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Sundance recap
The Austin Film Festival’s Kelly Williams recaps his experience at the Sundance Film Festival, which ended Sunday.
After you return home from a festival like Sundance, you look back and realize you did not see nearly as many films as you planned on. Sometimes they are sold out. Sometimes the film showing before it goes over the time limits. Sometimes the shuttle is running late. And sometimes you get stuck at a pretty good party. So that said, I ended up seeing 15 films between Slamdance and Sundance in my few days there, here are some of the highlights…
Favorite Q&A:
Louis C.K. - It helps when the filmmaker is also a performer. He wasn’t scared of the audience by any means. But what made this Q&A great was how much he got into the filmmaking and writing process for his concert film - things you rarely get to hear someone like him talk about. He’s a good filmmaker and someone should let him make more films.
Favorite film intro:
Leon Gast - the Oscar winning director of Smash His Camera (the story of Ron Galella - the first paparazzo) got up in front of the 11:30 p.m. crowd and admitted he was too tired for this late of a screening and would not be sticking around for a Q&A, but if anyone had any questions, they could just give him a call
Favorite short film:
The S from Hell - a documentary short about the Screen Gems logo that appeared after syndicated shows like Bewitched and the Flintstones and how it struck fear in the hearts of children. It has to be seen to be believed, it is currently on youtube as part of a Sundance partnership along with Austin Film Festival 2009 audience award winner Mr. Okra and AFF alum Kelly Sears’ new film Voice on the Line.
Five Favorite performances:
Ryan O’Nan - The Dry Land (Sundance) - Coming out of nowhere, O’Nan delivers a truly amazing performance as a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. O’Nan is an actor to watch.
Rhys Coiro - Snow and Ashes (Slamdance) - Playing a war journalist with a similar post-traumatic issue as O’Nan, Rhys Coiro delivers a completely different portrayal of a man dealing with the things he’s done wrong under the pressure of war.
Joe Egender - The Violent Kind (Sundance) - Egender is both funny and frightening as the greaser Vernon in this sci-fi horror film.
Melissa Leo - The Dry Land (Sundance) - Honestly, the entire cast of The Dry Land is great - not to keep coming back to them, but a particular scene between Ryan O’Nan and his mother (Oscar nominee Leo) really got to this jaded moviegoer.
John C. Reilly - The Extra Man (Sundance) - I didn’t get to see his leading role in Cyrus, but in this supporting role, Reilly takes a part that could very easily come off irritating and instead steals scenes right out from under Kevin Kline
Lily Holleman - UrFrenz (Slamdance) - While the film felt somewhat flat overall, Holleman’s performance was a winner, playing a high school student caught up on the wrong side of a social networking site.
Five films I’m kicking myself for NOT seeing:
Four Lions
GasLand
Lovers of Hate
Me Too
Winter’s Bone
Top five favorite films I saw (in no ranking order):
The Dry Land
Louis C.K.: Hilarious
Skateland
Smash his Camera
Snow and Ashes
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