Showing posts with label 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Show all posts

28 January 2015

Sundance 2015 Review - Christmas, Again (2014)

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Genre:
Drama, Romance, Indie
Venue:
Sundance 2015
Rating: 15
Director:
Charles Poekel
Cast:
Kentucker Audley, Craig Butta, Hannah Gross,Andrea Suarez Paz

Ever been dumped at Christmas? If so, Charles Poekel’s yuletide misery tale Christmas, Again will prove unfortunately familiar for you. Give it time though, and it might just teach you a thing or two about the grieving process.

Kentucker Audley delivers a tender portrayal of festive alienation as Noel, a young man working the streets of New York selling Christmas trees. Amidst stupid customers and lazy co-workers, Noel is simply trying to survive without breaking down, but after bringing an unconscious young woman home one night, his December starts to take a different direction than previously anticipated.

Commendable for realistically dealing with flirtations and passing friendships, writer/director/producer Poekel has a tight hold on this tender character piece.Audley is superb, but his consistently miserable performance can be a bit much until you start to share his headspace. The few moments of staunch emotion are apt and perfectly placed to articulate Noel’s pain and the point of the film as a whole. Poekel wants us to think about encounters we try to cling to, putting a hand on the viewer’s shoulder to assure us that its ok, friendships are sometimes doomed to end just as abruptly as they began.

Oddly this film feels like its for anyone who’s worked in retail or the service industry during the festive season too, proving itself a sharp satirical work whenever Noel is forced into awkward encounters with awful, pernickety, and downright infuriating customers. Keeping the script light means that the focus is elsewhere, on the performances and the camera work. Sean Price Williams keeps the project sedate and lacking in a flashiness that might have proved overbearing on the tight character work. Shooting on film gives the feature a depth and substance that might otherwise have been lost in the polished veneer of digital.

Christmas, Again is a muted affair, balanced precariously on the line between intriguing vignette and wide-scoped essay on capitalism, Christmas, and love. The film’s finest flourish comes in the form of the fantastic Kentucker Audley who channels an ocean of pain in an honest portrayal of heartache in the festive season.

★★★★
Scott Clark

Sundance 2015 Review - The Overnight (2015)

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Sundance 2015 Review - Best Of Enemies (2015)

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Genre:
Documentary, History
Venue:
Sundance 2015
Director:
Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville
Cast:
Gore Vidal, Kelsey Grammer, John Lithgow

Two of American political history’s most arresting conservationists, will forever be heavy weight republican William F. Buckley and lizard-tongued liberal Gore Vidal. Now, whatever your political beliefs, one can neither deny the magnetism of either men, nor the balanced way in which they are dealt with in Best of Enemies. Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville strive to keep the field tight at both ends, focusing on what the outspoken gents’ televised 1968 debates meant for American politics (not to mention the development of news broadcasting as a whole) instead of simply digging up the past to settle an old score.

Buckley and Vidal’s debate came as the result of a kind of trifecta of issues; first, failing broadcaster ABC needed ratings, second, the Republican and Democratic party conferences were kicking off, and finally two desperately opposing writers were looking to cement their philosophies in the new age via TV. Unfortunately, the debates- there are 10 of them- don’t quite seem to ever deal with the issues at hand.

It’s about a clash of characters and ideals but its skimpy on the ideals. Vidal is an incredible wordsmith, but so is Buckley, the two spend so much time sparring (read; dick-waving) that the issues are left to the filmmakers to structure. And that’s where some problems can arise; too much context and arguably not enough info on what the two were actually supposed to be discussing leaves the viewer a little hungry for closure. As a whole the documentary is riveting, undeniably enjoyable, but one must eventually wonder whether it’s overly reliant on the fascinating intellectual deviants at its core.

Like Frost/Nixon without the political intrigue, Best of Enemies is a gripping piece of historical entertainment. It does however sport a line of such shattering incredulity, that it might just put Nixon’s now infamous ‘not illegal’ spurt to shame. John Lithgow and Kelsey Grammer narrate the diaries of Vidal and Buckley respectively, which is a fantastic idea given the two actors’ outspoken and parallel political views. There’s a host of charismatic and fascinating interviews, none least with Buckley’s own often hilarious brother, an excellent array of clips, and some really sparky editing. However the film never seems to quite articulate itself in the best way. The effects of the titanic duo’s verbal sparring on contemporary media is unfortunately ditched to a short credits sequence which is a shame as its one of the most striking parts.

As an introduction to the works of Gore Vidal and the processes of political commentary Best of Enemies is a blast, but it never quite manages to resonate or strike as hard as Vidal’s vocabulary. If you want to watch two very smart men be snide and snippy at an explosive point of zeitgeist, this is probably the best place to see it.

★★★
Scott Clark

26 January 2015

Sundance 2015 Review - The Witch (2015)

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Genre:
Horror
Distributor:
A24
Rating: TBC
Venue:
Suncance 2015
Director:
Rober Eggers
Cast:
Kate Dickie, Julian Richings, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson

Robert Eggers debut feature as writer/director, The Witch, is the kind of abstract horror feature that can either flounder in monotony or champion a kind of folk-tale methodology rarely seen.

Announcing itself ‘A New England Folk Tale’ the feature goes on to tell the story of a colonial family who, upon exile from plantation life, take up residence on the edge of a New England forest, to live the Godly life. Tensions climb and emotions blaze after the youngest of the family disappears from the would-be idyllic farm, eyes fall on and from there…it doesn’t get much better.

Eggers has carefully built an incredibly uncomfortable piece of film that effortlessly strolls through horror drama with the skill and acute control of an intimate theatre production. Carefully chosen iconography from the history of witchcraft, along with a kind of infectious condemnation borrowed from The Crucible, keeps the atmosphere grim as Hell. Select images, sporadically introduced, induce an air of panic and mystery in the viewer, planting us in the position of horrified onlooker. Dark caves, bloody apples, towering trees of charcoal black, dark and degrading monstrous doings. It’s a treasure trove of Gothic imagery.

Jarin Blaschke’s palette of miserable greys does much of the films work, ensuring that whenever dull sticky reds appear, they make you feel nauseous. Every shot is loaded, every performance pitch-perfect. Particularly Kate Dickie and Ralph Ineson who threaten to steal the show at every turn with a chemistry as tangible as the atmosphere itself. Seriously, Dickie is fantastic as the puritanical grieving mother, delivering a matronly performance that parallels her fantastic work in For Those in Peril, whilst Ineson’s overbearing turn becomes bolder and bolder with every scene that passes.

Incredibly evocative filmmaking, dark, mystic, horrifying, stunning, The Witch is a feature all by itself. Dickie and Ineson impress with towering performances, Egger promises a talent to look out for, and Blaschke just about instigates a nervous breakdown with intense visual control. And that’s without mentioning the invasively boisterous score.

★★★★★
Scott Clark

Sundance 2015 Review - It Follows (2015)

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