Rushing It

I haven’t got time to think things through or make what I’m tapping out here sound as good as it ought to, and it pains me to just put stuff up without refinements, but…
The most satisfying Sundance films I’ve seen over the last four days, in this order, are: Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow, Greg Mclean’s Wolf Creek (which I wrote about last Friday), and Craig Lucas’ The Dying Gaul (angrier and more bitter than it needs to be, but is nonetheless a fully felt, precisely crafted piece about denial and betrayal, a superb psychological suspense drama and a nicely tuned Hollywood backstabber).

Sculpture of Dying Gaul, created in 230 B.C., residing today in Rome’s Capitoline Museum, and a thematic motif in Craig Lucas’s film of the same name.

The other A-listers are Sebastian Cordero’s Cronicas, John Maybury’s The Jacket, Suzanne Bier’s Brothers, and Peter Raymont’s Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire.
Matthew Vaughan’s Layer Cake is an absorbing, carefully measured, constantly crackling British crime film that deliberately eschews the Guy Ritchie-esque razzle dazzle that we’ve all come to expect from movies about the criminal underworld, and offers yet another riveting, multi-layered performance from Daniel Craig.
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Mike Binder’s The Upside of Anger is perhaps a little too on-the-nose at the finish, but it’s honest and human and builds into something tangible, and it contains one of the most likably relaxed and touching Kevin Costner performances ever.
The next big achiever, I’m guessing, with be Arie Posin’s The Chumscrubber, which is screening tomorrow night (i.e., Tuesday) at the Eccles. As I’m leaving Thursday morning I’m already starting to grapple with the likelihood of not being able to see this and that film, given the workload and all.
Yesterday afternoon I caught Mike Mills’ Thumbsucker, and after it was over I can’t say I was doing cartwheels in the Racquet Club parking lot. A moderately resonant drama about teenage uncertainty and suburban angst, it’s one of those films that works on a scene-by-scene basis, but seems to wander and glide along without having a particular goal in mind. There’s no story tension or a discernible arc, but the human-scale observations about this and that (pic is based on Walter Kirn’s novel of the same name) ring true, for the most part…for what it’s worth.
I’m going to just post what I have now and maybe revisit the Intel room at the Yarrow Hotel this afternoon and add or refine or whatever. This is so friggin’ half-assed, I can’t stand it.

Far and Away

For me, so far, Hustle & Flow is still the shit.
Out of twelve or thirteen films I’ve seen here so far, none have delivered a package of this caliber — absolutely note-perfect acting (headlined by Terrence Howard’s already-legendary performance as D-Jay, a flawed, at times brutally insensitive man in a classic do-or-die struggle to make it as a rap artist), formulaic panache, a quality that feels to me like ripe atmospheric truth, exotic charm and sublime emotional satisfaction.
Some are saying Flow is too formulaic, or that it faces an uphill challenge with red-state audiences who may not want to get up close and personal with a film about a drawlin’ Memphis pimp. You know what I’m saying. A certain vaguely racist aversion.
Well, it is formulaic…but in the most intriguing way possible. To say you’ve “seen this kind of film before” means nothing. The question must always be, “How well was it made, and how much did you care?”

A deliberately arty-farty out-of-focus shot taken on set of Hustle & Flow.

At times, Hustle & Flow talks and walks like a ’70s blaxploitation film (that yellow typeface used for the opening main-title sequence is pure Sam Arkoff), but Brewer and Howard and an ace-level supporting cast (Anthony Anderson, Taryn Manning, DJ Qualls, Taraji Hewnson, Ludicris) make it play true and steady and right as rain.
Every frame of this movie says, “You know what we’re doing…this guy wants to climb out of his own hole and maybe we’re gonna show him do that…but we’re gonna do it in a way that feels right to us.” And once D-Jay hooks up with Anderson and Qualls and starts to put together a sound and record a few tracks, Hustle & Flow lifts off the ground and pretty much stays there, suspended.
I find it staggering that seasoned film industry journos would suggest, as they have to me over the last 24 hours or so, that not enough paying customers will want to see this thing. Forget the funky backdrops and gritty-ass particulars — is there anyone out there who can’t relate to a character who feels stuck in a tired groove and wants to do more with his/her life? Is there anything more commonly understood these days?
Whatever you might expect to feel about D-Jay, he is, by the force of Howard’s acting and Brewer’s behind-the-camera input, utterly real and believable, and even with his anger and brutality you can’t help but root for him. And, for that matter, the film.

Meanwhile…

Mike Mills (r.), director-screenwriter of Thumbsucker, fielding questions after Sunday afternoon’s screening at Park City Racquet Club, with costars Lou Pucci (l.) and Tilda Swinton (middle) — 1.23.05, 6:55 pm.

Thumbsucker costar Keanu Reeves (r.) on Racquet Club stage after Sunday’s screening, next to charming actress who plays a very small role — 1.23.05, 6:50 pm.

Can’t Beat It

I feel whipped, anxious and extremely behind schedule this morning.
Okay, I always feel this way…but it’s more pronounced during Sundance. The question each day is, “How many bowling pins will fall to the floor today? How many films I’d like to see or parties I’d like to attend or quickie interviews I’d like to do will I be forced to blow off due to having to feed this bear of a column?”
I started writing this early Monday morning (just before eight), and at one point I thought I had about two hours before having to run off to see the first film of the day — Steve James’ Reel Paradise, a 110-minute doc about indie film maven John Pierson’s experience running a small movie theatre on the island of Fiji.
But I didn’t make the Pierson screening, and now, at 11:25 ayem, I’m trying to finish in time to make the noon screening of Pretty Persuasion at the Eccles. And I’m wondering if I can even make that.

Flow Chart

Sunday’s big news, to recap, was the charged response to Hustle & Flow after a Saturday night screening at the Park City Racquet Club, along with the subsequent announcement, some eight or nine hours after the screening began at 8:30 pm, that the film has been acquired for $9 million by Paramount.
The MTV execs went home around 4 ayem, but the deal closed at roughly 5:30 am this morning, partly as a result of a certain Paramount executive remarking to UTA’s Jeremy Zimmer, “We can’t do this anymore…I have to go to bed.”
No immediate word as to whether Hustle & Flow will be distributed by “big” Paramount or “little” Paramount (i.e., Paramount Classics), but the answer sounds like a no-brainer. Indie-type Sundance movies need the kind of TLC that is generally not dispensed (no offense) by big-studio marketing departments.
The $9 million is part of a $16 million, 3-picture deal that will cover two other films to be produced and directed by Flow producer John Singleton for $3.5 million each.

Part of the Hustle & Flow posse after Saturday night’s screening at the Park City Racquet Club: (l. to r.) Terrence Howard, producer Stephanie Allain, costar Taryn Manning, director-writer Craig Brewer — 1.22.05, 10:45 pm.

The unofficial word is that Hustle & Flow will probably open over the 4th of July weekend, which would be an appropriate date since celebration of this holiday figures into the plot.
Paramount publicist Nancy Kirkpatrick called to say that Paramount’s newly-installed chief Brad Grey, plus Par marketing head Rob Friedman and production president Donald De Line, saw Hustle & Flow in Los Angeles on Saturday night while Viacom co-president and COO Tom Freston was catching it at the same time at the Park City Racquet Club.
I found it interesting that Howard, who was the last Hustle cast member to be called to the stage after Saturday’s screening, seemed more comfortable on the edge of the spotlight than occupying it front-and-center.
There’s no question that his performance as D-Jay, a Memphis pimp in a midlife crisis with musical aspirations, has put him on the map in the exact same way that Morgan Freeman’s performance as a pimp in Street Smart (along with Pauline Kael’s rave in The New Yorker) turned him into “Morgan Freeman.”
Anyway, the JPEGs now and the copy on Monday morning sometime….along with some new photos I’ll probably snap during my Sunday adventures after I finish posting (which always takes longer than expected).

Visual Push

Brothers director and story co-author Suzanne Bier with star Connie Nielsen after Saturday afternoon’s screening at the Egyptian theatre on Main Street — 1.22.05, 2:10 pm.

Hollywood Reporter deputy film editor and columnist Anne Thompson (l.) and film business editor Nicole Sperling (r.) in foyer entrance to a truly deafening party for Layer Cake, held on Park City’s Main Street — Friday, 1.21.05, 10:35 pm.

The Dying Gaul screenwriter and director Craig Lucas (r., on the mike) and (l. to r.) cast members Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott and Patricia Clarkson after late Saturday afternoon screening of the drama, which is Lucas’s filmmaking debut — 1.22.05, 7:15 pm.

Exotic dancer at party for party for Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey’s Inside Deep Throat, held inside garage space adjacent to Park City Library — Friday, 1.21.05, 11:35 pm.

Relatively small container of pre-popped popcorn selling for $4 dollars at Park City’s Egyptian theatre — taken just before Brothers screening on Saturday, 1.22.05, at 11:55 am.

Hustle & Flow producers Stephanie Allain (middle) and John Singleton (r.) stand with writer-director Craig Brewer after after Saturday night’s screening at the Park City Racquet Club — 1.22.05, 10:50 pm.

The Chumscrubber and Dear Wendy star Jamie Bell (l.) with unidentified (but obviously spirited) woman during latter stages of Inside Deep Throat party — Friday, 1.22.05, 12:25 am.

Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughan seated during interview inside atrium space on first floor of Park City Marriott — Saturday, 1.22.05, 11:05 am..

Congenial and photogenic Dear Wendy director Thomas Vinterberg with an apparently significant other outside Eccles theatre just before screening of his film — Saturday, 1.22.05, 2:45 pm.

Hustle & Flow star Terrence Howard (also in Lackawanna Blues) during post-screening interview before audience at Park City Racquet Club — Saturday, 1.22.05, 11:05 am.

Flora outside Hollywood Elsewhere condo — Thursday, 1.20.05, 11:05 am.

Brothers director Suzanne Bier after Saturday’s showing at the Egyptian theatre, before she introduced Connie Nielsen — 1.22.05, 2:05 pm.

Inside Deep Throat dancers at post-screening party — 1.22.05, 12:05 am.

Erratum

“Just to let you know that Nathan Phillips isn’t the whacko in Wolf
Creek — John Jarrat is. Phillips plays the twentysomething guy. Jarrat’s been on Australian TV for years. Phillips has also been on the tube for a while, but he’s only about 24 or 25.
“And you’re right about the outback police force, by the way. But then any force would have trouble patrolling an area where people own farms that are bigger than some European countries.” — John Truslove, Melbourne, Australia.
Wells to Truslove: Thanks for offering the correction. I’ll fix the error right away.

Stupid Spoiled Whore

“If you have not seen it, hunt down the South Park episode called ‘Stupid Spoiled Whore,’ about Paris Hilton and the utterly ruthless and unforgiving attitudes about her, especially as they seem to be manifesting in force these days. It’s definitely worth 23 minutes of your life.” – Gabriel Neeb.

Frame capture from Paris Hilton sex video.

“I’m 100 percent behind you in protesting the appearance of tabloid trash queen Paris Hilton at Sundance. If someone told her that in order to appear at the parties she would have to watch as many films as she could showing at the festival, I’m sure she would pack up and leave ASAP. And major kudos on the use of the Hilton sex tape screen shot as your stock photo.” — Angry Dick 2.
“I think there√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s more in you yet to write about porn society, as typified by Paris Hilton. I find it interesting that on this you and I agree. Any chance you√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll write more about that issue?” — Roy “Griff” Griffis

Flow Chart

I’ll be banging out a Monday column, of course, but why not run some photos I took on Friday and Saturday right now (i.e., Sunday afternoon)?
Sunday’s big festival news is the enormous response to Craig Brewer’s astounding and immensely satisfying Hustle & Flow after an 8:30 pm screening Saturday night at the Park City Racquet Club, along with this morning’s announcement that the film has been acquired for $9 million by MTV/Paramount.

Part of the Hustle & Flow posse after Saturday night’s screening at the Park City Racquet Club: (l. to r.) Terrence Howard, producer Stephanie Allain, costar Taryn Manning, director-writer Craig Brewer — 1.22.05, 10:45 pm.

The MTV execs went home around 4 ayem, but the deal closed at roughly 5:30 am this morning, partly as a result of a certain Paramount executive remarking to UTA’s Jeremy Zimmer, “We can’t do this anymore…I have to go to bed.”
No immediate word as to whether Hustle & Flow will be distributed by “big” Paramount or “little” Paramount (i.e., Paramount Classics), but the answer sounds like a no-brainer. Indie-type Sundance movies need the kind of TLC that is generally not dispensed (no offense) by big-studio marketing departments.
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The $9 million is part of a $16 million, 3-picture deal that will cover two other films to be produced and directed by Flow producer John Singleton for $3.5 million each.
The unoffical word is that Hustle & Flow will probably open over the 4th of July weekend, which would be an appropriate date since celebration of this particular holiday figures into the story of the film.
Paramount publicist Nancy Kirkpatrick called to say that Paramount’s newly-installed chief Brad Grey, plus Par marketing head Rob Friedman and production president Donald De Line, saw Hustle & Flow in Los Angeles on Saturday night while Viacom co-president and COO Tom Freston was catching it at the same time at the Park City Racquet Club.
I found it interesting that Howard, who was the last Hustle cast member to be called to the stage after Saturday’s screening, seemed more comfortable on the edge of the spotlight than occupying it front-and-center.
There’s no question that his performance as D-Jay, a Memphis pimp in a midlife crisis with musical aspirations, has put him on the map in the exact same way that Morgan Freeman’s performance as a pimp in Street Smart (along with Pauline Kael’s rave in The New Yorker) turned him into “Morgan Freeman.”
Anyway, the JPEGs now and the copy on Monday morning sometime….along with some new photos I’ll probably snap during my Sunday adventures after I finish posting (which always takes longer than expected).

Visual Push

Brothers director and story co-author Suzanne Bier with star Connie Nielsen after Saturday afternoon’s screening at the Egyptian theatre on Main Street — 1.22.05, 2:10 pm.

Hollywood Reporter deputy film editor and columnist Anne Thompson (l.) and film business editor Nicole Sperling (r.) in foyer entrance to a truly deafening party for Layer Cake, held on Park City’s Main Street — Friday, 1.21.05, 10:35 pm.

The Dying Gaul screenwriter and director Craig Lucas (r., on the mike) and (l. to r.) cast members Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott and Patricia Clarkson after late Saturday afternoon screening of the drama, which is Lucas’s filmmaking debut — 1.22.05, 7:15 pm.

Exotic dancer at party for party for Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey’s Inside Deep Throat, held inside garage space adjacent to Park City Library — Friday, 1.21.05, 11:35 pm.

Relatively small container of pre-popped popcorn selling for $4 dollars at Park City’s Egyptian theatre — taken just before Brothers screening on Saturday, 1.22.05, at 11:55 am.

Hustle & Flow producers Stephanie Allain (middle) and John Singleton (r.) stand with writer-director Craig Brewer after after Saturday night’s screening at the Park City Racquet Club — 1.22.05, 10:50 pm.

The Chumscrubber and Dear Wendy star Jamie Bell (l.) with unidentified (but obviously spirited) woman during latter stages of Inside Deep Throat party — Friday, 1.22.05, 12:25 am.

Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughan seated during interview inside atrium space on first floor of Park City Marriott — Saturday, 1.22.05, 11:05 am..

Congenial and photogenic Dear Wendy director Thomas Vinterberg with an apparently significant other outside Eccles theatre just before screening of his film — Saturday, 1.22.05, 2:45 pm.

Hustle & Flow star Terrence Howard (also in Lackawanna Blues) during post-screening interview before audience at Park City Racquet Club — Saturday, 1.22.05, 11:05 am.

Flora outside Hollywood Elsewhere condo — Thursday, 1.20.05, 11:05 am.

Brothers director Suzanne Bier after Saturday’s showing at the Egyptian theatre, before she introduced Connie Nielsen — 1.22.05, 2:05 pm.

Inside Deep Throat dancers at post-screening party — 1.22.05, 12:05 am.

Erratum

“Just to let you know that Nathan Phillips isn’t the whacko in Wolf
Creek — John Jarrat is. Phillips plays the twentysomething guy. Jarrat’s been on Australian TV for years. Phillips has also been on the tube for a while, but he’s only about 24 or 25.
“And you’re right about the outback police force, by the way. But then any force would have trouble patrolling an area where people own farms that are bigger than some European countries.” — John Truslove, Melbourne, Australia.
Wells to Truslove: Thanks for offering the correction. I’ll fix the error right away.

Stupid Spoiled Whore

“If you have not seen it, hunt down the South Park episode called ‘Stupid Spoiled Whore,’ about Paris Hilton and the utterly ruthless and unforgiving attitudes about her, especially as they seem to be manifesting in force these days. It’s definitely worth 23 minutes of your life.” – Gabriel Neeb.

Frame capture from Paris Hilton sex video.

“I’m 100 percent behind you in protesting the appearance of tabloid trash queen Paris Hilton at Sundance. If someone told her that in order to appear at the parties she would have to watch as many films as she could showing at the festival, I’m sure she would pack up and leave ASAP. And major kudos on the use of the Hilton sex tape screen shot as your stock photo.” — Angry Dick 2.
“I think there√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s more in you yet to write about porn society, as typified by Paris Hilton. I find it interesting that on this you and I agree. Any chance you√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll write more about that issue?” — Roy “Griff” Griffis

Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow, so far the one absolute knockout of the ’05 Sundance Film Festival, was acquired for theatrical distribution Saturday night by MTV/Paramount for $9 million. The total fee is actually $16 million for a 3-picture deal that will cover two other films to be produced and directed by Flow producer John Singleton for $3.5 million each. Paramount publicist Nancy Kirkpatrick called to say that Paramount’s newly-installed chief Brad Grey, marketing head Rob Friedman and production president Donald De Line saw it in Los Angeles on Saturday night while Viacom co-president and COO Tom Freston was catching it at the same time at the Park City Racquet Club. Freston was obviously in town to close a deal with Singleton and his Hustle & Flow producing partner Stephanie Allain and their UTA reps. Everybody had to be keenly interested in Hustle & Flow after Saturday’s levitational screening, but other suitors included Newmarket, Miramax, New Line, Fox SearchlightFox Searchlight, Warner Independent and Focus Features. The film is about a Memphis pimp (Terrence Howard, delivering a breakout performance equal to Morgan Freeman’s in Street Smart) trying to become a successful rapper, and the twists and turns he goes through in trying to achieve this. This is not just a great movie…but also a great musical, in that it lets you see and feel how music is created from the ground up.

I talked to a critic last night (i.e., Saturday) who acknowledged that Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow is obviously well-liked by the Sundance audience so far and is “the first movie to break through” so far. However, an opinion was also confided that it’s basically “bullshit” and “straight out of 1930s Warner Bros. formula.” I’m sorry but this critic (a very smart fellow) has never been more wrong. I know what it feels like when a Sundance movie has gone through the roof. Okay…mountain-air syndrome, right? But I know when a movie is working on all six cylinders (notice I didn’t say eight cylinders…there’s a qualification here) and is achieving ace-level delivery in terms of atmospheric grit, soul, craft, emotion and superb acting, and Hustle & Flow is definitely one of these. Will it play to white audiences as well as black? Will it in fact “play black”? My naysaying critic friend says it might not given the lack of stars, but I would be shocked right down to my Banana Republic two-tone socks if this thing doesn’t do very, very well. I liked it so much I’m going to try and see it again at this afternoon’s (Sunday, 1.23) press screening at the Yarrow.

“I’ve seen 10 Sundance films in the last two days,” an exhibitor friend confides, “and the the highlight so far, unquetionably, has been Steve Buscemi’s Lonesome Jim, which is one of the most beautiful odes to a pathetic human life ever put to screen. It’s a breakthrough vehicle for star Casey Affleck.
“The only thing the film has against it is a horribly cheap look as a result of being shot on shit-level video. It might have been the projection at the press screening but given that most things in there have been projected digitally, I somehow doubt it. Try and check it out (although, thinking about it further, you might really hate it).”
“I thought Marcos Siega’s Pretty Persuasion was PRETTY FUCKING HIDEOUS. Trying so hard to be another Election/Heathers/To Die For — truly awful characters and a terrible, try-too-hard script. Performances were actually okay but it’s not going to take.” Wells reaction: Seeing it Monday, but heard from one journo friend that it’s “awful,” and another that it’s “okay” but not quite good enough and a little too familiar. It’s fairly raunchy in terms of dialogue and sexual stuff. Visiting costar James Woods was telling friends at a Main Street party on Friday night that “I don’t know how we’re going to get a rating.”
“Rian Johnson’s Brick is worth seeing, if only to lock in the director as definitely a talent to watch. The idea (high school noir, Sam Spade in high school) is quite brilliant, although it outstays its welcome. I have a feeling the film could grow into a little sleeper in the Donnie Darko fashion — there’s a lot to admire and enjoy.” Wells reaction: Bullshit — it’s a clever little film, and accurately reflects the way 16 and 17 year-olds see their world, which is to say totally separate from adults and utterly caught up in their narrow social spectrum, but it’s too smug for its own good.
“Scott Coffey’s Elllie Parker is awful and indulgent — I left after an hour. Wells reaction: Haven’t sen it yet, but the general reaction has been that it’s little bit like episodic TV and not good enough, although star Naomi Watts is said to be excellent. (She always is.)
“Dear`Wendy is pretty interesting until the last half hour when it goes off
the rails. Lars von Trier (who wrote the screenplay, and you can so totally tell) isn’t going to win any more friends in America. I feel like he was nutting out a lot of the ideas he went on to explore in Manderlay. Wells reaction : I felt this wasn’t working from the get-go, and I left after an hour or so. I’ll have more to say in Monday’s column.
“I heard good things about Murderball — seeing it later in the week. The two documentaries I saw tonight, Protocls of Zion and Ring of Fire were both, in their own ways, quite excellent.
“Logger heads is minor — it went on forever and has a very confusing time structure. I’m guessing it will probably go straight to the Sundance Channel and/or play at gay film festivals.”

I’m going to try and tap out WIRED stuff as much as I can between screenings. Whatever’s happened, whatever shaking…and let me just say, sitting here in the Intel room at the Yarrow, that there’s nothing quite so awful to listen to as the sound of forced gaiety. It sounds anxious, desperate-to-please, and bordering on panic.

I’m still at the Intel room at the Yarrow, and an hour ago I was shut out of seeing Warner Indepdedent’s The Jacket, which started at 2:30 pm. It’s some kind of Gulf War-driven time-travel nightmare psychodrama, and the advance talk has been pretty good. I guess you have to arrive at Yarrow press screenings a good 20 to 30 minutes before or forget it. It costars Adrien Brody, Kiera Knightley, Daniel Craig, Kris Kristofferson and Kelly Lynch. My next film (hopefully) is David LaChappelle’s Rize, but it’s screening at the dreaded Library, and that’s always a hassle.

Sick at Sundance

I started to fall ill Wednesday evening — coughing, congestion — and I felt sicker all day Thursday. I did a lot of sleeping, drank a lot of water. And on top of this, I discovered Wednesday night that the phone in the condo I’m staying in has been shut off, so there’s been no internet (and the phone won’t be turned back on until Friday morning…great).
But at least I managed to drop by the Sundance Film Festival headquarters Thursday morning to pick up my press pass, along with three ‘loaner’ tapes of Sundance flicks. I went back to the condo (right behind the Radisson Hotel) and watched them between naps. One sucked, but two were quite good.

Greg Mclean’s Wolf Creek, which has been picked up by Dimension, is dark as shit, but it’s a knockout. It’s going to be a sizable hit when it opens this summer, and for good reason. It’s well made, genuinely scary and very believable.
Shown as part of the just-begun World Dramatic Competition, it will have its first festival showing on Monday evening, and will also screen Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’re in town, don’t miss it.
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The theme of this way-above-average horror flick is basically ‘watch yourself when you go on a trip to an outlying area, because it’s entirely possible that you might run into a degenerate homicidal wack-jobber.’ Especially in the Aussie wasteland, where there doesn’t seem to be any kind of civilized anything, much less a visible police force.
The Wolf Creek rundown is that three late-twentysomethings from Sydney (Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath, Kestie Morassi) run into one of these hayseed nutbags during a camping trip to the outback.
The fiend (deliriously well played by John Jarrat) is a good-natured yokel type with a vaguely charming, wholly diseased personality. The more ghastly his actions, the more he chuckles. He’s like the
bad-seed cousin of Crocodile Dundee who’s gone crazy from loneliness and who probably smells like a dog and farts 24/7.
One of Jarrat’s better lines, spoken during an extremely dark moment, is straight from the first Dundee film.

His coming is expertly foreshadowed by Mclean when the two-girls-and-a-guy meet up with another outback psycho at a roadside rest stop. You can feel the awful stuff approaching from this scene on.
Scene for scene, there’s very little that feels formulaic in Wolf Creek (apart from the boiler-plate borrowings from Deliverance, The Last House on the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).
There are always those in any audience who say they can predict what will happen, or who always claim after-the-fact that they saw it coming. Trust me, there’s no predicting where this film is going. I was genuinely shocked at two third-act plot turns.
Nothing that happens seems conventionally movie-ish, which is partly due to the fact that Mclean based his screenplay on a true story.
My only beef is that it’s hard to understand a lot of the dialogue during the first half. Those ‘strine accents can be mothers. When Miramax puts the DVD out, they should include optional subtitles.
Peter Raymont’s Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire is a documentary companion piece to Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda…or vice versa.
I liked and was moved by Hotel Rwanda, but the doc is sadder, deeper, more affecting. Raymond is a bit more of a visual poet than George. He pays attention to Rwanda’s natural beauty, for one thing, and I don’t mean just the landscapes but the feeling in the eyes of the natives. There’s a quietly focused tone in Shake Hands with the Devil that somehow conveys a fuller absorption of the overall.
Dallaire is a former U.N. peacekeeping commander who went through all kinds of hell and torment during the 1994 Rwandan massacre (he was played, so to speak, by Nick Nolte in Rwanda) as he tried — without much effect — to maintain order and do something to contain the slaughter.

Dallaire feels guilty about this failure, but he was under-funded and under-supported by the U.N., and he doesn’t seem to be a guy who has ever dodged a tough situation. Decency and compassion seem like natural components in his DNA.
The doc was shot last year when Dallaire revisited Rwanda for a ten-year memorial anniversary of the horror. Raymont explains the background of the Hutu-vs.-Tutsi hatred, somewhat. But he never just says (as I feel he should have) that the Tutsis were, for the most part, better educated, jacket-and-tie types with ties to the Belgian colonialists, and that the Hutu killers were basically disenfranchised yahoo rednecks.
Bill Clinton is ridiculed for having said during a visit to Rwanda (i.e., years after the killings) that he didn’t fully grasp the degree of the savagery that was happening during April and May of ’94. An outspoken talking-head authority says in no uncertain terms this is total bunk.
There are supposed to be a couple of decent sex scenes in Hal Hartley’s The Girl from Monday, and this, frankly, is why I wanted to see it. I respect Hartley but his films have always bored me, and this one is true to form. No, it’s worse.
The story is some kind of futuristic political thing, and there’s no energy or tension to any of it. Or rather, the portions of the film that I saw. I was feverish, remember, and I was sitting in a big fat leather easy chair. I just wanted to see the actresses take their clothes off, but I nodded off a couple of times and missed the good stuff.

Early Talk

I heard two tips at a Wednesday evening dinner party in Deer Valley. Take ’em with a grain.
One, forget Kevin Bacon’s Loverboy, a drama about twisted motherhood that will show at the Eccles on Monday evening and at the Library on Tuesday afternoon. I√ɬØ√Ǭø√ǬΩm sorry to pass this along, but a guy who saw it earlier this week told me it’s too gloomy and sluggish.
This was a sales guy talking, however, so maybe David Edelstein, Charles Taylor or Armond White will like it.
And two, I was told I should catch David LaChappelle’s Rize, which is said to be crappy on a story level but apparently has some heat as a dance film…you know, on an anthropologically vital, life-in-the-here-and-now vein.

It’s basically about ‘krumping,’ a South Central dance phenomenon that involves super- quick body gyrations, and various dancers competing with each other, etc.
Shot on a Sony High-def camera, LaChapelle�s 84-minute feature is based upon his 24- minute documentary short, Krumped, which showed at Slamdance two or three years ago.
The idea is that kids of a wayward, egoistic persuasion are more into krumping than gang-banging. Krumping is their voice, their expression…whatever, dawg.
An acquisitions guy who claimed to be on vaguely familiar terms with L.A. clubbing said that Rize (which is pronounced ‘rise’) has an aliveness that will work with younger African-American audiences, but his colleagues didn’t agree with him so that was that.
I was telling people at the party that Craig Brewer’s Hustle and Flow, one of the festival’s most hotly anticipated films (said to feature a lead breakout performance by Terrence Howard), kept blurring in my mind with Rattle and Hum , the Phil Joanu U2 concert film, and Shake, Rattle and Roll.
I suppose the blur will go away when I see Hustle at a Saturday afternoon press screening and it takes root on its own terms, but until then…

Snaps

View of Deer Valley from swanky Solamere Drive chalet being rented by Paramount Classics co-president Ruth Vitale. I love that digital cameras can capture this much light and detail after dark. If I were to manipulate further I could probably whiten the snow a bit more.

Second-floor living room — Thursday, 1.20.05, 1:27 pm.

View from rear porch of condo — Thursday, 1.20.05, 1:30 pm.

An unruly desk indicates a creative mind — Thursday, 1.20.05, 1:33 pm.

Protest Paris!

An e-mailed press release announced earlier this week that the dreaded Paris Hilton is supposed to attend tonight’s party for Rize at the Gateway Center (at 136 Heber), which starts around 9:30 or 10 pm.
I sent the following e-mail off to a couple of people who are repping the party:
“If it’s okay with you guys, I am going to try and organize a mass boycott of the Rize premiere party, preceded by a march down Main Street (complete with chants, torches and picket signs), all to protest the appearance of Paris Hilton at the Sundance Film Festival.
“Lloyd Grove at the New York Daily News started something, I think, when he promised a few weeks ago that he would no longer write about Paris. I believe her to be this year’s symbol of everything rancid, glossy, overblown and spiritually screwed-up about the Sundance Film Festival…or what it’s become, rather.

“Will Paris in fact be at this party? If so, could you ask her to autograph my picket sign? And why haven’t I been invited to the party instead of being sent this entirely demeaning invitation to ‘cover’ the party?√ɬØ√Ǭø√ǬΩ
One of the publicists responded by saying, “I am sure Paris would sign it if you agreed to run a photo of her doing it.”
I am half serious about protesting her presumed appearance. A lot of people out there despise what she seems to be, and certainly what she represents. Do a Google search of �protest Paris Hilton� and you�ll see what I mean.
I guess there’s no point in this anti-Paris venting. We should just be good sheep and lie down and continue to take pictures of the rich and powerful and watch them on tabloid TV. Wherever they go, whatever they are.
In any case, the aesthetic problem presented by the appearance of leeches and ding-a-lings at the festival has been geographically solved.
It’s been clear for the last two or three years that there are two Sundance festivals. The one about movies and people who matter happens at the Marriott, the Eccles, the Library, the Yarrow, the Holiday Village and the Racquet Club. And the one that’s about parties, corporate piggybackers and GenX binge-drinkers happens on Park City’s Main Street.
Other expected “guests” at tonight’s Rize party include Pamela Anderson, Snoop Dogg, Steven Dorff, Erika Christiansen and Busy Philipps.
Where is Al Qeada when you really need them?

Maneuvers

You’d think that a rented Park City condo would have a working phone, at the very least for local (internet service provider, medical emergency) calls. You’d think that between the owner and the renter, somebody would ask about this or explain or something. Think again.

When I called Thursday morning about needing to get the condo phone turned back on, the people at Qwest said they’d have to wait three business days to activate the line. That meant Monday afternoon at the earliest, or possibly Tuesday morning.

The only way they could do it sooner, they said, would be if they were faxed a letter from a doctor saying it’s essential that I have a phone. I was feeling shitty anyway so I went down to the Park City Family Medical Clinic and saw a doctor (a nice woman named Eileen Price-Burke), and she agreed to write the letter to Qwest.
But I had to pay her fee of $115 plus $20 for a bottle of codeine cough syrup and $20 for an inhaler. The Qwest account cost $45 to get things rolling so the entire cost to get the phone turned on was about $200…not counting the stress.
The Qwest installation guy didn’t get here first thing Friday morning, like the dispatcher promised. He didn’t even show up in the ayem. Thanks, guys.

Nick and Neville

I’ve had this unformed thought about Nick Lachey for a long time, and it finally hit me last weekend: he’s Neville Brand.
A World War II hero with thick features, a gravelly voice and a street attitude, Brand mostly played heavies. One of his first decent roles was in Stalag 17 (�53), and he played Al Capone in the TV series The Untouchables.

Lachey (pronounced “lashay”) is Jessica Simpson’s vaguely doltish husband who hangs around the house, bitches about day-to-day stuff and tries to get his music career rolling on Newlyweds , their MTV “reality” show.
Anyway, they’re more or less the same guy…right?
Check out the shot of Neville in a cowboy hat — that was taken in the late ’50s or early ’60s, when he was in his 40s. By the time Lachey is 40-plus he√ɬØ√Ǭø√ǬΩll also have that portly, beefed-up, potato-head look.

Lachey should start playing bad guys. Right now he’s just a house-husband. In the next Newlyweds season Nick will reportedly “build a studio in his home, sign with Jive Records and works with his label to get his CD in stores,” etc. But all he’s seemed to do on the show so far is walk around in T-shirts and baggy shorts and sometimes help the delivery guys install a new refrigerator.
Note to readers: I’m totally aware of how shitty it looks for the Neville Brand and Nick Lachey photos to be differently sized.

Bad Press Computers

The flat-screen computers in the press room at the Sundance Marriott are unfriendly to journalists.
That’s because the person who set them up made sure that users can’t access the hard drive, which is what you need to do if you’re going to transmit text or JPEG’s off one of those portable USB drive doo-dads. The Marriott computers only let you surf the internet, meaning they’re almost totally worthless from a working point of view.
Thank fortune that the Intel people have a free business center (or press room) on the 2nd floor off the Yarrow hotel, with six or seven connected laptops and nothing preventing you from doing your job. They also have a wireless thing going so you can bring your laptop in and get online as long as you have a wireless card. This is Intel’s second year at the festival.

Parting Shot

This was taken from the back balcony of the condo around 10 ayem on Friday morning. Tourists take balloon rides all day long, apparently. This would probably be a very cool thing to do if you�re dressed for it.

I came to chortle at Inside Deep Throat and, to be honest, maybe feel a tiny bit excited by it…but I came away feeling leveled-out, sobered-up, un-randy.
Sobered up doesn’t mean bummed, which is how I pretty much felt after seeing Deep Throat itself. It was such a shitty movie…so cheesy, stupid, clueless. But it made raunch seem hip for that five- or ten-minute period in `72 or ’73 with the New York Times-propagated concept of “porno chic.”

Okay, there was something cool and, of course, basically harmless about middle-class couples, single women and other atypical patrons lining up in front of porn theatres to see this film way back when…brazen, liberating, vaguely revolutionary…but from today’s perspective there’s something about it that seems a bit odious.

What did Fear of Flying author Erica Jong once say about watching porn? “After a minute or so, I want to find a partner and immediately have sex. But after watching for ten minutes, I never want to have sex again.”

A woman friend of mine didn’t want to go to a recent screening of Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey‘s 90 minute documentary, which will have its big debut on Friday night at the Sundance Film Festival, because she hates the Deep Throat legend and metaphor, and assumed the doc would be flip and snickering.

It’s not. It’s actually something a conservative-thinking prude could be okay with, as it passes along information here and there that would support the view that pornography is basically demonic. It also passes along the view that it’s all pretty harmless and that the anti-porn forces are a fairly tedious bunch. And it is fairly funny here and there.

The drugstore toupee that Deep Throat‘s writer-director-producer Gerard Damiano wears during his interview says it all, if you ask me.

Inside Deep Throat, which reportedly wouldn’t have been made without the obsessive interest in the subject by producer Brian Grazer, follows the story of the most profitable film of all time right into the scuzzy deep pockets of the mafia, the reactionary mentality of Nixon-era politicians and prosecutors, the ready-teddy libido of the American public in the early `70s and the sadnesses of Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems.

The commentators include Throat‘s Damiano, some of his former cronies, two or three prosecutor or law-enforcement types, Jong, Reems, a friend of Lovelace’s along with a disapproving sister, two or three guys who showed the legendary film in their theatres in the early `70s, Georgina Spelvin, Susan Brownmiller, disco singer Andrea True (“More, More, More”), John Waters, Camille Paglia, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer.

If there’s a single message than comes through, it’s that working in pornography always seems to lead to great unhappiness and regret for the performers. This point was made by Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Boogie Nights, I think, and seems pretty much supported by facts.

I don’t think anyone needs to be reminded that porn actors and filmmakers are, 96% of the time, staggeringly un-talented people, which of course is what makes porn films so godawful to sit through, but there’s no escaping this observation, in any event.

Barbato and Bailey explore Damiano’s making of the flick in South Florida, the diseased relationship between Lovelace and her psychotic boyfriend (i.e., a control freak who taught her the deep-throat technique), the cultural reaction after the film started to get around in respectable circles, the legal attacks upon it (and particularly upon Reems, who was facing five years in jail in the mid ’70s simply because he acted in it), Lovelace’s difficult, somewhat sad life in the `80s and `90s (she died in a car crash in ’02), and Reems’ descent into alcoholism until he swore off booze and converted to Christianity in the mid `90s.

Reems is today a successful real-estate broker based in Park City, Utah, which of course places him right smack dab in the middle of this year’s Sundance festival. I impulsively called Reems on my cell phone right after Monday night’s screening, and damned if he didn’t pick up. We’re supposed to talk sometime this weekend.

The best material comes from an elderly Florida distributor (forgotten his name, notes weren’t provided) who played Throat and ran afoul of some South Florida goombahs who threatened everyone involved so as to grab an inordinate share of the box-office. While he’s talking to the camera, his wife sits some 20 or 30 feet away and crabs about how he should stop talking, because she’s still afraid of the mob guys.

A New York journalist friend who saw Inside Deep Throat two days ago called it “fun and fascinating, if a little too glib. It’s amazing who they dug up — Reems, Damiano, Spelvin, True. But too many of the pro-First Amendment types seem like the usual suspects: Hefner, Paglia, Waters, Vidal.

“The film delves into the hugeness of porn today, but it has nothing to say about the pornofication of the culture,” he added.

He’s right — the doc could have made more out of this. It could have explored the various forms of pornography that have become commonplace. Pornography has arguably become the dominant social metaphor of our times. It seeps out of every cultural pore, out of nearly every act of mass-media attention-getting.

Paris Hilton is a pornographic manifestation, and I’m not even referring to her sex tape.

Mary Hart, Pat O’Brien and Jann Carl of Entertainment Tonight are pornographers of a mainstream, glitzy stripe.

Every day, I believe, I’m confronted with architectural pornography on the streets of Los Angeles.

It’s gotten so that porn’s least pernicious aspect, by far, is the sexual. Internet porn (especially the amateur stuff) seems so innocuous and inoffensive alongside corporate-level porn that it doesn’t bear mentioning in the same breath.

It Begins Again

Every year five or six films first seen at the Sundance Film Festival punch through and become movies that regular ticket-buyers want to see, or at least feel they should try to catch up with. Or is the number more like seven or eight?

It may be a tad higher this year. I’m envisioning — hearing about — eleven films, give or take, although I’m presuming at least two or three of these will fall on their face. Two or three others not showing up on anyone’s lists right now will also pop through, if previous history means anything.

Hustle & Flow, absolutely. The Chumscrubber. Wolf Creek, for sure. The Dying Gaul….but one should always be wary of a movie with the word “dying” in its title, as it always seems to promise moroseness and downer `tudes. The Aristocrats….possibly. The Jacket . Layer Cake, definitely. Dirty Love, but it sounds extremely shallow. Maybe The Matador.

And The Upside of Anger, for sure, because I’ve seen it and I know it plays in a way that will fare pretty well with general audiences. (Especially due to Kevin Costner’s extremely ingratiating performance.) And Sebastian Cordero’s Cronicas, which I wrote about last Friday.

It’s not like I’m the hippest guy in the room or anything. Most of the handicappers have mentioned these titles in some fashion. But I’ve heard from two acquisitions executives that Hustle & Flow is one to see, and I’m picking up radio-wave signals about it besides, so that’s my big pick of the litter.

I used to call around and try to zero in on the hot tickets in advance, and I’d usually end up being about 60% right…sometimes. But it wouldn’t matter because the films that are fated to penetrate have a certain unstoppable energy about them, and recognition of this always happens with or without my being ahead of the game or not, so who cares? None of it matters. Okay, some of it does.

I’m acknowledging that for most people, reading about Sundance activity — the focus of part of today’s column, as well as the next four (I’ll be running three columns next week instead of the usual two) — is of some interest, and I think it should be paid attention to, but it’s a bit of an insular industry experience. Fun to attend and write about, but….well, let’s leave it at that.

My plane leaves today around 2 pm, I’ll be in the Park City condo by 6 pm or so, off to Robertson’s for groceries by 7 pm, and then over to a private little dinner party being thrown by Paramount Classics honcho Ruth Vitale at her Deer Valley home.
And then the mess-around starts Thursday afternoon.

I’m going to try and file something on Friday. Photos and some random observations about whatever’s moving at the moment is about all I can manage. I’m going to try and work in an appreciation of Sharon Waxman’s smooth and highly readable Rebels on the Backlot (Harper), which is being celebrated at a party in Park City on Monday afternoon.

Rundown

I called one of my regular sources the other day, and she insisted the whole Sundance shakedown is right there in the pages of program guide.

You just have to know how to decode the smoothly bizarre press prose (Note: by the official aesthetic appreciation standards of Gilmore, John Cooper, Shari Frillot, Diane Weyerman, Trevor Goth, etc., any film can be made to sound artistically worthy and intriguing…even Catwoman) and be up on the recent history of the filmmakers, especially the producers.

Hustle & Flow stars the excellent but relatively unsung Terrence Howard (who had a stand-out second-banana role in Ray, and will be seen in Paul Haggis’ Crash as well as in the Sundance Premiere selection Lackawanna Blues). Directed and written by Craig Brewer, and shot in and around Memphis, it’s about a pimp trying to break out and become a successful rapper. Jim Sheridan is currently cooking up a similar-sound film about the struggle of 50 Cent trying to leave behind a life of crime, etc.

The Aristocrats, a documentary, has been described by Gilmore in the Sundance program notes as “one of the most shocking and, perhaps for some, offensive films you will ever see.” Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza’s film shows the same filthy joke being told more than 100 times. Repetition dulls the point of anything, so how can such a film live up to Gilmore’s description? A lot of folks will want to see it anyway, I imagine, give the hype.

Oh, jeez…it’s 10:30 already. My plane is leaving in less than three hours and I can’t even finish this. Terrific.

Well, just go to the Sundance site (www.sundance.org) and read what you can. Like I said, I’ll start checking in on Friday and we’ll just take it, film by film. I’ve got a party list and between tomorrow night and Thursday, 1.27, it looks as if at least 56 parties (all lavishly catered, and probably costing tens of thousands each) will be thrown.

Avoid `Ems

I’ve already said I’m against seeing Thumbsucker on general principle, as I loathe the idea of watching a film about a young guy (Lou Pucci) with…I don’t even want to think about it. If someone make a movie some day about a guy who can’t stop picking his nose, I’ll try to avoid that one also.

9 Songs — Michael Winterbottom’s low-budgeter has sex scenes that are almost as bad as anything I’ve ever seen in a straight porn film, plus some very slip-shod concert footage. An almost totally worthless film with actors, on top of everything else, who aren’t even especially attractive with their clothes off.

The Ballad of Jack and Rose — Decently made, intelligently conceived and executed, and boasting another first-rate Daniel Day Lewis performance (is there any other kind?) …but too quirky and oddball for my tastes. There’s a repressed father-daughter incest angle that doesn’t quite manifest, or at the least is insufficiently developed.

Talent Roster

I thought I’d throw in a plug for the recently re-jiggered Discland column, which is now being edited by Jonathan Doyle, plus a note or two about Doyle and the contributors:

Jonathan Doyle recently completed his Masters degree in Film Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is the founder and webmaster of the Jonathan Demme website, Storefront Demme (www.storefrontdemme.com) and a programmer for The Fantasia Film Festival, a popular showcase for Asian films, horror films, and other assorted weirdness. He has also written film criticism for countingdown.com and the Canadian film journal, Synoptique. In spite of Jeffrey Wells’ disapproval, he is proud to call The Life Aquatic and The Aviator his favorite films of 2004.

Jason Comerford is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts’ School of Filmmaking, class of `01. He is currently working for Erwin-Penland Advertising as a copywriter/proofreader, while also working as a journalist. His recent pieces include a lengthy review of The Passion of the Christ and tributes to Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein for Film Score Monthly.

Christopher Hyatt is a lifelong movie buff living in Chicago with a taste for films that go off the beaten track in terms of style, subject matter, and sensibility, a taste that leads him in all sorts of directions film-wise. As far as DiscLand is concerned, he hopes this will make him “a voice for lovers of cult and offbeat films.” He is also a longtime reader of this column, going back to the reel.com days, and is taking his first baby steps toward becoming a filmmaker, himself.

At only 23, Joey Tayler is the youngest member of the DiscLand team. After graduating from Marquette University two years ago, he began working as a film critic for the Waukesha Freeman, one of the largest newspapers in suburban Milwaukee. He also works as an assistant producer at a local film production outfit. Despite all that, he’s still got too much time on his hands and loves writing about film. His least favorite film of 2004 was Dogville.
“Other writers are waiting in the wings and, as their writing is posted in the weeks to come, the column will expand and move in new and unexpected directions,” says Doyle. “In addition to DVD reviews, future editions of DiscLand will feature DVD editorials, news/rumors, interviews, and much more.”

A 1.19.05 item in the New York Post‘s “Page Six” column read, “Don’t assume that Golden Globes winners will walk off with Oscars next month. The idea that the Globes are still “a major influencer of the Oscar nominations or final outcome is an embarrassment,” declares movie writer David Poland, “much the same as so many Americans believing that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for 9/11.” Hollywood columnist Jeffrey Wells agrees, noting that the Globes, which are given out by the laughably dilettantish Hollywood Foreign Press Association, “really don’t count anymore. They’re a distraction at best, and are at the beginning of a stage in their evolution in which they’re going to be seen as a bigger and broader object of mockery as the years wear on.” Wells denounces “the dopey idea that 80-something international correspondents, many of a somewhat dubious or shaky reputation, are any kind of harbingers of the sentiments of nearly 6,000 Academy voters.”

I’ll have more to say about the Golden Globe awards on Wednesday, but aside from the surprise of Leonardo DiCaprio winning the Best Actor trophy (a fiercely committed actor who, as Howard Hughes, goes for broke, but still looks like a kid playing dress-up) and The Aviator itself winning for Best Drama, which frankly surprised me, the underlying feeling is that the Golden Globes really don’t count any more…not really. They’re a distraction at best, and are at the beginning of a stage in their evolution in which they’re going to be seen as a bigger and broader object of mockery as the years wear on. The dopey idea that 80-something international correspondents, many of a somewhat dubious or shaky reputation, are any kind of harbingers of the sentiments of nearly 6000 Academy voters has never seemed more pronounced. As David Poland wrote last night, the idea of “the Globes as a major influencer of the Oscar nominations or final outcome is an embarrassment, much the same as so many Americans believing that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for 9/11. Some ideas belong on the periphery.”

There’s a clip in the trailer for Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbatos’ Inside Deep Throat Inside Deep Throat (Universal, 2.11) quoting a guy involved with the distribution of this infamous 1972 porn film saying, “We have so much cash, we don’t even count it — we weigh it!” This alone supports my long-held suspicion that this will be one very cool documentary…fascinating, hilarious, whatever.