How is Sundance half over already? I’ve been doing so many interviews that the movies are slipping by, so I want to recap them before it’s too late. Nothing has emerged as the big buzz yet, even with some major distribution deals for films like Whiplash and I Origins. There’s no Beasts of the Southern Wild that everyone is talking about though. It may not be any of the below, but some of these are worth seeing. Here are my latest Sundance viewings in alphabetical order.
The Battered Bastards of Baseball
The Battered Bastards of Baseball is a well made documentary about a rather obscure sports story, informative, emotional and feel good. I’m still not a baseball fan and the story was still so baseball centric I couldn’t connect that deeply, but others will more so.
Actor Bing Russell, Kurt’s father, started a minor league baseball team, the Portland Mavericks. The team was a group of wild, shaggy guys who could be endearing, not to mention Bing Himself. The league got so popular it faced conflict from Major League Baseball, but made a lasting impact in Portland in its time.
Kurt gives an interview for the film, as well as many other significant Mavericks. Directors Chapman and Maclain Way, Bing’s grandsons, put together a lot of footage and a really complete document of the story. It’s just still a baseball movie to me. I’m happy the Mavericks and Bing get their due, but it’s not my world.
Cold in July
Cold in July features an entertaining trio of characters going through an old school quirky crime drama. I didn’t love it, but it’s a solid thriller and were there a sequel that make sense. We would want to send these guys on another mission.
Richard Dane (Michael C. Hall) shoots an intruder in his home, and the intruder’s father Ben (Sam Shepard) pursues Richard for revenge. But all is not as it seems and a cowboy P.I. named Jim Bob Luke (Don Johnson) arrives to help them uncover the truth.
It all unfolds with intrigue you can follow silently. There’s no big action, but the violence explodes effectively where each gunshot tells a story. They don’t shoot anyone for no reason, or without a strategic aim. But really, it’s watching Richard, Ben and Jim Bob interact that’s the most fun.
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
When I saw there was an Iranian vampire movie playing at Sundance, I was excited to see it. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is more Leone than Lestat and it didn’t ultimately work for me.
A vampire (Sheila Vand) stalks the lonely dark streets, until she meets a boy (Arash Marandi) dealing with his drug addict father’s debt to a dealer. There’s plenty of conflict but the film is more about slow burn long takes. The music gives away the Leone in many cases, and whole songs play out as characters simply approach each other.
It’s a cool film to look at in black and white, with all the characters posing and glaring. It could work as a tone piece but I just found it hard to hold on.
Hits
David Cross’s satire of viral video fame takes a bit of time to get going but ends up in some fun places. Billed as “Based on a true story that hasn’t happened yet,” it’s not especially new commentary on the phenomenon of internet fame or an especially profound point of view on it, but it entertains and has some laughs.
Katelyn (Meredith Hagner) wants to be a singer and she’s planning to make a demo for “The Voice.” Her father Dave (Matt Walsh) is on a crusade to get the local government to fix a pothole, and Cory (Jake Cherry) is a wannabe rapper in love with Katelyn. It takes a long time for any storyline to get to video, but eventually a hipster advocate group makes a video of Dave’s town speeches, and both Katelyn and Cory end up being humiliated on camera.
There is a nice tone of weird humor to Hits, with random drive-by name-calling and quirky potheads longing for children. Katelyn is an endearing character because despite her superficial desires, at least she struggles not to sell herself out. And she gets expressions like “more talent in my little finger” wrong. Dave’s storyline goes to a dark place that’s a poignant commentary on blind hero worship.
Life After Beth
Life After Beth isn’t hilarious, but it’s surprisingly touching which makes yet another zombie movie palatable. Does anyone else remember My Boyfriend’s Back, the 1993 zombie comedy? As a teenager I enjoyed that satirical metaphor for racism. Beth isn’t as deep as 15-year-old Fred found My Boyfriend’s Back, but it’s fun.
Beth (Aubrey Plaza) dies from a snake bite and while her boyfriend Zach (Dane DeHaan) grieves, he finds out Beth has returned to her parents (John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon)’s home. The nice touch is that Beth doesn’t know she died and she has selective memory about recent events. She does remember that she loves her boyfriend and doesn’t know why he’s acting so weird. Beth is truly a delight. I’m happy to have her back myself. You sort of want to tell Zach to stop investigating this and just enjoy having her back. That is his character journey.
Beth’s parents smartly believe they have to keep Beth a secret, since everyone already attended her funeral. The logistics of keeping a re-animated corpse in your family are fun, and the film has plenty of fun with other characters returning in the same condition as Beth. When Beth gets dangerous, she’s still adorable. When Zach meets a former childhood friend (Anna Kendrick), she’s lovely too. There’s an innocence to the characters that’s endearing. Also, Dane DeHaan has an amazing package. We totally see it when he’s just wearing underwear. I dare say more than the gold standard David Bowie in Labyrinth!
Killers
Can you believe the Sundance Midnight movie Killers is actually worse than the Katherine Heigl/Ashton Kutcher rom-com Killers? Though I do shame the folks who walked out after the first scene. I mean, if you’re squeamish, why did you come to a midnight movie called Killers?
There’s a sprawling group of characters in Killers but it is essentially about a journalist who connects with a snuff pornographer online. The violence is all just loud. I really hope you’ve got more than loud noise. It’s all such a clutter of brutality. With no art to it, violence is no fun. It’s not supposed to be fun, but there can still be an art to exploring discomfort. Just creating actual discomfort on screen is nothing special.
The plot and characters do come together in the end but you’d have to care first for that to matter. The characters are so broody and mopey, but being conflicted over violence is all there is to them. There’s a really fake looking neck cut too. It may be intentionally dream-like but the blade is nowhere near the prosthetic slice.
White Bird in a Blizzard
I really liked the point of view on Gregg Araki’s adaptation of Laura Kasischke’s novel. It is a coming of age drama dealing with sexuality and difficult parents, but it is about a young woman who actually likes sex. That’s not overly edgy, though it may be in your face to the mainstream. It’s mild to me but a welcome and poignant exploration of young maturity.
Kat Connors (Shailene Woodley) is a teenager in 1988 whose mother Eve (Eva Green) just up and disappeared. Through flashbacks we see that Eve was what would probably now be diagnosed as bipolar, berating her husband (Christopher Meloni) and giving Kat body image issues.
Kat loves exploring sex with her boyfriend (Shiloh Fernandez) and later seducing an older man (Thomas Jane). If you call her promiscuous I will fight you. She has a confident, healthy attitude towards sex and it’s only surprising that Kat could achieve it so young. There are a few surreal touches which are beautiful, but essentially it’s just a story about moving on, moving on from family and old relationship.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
