Just to recap the day so far: West of Memphis (excellent, highly absorbing…best film with Peter Jackson‘s name on it since Heavenly Creatures), I’m Not A Hipster (slightly downish but smartly written, emotionally affecting with intriguing breakout performance by Dominic Bogart), and Simon Killer (a disaster film). Next is a West of Memphis party and then Rodrigo Cortes‘ Red Lights at 10 pm.
Late this afternoon I suffered through Antonio Campos‘ Simon Killer at the Eccles. It’s an empty, meandering audience-torture film about sex and nihilism and stupidity in Paris. Brady Corbet (the slightly dopey-looking guy who briefly boffed Kirsten Dunst on the golf course in Melancholia) plays a grungy-looking dork who seems “normal” at first but then things turn dark and deranged as he morphs into a psychopathic asshole.
There are no resonating echoes or metaphors that add up in this bleak nihilistic film. Corbet is a recent college graduate who’s distraught about a breakup with his girlfriend of five years, and is visiting Paris to…whatever, hide out and do nothing for a while. His primary trait is that he’s obsessive.
I saw him as a whiner with little cash and nothing on his mind except jerking off and fucking and money and extortion and hurting the women who like or love him. One of these is Mati Diop, a drop-dead beautiful cafe au lait girl who works as a prostitute and eventually lets Corbet stay with her because he’s broke, and who lets him goad her into a half-assed “john” blackmail scheme.
I didn’t relate to Corbet or get what he was about or anything. I hated his unshaven cheeks and chin and neck. And so I just sat there and watched…and watched…and nodded off for a few minutes…and watched a bit more. And then Corbet finally flew back to the States and it was over.
I thought I might at least enjoy a few shots of Paris, but Campos and cinematographer Joe Anderson are very careful to show us nothing recognizable whatsoever. When Corbet is roaming around the camera is always focused on the back of his head and the rest is always in soft focus.
The most memorable thing that happened during the screening was when I nodded out for five minutes. I was holding a half-filled can of Monster, and as I dropped off the can slipped my grip and hit the floor…clahk!…and rolled out of my aisle and into the next, dribbling green Monster juice as it went along. Attorney Linda Lichter and L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan were sitting next to me, and I’m sure they wondered what the noise was. I avoided looking in their direction out of embarassment.
Late this afternoon I suffered through Antonio Campos‘ Simon Killer at the Eccles. It’s an empty, meandering audience-torture film about sex and nihilism and stupidity in Paris. Brady Corbet (the slightly dopey-looking guy who briefly boffed Kirsten Dunst on the golf course in Melancholia) plays a grungy-looking dork who seems “normal” at first but then things turn dark and deranged as he morphs into a psychopathic asshole.
There are no resonating echoes or metaphors that add up in this bleak nihilistic film. Corbet is a recent college graduate who’s distraught about a breakup with his girlfriend of five years, and is visiting Paris to…whatever, hide out and do nothing for a while. Paris is a good town to do that in, but the appeal of Paris plummets if you’re stuck hanging out with an asshole.
Corbet’s primary trait is that he’s obsessive. I saw him as a whiner with little cash and nothing on his mind except jerking off and fucking and money and extortion and hurting the women who like or love him. One of these is Mati Diop, a drop-dead beautiful cafe au lait girl who works as a prostitute and eventually lets Corbet stay with her because he’s broke, and who lets him goad her into a half-assed “john” blackmail scheme.
I didn’t relate to Corbet or get what he was about or anything. I hated his unshaven cheeks and chin and neck. I just sat there and watched…and watched…and nodded off for a few minutes…and watched a bit more. And then Corbet finally flew back to the States and it was over.
I thought I might at least enjoy a few shots of Paris, but Campos and cinematographer Joe Anderson are very careful to show us nothing recognizable whatsoever. When Corbet is roaming around the camera is always focused on the back of his head and the rest is always in soft focus.
The most memorable thing that happened during the screening was when I nodded out for five minutes. I was holding a half-filled can of Monster, and as I dropped off the can slipped my grip and hit the floor…clahk!…and rolled out of my aisle and into the next, dribbling green Monster juice as it went along. Attorney Linda Lichter and L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan were sitting next to me, and I’m sure they wondered what the noise was. I avoided looking in their direction out of embarassment.
A 123-minute crowd-sourced Star Wars — a feature-length pic “that contains hand-picked scenes from the entire StarWarsUncut.com collection.” Uploaded two days ago and edited by Aaron Valdez and Bryan Pugh.
It’s getting so crazy now that I barely have time to file about the Sundance films I’ve seen and make the next film I want/need to see. It’s 2:45 pm and I have a 3:30 pm screening of Simon Killer at the Eccles…which gives me 15 minutes to wrap things up.
This morning I caught the 8:30 am screening of Amy Berg and Peter Jackson‘s West of Memphis — a completely solid and compelling doc about the West Memphis 3 that never drags and feels vital and necessary every step of the way. I…Jesus, 12 minutes to go! Homina, homina, homina. I agree entirely with John DeFore‘s Hollywood Reporter review…how abotu that?
I went right over to the Prospector Square Cinema after Memphis to catch an 11:30 am screening of Destin Daniel Cretton‘s I’m Not a Hipster, an absorbing, emotionally balanced, nicely written and well acted character drama about a scowling San Diego hipster-musician (played by the darkly charismatic Dominic Bogart) who comes to an emotional reckoning when his sisters and father visit town to dispose of his recently deceased mother’s ashes. Six minutes to go but Hipster is a smart, believable, honestly realized indie pic. Not “entertaining,” per se, but straight and true.
I’m outta here…
