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.
Let’s face it, fellow film bloggers, we don’t have many readers who don’t have film blogs of their own. The world of cinephilia is quite cannibalistic, and we need each other to survive. However, we don’t just feed on ourselves. We also are part of an extended food chain that includes filmmakers, many of whom nowadays are also or were once cinephiles themselves. These filmmakers like to borrow, pay homage and reference movies of the past more than they like to advance the craft forward with distinct and/or innovative style. But admit it, you sometimes like the movie references, at least if you like the movie being referenced. And maybe sometimes your judgment is a little clouded by all those obscure bits that you feel cool for having gotten.
Paul Soter’s Watching the Detectiveslooks like yet another movie that only us cinephiles are made to enjoy, which is unfortunate since many of us are too pretentious to admit that we’d enjoy just any movie about a fellow movie geek working at a video store and commenting on the merits of City of Lost Childrenand the faults of Casino (see Clip 1) to our customers — aren’t most of us just like video store employees who own computers and can (sometimes) write well? Watching the Detectives could be something of a light companion piece to Michel Gondry’s upcoming Be Kind Rewind; both films should in theory have little relevance to people unfamiliar with their references to movie-geek favorites. But are there enough of us movie geeks out there to make these films worth their effort?
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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