Yesterday, I made a list of five films amongst Sundance’s four competition slates that I’m particularly excited to see. Today, here’s a look at another film films that I’m looking forward to, culled from the Spectrum, New Frontier, and Park City at Midnight sidebars. This list was MUCH harder to weed down to five, and as you’ll see, I had to cheat a bit. Here we go…
Momma’s Man (Directed by Azazel Jacobs, Spectrum)
Excerpt From the Official Synopsis: “Humorous and poignant, Momma’s Man wrestles with universal themes, but its strength lies in its deeply personal details. Writer/director Azazel Jacobs cast his own parents and shot the film in their apartment, where he grew up.”
Why I’m Interested: Jacobs “own parents” are Flo Jacobs and experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs; in the film’s press notes, he says he cast his own family because he “couldn’t picture anyone else in their bed, in their kitchen, or in their place (although Peter Falk and Shelly Duval would be in my movie-movie version of it).” If the notion of the guy who made Star Spangled to Death channeling Columbo isn’t enough for you, I don’t know what would be.
Made in America (Directed by Stacy Peralta, Spectrum)
Excerpt From the Official Synopsis: “In this broad, historic examination of South Central, the film traces the roots of African American transplants who fled a racist South only to find its more subdued form just as powerful in Southern California. Peralta relays stories that have gone unnoticed for far too long, stories that are distinctly made in America.”
Why I’m Interested: Peralta’s previous docs, Riding Giants and Dogtown and Z Boys, were insider ethnographies of two Southern California subcultures close to Peralta’s heart and literally close to his home. it’s fascinating that this former skateboarder would chose South Central–only about 25 miles away from Venice, but culturally a world away–as the subject for his first film to not take place in his own backyard.
Goliath (directed by David & Nathan Zellner) and Baghead (directed by Jay & Mark Duplass)
Excerpt From the Official Synopsis:
Goliath: “Beginning with the opening photo montage of a man, his cat, and the scratched-out face of his soon-to-be ex-wife, Goliath ripples with insights into the human condition—specifically, the condition of a man working in a dead-end job, going through a divorce, and coping with a missing cat.”
Baghead: “Directors Mark and Jay Duplass return to the Festival (their film The Puffy Chair played in 2005) with a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek, genre-twisting comedy that explores the minutiae of relationship dynamics among a group of desperate actor friends and roasts a gamut of indie films in the process.”
Why I’m Interested: At SXSW last year, these two sets of filmmaking brothers went head to head for Zellner vs. Duplass, a shorts program/amateur wrestling event billed as “seven rounds of cinematic combat.” Consider Goliath vs. Baghead the rematch.
Otto or Up With Dead People (Directed by Bruce LaBruce, Park City at Midnight)
Excerpt From the Official Synopsis: “A clever modern fable about alienation and the problems created by a mass-produced society, where even the members most on the fringe find it hard to resist being pulled into the mainstream. Toying with genre conventions, combining different media, and making use of Medea’s often-humorous films-within-the-film, Bruce LaBruce creates a new, sexy, hyperpoliticized zombie mythology.”
Why I’m Interested: With Gregg Araki gone respectable (and no one loves Mysterious Skin more than me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t wax nostalgic about his days as a not-always-successful but never boring “bad” filmmaker), sometime pornographer LaBruce seems as good a candidate as any to carry on the tradition of the super-stylized cult statement pic.
Eat, For This is My Body (Directed by Michelange Quay, New Frontier)
Excerpt From the Official Synopsis: “Michelange Quay’s stunning first feature seductively begs the viewer to abandon the rules of traditional storytelling and instead embrace a poetic, cinematic language. Eat, for This Is My Body tells of the evolution of power in Quay’s native Haiti and the colonial relationship between black boys and white women.”
Why I’m Interested: This film fell off my radar in Toronto, but I’ve since heard nothing but great things. Last year, my favorite non-fiction film of the fest came from the New Frontier section; maybe the same will hold true for narrative this time around?
