Sundance

Event Post

The classroom meetings leading up to Sundance started on Thursday. The first film we saw was Sex Lies and Videotape, reviewed below, though I have seen it before. Today I watched the documentary Murderball for my class and The Nin9s because it looked interesting, and I will be placing a review of each up tomorrow. There is also a HUGE time laps where I just haven't been typing out and uploading any of my reviews. I will sit down, probably Tuesday after I am done packing, and write out a whole slew of posts. I might not post them until Sundance is over, but since I haven't actually started posting Sundance films, I see no harm in adding my make ups, so look for them.

The group leaves on Wednesday for Utah and I am already really really excited. I have been for a while. I love low budget Indie films. Not the low budget kind that uses cardboard space helmets from the 60's. I'm talking like Primer or Clerks. The respectable kind of low budget.

Through the class we are promised 8 Sundance movies and a few Slamdance movies as well. I know five of the movies I have tickets for. And the titles are...

The Greatest - Sat 17 3:15 PM at Eccles Theatre
500 Days of Sumer - Sat 17 6:15 PM at Eccles Theatre
Cold Souls - Sun 18 11:15 AM at Racquet Club Theatre
World's Greatest Dad - Sun 18 5:30 PM at Library Center Theatre
The Killing Room - Tue 20 11:59 PM at Egyptian Theatre

My first choice of the whole festival was It Might Get Loud, a film with 3 musicians (including Jack White) but alas I did not get in. Apparently its really really popular. I am going to try to get overflow seating.

Thats it for tonight. Until next time.

Sex Lies and Videotape

Four Stars

This is the third time I have seen this movie, but it only seems to get better. Sex, Lies and Videotape is a representation of any normal situation in life, with a few quirks. This movie has a skeletal structure that lends itself to so many romantic comedies that have reproduced throughout pop culture. The adulterous husband, siblings that just barely get along, the mysterious stranger, all these things could come straight from the Hollywood rom-com press, but Sex, Lies is by no means a romantic comedy.

Sex, Lies does include humor that becomes more apparent on the second or third time through. Unlike the romantic comedies, this humor is sad, almost ironic in some cases. The downplayed delivery by the actors allows the punch lines to remain more funny than sad. Of course this type of humor seems completely appropriate, almost expected when the entirety of the movie comes into focus.

The humor isn’t the only thing that sets this movie apart from Hollywood over-productions. The way the movie starts off with a female’s (the wife’s) voice superimposed over images of her cheating husband sets a fresh tone for the movie. This beginning coupled with the subject matter of an impotent college friend that gets off to women he has recorded talking about sex really screams, “Indie movie!”.

The only thing that remains remotely “Hollywood” is the ending. It’s by no means a happy ending, but it isn’t a sad one either. The movie’s final scene though mundane, ending in a pseudo-metaphorical discussion of the weather, creates the feeling that time simply continues on. No Hollywood sunset and no Happily Ever After.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]