Five films, 13+ hours: I’d say that’s a half-marathon of sorts. I know that the week is just going to get busier and busier, so I squeezed in everything that I could yesterday and fell into bed at 2 am.
I migrated from Rose Wagner back to the Broadway for my last two films of the day. First was Big Boys Gone Bananas!* (Fredrik Gertten), about the legal fight between a Swedish filmmaker and the multinational corporation, Dole. The film was well constructed and said what it wanted to say eloquently: Dole and peer corporations have inordinate power over the press and free speech does not truly exist in America, but if journalists are brave and consumers speak with their actions, then they can amass enough power to fight against corporations. I’m not sure that the film guide has ever contained a more accurate and thorough description. There were no surprises here. Well, except for the short beforehand, Meet Mr. Toilet by Jessica Yu, which was a brief and funny promotion of the World Toilet Organization. My attempts to find a copy of the video online were sadly unsuccessful – all I can say is do not google “Meet Mr. Toilet by Jessica Yu.”
I ended the day at The Pact, a horror film in the Park City at Midnight category directed by Nicholas McCarthy. I am so not a fan of horror films, but I managed to sit through this one. The opening short, Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise, directed by Kelly Sears, was just stupid, in my opinion. But the feature film was better. I jumped some, there was sufficient creepiness (but not gratuitous, I think,) and I appreciated that the gore was unrealistic enough to not be stomach-turning. Interestingly, the cast was nearly entirely female – is this just a horror thing, because most of the audience is guys who enjoy watching girls getting scared while wearing underwear? Okay, that sounds a lot weirder than I thought. Ick. On that note, I’ll end.
~Nan
Kate and Nan at Sundance 