700 Miles From Sundance: Part 2

David Strathairn and Paul Giamatti in Cold Souls

You know the drill so I’ll omit the customary pleasantries and get right down to it.

Brooklyn’s Finest. Antoine Fuqua returns to Training Day territory with this tale of three different New York cops – un undercover narcotics officer who wants out, a detective tempted by corruption because of his ailing wife and a burned out veteran nearing retirement – whose paths and fates cross one day at a Brooklyn housing project.

Screen Daily’s Tim Grierson says: “Despite several good performances from a cast that features Richard Gere, Don Cheadle and a superb Ethan Hawke, Brooklyn’s Finest has difficulty being as emotionally involving as it would like.” He goes on to say “Judging from the film’s sweeping scope and intricate narrative structure, director Antoine Fuqua seems to be shooting for an epic New York crime drama worthy of Martin Scorsese or Spike Lee. But while Fuqua and cinematographer Patrick Murguia invest the Brooklyn locations with a gritty authenticity, Michael C Martin and Brad Caleb Kane’s screenplay occasionally stumbles over genre clichés.”

Meanwhile, in Variety, Anne Thompson calles the film “a creative noble failure, one of those damn-the-torpedoes passion projects that flounders on its own ambition.”

I have to say, both reviews, though mixed, make the project sound a lot more interesting than I would’ve expected. I hated Training Day and I’m no fan of Antoine Fuqua, but the cast is intriguing even if we’ve seen this kind of thing a million times before.

According to IndieWire’s Eugene Hernandez, Senator Distribution picked the film up Saturday night for a fourth quarter 2009 release.

Rudo y Cursi. This soccer-themed comedy drama from Carlos Cuarón (brother of Alphonso) reunites Y tu mamá también’s Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna to tell the tale of two brothers whose skills with the soccer ball save them from having to work the banana fields, but lead them to two competing teams. Picked up for US distribution by Sony Pictures Classics, the film has already become one of the top five earners at the Mexican box office.

In a snapshot review, indieWIRE says that stars Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal have great chemisty (as they already proved in their previous effort together), but that the film is “an otherwise dispiritingly predictable sports comedy” from a “cliché ridden script, which contains obvious bits of cringe-worthy wisdom all budding screenwriters should avoid.”

On the other hand Variety’s John Anderson says it “scores a solid goal for its national cinema and the cause of comedy.” His one issue is with the moral lesson that seems to suggest you shouldn’t reach above your social station.

Grace. Here’s one for the gore hounds. Jordan Ladd (Death Proof) stars as a woman who wills her stillborn baby back to life…with horrible unexpected consequences.

Writing for Cinematical, Eric D. Snider says:

“If you are the sort of person who might enjoy an effed-up gore-fest about a woman who delivers an undead baby, you can rest assured that Grace lives up to its potential…[director Paul] Solet, having mastered the art of intense silence and tight close-ups, knows how to be subtle when subtlety is called for. He also knows how (and when) to let the blood flow — and my heavens, does the blood ever flow in Grace. People bleed from terrible places, and for terrible reasons, and Solet does not shy away from it. The childbirth scene alone is horrific, the unnerving music and editing adding to the ghastliness of what’s on the screen. I would be suspicious of any person who watches the entire film without cringing.”

Rumors abound that two people fainted following the screening. Whoever is marketing this thing must be thrilled.

Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire. This bleak sounding story revolves around a high school student named Precious who is overweight, illiterate and pregnant with her second child. Actress, comedienne, realitys show host Mo’Nique plays the girl’s evil mother.

It doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, but Variety’s John Anderson calls it “courageous and uncompromising, a shaken cocktail of debasement and elation, despair and hope…this is, for all its scorched-earth emotion, a film to be loved.”

Chud’s Devin Faraci keys in on the performances. About Gabourey Sidibe who plays Precious he says: “Her performance is so thorough, so all-encompassing, so natural, that a fantasy sequence where she’s not talking like a mumbly ghetto girl is actually shocking.”

Surpisingly though, he saves his highest praise for Mo’Nique saying she “essays one of the greatest bad moms in cinema history. She makes Joan Crawford look like Ma from Little House. The character is mean, nasty, violent, lazy and ugly – physically ugly in a way that must have taken a lot of courage on the part of Mo’nique. What I really appreciated about Mo’Nique’s performance was not only how rotten she was willing to go but how she maintained that even during a big emotional scene where we get to understand why she is the way she is. Mo’Nique lays the character bare for us but never begs for us to feel bad for her or to change our opinion of her.”

The September Issue. Focusing on Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue for the last 20 years, this documentary takes a look at the 9 months preceding the publication of the fashion mag’s key September issue.

Variety’s Justin Chang says “some juicier behind-the-scenes drama and a more revealing examination of the creative process might have bulked up The September Issue” but he still finds it “a dishy and engrossing peek inside the fashion world’s corridors of power — every bit as slickly packaged as the publication it seeks to uncover.”

Spout Blog’s Karina Longworth seems to agree, saying it’s “both cerebral and accessible. If it’s not as provocative as it could be, it’s definitely entertaining.”

Helen. Ashley Judd stars in this portrait of a successful, happily married mother beset by mental illness and depression.  Justin Chang is sparked by Judd’s performance but finds the film “can’t overcome its own self-imposed limitations — namely, catatonic pacing and a dramatically narrow outsider’s view of mental illness.”

Big River Man. Forget about Michael Phelps. Martin Strel is a 50-ish, overweight, hard drinking Slovenian endurance swimmer who swims the lengths of rivers to draw attention to world pollution. This documentary traces his attempt to swim the Amazon.

Screen Daily’s David D’Arcy says “Big River Man is as odd as hybrids come, a documentary of comic moralism. Its very oddity could find it multiple niches in art houses, on midnight programs, on public television, and on sports channels. Sports fans who didn’t get enough of Michael Phelps and the Olympics could now have a new hero.”

Movie City News‘ Kim Voynar sounds a bit let down calling it “another doc that falls into the realm of a fascinating subject not exceptionally well-executed…the narration by Strel’s son aims the focus more on the father-son dynamic than on what drives Strel and the more interesting contradictions of his character.”

A number of reviewers draw allusions to Werner Herzog’s peculiarly obsessed charactgers, particularly Aguirre, the Wrath of God (perhaps because of the Amazon setting).

Cold Souls. Starring Paul Giamatti, David Strathairn, Emily Watson and Lauren Ambrose, Sophie Barthes’ directorial debut feature is described as a “metaphysical tragicomedy in which souls can be extracted and traded as commodities.”

Cinematical’s James Rocchi likes the whole cast, but especially Giamatti who plays himself, saying he “gives what may be his best performance, stretching to play several variations of himself, and manages several seemingly incompatible things — investing real heart into what’s essentially a character defined by a science-fiction device, finding real emotion in surreal inventions and yet giving his everyday moments a deft, askew energy.”

Rocchi draws comparisons to Charlie Kaufman’s screenplays for Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but is careful to point out that Cold Souls is it’s own film.

500 Days of Summer. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Tom and Zooey Deschanel is Summer in. He falls in love with her, but she doesn’t with him in what the festival catalogue calls a post-modern love story. Coming July 24 from Fox Searchlight, it’s already being pegged a potential commercial hit.

Variety’s Todd McCarthy says “longtime music video director Marc Webb goes out of its way to take an unconventional approach to telling one of the oldest stories in the book, only to prevail by embracing the fact that the fundamental things apply — a cute leading couple, a rooting interest in their welfare and a genuine feeling for heartbreak and the belief that life must go on.” He likes the leads, but finds the supporting roles lacking.

Cinematical’s Eric Davis looks below the surface to find the film doesn’t really have anything new to add about the state of romance in 2009, but he doesn’t mind saying 500 Days “wins over its audience with a spoonful of style and a giant helping of visual gimmicks that, honestly, make it a pretty fun flick to watch for an hour and a half.”

Art & Copy. This documentary about the ad business from Doug Pray (Hype!, Scratch, Big Rig, Surfwise) sounded promising, but reviews appear to be a bit disappointing.

Citing his previous documentaries, Cinematical’s James Rocchi calls Pray “an inventive and quick-minded documentarian who can normally show the fullness and contradictions of a topic,” but finds that “Art & Copy is, essentially, an ad for advertising — all of the attractive features of the business are shown in a glorious and shining light, and any concerns or deeper questions are brought up briefly before being shoved away briskly, or, more often, simply left unasked.”

That’s too bad because it could’ve really been fascinating. Nevertheless, a survey of some of the more famous advertising campaigns of the last 50 years might still be interesting and entertaining.

Filed under: Film Festivals
Tags: 500 Days of Summer, Antoine Fuqua, Art & Copy, Ashley Judd, Big River Man, Brooklyn's Finest, Carlos Cuaron, Diego Luna, Don Cheadle, Doug Pray, Ethan Hawke, Gabourey Sidibe, Gael Garcia Bernal, Grace, Helen, Jordan Ladd, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mar Webb, Mo'Nique, Paul Solet, Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire, Richard Gere, Rudo y Cursi, Sundance, The September Issue, Zooey Deschanel