Here’s the latest wrap up of flicks featured at Sundance this year. It was Greg’s final round in the snowy city…
Welcome back, Greg!
J
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Sundance 09 – Part 4
By Greg Krelenstein
(Uma Thurman in Motherhood)
Motherhood
Uma Thurman takes a rather realistic turn as a NYC upper middle class wife/mother raising her kids in the West Village. Truly the movie will resonate with a lot of New Yorkers, as it follows the mundane errands that make her day so challenging. Uma is an archetype of the once passionate woman who sacrificed everything personal to her. All for the children and husband she dutifully tends to 24/7. Her only outlet is a mommy blog and her best friend played by Minnie Driver. This movie seems to have been tailor made to the hip urban mother that shops in Whole Foods and reads Cookie Magazine.
Stay The Same Never Change
Made with amateur actors in Kansas City, this film is composed of vignettes exploring the “Virgin Suicides” life of young girls within the heartland. I liked Virgin Suicides better.
La Mission
Benjamin Bratt and his brother director/writer Peter Bratt team up to tell the story of a father crushed to find out his son is gay. Though existing not far from the Castro, gay is a big no no in the violent intolerant Chicano neighborhood they are bound to. While it was a nice effort, it never really rose above cliche and movie of the week status.
Humpday
The real surprise for me of the festival was this film about two straight men that decide to enter a real life contest showcasing amateur porn – their trick – is to go “beyond gay” – and have sex with each other. The two college buddies played by Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard have a really off putting rhythm of speech, awkward pauses, scenes that seem to drag on forever, but for me it all worked. I don’t want to say too much about this one as I think it’s a real discovery.
Mystery Team
A midnight screening is just not a good idea for me, so I wish I could really say more positive things about this film as in theory this combination of Scooby Doo detective work and Napoleon Dynamite should have really been a fest highlight. The actors were charming and have a large following as the bulk of Derrick Comedy, an internet-based sketch. Can I see this again at a daytime screening please?