seen through the prism of memory. Bahari's interrogator wears a strong rosewater scent that immediately reminds him of his childhood. Isolated in prison, he finds refuge in recollections of Leonard Cohen music and conversations with his politically engaged father.

.

THE BEST trough washroom ever

I brought three rolls of white bandages and I cant find them.

'Adult Beginners'

Out of a job after a disastrous product launch, a big-city yuppie retreats to his suburban childhood home, in this heart-warming and hilarious film about crashing hard, coming home and waking up.

Academy Award-nominated producer Ross Katz (In the Bedroom, Lost in Translation) makes his feature directorial debut with this heartwarming and hilarious film (whose executive producers include indie kings Jay and Mark Duplass) about crashing hard, coming home and waking up.
Adult Beginners begins with one yuppie's disaster. On the eve of the product launch designed to shoot his career into the stratosphere, Jake (Nick Kroll) discovers that, because of a single misstep, his life has plummeted into the dirt. Having lost his girlfriend, his credibility, and over $2.5 million in investor money, Jake retreats to the one place where he's always welcome: his childhood home, which is now occupied by his pregnant sister Justine (Rose Byrne, also appearing at the Festival in This is Where I Leave You), her husband Danny (Bobby Cannavale), and their three-year-old son, Teddy. Justine and Danny agree that Jake can stay as long as he wants — so long as he agrees to look after Teddy on the weekdays. 

Short Day With Rewards

The biggest complaint this year is that the Festival has been programmed 'front loaded', with a bounty of films to choose from in the first half of the day, but that thre's often more than one film in the same slot that is a 'must-see'. Then, after 2 p.m. or so....nothing. Yesterday was a perfect example. The Sundance Cinemas team split up so that one of us saw Noah Baumbach's 'While We're Young' and 'My Old Lady' and I went to see two others. Reports on both of those were thumbs up...good news.
My first film was the much talked about 'Foxcatcher'

a rather twisted tale about brothers, both former Olympic wrestling champions (Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo) who become involved in a fateful friendship with a mentally ill DuPont millionaire (Steve Carell), in this true-life drama from director Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball).

Of course this made many run to their wiki's to read all about the sensational story that none in my circle could remember. Pretty unusual character for Steve Carell.

Next up was 'Wild', starring Reese Witherspoon in an adaptation of the best selling memoir by Cheryl Strayed. Devastated by the death of her mother from cancer, Strayed soon spirals into a deeply self-destructive decline that destroys her marriage and leaves her addicted to heroin. She decides to do 500 miles of the Pacific Coast Trail hike through rugged countryside and conditions. The Nick Hornby script is filled with powerful flashbacks of the traumas that triggered her inspiring feat, and the direction by 'Dallas Buyers Club's Jean-Marc Vallée is subtle and nicely done. So far my favorite and five hankie movie.

Last film of the day was 'Escobar: Paradise Lost' starring an alarmingly bloated Benicio DelToro (sigh) in an alarmingly bloated tale of the infamous Columbian drug lord, politician and self proclaimed Robin Hood.

They must begin to program more films later in the day...it's not like I'm going to star-filled parties at night...

When The Best Part of The Day is Not The Movies...

They've Turned King Street into a pedestrian walkway with overly loud music, sponsored kiosks and restaurants spilling into the road. Late at night it becomes a place for non-festival goers to hang and drink and party. One of the biggest attractions is standing in front of this nifty logo sign and getting your picture taken.

My morning started out with a mess of a film called 'Mangelhorn' starring pal Al Pacino as a locksmith who yearns for a lost love. The story was a bit mangle-horned and not too sure how its going to do.
Had to leave a bit early to get downstairs and stand in line for a film called 'The Cobbler' starring Adam Sandler, Steve Buscemi, Dustin Hoffman and Ellen Barkin. Adam Sandler plays a fourth generation shoe repairman who is considering changing his profession and moving on until some wild things begin to happen when he begins to use his grandfathers ancient shoe repair machine. And that's all I'm going to say.

But honestly, the best part of the day came when I left and went over to the bar to do a spot of emails and saw Clark Johnson sitting there. I'd seen him at a few screenings. I asked him if he was watching or in a film (it's rare that you see actors at the Industry screenings). He said "both" and I clunked my head - of course, he'd been in one of my favorite films at the fest, 'The Bird People'. We had a really nice chat that lasted quite some time, and then his girlfriend, filmmaker Nika Belianina joined us.

We had a really nice time talking about a number of subjects. In addition to acting in such shows as 'The Wire', 'Homocide' and the truly funny 'Alpha House' on Amazon Prime (you got to check this out - super funny show about Senators rooming together in a beautiful home in DC), he's a director and a writer. His girlfriend Nika is originally from Russia, living in Toronto and is very involved in producing and directing films herself. We had a funny chat about Putin and the Olympics (my favorite part was the military guard singing 'Get Lucky' and the boycotts. She also taught me a new non-verbal expression for my tendency (well necessity) to multi-task in my job. I shall be using this expression going forward. Hope to see these guys soon on Sundance Cinemas screens and at Q&A's. Looks like 'Bird People' was picked up by our friends/cousins at IFC.

As I've said before (not here) I tended to sleep through dense foreign films during my film school days, so I was not prepared for 'Pasolini' starring Willem Defoe during his last days intertwined with a fantasy of his last script being filmed. It was Fellini meets Pasolini meets a hard core gay film.

Looking To Be Wowed

It's not that its been a bad year so far - its that I'm not particularly enamored with much I've seen. Today started out nicely with 'Welcome To Me' starring Kristen Wiig as a woman suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder who becomes an overnight celebrity after a huge lottery jackpot allows her to launch her own off-the-wall talk show. It becomes popular, but not 'Network' popular - which I kinda hoped it would. But I liked it - she was charmingly crazy for once.

I took a break to do some work-work in the bar and met a couple interesting folks between cursing at the non-existent wi-fi.

The next picture had a compelling story, well acted. 'The Phoenix', tells the  story of a concentration camp survivor who comes home so mangled she needs facial reconstruction. She wants to find her husband (who had been arrested and then released) but when she does, he doesn't recognize her and instead tries to get her to pretend to be his wife in order to her large inheritance. Good storyline. Look forward to playing it once it gets picked up.
I had to go outside into the cattle yard to stand with 500 people waiting to see a Priority Screening (press gets in first) for a showing of 'Nightcrawler', a really creepy story starring a really creepy Jake Gyllenhaal as a drifter and petty thief who joins the nocturnal legions of scuzzy freelance photographers who scour the city for gruesome crime-scene footage, in this gripping portrait of the dark side of L.A. from veteran screenwriter and first-time director Dan Gilroy.

 

Last show of the night was 'Black and White' about an attorney played by Kevin Costner struggling to raise his biracial granddaughter after the deaths of his wife and daughter becomes embroiled in a custody battle with the child’s paternal grandmother (Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer). 

Tomorrow is an early morning (my boss picked an 8:30 a.m. show for me, thanks) so wish us luck that we get dazzled right off the bat. Please.

                                   

Day Two: Promise in the Dark

The morning started out cold and fascinating with 'Force Majeure', about the 'prefect' family staying at a fancy French Alps ski resort. When an avalanche hits the resort, the fathers' reaction to the near disaster becomes the subject of the film. Beautifully shot, good cast and story - and best of all it made me look forward to the upcoming ski season. But speaking of c-c-c-c-c-old, these damn theatres have their air con cranked up so high that I have to wrap myself up in a blanket.

Today Al Pacino played a star who can act no more in The Humbling.

The Hollywood powerhouse Al Pacino stepped from his streeeeeeetch limo with his girlfriend, Lucila Sola, for the North American premiere of The Humbling. Pacino plays over-the-hill stage actor, in love with a woman a third his age (cough, cough) Simon Axler, in the big screen adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2009 novel. The supporting cast features familiar faces like Francis Ha’s Greta Gerwig, Edward Scissorhands's Dianne Wiest and The Closer’s Kyra Sedgwick.

By far, the best movie of the day was 'Hungry Hearts', starring Adam Driver and newcomer
Alba Rohrwacher as young Brooklynites who fall in love, get pregnant then married. The wife becomes obsessed with the child to the detriment of his health. Their relationship and story is fresh and hard and great. Look forward to playing the film when it gets picked up.

First Day Out Lasts 48 Hours

The travel gods are with me - somehow the last few flights I've been Pre-TSA Approved. Zowie! No disrobing! My laptop stays safe! And even better - all the recent news reports about diverted flights due to the great seat reclining debate - everyone on my red-eye was on their best behavior. No seats backs in my face forcing me to squirm and steam. Our early arrival meant we could hit the ground running.

Bird People - the fest starts out very nicely...

Are you a 'Good Wife' freak like I am? Did you mourn the loss of Josh Charles' character? 'Bird People' is a great visit with him, and his special brand of melancholia. See it when it comes around.

'Maps To The Stars' was on everyone's must-see list and the fest only scheduled one Industry screening (thus  far). David Cronenberg, known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, does a very Cronenberg-ial view of Hollywood, egos, money and just plain weirdness in the well acted drama with Julianne Moore, John Cusak, Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska.


I'm going to be polite and skip my take on 'Mommy',

   

                                                                                                                                                                  I REALLY liked 'The Judge' - watch for this very well written and exceptionally acted movie about relationships between fathers and sons.  No doubt it will be at a Sundance Cinemas location very soon.