It turns out that Seth Rogen merely needed to drop the lovability factor to expand his range. In Observe and Report, the actor plays a crazed, bipolar mall cop frantically engaged in his own lopsided ambition—a far cry from the idle stoner Rogen has consistently portrayed since his teen years. It's a niftily subversive performance that takes as much inspiration from the movie's background as it does from the acerbic script.

Directed by Jody Hill, a former classmate of fellow upcoming American filmmakers David Gordon Green and Craig Zobel, Observe and Report is Hill's second feature following the cult hit, The Fist Foot Way—which barely received distribution but managed to catch the attention of Will Ferrell and numerous other comedic stars following its film festival run.

Hill's story very nearly rejects all traditions of American commercial cinema, especially those involving couplings: Ronnie's romantic interest, a ditzy beautician played by the great Anna Faris, barely acknowledges his existence — even when he manages to land in bed with her. Ronnie, however, fails to notice how everyone condescends to him until it's too late. Finally rejected, he goes rogue, and the sudden eruption of violence reveals the slapstick potential that also marked the climax of Fist Foot. In both cases, sensationalism carries the day — but it gets an extra boost from the intrinsic absurdity of the plot.

Observe and Report suffers from a few structural issues, occasionally turning into a series of vignettes rather than a fully developed story. When Ronnie's breakdown arrives, the general absurdity of it gives way to the thrill of his subjective triumphs. Hill remains faithful to his oeuvre by forcing us to sympathize with a maniac. He spoke to me about how he got here as well as how to see his HBO show for free (hint: steal it).

You, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green and your cinematographer Tim Orr all attended North Carolina School of Arts. What kept you all together?

The fact that it wasn't in Los Angeles and New York made a big difference. It felt like an artsy bubble. David was the second graduating class out of there. We were the third. Now, it's a lot more challenging to get in there. I feel like they got a lot of regular guys, just fans of film. Being around those guys was pretty inspiring, at least for me. In high school, there were a couple of dudes I would talk about movies with, but I didn't really fit in. In college, I met these guys who were like, "Wow, you're into the same kind of stuff I'm into." David Green is like an encyclopedia with film. To hang out with him, you learn more than from some world cinema class or some shit. They're my barometer when it comes to my own work. I show everything to those guys. David saw a cut of this movie and gave me some ideas, and I totally stole 'em.

Your first feature, The Fist Foot Way, developed a cult following — but never made much money. How did you manage to set up a studio film?

I really don't know how that happened. Warner Bros. bought the pitch [for Observe and Report] right after Sundance. I never really sold anything; this was the first thing I sold. I never got an agent until the week before that. Seth Rogen had a lot to do with getting it through the system. When you have a guy like that on your side, he's kind of like a monster whose movies generate money. Studios understand that. You've probably heard this a million times, but I like the same filmmakers everybody likes. Guys in the seventies were great. What was great about the seventies was that it was essentially independent cinema mindsets on movies with big budgets. It'd be nice if we could do that, because I like big movies, but I also like weird movies. A combination of that would be amazing if it could happen.

In Observe and Report, Seth Rogen plays a psychopath. It's definitely a change of pace for him, to say the least.

I give a lot of credit to Seth for reinventing [himself]. It's like when Paul Thomas Anderson used Adam Sander for Punch Drunk Love . I was never a big Adam Sandler fan. I'm not a big comedy fan in general.

That's ironic.

It is, a little bit. It's always interesting -- I definitely wanted to do something like that. Seth is so cool because he could have made a bunch of money doing a romantic comedy after Knocked Up. He's kind of a rebel because he doesn't want to do that. He wants to make stuff that's weird, cool, different. I give him credit. I don't know how people will respond to seeing that in this film, but he doesn't give a shit.

Do you want to keep doing studio movies or would you go back to the independent route?

I would go independent. That's a promise I made to myself right around the time Fist Foot got into Sundance. I'm not one of the guys who casts a wide net, who pitches to a bunch of studios and waits for something to hit. I hope to continue with this, write something, set it up, get it made somehow. What filmmaker wouldn't take a bigger budget? There's no reason not to if they're going to let you do what you want to do. Until something happens there, I'll keep going this route. If there was something too weird that they wouldn't make, I think I've got enough money on my credit card.

I have to admit I haven't seen the television show you work on, East Bound and Down, because I don't get HBO.

You know what? You can just steal it on BitTorrent. I've been telling everybody this. I steal music, so whatever.

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An early scene in X-Files: I Want To Believe, Chris Carter’s belated follow-up visit to Fox’s cult show, signals a statement of defeat. Characteristically deadpan Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and meekly distant Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) revisit their old stomping grounds at the FBI to advise on an apparent supernatural case, culling from their backgrounds as former agents for the government’s least-discussed division. But those were different times, and things have changed: They pause at the door to contemplate the adjacent photographs. Cut to a close-up of George W. Bush, and cue the classic eerie whistle that X-Files fans consider their theme song. In the frame across from Dubya, J. Edgar Hoover projects a blank stare. A whispery echo blows through the soundtrack; Mulder and Scully stare back. For the first time in the history of these characters, they look legitimately frightened.

The glance of confusion they share is the only inspired scene in this dispiritingly subpar sci-fi romp. That fleeting vignette delves into the original appeal of the series and, consequently, dates it. A full decade has passed since the last big-screen X-Files endeavor, which pitted the agents against a mysterious alien force aided by the foggy antagonists at FEMA, properly identified as America’s “secret government.” As the twisted nature of FEMA is no longer a secret to the nation, the new threats to American security are hidden in plain sight.

Giving the scathing insight of this fleeting moment, it’s a shame that Carter penned such a bland story to go with it. As if distracted by the real problems of modern times, the writer-director-creator crafts virtually incoherent intrigue about corrupt foreign scientists looking to experiment on human bodies and tacks on an unnecessary psychic subplot. He has made a distended mediocre episode devoid of cogent storytelling when he should have made a movie.

The best entries in the series, which ran from 1993 to 2000, were delightfully transparent pulp diversions, exploring the innate thrill of indulging in conspiracy theories. Carter showed that the country’s greatest fantasies—from Roswell to Bigfoot—were legitimate aspects of the national mind-set. “The truth is out there” was a less a tagline than an expression of hope, a desire to understand the secrets of our fragile existence. Mulder and Scully’s polarized outlooks (he was the believer, she the skeptic) helped provide an underlying legitimacy to the ridiculous supernatural conceits. “I want to believe,” then, represents a step back. It’s whiny and lacking in conviction, much like the sorry excuse for a screenplay. Scully’s struggles with her Christian faith suggest a certain intelligence to Carter’s initial concept, but the sloppy conflict and disconnected ideas never bring her struggle into the arena of magic realism that gave the X-Files its raison d’etre.

It appears that Carter’s often smartly devised fanboy scenarios masked his inability to create authentic human drama. He makes a bold leap here by placing a lot of focus on Mulder and Scully’s post-X-Files romantic entanglement. Now we know why the duo’s unspoken sexual tension was never fully realized on the show. Flopping around in bed together and locking lips as the camera lavishly swirls around them, Duchovny and Anderson generate zero chemistry, revealing their inability to collectively radiate a sense of believable passion or any other human emotions. Mulder and Scully should only function as investigative wunderkinds. Take that away, and you’re left with bad acting.

X-Files: I Want to Believe is not a good movie, but its flaws are revealing. Carter’s intention of injecting topicality into the movie only testifies to his desperation. The randomly psychic Father Joe (Billy Connolly, hilarious in spite of himself), whose inexplicable ability helps the FBI track down a missing agent, has a pedophilic history. Meanwhile, Scully tries to save a child patient by arguing in favor of stem-cell research. These are important issues worthy of contemporary discussion; but, by situating them in the X-Files universe, I Want to Believe places them on an even playing field with flying saucers. In the end, the only sincere belief is that delusions prevail.



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Will Ferrell makes me miss the old Bill Murray. In his present state, Ferrell’s persistent blank stare and mock gravitas in increasingly tedious studio comedies make for a cheap facsimile of Murray’s wry bewilderment in his endearing early accomplishments. To that end, Ferrell’s latest vehicle, Step Brothers—which pairs him with a less grating John C. Reilly—makes me miss the era of What About Bob? Both movies portray dangerously unstable grown-ups as sources of dysfunction in seemingly wholesome American families, but where Murray’s Bob Wiley develops into an object of striking comic juxtaposition to the stable Marvin family, Ferrell and Reilly are content to bounce off their varying expressions of instability. The rest of the suburban clan is a cardboard illusion.

And that’s the point, sadly. Step Brothers signals another era of American comedy: It’s the sort of thing that will assist future scholars in crafting histories of 21st-century stupidity. The script, penned by Ferrell and director Adam McKay, opens by stealing a priceless line from George W. Bush: “Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.” Such an impenetrably confounding outlook drives the plot. 

Minutes later, the title card pops up while Ferrell and Reilly meet cute, forced under the same roof when the characters’ senior parents (Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen) marry and force these two indolent stay-at-home fortysomethings to share a room. So we’re to expect a keen spoof, or at least a clever subversion, of the modern household. Instead, the filmmakers unleash an incessant stream of crass vulgarities, scatological one-liners and a fleeting cameo from Ferrell’s testicles that, in retrospect, might provide the movie with its sole memorable sequence. It’s a snapshot of our cultural regression.

Ferrell/Reilly are surely happy with the idiotic revelry they’ve produced. Good for them! I’m not asking for a kitchen-sink comedy or anything remotely so high minded. But the introductory line of Step Brothers should suggest the depth of its thematic intent. Instead, it’s more like a statement of purpose. The movie embodies the nonsensical logic of our confused lame-duck president. It delivers facile humor that only the fictional protagonists could dream up. With the Bush quote, Step Brothers does get a laugh, but only incidentally—and it’s not even original material. 



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The last time I ran into Michel Gondry, he was shit out of luck. Standing outside the Loews on East 13th Street and 3rd Avenue, the filmmaking expert on all things quirky and surreal—from trippy Bjork music videos to the Oscar-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—couldn’t gain entry to a sold-out screening of Knocked Up. Fortunately, my own companion for the evening had abandoned me at the last minute, and Gondry took his place.

The next day, I reached out to him to see what he thought about the film, but the director chose to keep his feelings secret. Nevertheless, Gondry certainly has strong opinions about the joy of film viewing, as demonstrated by his latest feature, Be Kind Rewind, and the highly original exhibit at Deitch Projects (currently on display) attached to it. The movie stars Jack Black and Mos Def as two goofy New Jersey video store clerks who, after accidentally erasing all the titles in the shop, decide to remake the movies themselves—a process that Gondry calls “sweding.”

You didn’t want to share your thoughts on Knocked Up, but isn’t sweding a form of film criticism?

No. I don’t think I’m giving my opinion on how a movie must be made. I’m giving a suggestion for how people can have a good time making movies. That’s not to say that those movies would be better. They’re only better for those who make them. It’s like when you make a home movie. When you do something with your friends that’s not just shooting in the street—there’s some organization to it—you’re going to have a good time. You’ll laugh, seeing your friend being ridiculous, trying to be this character, and your other friend stuttering. It will make sense to you, even if it’s completely absurd. You’ll have this pride. To me, that’s as good as watching a movie, if not much better. It’s a judgment on the activity of going to see a movie, not on making the movie. I’m learning how to make movies, and I’m not sure I even know how to do it that well. I know that if people believe in their own movies, they will like them better.

Are you happy with the way the exhibit turned out?

I’m taking a chance. I’m not sure it’s going to work. I’m proposing [with the gallery] making a movie in two hours. It’s a system where people come in, work in two different workshops to create their own story, write a list of shots and there’s a miniature backlot with little sets where they can shoot their story. Then they can watch it in the video store we’ve recreated from Be Kind Rewind.

In Be Kind Rewind, the sweded movies really take off with residents of Passaic, NJ. Will Soho residents get to rent the movies produced at Deitch?

There is no money involved. Actually, I don’t encourage sweding. In the movie, they do that because they erased the movies. Ultimately, they’re fought by the studio and have to make their own film, which is what I suggest people do. I don’t think sweding is good in itself. I see a lot of kids doing Star Wars films. This idea is to do your own story. It’s more fun.



So the gallery embodies the same idea as the movie.

I’m pushing people to be more creative, even those who are not in the most creative places. The thing is, in poor, rundown neighborhoods, people are even more exposed to the star system. They have so little to do for themselves that they get brainwashed by the people who control the culture. That’s why I give the example [in the movie] of Fats Waller. In the history of black music, a more repressed community came up with a very creative way to entertain themselves. Nothing was done for them, so they had to create their own entertainment. Then people made money with something that was created by poor people.

Photos by Kristy Liebowitz





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Roy Scheider, the actor perhaps best known for his lead role in Jaws but also responsible for many memorable performances of the last three decades, died yesterday in Arkansas. He was 75.

To me, Scheider’s passing has far greater reverberations than the untimely demise of Heath Ledger. It signals the loss of a major artist whose fully developed body of work remains wholly distinct from the formulaic trajectory of so many leading men. He was refreshingly believable as the hardened police chief vainly attempting to guard an unsuspecting town from the monstrous creature lurking off shore in Steven Spielber's 1975 classic. And yet Hollywood formula didn’t sit that well with him: You could find him as a pimp in Klute and Gene Hackman’s withdrawn sidekick in The French Connection, but never a one-man army or incredulous hustler. The Jaws sequel was his sole miscalculation, but he followed it up with All that Jazz, Bob Fosse’s surrealist musical that remains potent to this day. The vibrant movie concludes with the show-stopping “Bye Bye Life,” where Scheider’s Fosse-like character bodes farewell to a troubled existence with a mixture of excitement and melancholia. It could be played at the actor’s funeral.

Scheider’s later roles were minor, but he always stole the show. In David Cronenberg’s nightmarish Naked Lunch adaptation, he was like Freddy Krueger in scrubs, and I couldn’t get enough of his return to investigative roots in last year’s underseen noir, If I Didn’t Care. The movie had a slight, forgettable premise and lo-fi production values, but Scheider brought the material to life in a fantastically subtle role. You could tell that he cared, even if you didn’t.





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Trevor Moore and his colleagues in the raunchy sketch comedy group Whitest Kids U’Know were early viral sensations, posting videos of their offbeat bits online during the baby days of YouTube. They got a lot of media coverage last year when a Budweiser ad featured a slapping joke that seemed heavily derived from their own work, but that was hardly a hindrance. The group has developed a steady group of fans that allowed their upstart stature to solidify into a career. Now they’re minor television stars, with a movie project that just wrapped and the televised version of their performance beginning its second season on IFC tonight at 11 p.m. Trevor spoke with New York Press about the experiences of then and now.

You started out doing weekly sketch comedy at Pianos in Soho. That’s still a part of your schedule, but now you’ve got the television show and a movie project. How much shameless self-promotion did it take to get to this point?

We weren’t very good at the self-promotion thing. At one point, we spent like fifty bucks to have some cards made that said where our show was. We never handed them out. Everyone still has a pack of cards. We did the Pianos show for three or four years. We wrote a new show every week so we got a lot of repeat people coming back. After we built a crowd that way, TimeOut New York came out and liked the show. They did a really nice piece on us. From there, we started getting really packed crowds.

How did you manage the transition to television?

The first season is a lot of our live sketches from our shows. We had 300-odd sketches on backlog. The one weird thing was working with a crew, instead of just the five of us. We had this really stupid idea for a submarine sketch—it was like a ten second sketch. But we showed up at the set and it was built like a submarine. Somebody spent a long time on this really stupid idea.

Your writing sessions must be pretty wack.

We write in different ways. We’ll sit around, people come in with ideas and we see if they make everybody laugh. IFC has been really awesome about basically making no content notes whatsoever. It’s a big First Amendment channel. They were just like, “Go crazy.” We can do whatever we want. I don’t think they’ve even read all the scripts this season.

The show started out on Fuze, which censored you a little more.

We didn’t have the same freedom. More people watch IFC, so it’s a double bonus. It wasn’t like we were complete idiots. We knew when we would get bleeped [on Fuze]. We’re not going to curb how these characters talk. In some situations, it actually made stuff funnier.

You’ve been away from Pianos for the last four months.

[Fellow Whitest Kids member] Zack [Cregger] and I have been in California doing a movie [called Playboys] for Fox Atomic. We’re almost done with it. We’ll start doing live shows again in March or April.

What’s the deal with your movie?

It’s about two guys in high school. One of them is obsessed with Playboy and girls, and the other one is an abstinence kid. He has a long-term girlfriend who keeps pressuring him to have sex, but he’s not ready. He agrees to have sex with her on prom night, but he’s nervous, so his friend gets him really drunk. He opens the wrong door and falls down a flight of steps and goes into a coma for four years. When he wakes up, all of his friends are gone from his hometown and his girlfriend is now a Playboy playmate. So he takes a roadtrip across the country with his friend to reconnect with the girl. It’s a hard R movie, but it’s innocent at the same time. Since Zack and I wrote and directed it, we had complete control. We’re going through the first round of editing now, so we’ll see how much control we end up having through it. They’re thinking it’ll be a fall release.

Sounds similar to the upcoming Anna Faris movie, I Know What Boys Like.

I don’t that’ll matter. The tones of the two movies will be night and day.

IMDb users are surely dying to know the identity of Horsedick.MPEG.

That’s the name of the gangster rapper in the movie.

Do you want to stay in the movie business?

We want to get a Whitest Kids movie off the ground. We’ve written a script for that. Once the WGA strike is over, we’ll probably see who’s interested in doing it. We’d like to follow the Monty Python formula, where you do a TV show and a movie every couple of years.

Interesting. I had you pegged as Jackass guys.

I think the Jackass movies are really funny, but that’s not sketch comedy.

What’s your take on the state of sketch comedy? Most people think Saturday Night Live is a lost cause.

Personally, I try not to watch other sketch comedy because I don’t want to be influenced by it. As for SNL, people have been saying it’s not good anymore for as long as I can remember, but I don’t know if that’s true. I think it’s aimed for a young group. I loved it when I was fourteen, fifteen—basically before you can drive, because that’s when you’re home on weekends. When you get older, you’re not as attached to it. I think the Adam Sandler/Chris Farley years were way better, but there are kids now who love this cast. In five or six years, they’ll say the same thing. It’s all about what you grow up with.




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Before it was commonplace to champion eccentric cinema, Amos Vogel had it down pat. Actually, it’s never been commonplace to champion eccentric cinema, but much of what the Cinema 16 club founder did with his weekly film gatherings beginning in the late 1940s was take supposedly outlandish films—many from other other countries—and unleash their appeal on unsuspecting audiences. Hence, Vogel’s program included early works by Werner Herzog and experimental director Maya Deren (whose perspective eventually influenced David Lynch), and many other obscure short films and artifacts (Yugoslavian animations and unfinished Sergei Eisenstein films both had their moments to shine).

The impact of Vogel’s inclusive cinefilia, which lead to his key role in starting the New York Film Festival in 1967, gets a comprehensive survey tonight as a part of IFC Center’s “Stranger than Fiction” series with the biographical documentary Film as Subversive Art: Amos Vogel & Cinema 16. Directed by Paul Cronin, the movie provides a pathway to understanding Vogel’s influence—and there’s a strong chance it’ll make you rush to nearby Kim’s Video to follow his advice. Former Vogel collaborator Jack Goelman will be present after the film for a discussion.

Film as Subversive Art: Amos Vogel & Cinema 16 shows tonight at 8 p.m. at the IFC Center.



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Documentaries were particularly strong at the Sundance Film Festival this year. Here’s a look at some of the highlights.

Did Morgan Spurlock find Osama bin Laden? Rumors to that effect have swirled about for months, leading up to the premiere of the Super Size Me director’s latest documentary, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? Turns out the answer isn’t just no—it’s no, and who cares? The movie is a light, entertaining overview of the legend built out of bin Laden’s elusive state since 9/11, and it reaches the conclusion that finding the infamous Al-Qaida leader matters less than stripping him of his power. “He’s like Keyser Soze—everywhere and nowhere,” Spurlock told me shortly after the film’s premiere here at the Sundance Film Festival. “He’s this mythic figure with so much influence over people around the world, so in order to take that away, you have to address those problems we’ve seen around the world that make people want to follow him.”  The production, which lasted two and a half years, took Spurlock on a meandering tour throughout the Middle East, while his pregnant wife waited for him in New York. By no means a masterpiece, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? (which will probably hit theaters in March) is still a firm investigation into our troubled times.

It’s not the only Sundance doc grappling with an indefinable subject. Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired offers a revealing look at the masterful director’s rape trial that marred his life in the United States throughout the 1970s. His ultimate self-imposed exile to France usually overwhelms accounts of the litigation process, which was corrupted by a publicity-hungry judge and a series of unfair developments. Zenovich does a masterful job of drawing parallels between Polanski’s ominous films and his troubled life, but she also manages to turn much of the story into an entertaining affair. “It’s a very serious case, but I tried to show some irony and wit in some of the circumstances,” she said during an interview yesterday. Although Polanski refused to participate in the film, he did agree to meet with Zenovich off-camera. “I heard through his agent that he didn’t want to be involved,” she said, “but I called him and he said, ‘Let’s meet.’ It was great to look him in the eye. It was very satisfying.”

The title for the film was suggested by Zenovich’s close friend and colleague, Alex Gibney, whose Sundance doc Gonzo: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson reconstructs the quirks of the quintessentially bizarre Rolling Stone journalist through fantastic archival footage and interviews. Gonzo, which Magnolia Pictures will release in March, illuminates both the good and the ill of Thompson’s fiery career. What’s fascinating about the film is the way Gibney finds voices from every ideological angle to voice their approval of the late druggy scribe—from Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner to Pat Buchanan.  “Politics is theater, and Hunter was a theatrical person,” Gibney said over a cup of coffee on Main Street a few days ago. “That’s probably why he connected with so many politicians.” Asked to identify writers following in Thompson’s footsteps in the wake of his suicide in 2005, Gibney was coy. “There are a few imitators,” he said, identifying former New York Press columnist and current Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi as one of them. “But nobody has managed to really capture the pulse of America.”

Maybe not, but many of the other strong documentaries at Sundance certainly tap into the nation’s hotly debated topical issues. In addition to the three discussed above, there’s Bigger, Stronger, Faster, a wise and hilarious look at the controversy surrounding steroids (and why all the hate is misguided); Anvil: The Story of Anvil, the most comically-inspired document of a goofy rock group since Spinal Tap, but this time the band is real; and Trouble the Water, which contains footage shot by a New Orleans-based hip hop artist from her home in 2005 as levees broke and her neighborhood drowned. With home video of scenes that non-New Orleans dwellers only know from television, it’s the ideal rebuttal to Cloverfield: Authentic, intelligent, and no need for special effects to be scary. 




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Did Morgan Spurlock find Osama bin Laden? Rumors to that effect have swirled about for months, leading up to the premiere of the Super Size Me director’s latest documentary, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? Turns out the answer isn’t just no—it’s no, and who cares? The movie is a light, entertaining overview of the legend built out of bin Laden’s elusive state since 9/11, and it reaches the conclusion that finding the infamous Al-Qaida leader matters less than stripping him of his power. “He’s like Keyser Soze—everywhere and nowhere,” Spurlock told me shortly after the film’s premiere here at the Sundance Film Festival. “He’s this mythic figure with so much influence over people around the world, so in order to take that away, you have to address those problems we’ve seen around the world that make people want to follow him.”  The production, which lasted two and a half years, took Spurlock on a meandering tour throughout the Middle East, while his pregnant wife waited for him in New York. By no means a masterpiece, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? (which will probably hit theaters in March) is still a firm investigation into our troubled times.

It’s not the only Sundance doc grappling with an indefinable subject. Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, offers a revealing look at the masterful director’s rape trial that marred his life in the United States throughout the 1970s. His ultimate self-imposed exile to France usually overwhelms accounts of the litigation process, which was corrupted by a publicity-hungry judge and a series of unfair developments. Zenovich does a masterful job of drawing parallels between Polanski’s ominous films and his troubled life, but she also manages to turn much of the story into an entertaining affair. “It’s a very serious case, but I tried to show some irony and wit in some of the circumstances,” she said during an interview yesterday. Although Polanski refused to participate in the film, he did agree to meet with Zenovich off-camera. “I heard through his agent that he didn’t want to be involved,” she said, “but I called him and he said, ‘Let’s meet.’ It was great to look him in the eye. It was very satisfying.”

The title for the film was suggested by Zenovich’s close friend and colleague, Alex Gibney, whose Sundance doc Gonzo: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson reconstructs the quirks of the quintessentially bizarre Rolling Stone journalist through fantastic archival footage and interviews. Gonzo, which Magnolia Pictures will release in March, illuminates both the good and the ill of Thompson’s fiery career. What’s fascinating about the film is the way Gibney finds voices from every ideological angle to voice their approval of the late druggy scribe—from Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner to Pat Buchanan.  “Politics is theater, and Hunter was a theatrical person,” Gibney said over a cup of coffee on Main Street a few days ago. “That’s probably why he connected with so many politicians.” Asked to identify writers following in Thompson’s footsteps in the wake of his suicide in 2005, Gibney was coy. “There are a few imitators,” he said, identifying former New York Press columnist and current Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi as one of them. “But nobody has managed to really capture the pulse of America.”

Maybe not, but many of the other strong documentaries at Sundance certainly tap into the nation’s hotly debated topical issues. In addition to the three discussed above, there’s Bigger, Stronger, Faster, a wise and hilarious look at the controversy surrounding steroids (and why all the hate is misguided); Anvil: The Story of Anvil, the most comically-inspired document of a goofy rock group since Spinal Tap, but this time the band is real; and Trouble the Water, which contains footage shot by a New Orleans-based hip hop artist from her home in 2005 as levees broke and her neighborhood drowned. With home video of scenes that non-New Orleans dwellers only know from television, it’s the ideal antithesis to Cloverfield: Authentic, intelligent, and no need for special effects to be scary. 



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Every year, it seems like somebody slams Sundance for the late-January excess of parties and crass commercial sponsorship that dominates downtown Park City. Regardless of whether there’s any truth to the complaints (there’s definitely some), it still features a ton of movies—and some of them are pretty good. I arrived here on Thursday evening to catch trademark Sundance voice box Robert Redford emphasizing the festival’s progressive aspirations. “It’s a place of discovery, so you’ll find what you’ll find,” said the world’s most famous seventy-year-old redhead to a packed house at the Eccles Theatre, shortly before the opening night film, In Bruges, had its world premiere. “One of the words I’ve noticed a lot is ‘change,’” he said, and suddenly the crowd chuckled. Was it a nervous laugh, considering Redford’s preachy Lions for Lambs flopped late last year?

It did initially seem like he was revving up for a political diatribe. “God knows, you’d have to be Rip Van Winkle not to notice this country has been in need of a change,” he added—and here there was some applause, although a guy to my right actually booed—and then he came around to his point, emphasizing the role of the artist in capturing the finer points of the modern world: “Artists are the first responders. They document change as it’s coming.”

Cheesy as it sounded, Redford’s warm assertion appropriately downplayed the prevalent glitz. Colin Farrell was in the audience—he’s one of the stars of the opener, playwright Martin McDonagh’s feature-length directorial debut— but it was the movie, not the celeb, that emerged as the star of the show. Though McDonagh’s stage work remains his strong suit (The Pillowman is like Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party on speed), In Bruges suggests an intriguing new direction for him. While very European in its implementation of existential despair, In Bruges occasionally works as a black comedy. Farrell plays one of two meandering hit men (the other is played by Brendan Gleeson) whose last job goes wrong when Farrell’s character accidentally kills a child. Following the orders of their humorless boss (Ralph Fiennes), the two fellas head to the titular Belgium town and wait for instructions. Trouble ensues by way of drugs, robbery and a tangled new mission that pits them against their best interests. Although the climax feels forced and murky, McDonagh crafts a series of entertaining vignettes, and Ferrell puts on his most comically-inspired performance ever. The precise wit of In Bruges makes up for its flawed construction, and the name itself is its best slapstick joke—they’re in boring old Bruges and nothing they do can get them out.

Here’s festival joke I found: What happens when Ben Kingsley gives counseling sessions     to a drug dealer in exchange for exchange for pot?  The answer isn’t a stinging punchline, but it’s still a pretty zany comedy. The Wackness, a fairly high profile Sundance title whose premiere on Friday has both befuddled and enticed potential distributors, features Kingsley in a frumpy wig and Josh Peck as his troubled teen disciple. Jonathan Levine, the director, has a far more conventional horror movie coming out next month called All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, but here he shows a real desire to work outside the box. Set in 1994 with Guiliani-era New York City politics as the vague urban backdrop, The Wackness follows Peck’s thuggish stoner character during his last summer before college, an uncertain time for the plucky guy when anything goes: Drugs, virginity, and the lease on his apartment all come into question, as does his sense of identity. With vibrant Method Man beats on the soundtrack (the rapper also plays a small role) and a lot of visual flair, The Wackness has a sort of hypnotic effect even as it strains to make the most (at 110 minutes) of its basic story.

Levine directs some ridiculously amusing sequences to reflect the way his doleful protagonist interacts with the world; an innovative hand cam shot that follows his middle finger through a journey in the city streets might set a new precedent for first person angles. Kingsley’s fake Bronx accent is sometimes grating, but it’s surely the oddest, more memorable roles he’s had in quite some time. And yes, you may have heard that Mary-Kate Olsen, in a minor role as a local hippy, locks lips with the Ghandi star, but that’s a pretty minor plot point. Despite its overbearingly confrontational tone, The Wackness has a solid coming-of-age premise, clearly an ode to Levine’s own experiences. Asked at the premiere about the specific setting for the movie, he suggested as much. “For me, it was a lot about the music of the time,” he said. “I didn’t want to do a high school coming of age movie and try to figure out what was cool today. I figured I’d stay on top of the shit I knew—which was 1994.” Sir Ben, meanwhile, gave Levine a compliment of the highest order. “It had the authority of an ancient novel,” he said of the script. “The relationship I share with Josh is like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.”  Actually, it’s more like Marty McFly and Doc Brown played by Cheech and Chong, but whatever, right? It’s wack.


Also wack: Roman Polanski. The famed director is the subject of a fascinating new documentary called Wanted and Desired, Marina Zenovich’s investigation into the finer details of the botched statutory rape case that lead to his self-imposed expulsion from the country. Polanski’s decision to flee from the charges has become such a prevalent part of his legacy that the trial has faded from public memory, but it’s certainly the intriguing part of the tale. Although still responsible for the sin of seduction, Polanski was clearly subjected to an unfair situation when the publicity-hungry judge conspired against the director for sake of his own reputation. Zenovich offers a comprehensive survey of the events and does a fine job exploring Polanski through the lens of his films, ultimately crafting a portrait of pity.

Pity might be the best word to describe the efforts of Blind Date, Stanley Tucci’s bland remake of murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gough’s 1996 drama, but not to its credit. Focused on a depressed couple (Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) trying to reenergize their lives in the wake of their daughter’s death, the movie unfolds as a series of encounters between the despondent pair, but their conversations are turned rigid by too much dead air and a stolid pace.

A better experiment with minimalism is Ballast, a small movie that deserves to become a big discovery. First time director Lance Hammer weaves a tightly controlled narrative about a shattered African American family living in the Mississippi delta and coping with a central character’s suicide. It’s a slight production, but it manages to build to intensity through the patience of its design—like a slowly falling teardrop climaxing in a deluge of sadness.

Impressed as I was by Ballast, it’s definitely something of a downer—so, after the Saturday night screening, I sought a pick-me up. On Main Street, I hustled my way into a packed concert topped by The Honey Brothers, a nifty rock group that includes Adrian Grenier and Ari Gold. Yep, Ari Gold—but not the slick agent played by Jeremy Piven on Entourage, which stars Grenier. Gold, a filmmaker, is an old pal of the actor, and directed him in the comedy Adventures of Power, which screens in the festival’s midnight section. If all goes as planned, I should catch the movie sometime before the sun comes up again here in Utah, so stay tuned for future dispatches throughout the week. For now, I can say that The Honey Brothers are definitely worth checking out, sporting a thick emo-inflected sound that doesn’t break any new ground, but stands firmly on conventional rhythms. When Grenier took the mic, he briefly acknowledged his celebrity stature, urging “all those tabloid writers out there not to write weird stuff. Here, we’re underground.” For Hollywood sorts, that might just qualify as an offbeat adventure of power.






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