Sundance Film Festival

So this week was the Sundance Film Festival. Rob got one of the local passes and saw more movies this week than he had seen in nearly a year (not to mention the fact that we only see them after everyone else has and they come out on DVD, not before they're even distributed like these). He saw ten films, and I saw four with him. They were, in order of appearance:

Love Comes Lately: based on three short stories about a Viennese writer living in New York. The acting was good, but the screenwriting needed to be beefed up. Rob liked it, but there isn't anyone I would recommend it to.

The Wave: based on an experiment in Palo Alto to teach high schoolers about facism and the Nazis. Rob was excited that it's going to be available to German students (who have to read the book), but said that it looked like an American film set in Germany, and you could "see the seams" between the two. His friend said it was too much like the after school special.

Absurdistan: (picture above) about an imaginary village where the water main is breaking down. The women decide to go on a sex strike until the men fix it. It was charming and funny, and quite clean for a film that is all about "water and sex" in the words of the male lead. Rob and I both liked it.

Anywhere USA: three short films and Rob said the first was great and very entertaining, the second was really sad, but well done, and the last was garbage. I can't say because I decided not to go when the picture was of men with mustaches and without shirts. I don't mind shirtless men, but shirtless men with mustaches are an entirely different milieu.

The Visitor: Rob's favorite of the week. A widower comes back to his apartment to find a couple of squatters living there. When they have no where else to go, he lets them stay and they start a friendship. Then the plot thickens.

Diminished Capacity: Matthew Broderick has suffered a concussion and is having a lot of memory trouble, but goes to visit his Uncle Rollie (Alan Alda) who is drifting into senility and who edits poetry that the fish type for him. Old girlfriend (Virginia Madsen), road trip, priceless baseball card and two men with dimished capacity make for a perfect storm. I loved the chemistry between the two men. It wasn't an independent film at all, but was very entertaining.

Assassination of a High School President: typical high school movie with a great performance by Bruce Willis as the principal. Definitely rated R, so as the director said, high schoolers will have to sneak in. But the most entertaining Q & A we saw. If you like R rated high school movies, you won't be disappointed.

The Escapist: prison break movie. Rob said it was too formulaic (the new guy, the bad boys who get away with stuff, the old wise one, etc.) and not very good. I was disappointed to hear that Joseph Fiennes was on a 'rage setting' for the whole movie, because I like him a lot; but I'm not into rage boys.