LA Weekly

In the seven years I've been coming to Sundance, I'm not sure that I've ever seen a film so completely captivate the public and the critics alike as John Carney's Once, the Irish musical drama whose little-movie-that-could odyssey was completed Saturday night when it collected the audience award in Sundance's world dramatic competition. The selection of the film for the festival was largely the work of Sundance programmer John Nein, who saw a workprint of the movie in Galway last fall and then, as he explained during his introductory remarks at the first of Once's Sundance screenings, immediately set about convincing his fellow Sundance programmers that this was a film the festival simply had to show.

Fortunately, for the movie and for Sundance audiences, they agreed. But as I learned from speaking to the film's producers, before Once was selected by Sundance it had been rejected by several high-profile North American and international festivals, which says something telling (and unfortunate) about the kind of snobbery that can infect the festival selection process. The greatest of film festivals, I have always maintained, are those like Cannes and Telluride that choose their films carefully (instead of showing hundreds of movies à la Toronto) while remaining open to everything from the most popular Hollywood attractions to the most esoteric marginalia. Every now and then, however, a movie that straddles those boundaries — that is neither artsy enough for the art-movie ascetics nor mainstream enough for the multiplex crowd — gets thoughtlessly tossed to the sidelines. An extreme case in point was the excellent 1998 film Croupier, which was passed over by every festival and distributor in sight before finally landing in theaters two years later and becoming a strong word-of-mouth hit. Thanks to its Sundance success, Carney's film won't have to wait nearly that long to make it to a theater near you. But in the meantime, let this serve as a cautionary tale to festival programmers that even a movie with a title like Once sometimes deserves a second chance.

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Every morning during Sundance, a vast ritual occurs. By the time the tardy sun finally comes over the mountains, there are teams of people armed with heavy duty stapler guns and stacks of posters fanning out through Park City's streets to display their films' images on the surprisingly few designated billboards for public advertising. Because of the limited space, and a hefty fine for posting bills anywhere else, the competition is intense, and it requires a vigilant campaign to keep your poster in the public eye. With several hundred films vying for attention, the hope is that if the right person walks by at the right time and notices your film, even subconsciously, they might remember to see it and good things might happen. In the war for exposure, the flyering teams are the infantry, trying to form a beachhead on every festival-goers' short-term memory.

I'm out early, and I see at least a dozen crews on the move on my stretch of Main. Two kids approach the billboard near me and start systematically checkering it with posters for a Slamdance feature called Homo Erectus.

"How long will one layer stay up?" I ask.

"Half an our tops," they say. "Sometimes just a few minutes." The kids are Shane McAvoy and Bernard Crosland. Shane is a friend of the director. Bernard is his back up. They're from Temple City, and their travel here is occupied by this sole mission. They've been at it since Friday. Recently, they've found themselves locked in a tête-à-tête with another movie, called Rocket Science.

"As soon as we're done," Shane says, "they come along and cover us up."

Bernard starts lifting the edges of the posters, peeling back the layers. It must be fifty sheets thick, and as we sift through the archaeology of promotion, there is a visible pattern in the top deposit. "Our poster is white," he says, "and theirs is blue." You can see the edges alternating blue and white all the way to yesterday.

Rocket Science, a "quirky coming of age story" about a debate captain who stutters, is in competition at Sundance, and has a team of eight people flyering. "They can come along and cover us up in a flash," Shane says. Bernard adds that they're putting up posters for other movies, too.

"So they're third-party mercenaries?"

"That's right."

"And as hired guns they don't even care about the movies on their posters."

"We're out here fighting The Man."

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More forgiving minds than mine may see Bret Morgan's documentrary/docudrama Chicago 10 — the opening night film of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival — as a socially-conscious rallying cry for the youth of today. Certainly, that's what the movie, which revisits the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the subsequent trial of the eight "Yippie" activists (including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden) charged with inciting anti-Vietnam riots in the Chicago streets, seems to think it's up to. Morgan wants to stoke the nostalgic fires of the Peace-Love generation while reminding its grandchildren of a time, not so very long ago, when young Americans pro-actively expressed their contempt for an unpopular foreign war. But as with Emilio Estevez's equally simple-minded Bobby, the only people likely to have their eyes opened by Chicago 10 are those who can't fathom the idea that anything important happened in the world before they were born.

Morgan's intentions are unassailable, but Chicago 10 is so stunningly naïve and relentlessly one-sided that I wasn't surprised when two audience members — one who came of age in the '60s, the other a young woman now in her 20s — told me that the movie nearly had them rooting for Chicago mayor Richard Daley and his small army of riot police. For starters, Morgan doesn't offer much background on the Yippies before launching into 100 flashily edited minutes in which vivid newsreel footage of Chicago in '68 is juxtaposed against animated dramatizations of the circus-like courtroom proceedings. (Hank Azaria, Nick Nolte and Mark Ruffalo are among the celebrity voice actors.) And as in his equally hagiographic portrait of movie producer Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture, the director is so in awe of his subjects that he doesn't dare to utter a word of criticism about their motives or actions, even when recapping the rock-star-like fame the protestors achieved in the wake of their arrests ("We're bigger than the Stones," Hoffman exclaims in one bit of archival footage) and the self-serving pranks they frequently pulled in the courtroom by way of showing their contempt for the judicial system. In the world of Chicago 10, everyone with long hair and beards is righteous and good, while everyone else is a fascist pig out to stop the coming revolution. But that revolution never came, Hoffman went underground and Rubin turned yuppie — a series of inconvenient truths that Chicago 10 all too conveniently chooses to ignore.

Before Chicago 10 screened, Robert Redford announced to the sold-out Eccles Center crowd that, in its 24^th year, Sundance no longer needs an introduction — the festival, he said, speaks for itself. Or rather, it speaks for itself with the help of some rather garish buttons bearing the slogan "Focus on Film," which, as festival director Geoff Gilmore (who followed Redford onstage) explained, Sundance staff and filmmakers are being asked to wear this year. For a moment, I wondered what people could possibly expect that a film festival would focus on other than, you know, film. Alas, I suppose there's no point in getting too worked up over a button, especially since, in the pantheon of Sundance's most embarrassing moments, the Focus On Film campaign can't hold a candle to the now-infamous festival trailers of two years ago, in which the word "independent" slowly morphed into the word "inept." But by reducing the festival to a three-word catchphrase you can pin to your jacket, Sundance does the same thing for the world of independent filmmaking that Chicago 10 does for '60s counterculture: It turns a complex movement into disposable pop art.

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An observation: the Troma troopers are like the LaRouchies of Hollywood. A ubiquitous fringe element that everyone mostly pretends not to see. LaRouche always has teams of college students handing out expensive, 4-color pamphlets on the campaign trail, and here in Park City, Troma seems to be able to field multiple teams casing Main street in shifts with flyers and Toxic Avenger masks. OK, so Troma may be beating a dead horse with the Toxic Avenger already, but at the same time one could argue (as I shall) that Troma's shock troops carry the banner of Sundance's "independent spirit," certainly moreso than the Plantronics/Monster Energy Drink/Skullcandy house whose visitors the Toxic Avenger was bravely harassing earlier today.

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PRESS RELEASE

Wealthy Celebrities Who Get Free Shit But Are Embarrassed To Do So In Public Can Now Pick Swag In Private

Park City, UT (January 15, 2007). For the FIRST TIME EVER, there will be a brand new way of gifting at the Sundance Film Festival…This is not your typical swag house. No more heavy bags full of useless merchandise, no more oversized clothing or oddly colored promotional items.

Filled with amazing items ranging from electronics to apparel to travel, the Luxestar Card gives celebrities the chance to select their own swag in the privacy of their own home. Representatives will be on-site to guide guests through the LuxeStar website and even assist them in ordering items on the spot. They simply log on and pick their favorite size, color, style and have it shipped to the address of their choice. For our high-end products/services, taxes then become the responsibility of the celebrity only for what they select and not for what they are given. The celebrity also becomes a unique user to the Luxestar website offering them goods year round through the use of their LuxeStar card.

The kicker: The LuxeStar card's value depends on how much of a celebrity you are. So accepting the thing means you're letting some flack evaluate your worth. And what goes better with flacks and loot than the Burmese humanitarian crisis? Also from the same press release:

In addition to new products, the Freedom Campaign will be there raising awareness. The Freedom Campaign will be working to showcase the campaign for Aung San Suu Kyi and introduce Hollywood's famed actors and actresses attending to get involved and join the cause in Burma.

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Overheard:

"Did you see the dog with the blue Mohawk?"
"It's like a cross between Pulp Fiction and Napoleon Dynamite -- but better than both."
"Just get the fuck down here, THEIR PEOPLE ARE WAITING FOR YOU!"
"The Darfur movie is totally like the most amazing thing ever, but kind of a downer."
"I heard there's an afty for [unintelligible] tonight and the chick from Grey's Anatomy is gonna be there."
"Seriously, this is worse than Memorial Day in East Hampton."
"Justin Timberlike is playing on Tuesday. Too many people just wanna hate on him for no reason." (True, true.)
"I'm at fuckin' Sundance, fuckin' ridiculous, fuckin' drinkin', fuckin' just, you know, watching the Bears game."

The Bears won, 39-14, and I'm following a stream of people en route to some party or gathering or meet and greet at the Kimball Art Center. Everyone with a heart was rooting for the Saints, but it was snowing on the field and the cold got the better of them. As it's getting the better of us now that the sun's gone down and Park City's temperature just sank 10 degrees.

I arrived at Sun-/Slam-/X-/Etceteradance this weekend, a last minute trip with almost no planning. I applied to late for a press pass, so I lack the all-important lanyard-suspended laminate around my neck and am therefore not just at the bottom of the totem pole, but not even on the totem poll -- status-less, with the same level of access as a refugee camp resident. My friend Jessica tells me we're headed to the Press/Filmmakers party, an event for all press and filmmakers, meaning virtually everyone in town is invited except me. Since virtually everyone in town is invited, this event is by definition not a hot ticket, with no talent, no gift bags, no celebrity chef braising beef cheeks with vine ripened tomatoes, no list or line at the door. Still, you do need that laminate, and upon arrival, it occurs to me that I may not get into a party that no one even cares about. Half way into explaining to the staffer guarding the door that I'm meeting some people inside, but don't have a credential—what I mean is, I accidentally left my credential at the condo in Deer Valley—I run into my friend Kay who recognizes my predicament and interjects, "I'm glad I found you--here, I have your pass in my purse." And with that she slips the protective amulet of a filmmaker laminate around my neck.

Now fully entitled as a producer of a documentary in competition (that will go unnamed here so as to protect my "sources"), I walk in to discover a room full of people all wearing badges printed with the name of their own project or media outlet, drinking Stella (an official Sundance sponsor) and mindlessly eating free finger foods, one of which is unidentifiable and very very deeply fried.

"So what are you doing here?" my friend Kay asks.

My honest response: "I really don't know."

It's true. Earlier, I'd been wandering aimlessly trying to get my bearings. Main Street, Park City's original axis from the silver prospecting days (I wonder how many Sundance stories have begun with some variation of 'Where they once mined silver, now they come looking for box office gold'?), runs what one cab driver called "north-ish," and can't be more than a mile long. Greater Park City, although spread out, isn't that much bigger, and the annual avalanche of people and parties and orange-vested festival volunteers and gifting salons and converted music venues and impromptu clubs and myriad clandestine house parties that occasions Sundance's opening weekend entirely overwhelms this tiny town.

Supposedly, this year's festival is the first in memory to see a wane in the opportunistic marketing and celebrity frenzy that's turned Sundance into Hollywood's snowbound Spring Break, Cancun. It's hard to tell. Sundance is a typical victim of its own success. Another marketplace of ideas turned into a marketplace. And what's strange is how much of it is an ancillary marketplace, entirely unrelated to the film business. With no contacts, I managed to RSVP to: the American Eagle White Out party with Samantha Ronson (transportation courtesy of GM is available for approved talent upon request); Aaron Eckhart's receipt of the Ray-Ban Visionary Award; Bon Appetit's Supper Club at Sundance; free snowboarding lessons (and gloves and goggles) from Burton; and unspecified comforts from the Entertainment Tonight, Gibson Guitar, and Getty Images Lodge ("Get Ready to Rock Main Street!") before I even showed up.

This is the reason Sundance printed a get-back-to-roots slogan, Focus on Film, on buttons for festival-goers to pin to their parkas. The explainer that comes with the following declaration:

"Visibly wearing this button during the 2007 Sundance Film Festival means that I want to see film that I know I'll never get to see anywhere else; My idea of 'celebrity' is the filmmaker who directed my favorite film at the Festival; I'm willing to wait in the cold for two hours to see a hot documentary; I love that for 10 days I have something in common with over 50,000 people in a small ski town."

But Sundance can't forget marketing altogether, and Sundance says the button also signifies that the wearer "understand[s] that without the support of the official sponsor community, I would not have the opportunity to Focus on Film at the Sundance Film Festival." On the back are the corporate logos of those sponsors: VW, HP, AOL, etc.

And thank god for them, because otherwise there wouldn't be free booze inside the Kimball Art Center. The liquor probably helps grease the social wheels, but people would introduce themselves anyhow. The first thing I noticed about Park City during Sundance is that almost everyone is friendly in a "we're all in this together kind of way." Since 99% of us are visitors, there's no big city intruder/resentful townie dynamic. At the Press/Filmmaker party, everyone is especially friendly, if for self-interested reasons. Sundance is about promotion. Everyone wants you to know who they are and they want to know who you are. Most people are genuinely interested in each other, but there is no way to erase the subtext of every conversation, which is: perhaps this person can help me someday, and hopefully today. But since everyone is in the same game, no one begrudges anyone else for motives.

It is here that I caught a whiff of the Napoleon Dynamite/Pulp Fiction hybrid coup. The guy had a stack of DVDs in his hand, and it was hard to tell if he was describing something he saw at the festival or peddling his own visionary cinematic concept. Either way, I couldn't resolve what such a movie could possible be, so I start conducting a survey. First up was my friend Chucky Malloy, an autodidact who has a short in the festival, and said, "I don't what that could be, but it sounds fuckin' rad."

Posted by Joshuah Bearman

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On the first Saturday of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, I rolled out of bed and hustled up Main Street for the 8:30 a.m. screening of Tamara Jenkins's The Savages, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as adult siblings caring for an irascible elderly parent. Only, I went to the wrong theater by mistake and instead found myself at a screening of writer-director John Carney's Once, a low-budget Irish drama selected for Sundance's international competition and starring nobody you've likely ever heard of. It's a mistake I'm glad I made. That's not to say anything against Jenkins's film, which has been generally well received here; but The Savages is due in theaters soon from Fox Searchlight and, like so many of the movies people beg, borrow, and steal to get tickets for in Park City, it will be easy enough to see after the festival is over. Once, on the other hand, will be lucky to get a release at all, even though it certainly deserves one. It's the sort of completely un-hyped, unheralded little gem you go to a festival like Sundance hoping to find and, every once in a while, do.

I don't want to overstate the case for Once — it is, after all, a very small story about a Dublin street musician (Glen Hansard, of the band The Frames) who meets up with a Czech immigrant pianist (Marketa Irglova) and discovers that they make beautiful music together. But I liked this movie right from the opening scene of Hansard standing on a corner strumming a beat-up old guitar and belting out an inspired version of Van Morrison's "And the Healing Has Begun." I especially liked how the characters are allowed to have untidy personal lives — he's still hung up on an ex-girlfriend in London, she has an estranged husband and a young daughter to boot — so that, in spite of their mutual attraction, they hesitate to get too deeply involved. But Once is at its best when it bursts into song, which is, fortuitously, most of the time. Whether Hansard and Irglova (who co-wrote all of the music in the film) are improvising a duet in a music shop or heading into the recording studio with an entire busker band, the songs they create are groovy and soulful and stick in your head for days afterwards. Little wonder that at the film's post-screening Q&A there were multiple requests for a soundtrack album, before the two stars caved to audience requests for an encore and led the sold-out Egyptian Theatre crowd in an a capella rendition of Daniel Johnston's "Devil Town."

Hansard and Irglova should count themselves lucky that Dublin falls outside the territory canvassed by the huckster music-industry executives of Craig Zobel's disarming debut feature, Great World of Sound. The title is the name of a fly-by-night Charlotte record label and the movie follows two of its "producers" — white, soft-spoken Martin (Pat Healy) and black, gregarious Clarence (Kene Holliday) — as they set out across America to sign new acts, preying on the hopes and dreams of naïve, small-town folks with glimmers of stardust in their eyes. Talent is negotiable: If you can pony up the cash for the recording session, you're in, even if the album you cut may not be worth the vinyl it's printed on. Great World of Sound is screening in Sundance's noncompetitive American Spectrum sidebar, which is often perceived as a refuge for also-ran titles that failed to make the competition cut. But like Mean Creek and The Puffy Chair (among others) before it, Zobel's smartly scripted, terrifically well-acted movie is a reminder that there are still discoveries to be made therein.

The dramatic competition proper has yet to produce a consensus front-runner, but my own personal favorite thus far is Starting Out in the Evening, the sophomore feature by director Andrew Wagner, who was in Sundance two years ago with The Talent Given Us, an oddball, semi-improvisational road movie starring members of Wagner's own family as themselves. I was a fan of that film, but wondered if Wagner could bring the same intimacy to bear on a conventionally scripted drama starring professional actors. As it turns out, he has, and the result is an unhurried, beautifully observed tale of aging, regret and second chances built around superb performances by Frank Langella (as an out-of-print novelist), Lauren Ambrose (as the impetuous grad student writing her thesis about his work) and Lili Taylor (as Langella's still-unmarried-at-40 daughter).

There is much more to come, of course, but already in its first few days, Sundance 2007 has given audiences a few things worth singing about.

Originally written for LA Weekly by Scott Foundas.

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Blogging from the Sundance Festival will begin in a day or two. Until then you can read Scott Foundas' new articles about the festival:

The Sundance Kids: For alumni of America's most prestigious film festival, winning is less than half the battle

And Where in Tarnation? Catching up with Jonathan Caouette, the filmmaker behind the 2004 Sundance favorite, Tarnation.

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