ENTERTAINMENT TODAY AT 2007 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

BY JONATHAN HICKMAN, TONY SULLIVAN, and ERIC LURIO

An American Crime
Directed by Tommy O’Haver
Starring Catherine Keener, Ellen Page, Bradley Whitford, James Franco

They say that truth is stranger than fiction.  Sometimes it is, as are the atrocities that have occurred in the unlikeliest of places—in this case, suburban Indiana.  The banality of evil has rarely been shown in as graphic of a manner as in this film.  The framing device is the murder trial of Gertrude Baniszewski (Catherine Keener), who is accused of one of the most notorious crimes of the 1960’s: the torture and murder of one Sylvia Likens (Ellen Page).  The prosecutor (Bradley Whitford) interrogates various witnesses, whose stories are told through flashbacks.  This is one heck of a scary movie.  (EL)

Away from Her
Directed by Sarah Polley
Starring Julie Christie, Michael Murphy, Olympia Dukakis

This expansion of Alice Munro’s short story, “The Bear Went Over the Mountain,” gives us the characters of Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona Anderson (Julie Christie), who have been married for decades and are still in love.  Unfortunately, the early signs of Alzheimer’s have set in, and Fiona knows that eventually she will have to be sent away to a nursing home.  Grant realizes this as well, and he takes the revelation much harsher than his wife.  (EL)

Broken English
Directed by Zoe Cassavetes
Starring Parker Posey, Drea de Mateo, Melvil Poupaud, Gena Rowlands, Peter Bogdanovich, Justin Theroux

Nora (Parker Posey) is in her mid-thirties, living in New York City.  She has friends, but they’ve found their own lifemates.  Her mother (Gena Rowlands) smartly tells her that she needs to stop going out with married couples.  Sage advice for Nora who desperately wants to find true love; but she’s trying too hard.  Zoe Cassavetes’ Broken English is honest and thought-inducing entertainment.  Parker Posey plays sardonic and depressed better than anyone.  Here, her Nora works a necessary but “not her” job and can’t go to sleep at night without the assistance of pills.  She’s still attractive enough to garner the attention of more than a few eligible men, but she keeps letting lust move in faster than more long-term emotions.  Her entire approach is wrong, she flirts too easily, drinks too much, and can be bedded down with a smile on the first date.  She knows that what she’s doing isn’t working, but has no idea what other options are available to her.  In one very telling scene, she reveals her naivety by crying at lunch with her mother, saying something that to the objective listener sounds so very trite. We laugh, some of us, uncomfortably.  Broken English feels extremely genuine, real, and isn’t just for the gal crowd.  (JH)

Bugmaster
Directed By Katsuhiro Ôtomo
Starring Jô Odagiri, Nao Omori, Yû Aoi, Makiko Esumi

Set in Japan at the turn of the 20th century, Bugmaster concerns the exploits of a Mushishi or Bugmaster—a kind of shaman who has the power to exorcize Mushi, or bugs, bizarre amoeba-like spirits who create mischief in the world and are invisible to most.  The film is beautifully acted, shot, and scored, although the music is not in the least bit oriental and features the unlikely addition of didgeridoos.  Katshuhiro Otomo has crafted a meditative mood piece, featuring startlingly original special effects, but the climax has an emotional resonance but lacks oomph, meaning the overall effect of the movie is rather dull.  (TS)

Chicago 10
Directed by Brett Morgen
Featuring Hank Azaria (voice), Dylan Baker (voice), David Dillinger (archive footage), Abbie Hoffman (archive footage), Nick Nolte (voice), Jerry Rubin (archive footage), Mark Ruffalo (voice)

Chicago 10 is something really peculiar: an animated documentary.  Brett Morgan, who directed The Kid Stays in the Picture came up with an interesting idea: use archive footage when possible, then two different styles of animation when such footage is unavailable.  The effect works relatively well, and is reminiscent of some of the recent retroscoped films of Richard Linklater.  What it does is successfully recreate the chaos of 1968 and the farce of the trial that followed.  In the late fall of 1967, a group of left-wing activists decided to protest the Vietnam War by holding a “non-violent” direct action at the National Democratic convention.  Never has something gone so wrong and backfired so spectacularly.  (EL)

Clubland
Directed by Cherie Nowlan
Starring Brenda Blethyn, Khan Chittenden, Emma Booth, Richard Wilson

Brenda Blethyn in a tour-de-force performance plays a middle-aged vaudevillian whose day and audience are both in decline.  Add to this her failed marriage, oily concubine, and her sons who are becoming more interested in girls than in mom.  A further complication is that one son, Mark, has a handicap.  Played to perfection by newcomer Richard Wilson, Mark steals every scene in which he appears.  Meanwhile, the other brother, Tim, makes his discovery of girls in the form of Jill who he meets while helping her and her friend move houses.  What follows is a touching and honest look at awkward teenage romance much to the disapproval of mom.  (TS)

Fido
Directed by Andrew Currie
Starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Billy Connolly, Dylan Baker, Tim Blake Nelson, Henry Czerny

Much fun is to be had watching Fido, perhaps the prettiest zombie movie ever made.  In this alternative reality, an alien virus of some kind has crashed into earth and reanimates the dead.  Our story picks up after the catastrophic Zombie Wars in which most of the world’s population was killed or, worse, has become the undead that walk the earth.  But a company named ZomCon offers a glimmer of hope: the zombie domestication collar.  This device actually tames the zombie by slaking his thirst for human flesh.  Still, danger is lurking and it might not be the dead behind it all.  (JH) 

The Good Life
Directed by Steve Berra
Starring Mark Webber, Zooey Deschanel, Bill Paxton, Harry Dean Stanton, Chris Klein, Patrick Fugit, Drea de Matteo, Bruce McGill, Donal Logue, Deborah Rush

Jason Prayer (Mark Webber) is a tabula rasa.  He has very little definition to his life.  Jason works two jobs, both of which have no future.  By day, he pumps gas as a full service station selling gas at self-serve prices.  By night, Jason helps out at a decaying movie theater run by the aged Gus (Harry Dean Stanton).  Gus has problems remembering things and can’t keep the theater open without Jason’s help.  And although Jason has worked in the theater (that shows old classic films) for years, he doesn’t appear to really care about the movies or even know that much about them.  Jason cares about people and keeps going because he imagines that they can’t live without him.  (JH)