Final Sundance Film Festival 2007 Review
Sundance Film Festival 2007 Reviews:
First of all, let me say that this year’s Sundance Film Festival was much better than I could have ever anticipated. The events that we were able to attend, the movies we were able to screen, and the overall atmosphere made it one of the more memorable festivals that I have ever been to. (As a Utah native I had attended numerous Sundance Festivals prior to moving out of state)
Unfortunately I was not able to stay through the entire 2 weeks, but Leeroy was able to pick up some of the slack I left behind.
As promised, here is a more in depth look at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival as Poppa Naydoo and my crew were able to experience it…
First of all, my flight into Utah was completely fucked up. I get to the airport luggage check-in with 43 minutes to spare. I’m told that we needed to be there at least 45 minutes (not the 30 minutes the airline mentions on their website) in order to have any of our bags checked. After a lengthy, but meaningless, “negotiation” with a manager, we try to board the flight only to find out that it has been locked out. (Meaning, they are not accepting any more passengers through check-in.) Needless to say, I’m a bit pissed off by this point. Eventually we are able to get on the 10:00 pm flight through standby, and wait until then to see if we are going to be able to get to Utah that night. We actually do make it on the flight only to find out that we will first need to go through Las Vegas before getting into Salt Lake City. At this point I don’t really give a shit though, and am solely focused on getting into town before the morning due to a movie that we had tickets for. Once we get into Las Vegas we find out that we aren’t guaranteed a ticket on the connecting flight to Salt Lake City and are considered to be on standby for this as well. It wasn’t looking good because they had overbooked the flight in the first place. They had 86 seats, and had sold 100 tickets. Fuckin retards.
In any case, my party ended up getting the final 2 tickets that were available, and there were 2 other people that unfortunately got left behind…oh well I guess. After more than 6 hours of waiting/flying we ended up landing in Salt Lake City, UT at around 2:30 in the morning….pretty shitty for a flight that is supposed to take only 80 minutes.
Enough of that bullshit….onto the stuff you people really care about. Actual movie reviews from the films I was able to attend at the Sundance Film Festival:
The first independent movie that we were able to watch was on Saturday morning around 11:30, it was called Weapons.
Weapons was a very interesting attempt at being an interesting movie. For some reason this movie just missed being a fantastic film. I’m not sure the exact reason(s), but I do know that it was definitely worth checking out regardless of it missing the mark. The main problem I think was the fact that the movie’s climax came at the very beginning of the movie in a scene that completely shocked the fuck out of everyone in attendance. The reason I say it was a problem was because once you have a beginning scene that is so intense, it is very hard to follow it up with a 2 hour long movie that doesn’t come close to that type of emotion again.
The overall story followed a few different groups of early college age wannabe gangsters and other “party goers” through a few different circumstances that tied everyone together at some point. Nick Cannon starred in this movie and did a pretty decent job as the overly emotional brother of a chick that claims she is raped as a revenge tactic. As you can imagine there are a ton of stereotypes that are adhered to within this film and overall the movie lost it’s momentum about half-way through. It was going just fine until it hit the Party scene. At that point the movie felt like it took 4 hours to get over with. The strongest point of Weapons was definitely it’s script. Very lifelike, and original given it’s unoriginal plot. The direction was off just a bit, and some of the actors just didn’t fit the roles they were given.
Overall I would give Weapons a 6.5 out of 10 and recommend it to all who like “gritty drama/action” style films.
The next Sundance film we attended was On the Road with Judas. The script was extremely well written, and given the concept I guess it was directed very well. With the type of story that is being told you have to expect a very easy going movie that really doesn’t have a crescendo to look forward to. Other than the lack of climax factor, I really enjoyed this film. I guess it was just a bit too cerebral for what I was in the mood for at the time though. This is a very difficult movie to try to explain, so I’m not even going to try. Maybe Leeroy Jenkins can give you a better idea of what it is about since it was his favorite film of the festival. I definitely recommend people check it out in the event that they enjoy movies such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but a bit more confusing.
Overall I give On the Road with Judas a 7 out of 10 rating and highly recommend you see it to fully understand what I am saying here. You won’t be disappointed.
The third Sundance film we saw was called, Finishing the Game. This was a fantastic movie. It was hilarious! The script was awesome, the directing couldn’t have been better, and the concept was very original. This is a thouroughly enjoyable film for those people that can handle a bit of fucking adult language. The story revolves around a film studio trying to find a replacement for Bruce Lee after he dies on set during the shooting of The Game of Death. Needless to say, there are a ton of Asian, American, and Black people that are interested in taking over for the recently deceased Bruce Lee. This movie flew by, which is saying a lot given the fact that we saw it during it’s midnight premier. The Q&A afterwards was great, and even featured MC Hammer (Which I have pictures of and will post once I figure out how the fuck to do it). Highly comical all the way around
Overall I give Finishing the Game an 8.5 out of 10 rating and highly recommend it to people that enjoy movies like Old School.
The next movie we saw was The Signal. This was also a midnight showing, and was fuckin fantastic. This was absolutely my favorite movie of Sundance this year, and know for a fact that it has already been picked up for nationwide distribution. This was a Horror/Comedy much like Shawn of the Dead – but MUCH better. It was actually scary, it was truly hilarious, and was very cool. It is about a weird signal that is being transmitted into television sets and telephones throughout a city that makes people become a little “crazy” to say the least. The way that the movie was created involved 3 different writer/directors that combined their stories to make one great film. I HIGHLY recommend seeing this movie as soon as it comes out. (As you can see I am refusing to give out too much regarding the storyline….because you need to fuckin see it to be blessed with that knowledge!)
I give The Signal a 9.5 out of 10 and am looking forward to owning this one day!
The next movie we saw was called Trade. This movie starred Kevin Klein and was about the realities of human trafficking for prostitution purposes. The subject is much more hard hitting than the movie was, and I was a little disappointed by the end result. Overall it was a good movie that definitely deserves nationwide attention. This was Mrs. Naydoo’s favorite film (she hates chick flicks by the way) and she can usually be trusted regarding her opinions on films. I liked the movie, but was a little skewed by this time due to the other very high quality shows we had watched. This is a movie that will be released, and is definitely recommended to see when possible.
I give Trade a 7.5 out of 10 and recommend it to people that like the movie Traffic.
The last movie I saw was called Red Road. Good God this was ridiculous. I don’t have much to say that Leeroy hasn’t already said, but Jesus this was terrible. The main issue is that we were expecting an “intense thriller/horror” type movie, and what we got was Going Down on Madison County. Don’t get me wrong, I love porn, but when there is 3 minutes of it in a 2 hour long movie that had nothing else going for it, I feel a little jobbed to say the least. Don’t see this movie.
I give Red Road a 3 out of 10 and don’t recommend it to anyone except weird fuckers.
The Naydoo
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