SUNDANCE January 17th-27th 2008!!

January is such a lovely month. It begins with the Movie Marathon and ends with 10 days of independent films and fun, otherwise known as the Sundance Film Festival. This year brought an eclectic group of flicks, some good, some bad and some ugly.

I started the dance up in Park City at the SHORTS PROGRAM IV--aka the comedy shorts. Yeah they were somewhat misstated as only one was a comedy. The rest of them, for the most part, were overly dramatic and vulgar.

Next I saw THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD, it is a slow movie about a young law school drop out that begins working as the personal assistant to the Great Buck Howard, a has been magician. The movie stars Colin Hanks, Tom Hanks, Jon Malkovich and Emily Blunt. Despite the stellar cast the movie was slow and didn't really touch a chord with me or the rest of the audience for that matter.

On to THE LINGUISTS a documentary that follows two Linguists around in Siberia, India, and Bolivia as they try to save dying languages. Surprisingly enough this film was delightfully entertaining. Very funny and really interesting. This has been picked up by PBS so look for it soon.

LOVE COMES LATELY, a movie about an aging writer that gets lost in his stories, was painful to sit through. It was long and boring and the movie itself had no idea where it was going. Someone sitting in front of me in the theatre fell asleep and apparently their dream was much more exciting than the movie as it woke them up with great gusto--I am sure they were quite disappointed to realize that their reality was the nightmare of a movie we were all stuck in.

BLIND DATE, Stanley Tucci's second directing venture was very interesting. It is about a couple that pretends to go on a series of blind dates in order to rekindle their romance. The entire movie is shot in a single location, as we just see them meet time after time in the same bar. It was a little slow, but you get into it and with every date, more and more of their story is revealed.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED was interesting. It was one of those movies that had tons of hype and then didn't quite live up to it. This movie was about the daily life of a producer, Robert DeNiro, and what kind of horrific acts he has to do and put up with just to get a movie made. Kind of funny...but eh.

PHEOBE IN WONDERLAND, this was a complete surprise. A darling movie about a little girl that desperately wants to be in the Alice in Wonderland production that her school is putting on, but has difficulty separating the story itself from her reality. Elle Fanning (Dakota's little sister) is so good in this. It has a stellar supporting cast as well. I believe it was picked up by Fox Searchlight.

THE MERRY GENTLEMAN, Michael Keaton's directorial debut was charmingly funny despite its dark topic. A suicidal hitman and a woman on the run from her abusive police man husband find an unlikely friendship. It is a little slow to start, but has a great sense of humor about it as well as timing. Not sure it will be released but definitely rentable.

SUGAR is a sports drama about the baseball hopefuls in the Dominican Republic that get recruited to the minors in small town USA. This is a really fun, interesting twist on a sports movie. Totally full of no-names, which makes it so much better; this is one of the best movies I saw at Sundance. Picked up by HBO so be on the look out.

SMART PEOPLE, an interesting movie about, what else, smart people and their inability to socialize with the rest of the world. Ellen Page (Juno) is the highlight, along with her uncle Thomas Hayden Church (Sideways) they totally make the movie work and worth seeing. Not the best of the best, but sure to be picked up due to its cast which also included Sarah Jessica Parker and Dennis Quaid.

HENRY POOL IS HERE stars Luke Wilson in an uncharacteristic role of the straight man. He is actually really good, playing a man that is dying and just wants to be left alone, but a water stain on the side of his house has captured the interest of all of his neighbors who just won't let him be. Perhaps a little heavy handed on the hope and faith side, it is still kind of fun.

THE KING OF PING PONG, which actually won best foreign film at the festival, is a comedy of sorts. It is about a chubbed boy that is socially awkward, nevertheless, extremely good at Ping Pong. This has somehow earned him the respect of all, as long as they are inside the community center. Outside however is a totally different story where he is bullied by his peers and younger brother. It is funny I guess, but I was a tad surprised it won.

THE LAST WORD was by far my favorite film of the festival. This is a dark comedy about a writer in LA. His job? He writes suicide notes for those that have decided to kill themselves and want to leave a great letter behind. Absolutely hilarious. Wynona Rider co-stars as the sister of one the dead clients and Ray Romano is amazing as one of the new clients. Must see! Cross your fingers that it gets picked up!

THE YEAR OF GETTING TO KNOW US-was horrid. Fact is Jimmy Fallon is only cute and fun to watch when he is funny, not when he is a depressed writer blaming all of his problems on his screwed up parents. He looked dirty and wet the whole movie...Take a shower! Someone growled in the movie too.

STRANDED. Wow! An amazing documentary about the Uruguay rugby team that crashed their plane at the top of the Andes Mountains in the 70's... 45 people were on the plane, 32 survived the crash, 17 got off the mountain alive. It is such an amazing story; PBS picked it up so you have to watch it.

BE KIND REWIND, starring Jack Black and Mos Def. This is about a pair of idiots that accidentally erase all of the videos at the video store they work at. So they decide to recreate the movies themselves hoping no one will notice. What starts out as a fluke turns into a cult appeal and they start doing more and more. The concept here is actually more funny than the movie itself, it has been picked up, but I wouldn't rush out to see it, rentable. But still funny.

So there you have it-my Sundance Film reviews pathetically shortened down to a few sentences. Can't wait for next year!!!