Salon.com > Sundance Film Festival http://www.salon.com Sun, 27 May 2012 13:20:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 When a WikiLeaks lawyer runs into Eric Holder http://www.salon.com/2012/01/31/holder_on_assange_prosecution_we_will_see/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/31/holder_on_assange_prosecution_we_will_see/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12266761 "Slavery by Another Name," a documentary based on the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas Blackmon, premiered this year at the Sundance Film Festival. The story was new to me: Between the Emancipation Proclamation and the beginning of World War II, tens of thousands of African-Americans were arrested on phony charges, slapped with massive fines they could not pay, and then sold into labor to some of the biggest industries in the country to work off their debt. I didn't expect to learn that slavery essentially continued for decades after the Civil War. And I also didn't expect – on vacation from my legal work advising WikiLeaks and Julian Assange -- to bump into Attorney General Eric Holder. Having spent the week before Christmas at Fort Meade, Md., attending the Pvt. Bradley Manning hearing – Manning is charged with passing classified material to WikiLeaks -- I knew what I had to ask him.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/31/holder_on_assange_prosecution_we_will_see/feed/ 64 The best, and worst, of Sundance 2012 http://www.salon.com/2012/01/28/the_best_and_worst_of_sundance_2012/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/28/the_best_and_worst_of_sundance_2012/#comments Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12251011 Halfway through this year's Sundance Film Festival, I probably would have told you that it looked like an exceptionally weak year at America's biggest showcase for independent film. This has been a high-anxiety winter in the Utah mountains, where the snowpack was almost nonexistent before Mother Nature dumped a fresh load last weekend. I spent much of the festival attending the so-called big-name premieres at the Eccles Center, the 1,270-seat auditorium at Park City High School that serves as Sundance's biggest and most prestigious venue, and in general those movies ranged from muddled to mediocre to atrocious.

Stephen Frears' "Lay the Favorite," with Bruce Willis and Rebecca Hall, is a lightweight sub-Hollywood farce; Julie Delpy's "2 Days in New York," starring herself and Chris Rock, is a halfway agreeable mess; Nicholas Jarecki's "Arbitrage," with Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, is a decent corporate-world thriller. And while I'm delighted to defend Spike Lee's "Red Hook Summer," it's a rough and rugged ultra-indie production that disappointed many viewers. If none of those films is life-changing, none is even half as bad as Rodrigo Cortés' "Red Lights," a moronic paranormal mystery featuring the latest dispiriting Robert De Niro performance.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/28/the_best_and_worst_of_sundance_2012/feed/ 5 Sundance: A great gay film, or just a great film? http://www.salon.com/2012/01/27/sundance_a_great_gay_film_or_just_a_great_film/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/27/sundance_a_great_gay_film_or_just_a_great_film/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:42:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12246141 PARK CITY, Utah -- When we first meet Erik (Danish actor Thure Lindhardt), the New York documentary filmmaker who is the protagonist of Ira Sachs' film "Keep the Lights On," he's got his hand down his pants and is describing himself to a stranger on a phone-sex line. (It's 1998, so yes, such things still exist.) What he says is pretty accurate -- 5-foot-11, blond and handsome, "masculine" -- although we never get to confirm the "six-and-a-half inches, uncut" part. "Keep the Lights On" has plenty of explicit gay sex, but no NC-17 material.

That's quite an introduction to a character, especially considering that Erik is evidently based on Sachs himself, an indie-film stalwart best known for the 2005 Sundance prizewinner "Forty Shades of Blue." Sachs has made no secret of the fact that "Keep the Lights On," the story of a long-running and tormented relationship, is drawn from his own life. (His ex-boyfriend is well known in the New York publishing world.) But this isn't an excuse to issue apologias or vent personal grudges; it's a loving but entirely fearless portrait of gay urban life at the turn of the millennium, seen through the prism of one dysfunctional love affair. In fact, this movie may test how far the gay community has come on issues of self-representation. While it seems unlikely that bigots and homophobes would actively seek this film out (except, you know, on the sly and stuff), any who do see it could certainly cherry-pick details to support the thesis that Erik's entire cadre of humanity are degenerates.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/27/sundance_a_great_gay_film_or_just_a_great_film/feed/ 19 Pick of the week: Surviving a parents’ nightmare, with wine and sex http://www.salon.com/2012/01/27/pick_of_the_week_surviving_a_parents_nightmare_with_wine_and_sex/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/27/pick_of_the_week_surviving_a_parents_nightmare_with_wine_and_sex/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12239061 Channeling personal trauma into creative work is pretty much what artists do, as Dr. Freud and Vincent van Gogh could have told you. In the case of French actress and director Valérie Donzelli’s striking and imaginative film “Declaration of War,” the autobiographical element is so strong that the movie’s virtually a docudrama – but a dazzlingly strange docudrama with musical numbers, choreographed interludes and prodigious cinematic verve. What could have been a wrenching family tear-jerker, in which a young couple discovers that their infant son is dangerously ill, becomes a bittersweet tragicomedy in the classic French style, suggestive of Jacques Demy, Christophe Honoré or François Ozon. (“Declaration of War” opened the Critic’s Week at Cannes this year, and now reaches theaters just after its United States premiere at Sundance.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/27/pick_of_the_week_surviving_a_parents_nightmare_with_wine_and_sex/feed/ 3 Chris Rock and Julie Delpy’s Manhattan romance http://www.salon.com/2012/01/25/chris_rock_and_julie_delpys_manhattan_romance/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/25/chris_rock_and_julie_delpys_manhattan_romance/#comments Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12233361 PARK CITY, Utah -- Chris Rock and Julie Delpy make a striking couple. Whether appearing in person or acting together in Delpy’s new film “2 Days in New York,” their manners could hardly be more different. Rock is cool, laconic, a man of relatively few words who takes things in before reacting. Delpy is almost hyperactive, talking a blue streak, laughing at her own jokes, constantly in motion. In fact, she describes herself as “panicky and neurotic,” and “a little bit nuts.” (Oh, let’s be clear about one thing: Despite what you may read below, Rock and Delpy are not a couple in real life; both have other partners.)

Fans of Delpy’s zany 2007 relationship comedy “2 Days in Paris” will already have a good idea what to expect here, but it really doesn’t matter whether you’ve seen the earlier movie. Jack, the American boyfriend played by Adam Goldberg in “2 Days in Paris,” has evidently moved on (leaving behind a young son), and Delpy’s character, Marion, is now shacking up with a Village Voice journalist and radio host named Mingus, who has a daughter of his own. (Rock even says the character is based on the prominent African-American journalists Nelson George and Elvis Mitchell.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/25/chris_rock_and_julie_delpys_manhattan_romance/feed/ 4 Sundance: A dirtier, smarter “Bridesmaids” http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/sundance_a_dirtier_smarter_bridesmaids/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/sundance_a_dirtier_smarter_bridesmaids/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:58:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12225991 PARK CITY, Utah -- After a highly uneven opening weekend at this year's Sundance Film Festival, things on the Wasatch Range are back to normal. We've got piles of fresh snow, spectacular views and -- at long last -- a few of the potential hits this place is known for. One of those is "The Surrogate," a drama starring John Hawkes as a disabled man seeking to lose his virginity that's already being talked up as a 2013 Oscar contender (and was just purchased for $6 million by Fox). But the big news on Monday night was the packed and buzzing premiere of "Bachelorette," the smart, ruthless and foul-mouthed wedding comedy that marks the auspicious debut of writer-director Leslye Headland.

Of course "Bachelorette" will be compared to last summer's hit "Bridesmaids," because it's a female-centric and female-created comedy and because of its themes and setting. Headland insists that any resemblance is coincidental, and in fact they're quite different kinds of movies. This is a rapier-sharp, fast-paced comedy of manners, less concerned with delivering big laughs than with exploring its characters and their complicated interactions. Headland is clearly trying to channel the spirit of John Hughes (perhaps a coked-up and promiscuous John Hughes), but her discursive, self-involved, shamelessly New Yorky characters also suggest the films of Whit Stillman ("Metropolitan" and "The Last Days of Disco").

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/sundance_a_dirtier_smarter_bridesmaids/feed/ 8 Spike Lee takes Sundance by storm with “Red Hook Summer” http://www.salon.com/2012/01/23/spike_lee_takes_sundance_by_storm_with_red_hook_summer/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/23/spike_lee_takes_sundance_by_storm_with_red_hook_summer/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:10:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12220161 PARK CITY, Utah -- During an expletive-laden tirade that followed the Sundance premiere of his new self-financed indie production "Red Hook Summer," Spike Lee instructed the audience to go out and tell the world that it isn't "a motherf---ing sequel to 'Do the Right Thing.'" OK, mission accomplished, Spike -- but I have to use some other word to describe the relationship then. Companion piece? Granddaughter? Distant Southern cousin? I can understand that Lee doesn't want the expectations that might come with connecting his new film to his most famous and influential one, and in terms of budget and production, "Red Hook Summer" is probably closer to Lee's ultra-indie 1986 debut, "She's Gotta Have It." (As for Lee's display at the post-screening Q&A, that was at least 50 percent showmanship, although his anger at Hollywood's treatment of black-oriented themes and films was both genuine and justified.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/23/spike_lee_takes_sundance_by_storm_with_red_hook_summer/feed/ 2 Sundance: Bruce Willis and Rebecca Hall take Vegas http://www.salon.com/2012/01/22/sundance_bruce_willis_and_rebecca_hall_take_vegas/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/22/sundance_bruce_willis_and_rebecca_hall_take_vegas/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:23:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12215091 PARK CITY, Utah -- I think the fairest way of summarizing what I have to say about the new Stephen Frears movie "Lay the Favorite" is that people watching it on airplanes next fall will be pleasantly surprised by it. Anchored by an amped-up performance by Rebecca Hall that you'll either find endearing or massively irritating, along with a genial supporting turn from Bruce Willis, this is a mid-level crowd-pleaser, superficial light entertainment delivered by professionals. There are worse things. If you hear people struggling to compare "Lay the Favorite" to Frears' 1990 hit "The Grifters," pay no attention. Those of us who still venerate Frears as a pioneer of British indie cinema in the '80s pine for him to have higher goals than a ditzy true-crime romp, but maybe that's our problem rather than his.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/22/sundance_bruce_willis_and_rebecca_hall_take_vegas/feed/ 4 Sundance: The psycho and the sexy Paris hooker http://www.salon.com/2012/01/21/sundance_the_psycho_and_the_sexy_paris_hooker/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/21/sundance_the_psycho_and_the_sexy_paris_hooker/#comments Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:58:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12211301 PARK CITY, Utah -- How you frame a work of art -- where you approach it from and what your expectations are -- has everything to do with how you receive it. I can see at least two ways to approach "Simon Killer," the impressive new film by Antonio Campos that premiered on Friday afternoon at the Sundance Film Festival, to a sharply divided response. Following a young American's erotic and psychological odyssey through the sex district of Paris, and the inner recesses of his own mind, "Simon Killer" is a brilliantly orchestrated work of cinema in a grimy, 1970s vein. (I particularly thought of "Midnight Cowboy" and "Leaving Las Vegas," and yes, I know the latter isn't a '70s film.) Whether it has anything to say beyond expressing a pretentious, juvenile darkness is hard to tell, however, and the intense ride with a poisonous main character offers little emotional payoff.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/21/sundance_the_psycho_and_the_sexy_paris_hooker/feed/ 2 A charming romantic comedy with wide appeal http://www.salon.com/2012/01/20/a_charming_romantic_comedy_with_wide_appeal/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/20/a_charming_romantic_comedy_with_wide_appeal/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:09:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12206681 PARK CITY, Utah -- In keeping with Robert Redford's stern opening-night admonition that his festival is "all about independent filmmaking artists -- we always have been and we always will be," here's a Sundance item bereft of color commentary, celebrity sightings or observations about the Utah weather (which remains unseasonably mild). Todd Louiso's wry, sharply-observed romantic comedy "Hello I Must Be Going" premiered late on Thursday night, and if it's too subtle (and too similar to several other low-key indie romcoms) to make a big splash, it's got lovely performances and really builds strength as it goes along.

If Louiso's name rings a dim and distant bell in your mind, it may be because of his quasi-legendary supporting performance as a know-it-all record-store clerk in Stephen Frears' "High Fidelity," lo, these many years ago. He's now primarily a director, and on the evidence quite a skilled one. The problem with "Hello I Must Be Going" is that Sarah Koskoff's screenplay starts out so modestly: You think it's just going to be a female early-midlife-crisis movie, or an older-woman/younger-guy love story, and, heck, it is both of those things. But to my taste, as the movie goes along it becomes much richer and funnier than that summary suggests, painting a satirical but sympathetic portrait of upper-crust family life in Westport, Conn., a rather toff and beachy New York suburb.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/20/a_charming_romantic_comedy_with_wide_appeal/feed/ 6 Sundance opens with “riches to rags” story http://www.salon.com/2012/01/20/sundance_opens_with_riches_to_rags_story/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/20/sundance_opens_with_riches_to_rags_story/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:23:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12204001 PARK CITY, Utah -- According to the mayor of this ski-resort town, which is a famous outpost of crunchy liberalism smack in the middle of the most Republican state in the union, it took the arrival of thousands of outsiders for the Sundance Film Festival to get the place back to normal. Last year the Utah Legislature passed a resolution declaring climate change a hoax, as Mayor Dana Williams told us before a Thursday night screening. Since then, Mother Nature has retaliated: It has barely snowed in the Wasatch Range this winter, leaving the region's fabled slopes almost bare. But a day that began with drizzling rain and temperatures in the 50s ended with a healthy dose of the white stuff, while we all sat inside in overheated auditoriums watching movies.

Sundance has ditched its former tradition of having one main opening-night film, instead screening four different pictures, two American (a narrative feature and a documentary) and two foreign (ditto). This is all to the good, and avoids invidious comparisons with more Hollywood-centric festivals -- but there's little doubt this year that photographer-turned-filmmaker Lauren Greenfield's documentary "The Queen of Versailles" was first among equals. The unbelievable-but-true story of Florida real-estate tycoon David Siegel and his ex-beauty-queen wife Jackie, who nearly went broke while trying to build the biggest house in the country, is like a Theodore Dreiser novel for our time, infused with the vivid, vulgar spirit of reality TV. It often had the sold-out Eccles Center howling, but also has elements of profound tragedy and allegory.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/20/sundance_opens_with_riches_to_rags_story/feed/ 12 Sundance 2012: Less glitz, more gravy http://www.salon.com/2012/01/18/sundance_2012_less_glitz_more_gravy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/01/18/sundance_2012_less_glitz_more_gravy/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12185641 To paraphrase a famous movie that would never have played there, the Sundance Film Festival is like a box of chocolates -- served on top of a snowbound mountain range in the dead of winter. You never know what you're going to get: a delectable surprise or broken dental work.

If Robert Redford's annual celebration of independent film is no longer the cutting-edge cultural phenomenon it appeared to be in the 1990s, it also isn't the wretched-excess Sundance of the early 2000s, when the overly precious downtown of Park City, Utah, was bedecked with "gifting lounges" that attracted all kinds of entertainment and sports celebrities who had no plausible connection to the independent-film business. Current festival director John Cooper took the reins from longtime director Geoff Gilmore (a charismatic and polarizing figure) two and a half years ago, just as the national economy was going south. Whether by coincidence, strategy or an inevitable consequence of structural change, Cooper's first two festivals have felt leaner and more focused on actual films and filmmakers -- and a lot less possessed by paparazzi and B-plus Hollywood stars modeling ski fashions.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/01/18/sundance_2012_less_glitz_more_gravy/feed/ 2 “Bellflower”: The “Mad Max” romance game changer? http://www.salon.com/2011/06/14/bellflower_trailer_sxsw/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/14/bellflower_trailer_sxsw/#comments Tue, 14 Jun 2011 21:15:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/06/14/bellflower_trailer_sxsw The sleeper indie sensation "Bellflower" might not look like any film you've ever seen, but that's only because it wasn't filmed like one. Described as a "violent, apocalyptic love story," "Bellflower" was shot on a homemade camera created by cinematographer Joel Hodge and writer/director/star Evan Glodell out of vintage parts. The result is a movie that has swept through Sundance and SXSW as fast as a flame-thrower through the heart of the lovelorn lead.

The first full trailer of "Bellflower" came out today:

And in case you still needed a full explanation of what the hell was going on in this mumblecore action-packed flick:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/14/bellflower_trailer_sxsw/feed/ 4 Cannes: She escaped from a cult! http://www.salon.com/2011/05/17/martha_marcy/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/17/martha_marcy/#comments Tue, 17 May 2011 20:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/05/17/martha_marcy CANNES, France -- Inevitably, the handful of small American films that make it here get a lot of attention. Europeans seek them out to demonstrate that they appreciate American independent cinema more than the morbidly obese, brain-dead Yanks do (which is at least partly true) and Americans flaunt them eagerly as proof that our filmmakers are producing something besides "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl at World's End on Hella Stranger Tides," or whatever it's called. This year's winner of the "Blue Valentine"/"Wendy and Lucy" overseas achievement award looks to be the creepy, powerful, mid-budget thriller "Martha Marcy May Marlene," screening here in the Certain Regard competition. It's anchored by a highly convincing lead performance from Elizabeth Olsen, 21-year-old sister of the formerly famous Olsen twins.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/05/17/martha_marcy/feed/ 4 “Happythankyoumoreplease”: “How I Met Your Mother” star’s likable film debut http://www.salon.com/2011/03/04/happythankyoumoreplease/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/04/happythankyoumoreplease/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:26:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/03/04/happythankyoumoreplease A genial combination of mid-period Woody Allen romantic neurosis and, say, "He's Just Not That Into You," "Happythankyoumoreplease" marks the writing and directing debut of Josh Radnor, the star of TV's "How I Met Your Mother." It's not an event that will go down in cinema history, exactly, but Radnor offers an entertaining and not especially self-indulgent ensemble comedy about young love in the big city that spotlights an appealing cast of youthful fringe-of-Hollywood talent.

Radnor himself plays Sam Wexler, a scruffy wannabe novelist who's pushing 30 and who, like a lot of people in this kind of movie, lives in a non-terrible Manhattan apartment with no visible means of support. Sam's big meeting with a high-powered editor (Richard Jenkins, who seems to be contractually obligated to appear in every mid-budget independent film) and his pursuit of a comely waitress-chanteuse named Mississippi (Kate Mara) are interrupted by his accidental custodianship of a near-silent little kid (Michael Algieri) who's gotten separated from his caretaker on the subway. Since the kid is virtually the only nonwhite person who gets to speak a line in the entire movie, we're dangerously close to Magical Negro territory here. But Radnor is such a comfortable and gentle comic persona -- like a nicer Jerry Seinfeld, mixed with bits of Buster Keaton -- that he pretty well pulls the movie out of the fire.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/04/happythankyoumoreplease/feed/ 6 Why do so many people dislike Katie Holmes? http://www.salon.com/2011/02/04/katie_holmes_kennedys_hate/ http://www.salon.com/2011/02/04/katie_holmes_kennedys_hate/#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2011/02/04/katie_holmes_kennedys_hate Is Katie Holmes truly so terrible? Well, she's probably not all that great. In recent weeks, she's been the subject of toxic rumors that her new thriller, "Son of No One," was such a bomb at Sundance that audience members stormed out -- a tale eagerly lapped up by legitimate news organizations like Reuters. The Hollywood Reporter observed, "When Katie showed up on screen, there was a collective groan. She plays the wife of a Queens cop and she was completely miscast. They have her cursing a lot. And when she swore, there were chuckles."  And even though other critics who attended the screening have since offered differing accounts of what really went on, the fact that such a rumor started -- and took off with such vigor -- gives an indication of how little Holmes is regarded by audiences and the press.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/02/04/katie_holmes_kennedys_hate/feed/ 114 Sundance announces winners http://www.salon.com/2011/01/30/us_sundance_awards/ http://www.salon.com/2011/01/30/us_sundance_awards/#comments Sun, 30 Jan 2011 22:19:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/01/30/us_sundance_awards A film about young lovers in a long-distance relationship called "Like Crazy" was awarded the grand jury prize for a U.S. drama at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Its star, Felicity Jones, also received a special jury prize for acting in the movie.

America Ferrera presented the acting award to Jones, who was not in attendance at the Saturday night ceremony, saying "the 2011 Sundance Film Festival will go down as the year of the actress."

Peter D. Richardson's film "How to die in Oregon" won the grand jury U.S. documentary prize. It follows terminally ill patients living in Oregon, the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide.

Also recognized were Mike Cahill and Brit Marling's sci-fi film "Another Earth," which won a dramatic special jury prize and the Alfred P. Sloan award.

Cahill, who directed and co-wrote the movie, said "this is the greatest week of our lives." The film is about two strangers brought together the night before the discovery of a duplicate planet Earth.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/01/30/us_sundance_awards/feed/ 2 “Night Catches Us”: A “Casablanca” for the Black Power era http://www.salon.com/2010/12/03/night_catches/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/03/night_catches/#comments Fri, 03 Dec 2010 01:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/12/02/night_catches I'm probably grading on a curve with writer-director Tanya Hamilton's debut feature "Night Catches Us," a low-budget film that took 10 years to get made and was shot in 18 days. Hamilton will no doubt make more polished movies, but this one has unusual atmosphere and emotional depth, and tackles subject matter no mainstream American film would touch without Hazmat equipment.

Set during the hazy, hot bicentennial summer of 1976, "Night Catches Us" uncannily captures the feeling of life in an African-American neighborhood of Philadelphia, where middle-class strivers inhabit elegant old homes around the corner from empty lots and ghetto housing projects. It's a place of hope and hopelessness, of sizzling backyard barbecues and R&B on the radio and constant incipient violence. (One of the first things we hear is ex-Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, announcing his long-shot presidential campaign.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/03/night_catches/feed/ 8 “I Love You Phillip Morris”: Too gay for 2010? http://www.salon.com/2010/12/02/phillip_morris/ http://www.salon.com/2010/12/02/phillip_morris/#comments Thu, 02 Dec 2010 01:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/12/01/phillip_morris When "I Love You Phillip Morris" premiered at Sundance in January 2009, nearly two full years ago, it felt like one of that festival's biggest talking points. The directing debut of comedy writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (creators of "Bad Santa" and the "Cats & Dogs" franchise) was trashy, anarchic, assaultive and often very funny. It starred Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. Some people loved it and others hated it, but it wasn't the kind of movie that left viewers neutral. You couldn't really have asked for a bigger P.R. splash, but as I wrote at the time, doubts and questions hovered in the air: "Although the film premiered here to an ecstatic reaction, it's impossible to know how it will translate to a real-world audience."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/12/02/phillip_morris/feed/ 31 Untangling the “Catfish” hoax rumors http://www.salon.com/2010/10/14/catfish/ http://www.salon.com/2010/10/14/catfish/#comments Thu, 14 Oct 2010 11:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/10/14/catfish If you've already seen the documentary "Catfish," or encountered any of the fervid media coverage surrounding the film, then you already know how difficult it is to write about it without giving away its so-called secrets. I'm not even going to try. "Catfish," which follows a young, media-savvy New Yorker's Internet romance with a far-away girl through a series of increasingly startling revelations, has been playing around the country for several weeks now. As I see it, the story has become primarily about how people react to the movie's twists and turns, and what that may or may not tell us about honesty and veracity in the new-media age.

So if you haven't caught "Catfish" yet or haven't heard much about it and would like to preserve that innocence, I suggest you go elsewhere. I was in Toronto when the film opened and didn't review it for release, but no critic faced the "Catfish" challenge more imaginatively than Dana Stevens of Slate, whose review features embedded hyperlink revelations you can either read or ignore. Basically, Dana shifted the spoiler onus to the readers, which is pure genius -- but did even one person read her review while avoiding a peek at the pop-ups?

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