Happy fuckin new year everyone! For my first post of 2007 I figured I would go into detail on the independent films I’m interested in seeing at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. There are hundreds of other movies worth checking out, but unfortunately I only have so much time. I will post a full review of each of the indie films I see, and hopefully you will have a chance to watch them when they secure a distributor for wide release. FYI: This information was taken directly from the Sundance Film Festival’s Film Guide.
Sundance Film Festival 2007:
BLACK SNAKE MOAN
U.S.A., 2006, 118 Minutes, color
Director:
Craig Brewer
Screenwriter:
Craig Brewer
Writer/director Craig Brewer follows up his Sundance hit Hustle & Flow with another pulsing journey into the heart of a southern musician. This time he taps into the essence of the blues to concoct an intoxicating tale of a man hell-bent on saving a lost soul, and in the process, himself.
In a small Tennessee town, two unlikely souls meet at the sticky crossroads between rage and love. Lying beaten on the side of the road is Rae, who has developed a reputation for an insatiable “itch” for sex. Her rescuer is Lazarus, an ex-blues guitarist who is used to life’s relentless refrains of trouble and sorrow. Desperate for a change himself, Lazarus goes to extremes to “cure” Rae of her wicked ways. But to get to the deep, dark bottom of Rae’s problems, Lazarus has to face the demons in both their hearts.
Brewer is a virtuoso at blending music into his films. They pulsate with the beats and rhythms of pain, love, sex, death, and life. Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson engage in a brave on-screen duet of charged emotions and intense physicality. All this combines with rousing imagery that both titillates and challenges to help Black Snake Moan unfold a raw and revealing morality tale that doesn’t deal in black and white but rather transcendent shades of blue.— Trevor Groth
Screenwriter : Craig Brewer
Producers : John Singleton, Stephanie Allain
Cast : Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake, S. Epatha Merkerson, John Cothran
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462200/
Screening Times
Wednesday , Jan 24 6:00 PM Eccles Theatre BLACK24CE
Thursday , Jan 25 11:30 PM Prospector Square Theatre BLACK25PL
Saturday , Jan 27 9:30 PM Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, SLC BLACK27GN
Director(s) Bios
Craig Brewer
A native of Virginia, Craig Brewer was raised in Memphis and attended the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. Brewer took home the coveted 2005 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Hustle & Flow. The film also won the Excellence in Cinematography Award. It went on to win the Academy Award for best original song, ,and the cast was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. Black Snake Moan is Brewer’s fourth film.
CHAPTER 27
U.S.A., 2006, 100 Minutes, color
Director:
Jarrett Schaefer
Screenwriter:
Jarrett Schaefer
What went on in the mind of the man who felt compelled to assassinate John Lennon? Chapter 27 deftly pilots us into the dark psyche of Mark David Chapman the weekend before the December 8, 1980, shooting. Inspired by Chapman’s recollections, and propelled by a haunting, tour-de-force performance from Jared Leto, the film unravels the web of literary associations and cultural signs through which Chapman processes the world as he releases his grip on reality.
Fresh from Hawaii, Chapman spends the better part of three days posing as an autograph seeker at the Dakota, Lennon’s abode. As he hovers in the wintry cold, striking up oddly charged conversations with a devoted fan, Chapman’s narration reveals that he is self-consciously, almost spiritually, ingesting his prophetic holy book, The Catcher in the Rye. Whipping himself into a twisted incarnation of Holden Caulfield, he adopts Holden’s speech patterns, hires a prostitute, and spots phonies everywhere. In his spiral into mental collapse, he even seems to be following in Holden’s footsteps. At the height of his derangement, this merging becomes so complete that he yearns to disappear into Salinger’s pages. In a brilliant mimetic move, the film also converges with the book, structuring itself as a first-person stream of consciousness related from the future.
Neither celebrating nor sensationalizing, Chapter 27 explores a figure whose psychological mechanisms we can interpret but never fully penetrate, raising the question, can we ever really know another person’s interior experience?— Caroline Libresco
Screenwriter : Jarrett Schaefer
Producers : Naomi Despres, Bob Salerno, Alexandra Milchan
Cinematographer : Tom Richmond
Editors : Jim Makiej, Andrew Hafitz
Production Designer : Kalina Ivanov
Composer : Anthony Marinelli
Costume Designer : Ane Crabtree
Cast : Jared Leto, Lindsay Lohan, Judah Friedlander, Ursula Abbott, Jeane Fourier, Brian O’Neill
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488988/
Screening Times
Thursday , Jan 25 9:30 PM Eccles Theatre CHAPT25CN
Friday , Jan 26 8:30 AM Prospector Square Theatre CHAPT26PM
Friday , Jan 26 9:30 PM Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, SLC CHAPT26GN
Saturday , Jan 27 6:00 PM Screening Room, Sundance Village CHAPT27SE
Director(s) Bios
Jarrett Schaefer
Jarrett Schaefer was born in Landstuhl, Germany, and graduated from the film-writing program at USC in 2001. Chapter 27 is his first feature film.
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