Gary Dretzka
Leonard Klady
Emanuel Levy
David Poland
Doug Pratt
Ray Pride

JANUARY 21, 2005

2:08a - Too late… slightly too drunk to update for real…

I'm watching my seventh movie of the day, which I will not make it all the way through, with due respect to the filmmaker.

It was a good day for docs, with Grizzly Man, Murderball and Inside Deep Throat. None was the ultimate home run, but none of them made me anything less than glad that I spent the time. More on all three tomorrow.

What I did recall tonight is my love for my comrades in arms. I don't like them all, but the ones I do, I often adore. And tonight, running into a few of my faves, I was happy.

A couple of tips. One, you can expect Focus to make a strong run at Hustle and Flow tomorrow. Second, the interior Brian Grazer's plane caught on fire on the way to Park City and he was lucky to get here alive for his premiere. Brian put out part of the fire himself. Huzzah.

Fun (and naked... so don't look if you are underage, please) photos from the Inside Deep Throat party are here..

Group One | Group Two

And now, I sleep...

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4:04p - Sorry about the late start today, but it's been go-go-go. My day started at before last night ended, when I couldn't stop watching Three… Extremes. (Actually, I started watching at about 1:30am, could not keep my eyes open at 3am and turned the film back on as soon as I woke up at 8:30am, anxious to see what more Park Chan-wook had come up with in his, the third segment of the film.

Three .. Extremes isn't for everybody, but if you share 1975's Trilogy of Terror as a favorite guilty pleasure with me and you like Asian action cinema, this is an absolute must-see. In many ways, it is a cousin to House of Flying Daggers, in that it takes a classic genre foundation and brings it forward to modern technique and psychological & sexual notions.

The three directors all feel like they are on familiar turf. Takashi Miike's segment takes us to the circus, is about revenge between two sisters, enjoys torture and even breaks out in song briefly. Fruit Chan is wild and visually intense (with Chris Doyle as D.P.), telling the story of woman who offers youth to the aging in the form of dumplings made from a very special ingredient… I'll let your imaginations run wild on that one. Finally, Park Chan-wook tells a tale of revenge in which the "victim" doesn't know why he is in the preposterous situation, a movie director tied to a strong that goes through a wall that is connect to his pianist girlfriend's fingers which are about to be chopped off.

Fun stuff. But it's a wonderful mixture of high art and low. I enjoyed every moment and I can't wait to see it again.

The 9:30a screening was The Talent Given Us, a quintessential "Sundance Movie." Writer/Director Andrew Wagner casts his own family and friends in a dramatic comedy of a family driving across the country to reach their son, Andrew. The family does a terrific job playing themselves, in all their many strengths and weaknesses. I don't know whether Andrew's mom is really quite that open with her sex life with her husband and I don't know how unwell his father is, but the performances were charming and compelling. The story, however, quickly reminds you how nonplussed the digital revolution can leave an audience. It feels a bit like a less jokey version of Pieces of April… but I didn't like that much either and that film was more compelling than this.

Similarly watchable but forgettable was the next film, The Forest for the Trees, which is in the World Dramatic Competition. There is nothing wrong with writer/director Maren Ade's work here. There just ain't enough right for it to qualify as a good movie. Imagine the "can't stop calling" sequence from Swingers combined with a version of Dangerous Minds in which the Michelle Pfeiffer character never gets control of the class, as played by a somewhat plainer version of Emily Watson. As a gentle and study of a lonely, lost woman who never has any really dramatic highs or lows, this is a nice little film. But did I come out of the screening richer in any way for having seen the film? Nope.

It's not that I wouldn't be interested to see the next films from either Mr. Wagner or Der Wald vor lauter Baumen. I just wasn't terribly inspired.

Next up was The Fall of Fujimori, an American Documentary Competition film. This is the story of Alberto Fujimori, the former President of Peru who led the country out of a cycle of rampant domestic terrorism, but ended up being driven out of the country with accusations of financial corruption, kidnapping and murder.

This is a fascinating story and one that could not be more important to examine in light of the terrorist culture of today. Unfortunately, director Ellen Perry seems to have believed that the story had a clearer villain than I did. In that way, it fits in with many of the political docs of last year that were undoubtedly anti-Bush and often less than interested in explaining to their audiences any details, since anyone who would question Bush's evil wasn't worthy of a conversation.

The powerful question of state supported "defensive terrorism" vs. traditional anti-state terrorism… where is the line?... is one of the great questions of this era. The U.S., Israel, certainly North Korea and Cuba… do the ends justify the means? The Fall of Fujimori is a little too busy hitting us over the head with what seems to be the filmmaker's position rather than asking the question, offering some answers and allowing the audience to do the work.

Okay… that's it for now. I have another three movies on the schedule today…

Day One
Preview: The Hot Button