Not surprisingly, the news of Heath Ledger’s death has put something of a damper on the Sundance fun over the past twenty-four hours. Ledger’s former paramour Naomi Watts cancelled all press appearances today in advance of the midnight screening of Funny Games, Michael Haneke’s American remake of his own 1997 film. Meanwhile, some knucklehead decided a post-screening Q&A would be the appropriate time to ask Josh Hartnett for his thoughts on the tragedy. Goodness knows we were all waiting on the word from Hartnett; now we have closure.
In other Funny Games news, the Salt Lake Tribune notes an unusual guerrilla marketing campaign on the streets of Park City. Is it really a good idea to supply potential audience members with eggs before a screening? Why not pass out rotten tomatoes while you’re at it?
Audiences are on a Sugar buzz, says the L.A. Times, crowding into screenings of the latest effort from Half Nelson filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden. It’s the story of a Dominican baseball player “recruited to play for a Kansas City farm team, but his overwhelming excitement is soon muted when he finds himself far from home in all-white Bridgetown, Iowa, with no English skills and a naivete about U.S. culture.”
Over at Slamdance, the hot ticket is Paranormal Activity, which is either the next Blair Witch Project, the next Cloverfield, or the next Slamdance movie you’ll never hear about again. According to New York magazine, the audience “screamed at all the right places, then chain-smoked cigarettes outside Slamdance’s ramshackle Main Street HQ in order to decompress.” With any luck, no one interrupted them to ask about Heath Ledger.
