This was my second year at Sundance, and I enjoyed it even more this time around. It was a great opportunity to see a lot of friends in person whom I normally just know as Twitter avatars, and - most importantly - it's a chance to see many of the best films of the year.
Special thanks to Joey and Free at GeekTyrant.com for giving me the opportunity to cover the festival again. I ended up seeing 27 movies (seven more than last year), and if I didn't write or record a video about them all at GeekTyrant, you can find brief thoughts on each one here. As I did last year, I'll leave you with a list of my Top 10 Movies of the Festival. Until next time...
2 Days in New York
Co-writer/Director: Julie Delpy
Starring: Julie Delpy, Chris RockJulie Delpy made quite the impression on me in her seminal Sundance film Before Sunrise and its sequel, Before Sunset. She's back at this year's festival, this time as a writer/director of a different sequel, 2 Days in New York. Following the events of 2 Days in Paris, Delpy plays Marion, a single mom who has moved in with her boyfriend Mingus (Chris Rock), who has a child of his own from a previous relationship. Marion is a photographer, and her exhibition is set to happen in the same week her father Jeannot (played by Delpy's real father, Albert Delpy) and sister Rose (Alexia Landeau, who co-wrote this film) fly in to visit from France. Also in tow is Manu (Alexandre Nahon), Rose's impetuous dolt of a boyfriend who used to date Marion.While the movie features some of the hallmarks of the Before... series, I didn't like this one nearly as much. Those films are extremely dialogue heavy, but they deal with huge themes and interestingly explore the connection between what people think and what we actually say. In 2 Days in New York, the dialogue flows just as freely, but it doesn't carry nearly the same weight. Most of the movie is made up of comic misunderstandings between the French relatives and Chris Rock's character, and when comedy isn't at the forefront, the movie devolves into a cacophony of shrieking and arguing between family members. Imagine your worst family gathering, multiply the volume by five, and this is what you get. The most impressive thing about the movie is how Delpy and her editor are able to weave something coherent from all the dissonance. Some will surely find this back-and-forth funny and endearing, but for me it was mostly just grating.The most enjoyable thing about 2 Days in New York was Chris Rock's performance; he plays the straight man who is just as confused about all of these crazy French people as the audience, and he has some pretty hysterical moments talking by himself with a cardboard cutout of Barack Obama. I won't give away all of the gags, since many of these isolated sequences are actually very funny and almost make the movie worth recommending. Overall though, this one didn't have much to offer aside from ordinary observations about cultural differences and the pressures family can put on otherwise happy relationships.
The Other Dream Team
Director: Marius Markevicius
Starring: Arvydas Sabonis, Sarunas MarciulionisWhen Americans hear "the Dream Team," sports fans conjure images of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, David Robinson, and more as the team went undefeated in the 1992 Olympics and won the gold medal. But for Lithuania, the country who won the bronze medal that year, basketball wasn't just a game - the court was a political battlefield on which their country gained independence from the Soviet Union.The Other Dream Team gives an expansive look at the political landscape of Lithuania during the late 1980s and early 1990s, providing a perspective that most Americans (myself included) have never bothered to examine. In 1988, the USSR Olympic team defeated the United States in competition, but four out of the five starting players on that squad were Lithuanian. Occupied by the USSR at the time, Lithuania wasn't recognized as a soverign nation, so Russia pulled from the nearly 200 million residents of the USSR territories to create the finest team they could. Through interviews and news footage, we see what basketball meant to the little country of 3 million people as it fought for its independence.The movie follows Arvydas Sabonis, Sarunas Marciulionis, and a few others as they tell their own personal stories cross-cut with the more sweeping tale of the country as a whole. It's like a real-life Mighty Ducks, but instead of a kid's movie with no real stakes involved, these guys were playing to keep their families fed. The disparity in lifestyles between American athletes at the time is shocking; while Jordan and other pros were making shoe commercials, Sabonis and his family were standing in bread lines. Director Marius Markevicius tells this remarkable true story in an entertaining way, keeping the pace up even when dour topics arise.If you're a history nut but don't like basketball, this movie still has the potential to entertain you. It chronicles the history of Lithuania from the early 1930s to present day, concentrating on the stars of the 1992 team but also focusing on one current prospect from the country hoping to make it into the NBA. There's even a section devoted to The Grateful Dead, the jam band who bankrolled the fledgling country's trip to the Olympics and created tie-dyed T-shirts for the team that were seen and sold across the world. The Other Dream Team is an inspiring story that makes you want to jump to your feet and cheer. If the events depicted here occurred in a cheesy Disney movie, I'd roll my eyes. But for Lithuania, their country's history was forever altered by the sport of basketball and the men brave enough to play it.
The Surrogate
Writer/Director: Ben Lewin
Starring: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. MacyI have just witnessed the most transformative role of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. John Hawkes, who earned an Oscar nomination for his Sundance hit Winter's Bone and who made waves last year with Martha Marcy May Marlene, is back with another extraordinary performance as a man suffering from polio and who must spend most of his life confined to an iron lung machine in his house. The Surrogate is based on the true story of Mark O'Brien (Hawkes), a man who overcame his limitations to become a poet and journalist. As a 40-something-year-old virgin, Hawkes takes the opportunity to meet with a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt), a woman who has sex with him in order to prepare him for further sexual encounters in his life. During this arrangement, O'Brien procures the advice of a smoking, drinking priest played by William H. Macy.Hawkes is magnificent to watch, completely losing himself in an role that allows him to play against type. Surprisingly, he brings a great deal of humor to a potentially dark situation. Helen Hunt - who I talked about in an early episode of The Not Just New Movies Podcast dedicated to her 1985 film, Trancers - did a lot with a taciturn character, slowly revealing her emotions as the film went on like a pinhole poked in a dam that eventually bursts. Some may call her performance "brave," but that's just because she was naked for a lot of the movie and that's apparently what you're supposed to say when actors take their clothes off. And I've gotta say: her Massachusetts accent was hideous, going in and out at random. Aside from Hawkes' enthralling work, it's William H. Macy that's the highlight. His priest character is one of the most liberal religious figures I've seen on film, and he brings a humanity to the role that's practically unheard of with an archtype like this. He offers rational human advice instead of just saying what he thinks he's "supposed" to say due to his association with the church, and provides a welcome freshness to a wonderfully written role.The film deals with sex more bluntly than most, another fresh aspect to an otherwise serious movie. The entire film is ostensibly about sex, but it rarely carries that mystical air our society has created around the act. It's discussed openly and directly and depicted in a matter-of-fact way that doesn't sexualize the actors. So instead of being all about sex, it's actually about the relationship Mark O'Brien forms with the women in his life, and more importantly, the one he has with himself by the end of the film. Perhaps just as compelling as the film's treatment of sex is the way it expertly presents the living conditions of someone confined to a rolling bed; a scene in which the power goes off while O'Brien is in the iron lung is gut-wrenching.The Surrogate is a film that will have some staying power throughout 2012, with awards for its leads almost assured before we even crown the Oscar winners from last year. If you're someone who appreciates a great lead performance, it's a must-watch.
