Last year, Eddie Vedder and Fastbacks played a Sundance Film Festival party. I missed it. I was at the movies, getting introduced to a then-unknown actress named Renee Zellweger in an excellent film called "The Whole Wide World." This year, for no apparent reason (the Vedder/Fastbacks appearance was in connection with the movie "Hype"), Cheap Trick and the Posies played an official Sundance party. I missed it. I was at the movies, happily trading in "Surrender" (or, god forbid, "The Flame") for what was Sundance '97's best film, "The Full Monty."
The lesson here is simple. With 127 films screening daily at 7 different theaters in 6 different time slots over the course of ten days, Sundance is about movies. If I want to go to a concert (this year also featured sets by Phil Alvin's Blasters and Donovan Leitch's Nancy Boy), I'll buy tickets to Lollapalooza. Below are some scattered highlights, lowlights and tangents from Sundance '97.
Best Line of Dialogue
"I'm a deadhead," says the no-nonsense hippie-girl in the otherwise awful teen-Satanism drama "Black Circle Boys." "But now Jerry's dead, so I'm, like, a loser." Runner-up: a character in the period drama "Going All the Way" says her mother wants her to spend more time at the country club so she can meet a "nice Jewish boy." Which country club -- in Indiana! in 1954! -- would that be? Can I join?
Rock & Roll is Dead
Rock and rap are usually reliable presences at the festival, whether in dramatic efforts ("Backbeat," the hip-hop flicks "Fear of a Black Hat" and "Fly by Night," last year's still-unreleased "Bandwagon") or documentaries ("Hype," "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times," "Theremin"). Maybe it's because the programmers went for headier fare this year, or maybe it's just that pop is largely meaningless right now, but this year music was only a marginal factor. Sonic Youth put together the "Suburbia" soundtrack, while Matador bands were all over the campus comedy "Puddle Cruiser." "Hurricane" showcases Joe Henry, De La Soul and a noirish acoustic cover of "Staying Alive" by something or someone called Supple. And of course, Tupac co-starred in "Gridlock'd," but there's no point in seeing a movie at Sundance when it hits the theaters one week later.
The Next Courtney Love
... is not Lisa Loeb, whose ten-second turn in "Black Circle Boys" is easy to miss. Not so Ms. Loeb herself, who wandered Park City in a furry pink rabbit hat (not real fur, mind you) and a trademark pair of vintage-looking glasses (not cat's eyes, mind you). But "Black Circle Boys" belonged to a different musician-turned-thespian: Donnie Wahlberg, whose creepily ambisexual, generally unrecognizable turn suggests his work in "Ransom" was no fluke. Look out, Marky!
Hey Hey, My My
"Colin Fitz" is about security guards watching over the grave of a dead rock star, though it makes much more of the former than the latter. Mostly, it's an excuse for one of the characters to theorize and free associate. Among his pearls of wisdom: Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" was responsible for the collapse of Communism, charity records are pointless ("Do you think the people in Ethiopia are saying, to this day, 'Thank god for Bananarama?'") and if Buddy Holly had lived to do acid, grunge would have been invented by 1969.
Please Hammer Don't Hurt Him
An early plot point in "Hurricane" involves a particularly pathetic shoplifter. His error? Swiping something that can't be resold: multiple copies of a Hammer CD.
Truth in Advertising?
As if the title "The Last Time I Committed Suicide," wasn't enough, this movie was "based on a letter by Neal Cassady." A really long letter, presumably (maybe he had one of Kerouac's special paper rolls). Despite a typically stolid Keanu Reeves performance, this turned out to be a fairly energetic, funny and passionate movie.
Men Behaving Badly
Including "Last Time," I saw four films (in a row, no less), that were, if you wanna be charitable, about the male psyche. If you wanna be uncharitable, they were about getting laid. The others were "In the Company of Men" (cruel and overrated, with static direction, and insights that don't improve on either "Patti Rocks" or David Mamet); Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy" (his 'grown-up' film, an entertaining and well-observed romance -- between man and lesbian - that is not entirely successful) and "Going All the Way" (from Mark Pellington of "Jeremy" video fame. He makes a sincere effort adapting Dan Wakefield's novel but mucks it up with heavy-handed experimentalism). For some reason, each of these movies feature spectacularly beautiful actresses, among them Claire Forlani, Joey Lauren Adams and the previously unknown Stacy Edwards. You know something's up when, in "Going All The Way," Amy Locane is supposed to be the drab one (she's up against Rachel Weisz, Rose McGowan and Lesley Ann Warren).
Thumbs Up
Ran into Roger Ebert on the street the first night (two years ago, had an even better encounter -- during a press screening of "The Usual Suspects" a voice that was unmistakably his blared out, "Focus! Focus!" I'd like to think he was talking about the script). Anyway, Ebert has a policy of not discussing the films he sees at festivals, lest he influence their commercial fates before they acquire distributors. I don't really have that problem, and besides, most of the movies I liked already have distributors. So here are the good ones:
-- "Hurricane" is not without precedents ("Fresh," "Kids") but this child-on-the-street tale is sweet, powerful and depressing.
-- The understated "Brassed Off" and the brilliant, brilliantly funny, "The Full Monty" are practically the same movie -- Yorkshire settings and working class glumness, plus redemption via performing arts (brass bands and male stripping, respectively).
-- "Ulee's Gold," by festival veteran Victor Nu\'b1ez ("Ruby in Paradise," "A Flash of Green") was, no joke, the only film I saw with a recognizably flowing story arc and an ending that, while hardly "feel-good," wasn't elliptical, pained or downright nasty. Stars Peter Fonda and "Home Improvement'"s Patricia Richardson are both very fine.
-- A pair of docs: "Wonderland" is an unprovocative but hilarious look at Levittown, N.Y. "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" is meticulously researched propaganda that finds the government's clash with the Branch Davidians to be incompetent and wrong, if not actually evil.
-- "House of Yes" and "Myth of Fingerprints" are both Waspy and dysfunctional. "Myth" is lavish and small, with a fine lead performance by Noah Wyle. "House,"which involves incest, Tori Spelling and Jackie Onassis, is slight, bizarre and hilarious, with killer work from Parker Posey. As a result, the Sundance jury gave her a special acting award, basically for being the (female) Gene Hackman of indie cinema. She was in three festival films this year. Eric Stoltz and Lili T
