Shortly after Sundance 2009, Paul wrote a post explaining why he walked out of one of the festival’s biggest buzz-suckers, the romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer. “I figured I’d never write, “It was so-so” for a review, so I left,” he wrote. Acknowledging that he couldn’t “write a “review” of a movie I didn’t fully watch,” he instead decided to “write a review of my decision to walk out a half hour into it,” using a particularly glowing blurb about the film as a bounceboard. Pouncing on a much friendlier comparison to Garden State, Paul wrote 500 off as a weak copy of Zach Braff’s break-out: “It’s kind of like if Garden State had been turned into a TV series, recast, cancelled, then bought by USA network and restarted.”
I did see (500) Days of Summer all the way through (the parentheses were added to the title after Sundance, presumably in a nod to one of the film’s visual tics), so I can review it, but I can’t say Paul’s instinct based on the first thirty minutes was off the mark. The film begins with an on screen disclaimer, an “author’s note” declaring that what we’re about to see is not based on real people or events (punchline: someone named “Jenny Beckman” is nonetheless a “bitch”); shortly after the picture begins to roll in earnest, a deep-voiced gentleman narrator informs us that “This is not a love story.” The aggressive out-of-the-gate broadcasting of all that (500) Days of Summer is not foreshadows what it actually is: a film full of signs with nothing to signify, a mashup of a decade’s worth of Sundance cliche, a confirmation of the obsolescence of the notion that “independent film” could seek to subvert business as usual.
Are you one of the many sci-fi and comic book geeks who’d be more interested in Push were it not for Dakota Fanning? Sure, the precocious child star is now a teen actress (she’s about to turn 15), yet that probably makes you even more worried about her appearance in the movie. But what can you do? She’s literally everywhere this week – voicing the title character in the animated Coraline and starring in two new video releases, Hounddog and The Secret Life of Bees, both of which were released Tuesday. In the tradition of child actors continuing careers into adolescence, it’s only a matter of time before she ruins a movie that would have been better without her.
We’ll have to wait until this weekend to see if that time is now, with Push, but in the meantime let’s take a look at some of the past offenders in this tradition. Most of the following former child actors (our definition: actors that began their career below the age of 13) have done great things in their adulthood, but each has done at least one film that could have been better without him or her. You may disagree with some of these picks, and you may think we’ve forgotten some (was Christian Bale really the worst part of The Dark Knight? did Mary-Kate Olsen’s disturbing kiss with Ben Kingsley take away from The Wackness?), so do share your own thoughts on former child stars below. We just ask that you keep your comments somewhat tasteful and law-abiding. …Read more
Getting ready for the Sundance Film Festival can be very exciting. As we await the event’s Thursday opening, we can’t stop wondering what will be the next big thing. Will this year’s hit be the highly-anticipated Michael Cera project Paper Hearts, or will it be something that we as of yet know nothing about?
It’s easy to forget, however, that oftentimes the next big thing is also the next lamest thing. Sundance sensations, those films that are much-buzzed-about, that sell for a lot of money, that go on to be marketed like crazy and ultimately receive Oscar recognition, tend to lend themselves most easily to backlashes. Usually such derision is deserved, as in the case of the following ten films, each of which made a big splash at Sundance despite being bad. …Read more
I would rather highlight conventional foreign films like Captain Abu Raed than conventional indie dramedies like Patrick Sisam’sThe Year of Getting to Know Us, but I can’t seem to find any better trailers for movies playing at Sundance today. So, here’s a look at one of the more mainstream selections screening at this year’s festival. It has a lot of the generic traits typically found in star-studded Sundance darlings, such as the dysfunctional family, the dying parent and the homecoming plot. In many ways it’s like Garden State(Sundance class of 2004) all over again, but instead of having the main character meet an annoying new love interest, he already has a live-in girlfriend of three years who he reluctantly allows to finally meet his family. I spy a last-minute airport scene in there, too. Good job on the unoriginal ideas there, Sisam (or is that co-writer Rick Velleu or short-story writer Ethan Canin’s contribution?).
The Year of Getting to Know Us has two things going for it. However, both are subjective points that only I might appreciate. The first is that it co-stars Arrested Development’s Tony Hale as Jimmy Fallon’s hometown buddy. While his character can’t possibly be as funny as Buster Bluth, I’d be willing to give Hale a chance to prove he has talent beyond his beloved television role. The second point is that it has a joke about Fallon having to rent a PT Cruiser. As someone who has been assigned a PT Cruiser before, I can relate to the embarrassment. Is it really that common a model for car rental companies? Whether or not it indeed has universal appeal, I think the bit is pretty funny, especially with Hale’s comment about the car being for girls (he should have said old ladies, though, because my grandma drives a PT Cruiser).
The Year of Getting to Know Us premieres this evening at 6:15 PM at the Eccles Theatre. It is also playing tomorrow night at 11:30 PM at the Prospector Square Theatre and on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 PM in Salt Lake City.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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