Hi everyone!
Once again, I've played the game of going to bed late after my volunteer shift and then getting up for an 8:30am movie. Luckily I was also able to take a nap in between the morning movie and my afternoon choice. So I'm not completely sleep deprived (yet).
The early movie was "Be Kind Rewind" - the one that I missed out on yesterday. It stars Jack Black and Mos Def as two friends who live in an old New Jersey neighborhood that is soon going to be torn down and condo-ized. Mos' character works at an old time video rental place which only rents VHS tapes (despite the fact that it seems to be set in the present). Jack's character gets magnetized during an attempt to sabotage a nearby power plant (don't ask) and ends up erasing all of the tapes in the store. They come up with an idea of re-filming themselves into abridged versions of the movies that were lost, starting with "Ghostbusters" for a neighborhood customer (Mia Farrow) who had never seen it before. Word gets out about their remakes and they start taking requests for various others, such as "Rush Hour 2", "Robocop", and "2001: A Space Odyssey." The scenes with them filming their remakes were a lot of fun. But the story as a whole was pretty ridiculous - most of it just seemed implausible. 3 1/2 stars (out of five). The film was written and directed by Michel Gondry, who was supposed to arrive for a Q&A, but was delayed by weather-related traffic. I was expecting a blizzard when I left the theater, but it was just some flurries. I think he was just too lazy to get out of bed.
After my nap and some lunch, I went to see a Danish film called "Just Another Love Story." From the description, it almost sounds like a remake of that Sandra Bullock movie, "While You Were Sleeping" – guy is mistaken for the boyfriend of a coma patient and continues the charade when the woman wakes up and has amnesia. Luckily, it was so much better - and it wasn't a romantic comedy. There were many twists and turns and complications in this very film noir-ish tale. The cinematography was wonderful, especially the scene of the car crash that put the woman in the coma in the first place. I would highly recommend checking it out if you get the chance. 4 ½ stars. The director, Ole Bornedal, was there for the Q&A and mentioned that he likes to mix the spectacle of American cinema with the cerebral-ness of European cinema. That really is an apt description of this film.
During tonight's volunteer shift, I was able to catch a screening of "Goliath." This was about a guy living in suburban Austin, working at a dead end job, getting a divorce, and also searching for his missing cat (named Goliath). This leads to many comic adventures as he starts going off the deep end. Unfortunately, it also leads to some bizarre scenes that seem to go on for way too long, such as the five minute scene with no dialogue as he and his wife are signing their divorce papers, page after page after page. 3 stars.
Until next time…
Your Sundance correspondent,
Ted
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