In the weekend battle of Sundance doc winners, Man on Wire easily outgrossed American Teen, with the former’s $24,250 on each of its two screens to the latter’s $8,565 on each of its five.
Ridley Scott’s Nottingham has been delayed. Universal is apparently worried about an impending SAG strike (reminder: actors have been working without a new contract for like two weeks) and the fact that “the film’s forest locations need to be green.”
Fouad Mikati will direct Ving Rhames, Ellen Barkin, Rob Corddry, Bob Odenkirk, Jeffrey Tambor and Maggie Q in Rogue’s Gallery for Richard Kelly’s Darko Entertainment.
Nanette Burstein’sAmerican Teen has become ubiquitous since its Sundance premiere, both on the festival circuit and, thanks to a poster carefully calibrated to target Gen X nostalgia, online. Its title suggests a wishful universality, as if to say, “This is it! This is an unfiltered portrait of averageness!” Certainly, its semi-rural Indiana location was chosen for its middleness, both geographically and demographically––or, at least, to conform to a coastal idea of what middleness looks like. Certainly, in choosing to focus on a cross-section of subjects playing into our media-fed concepts of high school stereotypes, Burstein manages to show life at the same high school from a variety of different angles, whilst simultaneously playing up the idea that all American Teens are––really––hopelessly insecure dreamers stuck in a variety of systems and strictures that they’re desperate to break out of. But everyone prevails, because that’s what (totally mythic) average Americans do –– it’s, like, rugged individualism!
Much has been made in regards to Burstein’s alleged “manipulation” of her subjects and their lives: did she recreate email/text message exchanges or the reactions they caused? Does it matter if she did? I’ve seen the film twice, and neither time did these shot-reverse shot depictions of near-instant communication seem to get in the way of a larger truth.
But there are other elements of American Teen’s construction which are troubling––not because they came after-the-fact and weren’t produced organically in real life, but because Burstein either isn’t aware of or has made a conscious decision to ignore the very fact of “non-fiction” filmmaking that her subjects and their peers are likely most exposed to: MTV’s various reality shows, including True Life, The Real World, and, especially, Laguna Beach and The Hills.
Nannette Burstein’s American Teen has become ubiquitous since its Sundance premiere, both on the festival circuit and, thanks to a poster carefully calibrated to target Gen X nostalgia, online. Its title suggests a wishful universality, but in fact, when looked at alongside two less-lauded films about American teens against which it screened here in Silver Spring, its document of five white high school seniors in a semi-rural suburb of Indiana seems as niche as it gets.
World premiering here on Friday before beginning a run on HBO Monday night, Hard Times at Douglas High is a fly-on-the-wall work of activism documenting a year in the life of an all-black Baltimore high school, as teachers, students and administrators struggle to comply with No Child Left Behind. Made by the directors of the seminal reality series An American Family, it makes visible the reverberations of blind bureaucracy on living and breathing institutions, making the home and personal lives of its students a spectre, but not a direct concern. Taking the inverse tactic,Going on 13’s intimate portrait of four girls passing through puberty (or, “puberey”, as one subject refers to it early on) over the course of four years in a barely middle-class Northern California community touches on the institutions that contain their lives only incidentally. Seen together in a single weekend, each of the three seem to say less about age than the variables of fate as played out through place and race.
In response to Paramount’s consolidation of the marketing divisions of Paramount Pictures and Paramount Vantage, I went looking for a mash-up trailer that would give us a sense of what we’re in for. Because advertising for specialty films is typically different from advertising for major studio films. But seeing as Vantage has already done a fair enough job lately trying to make a documentarylook likea teen comedy, the consolidation may not really be that noticeable after all.
Anyway, I couldn’t find a good mash-up that re-cut a recent independent film to resemble a blockbuster, so here’s something else entirely that I found during my search. It’s a Wonderful Life“made to look like the movie is about George Bailey’s descent into madness.” Consider it a belated celebration of James Stewart’s centennial (he would have been 100 on May 20th). Or consider it merely a fun re-imagining of a classic. And consider this assignment for mash-up enthusiasts: how about a reverse re-imagining of There Will Be Bloodas a Capra movie?
Defamer has opened up their closed comment system (presumably temporarily) so that the blog’s readers can post questions to legendarily reclusive 80s teen film auteur John Hughes. According to Stu VanAirsdale, the site is also looking for “tipsters, spies and industry moles” who can contact Hughes and pass the comment thread questions along. Apparently, that task is more formidable than it might sound: the L.A. Times‘ Patrick Goldstein, who apparently wasn’t able to get to Hughes whilst researching this story, credits Vince Vaughn as the “one person who made contact.” Here’s hoping Defamer’s Q & A challenge strikes a victory for citizen journalism. Subsequently, let’s also hope that if Hughes does deign to take a look at the questions, he’s not put off by the commenter who compares Hughes to Reverend Wright and begs him to “please stay retired forever.”
Semi-related: the new poster for the Sundance doc, American Teen.
AJ Schnack has some notes on the lineup for the 2008 True/False Film Festival, which I’m super excited to be attending for the first time this year. While the line-up features several holdovers from previous festivals (including Sundance hits American Teen and The Order of Myths, and Cat Dancers and Audience of One, both of which screened at SXSW in 2007), and a “Secret Screening” that sounds suspiciously like one of my favorite films from last year, there’s also, according to AJ, “more than a dozen” films having their US premiere at the festival. Some of the titles that caught my eye after the jump. True/False begins on February 28 in Columbia, MO.
I did not expect to wake up this morning to a feed reader and email inbox full of stories about the full lineup for the 2008 SXSW Film Festival––the press release was not supposed to arrive until sometime this afternoon. But The Hollywood Reporter apparently broke the embargo on the information yesterday evening, so now it’s here. And it’s a LOT to process before coffee.
In a nutshell: we’re looking at new films from Michael Almereyda, Ashley Sabin and David Redmon, Joe Swanberg, Mary Bronstein, Lynn Shelton, and Frank V. Ross; Sundance hits American Teen, Gonzo, The Order of Myths, Baghead, and Goliath; and a number of buzzy films culled from recent international fests, including Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones doc Shine a Light, Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely, Christophe Honore’s Love Songs, and Heavy Metal in Baghdad. All of that should be enough to make anyone happy, but of course, there’s also much, much more.
The full lineup is after the jump. We’ll have sickeningly exhaustive coverage of SXSW starting soon. The Festival itself begins March 7.
People may be going home and some may have already filed their festival recaps, but Sundance isn’t over yet. I’ve pretty much run out of real trailers to look at, though. There are technically some out there that I haven’t reviewed, but they’re for movies I really haven’t felt that inclined to highlight. So, on my last day of writing about the (disappointing) marketing of Sundance films, I’m taking a look at two of Sundance Channel’s “Meet the Filmmaker” videos, which kind of serve as unofficial trailers to the two films I’ve become most excited about.
The first (above) is for Ballast, which Karina has reviewed. I don’t know if it is her favorite dramatic film of the fest, but she and others have written favorably enough about it that I’m hoping to somehow see it in the “real world”. The little bit of footage doesn’t give us much and director Lance Hammer’s description is also not the best sell, but it hardly matters. This is one film that has garnered my attention through its reception, and so it’s best to leave it to the buzz to get us to see it. Unfortunately, the last scheduled Sundance screening for Ballast was this morning, but if it finds any awards success, it will receive more showtimes this weekend. Otherwise, we non-festival attendees will have to hope for at least some minor theatrical distributor to pick it up. For more of Spout’s coverage of this film, check out our interview with Hammer and the cast.
Two additions to the deal chart report: after days of negotiating with several companies, Nanette Burstein has finally sold American Teen to Paramount Vantage. Also, Isaac Julien’s Derek has been acquired for US distribution and worldwide sales by Andrew Hurwitz’ Film Sales Company. See the full Sundance 2008 deals chart here.
Very, very early tomorrow morning, the Spout team will decamp for Park City, Utah, where we will spend the next week plus covering the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. I hope to see somewhere between 20-30 films before coming back to New York, but here’s a look at five of the titles in competition that I’m most excited about. Tomorrow, I’ll post about the films in the Spectrum, Premieres and Midnight sidebars that I can’t wait to see.
American Teen (directed by Nanette Burstein. Documentary Competition)
Excerpt From the Official Synopsis: “American Teen intimately follows the lives of four teenagers in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. Using cinema vérité footage, interviews, and animation, it presents a candid portrait of being 17 and all that goes with it. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks, the experimentation with sex and alcohol, the parental pressures, and the struggle to make profound decisions about the future.”
Why I’m Interested: It’s no secret that the media climate of My Super Sweet 16, Gossip Girl and the masterfully manipulative Laguna Beach is in need of a serious real-world corrective. I hope Burstein (who was nominated for an Oscar for On the Ropes, and whose last theatrical release was the cheekily worshipful Robert Evans doc The Kid Stays in the Picture) has managed it.
Defamer has opened up their closed comment system (presumably temporarily) so that the blog’s readers can 
I did not expect to wake up this morning to a feed reader and email inbox full of stories about the full lineup for the 2008 SXSW Film Festival––the press release was not supposed to arrive until sometime this afternoon. But The Hollywood Reporter apparently 
Two additions to the deal chart report: after days of negotiating with several companies, Nanette Burstein has finally sold American Teen to Paramount Vantage. Also, Isaac Julien’s Derek has been acquired for US distribution and worldwide sales by Andrew Hurwitz’ Film Sales Company. See the full 
