Smells Like Indie Spirit: Our Favorite Sundance Movies Of All Time (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Like Saturday Night Live, people never get tired of complaining about the Sundance Film Festival, comparing it unfavorably to its glory days of yore...and yet, just as Lorne Michaels’ 34-season comedy juggernaut (despite decades of grumbling and reports of its imminent demise) has and continues to spawn everything from the Blues Brothers and Bill Murray to 30 Rock and Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impression, Robert Redford’s love child has likewise changed the face of American filmmaking for (mostly) better and (sometimes) worse since its inception in 1978, 1981 or 1985 (depending who you ask...especially if you ask our own Phil Nugent).

I was tempted to illustrate this introduction with a sexy naked picture of recent Sundance carpetbagger Paris Hilton tied up in microphone cord to (A) draw the prurient eyeballs of Nerve.com sex enthusiasts, but also (B) to make a snarky statement about the way Redford’s annual celebration of the “indie spirit” is really little more than a high-altitude version of the same old Hollywood rat race, where the usual suspects pimp low-budget versions of the same old crap while patting themselves on the back for their "edgy" artistic integrity at pricy soirees that would fund a dozen projects by the real indie filmmakers shivering in the cold on the wrong side of the velvet ropes separating them from the A-list glitterati.

But, no...instead I chose a still from “Any Given Sundance,” because (A) the Simpsons are cooler than Paris Hilton and (B) as a reminder that, for all its faults, Redford’s indie film revolution (like the Easy Riders and Raging Bulls of the 1970s American film renaissance) has penetrated mainstream culture and generally expanded the boundaries of what audiences see, both in the art house and (to a certain extent) on multiplex and television screens.

And so, partly to wrap up our extensive coverage of this year’s festival and partly to remind ourselves of the hours and hours of fine entertainment Mr. Redford has indirectly unleashed upon the world, this week we here at the Screengrab are hitting the slopes with our FAVORITE SUNDANCE MOVIES OF ALL TIME!

STRANGER THAN PARADISE (1985)

The first Special Jury Prize winner at Sundance way back in 1985 was also the movie that really put Jim Jarmusch on the cultural map. Watching it today, it’s easy to see why judges found it so charming, but it’s also easy to see how little Jarmusch’s overall aesthetic has changed: he’s got bigger budgets now and can afford actors who demand bigger paychecks than the goofy Richard Edson and the lovely Eszter Balint (making her film debut here), but his technical approach – long static shots and drifting movement from the middle distance – has hardly changed at all. His obsessions with untethered losers, people with their own inexplicable moral code, and the vagaries of American culture as viewed through the eyes of foreigners, likewise haven’t changed very much. When they first appeared, though, in this alternately hilarious and depressing film about a disconnected New York scenester and his Hungarian cousin wandering to Cleveland and then to Florida for no particular reason, it looked like something that had dropped in from another world. Stranger Than Paradise is one of the films that helped define the modern era of indie film, and helped establish Sundance as the tastemaker’s festival for that particular aesthetic. More than 25 years later, the movie and the festival have a strong connection.

POISON (1991)

By the time Todd Haynes won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for his first widely released full-length, Poison, he was already famous (or, rather, infamous) for making Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story – a film about the late pop singer made entirely with Barbie dolls. A pair of lawsuits drove that film underground, but Poison proved that Haynes was more than just a gimmicky joke: its technical skill and audacity placed him at the forefront of a growing movement that became known as the New Queer Cinema, and its unsettling tone marked him as a filmmaker with a distinct and not always pleasant point of view. Poison consisted of three distinct narratives, each done in a different style: “Homo”, an adaptation of a Jean Genet short story, is the most visually sumptuous, telling a disturbing tale of gay prison romance. “Horror”, an unsubtle AIDS metaphor, evokes 1950s sci-fi shockers as a scientist turns into a deformed madman after isolating a chemical extract that is pure sexuality. The most disturbing, eerie, and inexplicable of the three is “Hero”, a pseudo-documentary of a child who murders his abusive father and flies away, never to be seen again; the straightforward way this bizarre story is told is what makes it so memorable. Haynes’ next movie would be the absolutely brilliant Safe, but Poison remains a powerful signal of a newly arrived talent.

BOTTLE ROCKET (1996)

A lot has gone wrong since Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket tipped at Sundance in 1996. Anderson has become a highly controversial director, and for everyone who finds him innovative and engaging, there are those who finds his movies facile and self-indulgent. His star and co-writer, Owen Wilson, has occasionally shown signs of his old talents, but more often has become a smirk in search of a paycheck, much more content to collect a fee than to push himself artistically, and his personal life has been a shambles marked by substance abuse and a suicide attempt. But there’s no denying their first, and best, moment of greatness: Bottle Rocket is a surprising, clever, well-made, and extremely likable film that came more or less out of nowhere to become one of the best-loved movies of the 1990s and a touchstone of that decade’s indie movement. Though it didn’t take home any of the big prizes at Sundance, it generated a huge amount of buzz there, and its later success was largely due to the positive reviews and publicity it garnered in Park City. Anderson’s direction is ambling but never aimless, Wilson’s writing and acting are funny and charming but not lazy, and the whole movie gets the best out of its small budget and creates a rarefied atmosphere that’s worth revisiting. It’s sad to think of Bottle Rocket as a high point its writer and director would never reach again.

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (1995)

The winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 1996, Welcome to the Dollhouse is another film whose director somewhat wore out his welcome with later films. Todd Solondz has established himself as a filmmaker so determined to push boundaries that he’s become alienating rather than empathetic, and who seems to confuse relentless bleakness with clear-eyed realism; the incredible depths of understanding that make Welcome to the Dollhouse such an appealing and moving film are soured or nearly absent from his later work. (He even manages to piss away the good will generated by his most famous creation by killing off Dawn Wiener for no particular reason in Palindromes.) However, no amount of excess can rob his first feature of its power; Welcome to the Dollhouse is still one of the most touching and sympathetic, albeit incredibly uncomfortable, views of adolescence ever captured on film. Dawn’s negotiations through the bitter lessons of bullying, pre-teen sexuality, parental neglect, and sibling rivalry are as real as it gets, and all the more surprising for how well a male writer/director was able to communicate the specific problems of an adolescent girl. Welcome to the Dollhouse would also likely have been less successful had the role of Dawn not been assayed with such perfection by the young Heather Matarazzo, who, like Solondz himself, never quite recaptured the greatness of her debut.

BALLAST (2008)

One of the big winners at this year’s Sundance film festival, Lance Hammer’s Ballast took home well-deserved prizes for directing and cinematography (astonishing work by Lol Crowley). Hammer has been around for a while, but this is his first full-length feature film, and it came at a key moment for Sundance: many critics at this year’s festival complained about burnout, the fragile state of the economy has seen a number of established festivals shutter their doors, and much wringing of hands has taken place over the future of independent film. That’s why it was important for a movie like Ballast to come along, to signal the continuing strength of indie cinema and the continuing importance of places like Park City for them to find an audience. The quiet, powerful story of a Mississippi family plunged into despair and inertia by the suicide of one of its members, Ballast features some incredible naturalistic acting, a mesmerizing pace and visual sensibility, and an emotional punch that’s become increasingly rare in the growing inward smirk of a lot of American independent film. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s one that completely justifies the importance of the festival circuit and neatly answers at least a few questions about the state of indie movies in 2009.

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce

DVD Digest for May 6, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week: One of the most acclaimed films of 2007 arrives to do battle with some of the most reviled releases so far in 2008. Who will prevail? Read on…

DVD of the Week: No one does musical biography like Todd Haynes. This should have been clear from his previous films Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story and Velvet Goldmine, and his latest film, I’m Not There, lays any remaining doubts to rest. But then, when one is making a movie about Bob Dylan, how could it possibly fit into a neat little package? The Weinstein Company’s two-disc DVD of the film contains a wide variety of features, including a commentary track with Haynes, two deleted scenes, some audition tapes, a handful of documentaries, and a tribute to Heath Ledger. But most of all, there’s the film itself- I’m Not There is sometimes wondrous, sometimes frustrating, but always worthy of its subject, and this DVD should find a place in the collections of cinephiles and Dylan fans alike.

Alas, the other new arrivals on DVD aren’t nearly that noteworthy, sometimes aggressively counteracting the awesomeness of I’m Not There with their wholesale suckitude. More typical of this week’s crop is the universally detested The Hottie and the Nottie (Genius Products- how’s that for irony?), the latest attempt by its star- who I refuse to name here- to achieve total media domination. Also this week: Ice Cube and Tracy Jordan Morgan in First Sunday (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Hilary Swank in P.S. I Love You (Warner, also Blu-Ray); the long-awaited Eva Longoria Parker vehicle Over Her Dead Body (New Line); and 2006 TIFF Audience Award Winner Bella (Lions Gate). Also, this week brings the release of the heartwarming family-themed vagina dentata comedy Teeth, as well as Sony’s first step into the Bollywood market, Saawariya (also Blu-Ray). But while a few of these are worth seeing, I’d have to say this was probably the easiest week to pick a DVD of the Week in quite a while.

A few new editions of some already-on-DVD titles will be hitting stores this week as well, including: The Bridges of Madison County Deluxe Edition (Warner); Serial Mom Collector’s Edition (Focus); and a two-disc special edition of Twister (Warner, also Blu-Ray). Finally, this week’s sole Blu-Ray only release is the 2004 remake of Shall We Dance?

Sorry folks, that’s all I’ve got. Next week promises to bring more DVD goodness. Not a moment too soon, I say.

The Screengrab : superstar the karen carpenter story

Smells Like Indie Spirit: Our Favorite Sundance Movies Of All Time (Part One)

DVD Digest for May 6, 2008