A preview of what we're covering at this year's Sundance Film Festival, including new films by Ramin Bahrani, James Ponsoldt, Lena Dunham, Riley Stearns, and Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead.
The latest on Blu-ray and DVD, including Bowling For Columbine, The Death of Stalin, and Pacific Rim: Uprising.
I have feelings more than ideas. I am tired, but very happy. My 11th annual film festival has just wrapped at the Virginia Theater in my home town, and what I can say is, it worked. There is no such thing as the best year or the worst year. But there is such a thing as a festival where every single film seemed to connect strongly with the audience. Sitting in the back row, seeing these films another time, sensing the audience response, I thought: Yes, these films are more than good, and this audience is a gathering of people who feel that.
Let me tell you about the last afternoon, the screening of a newly restored 70mm print of "Baraka." The 1,600 seats of the main floor and balcony were very nearly filled. The movie exists of about 96 minutes of images, music and sound. Nothing else. No narration. No subtitles. No plot, no characters. Just the awesome beauty of this planet and the people who live on it. The opening scene of a monkey, standing chest-deep in a warm pool in the snow, looking. Looking in a very long and patient shot, which invites us to see through his eyes. Then the stars in the sky above. "Baraka" is a meditation on what it means to be awake to the world.
It's a good thing Ebertfest is no longer called the Overlooked Film Festival. One of my choices this year, "Frozen River," was in danger of being overlooked when I first invited it, but then it realized the dream of every indie film, found an audience and won two Oscar nominations. Yet even after the Oscar nods, it has grossed only about $2.5 million and has been unseen in theaters by most of the nation.
Those numbers underline the crisis in independent, foreign or documentary films--art films. More than ever, the monolithic U.S. distribution system freezes out films lacking big stars, big ad budgets, ready-made teenage audiences, or exploitable hooks. When an unconventional film like "Slumdog Millionaire" breaks out, it's the exception that proves the rule. While it was splendid, it was not as original or really as moving as the American indie "Chop Shop," made a year earlier. The difference is, the hero of "Chop Shop" wasn't trying to win a million rupees--just to survive.
In a startling upset, "The Dark Knight" failed to make the cut in the Best Picture category Thursday, as this year's Academy Awards nominees were announced. The Batman drama, second top-grossing film of all time after "Titanic," was also a critical favorite and looked to many like a shoo-in.
"Waltz with Bashir," Ari Folman's animated film about an Israeli soldier's flashbacks, has been named best film of 2008 by the National Society of Film Critics, the most prestigious of the critic'a groups giving year-end awards.
This just in:
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *1. Hanna Schygulla (The Edge of Heaven) - 29 (Strand Releasing) 2. Viola Davis (Doubt) - 29 (on fewer ballots) 3. Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) - 24
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *1. Eddie Marsan (Happy-Go-Lucky) 41 (Miramax) 2. Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) - 35 3. Josh Brolin (Milk) - 29
Great Movies
