This post will be long and probably not very interesting to you—it is mostly for myself. Here is a little bit about each of the films I had the chance to see:
We started off our first night seeing the SHORTS PROGRAM I. It consisted of six short films that were all very different. To be honest, I wasn’t the biggest fan of a few of them but the most entertaining was “Fight for Your Right Revisited”, which included the Beastie Boys, Elijah Wood, and tons of other celebrity appearances. It was entertaining for sure but not award-winning material by any means. We were just glad the shorts ended on this funny, light note. Another good thing that came from the Shorts Program was the Q&A session afterward because that is where I caught my first glimpse of Ariel Kleiman, the director of “Deeper Than Yesterday”. Just ask Linze, it was crush at first sight.
THE FUTURE was our second movie of the festival. It was quirky and the best part was that it was narrated by a cat named Paw Paw. It was about the relationship of a 30-something couple, Sophie and Jason, and how their lives change as they decide to take advantage of their last month of freedom before they adopt a cat together. I liked it and the best word I could think of to describe it when people asked the rest of the week was that it was ‘interesting’.
From here on out it’s all really a blur. So here is what I have to say on the rest of them, in no particular order:
CONNECTED
An Autobiography about Love, Death and Technology: I saw this film, which was in the U.S. Documentary category while I was working at the Yarrow. It was interesting but too personal to the director for my taste. The poster made it seem like it would be more interesting than it actually was. I would have loved if it focused more on how we are all connected to each other and to technology, but maybe that’s just me.
HOMEWORK
One of the main reasons I wanted to see this film was because Freddie Highmore was in it. He did a good job but it was almost strange seeing him try to transition from being a little boy to playing a more grown-up role. Basically it Is kind of a love story but along the way George (Freddie) learns that life and love don’t always go as planned.
LIKE CRAZY
This film won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the festival. Some said it was the “500 Days of Summer” of this year’s festival but I don’t agree it was actually that good. But it was good. The film was about two students, Anna and Jacob, who fall madly in love and then try to maintain their long-distance relationship after a problem with Anna’s visa. She is in London and he is in LA and they try to work things out despite all of the problems they run in to. I liked this film because it was a real relationship and in real relationships, not everything is perfect all the time. I found myself more invested in the characters than I thought I was when I was suddenly heart-broken if something went wrong.
HOT COFFEE
This was another documentary that exposed various corporations, including McDonald’s, distort cases against them in order to promote tort reform. Director Susan Saladoff uncovered stories of families in the United States who have not been able to access courts to seek justice in cases where they have been wronged. Like the title of the film mentions, one of the cases was about the McDonald’s coffee spill that caused intense burns on an old woman. I am the first to admit that when I heard people were trying to sue McDonald’s because of a coffee spill, I thought it was ridiculous and they were just gold diggers. But that’s exactly what McDonald’s wanted you to think. Without going in to the details of the case, I learned that McDonald's and many other businesses go out of their way to dodge taking responsibility for their mistakes and because of that, people are being treated unfairly and left with millions of dollars of bills they shouldn’t have to pay for as well as physical and emotional damages.
THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED
This was one of my favorite films I saw the whole time and I was very excited to hear that someone bought it so I hope to see it in theaters some day soon. It was about a young man who had a tumor in his brain removed, which damaged his memory. He had not seen his parents in years and the story is the journey the three of them go through to make up for lost time. The dad, J.K. Simmons, was able to have the relationship with his son that he had missed out on through the help of music his son loved, especially The Grateful Dead. I loved this film!
MY IDIOT BROTHER
This film had one of the most star-studded casts of all the films this year. It included Paul Rudd, Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth Banks, Emily Mortimer, Rashida Jones and a few others. I think Paul Rudd did a great job playing Ned, a man whose life is full of problems, but he always manages to be positive and see the best in people around him. This character trait of his always seems to get him in to trouble and causes his family to think of him as the ‘idiot brother’. While Ned causes a lot of problems in his family, he brings them together as well. To me the movie was very real as it dealt with family and relationships.
THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD
This documentary was another one of Morgan Spurlock’s crazy ideas (he’s the one that did “Super Size Me”). He created a documentary all about product placement and advertising that was financed completely by product placement, marketing and advertising. It was pretty brilliant, very interesting and made me want to drink POM pomegranate juice.
IN A BETTER WORLD
I was lucky enough to see this film one day while I was working at the Yarrow. And actually, I heard that it won a Golden Globe for best foreign language film or something like that. It definitely deserved some sort of recognition because it was a great movie. Most of the story is about two ten-year-old boys, Elias and Christian. Elias is constantly bullied at school until he becomes friends with a new kid, Christian. Christian stands up for Elias but the boys eventually get in to trouble when it becomes clear that Christian takes his need to get revenge for others too far. The journey of these two boys and their families is a rocky one but the movie ended well, with some hope of better lives for all of them in the future. I thought it was a beautiful film.
PERFECT SENSE
This was another great film that starred Ewan McGregor. It is a love story but also almost a thriller about two people and how they deal with a global pandemic that breaks out. People all over the world are suffering from strange symptoms that first affect peoples’ emotions and then take away their senses, one by one. First the affected feel great sadness and then their smell goes, then taste and then anger, which is followed by a loss of hearing and eventually eye sight.
SENNA
This was one of the last movies I saw at the festival and I could not have ended on a better note. It was a documentary about Ayrton Senna, a race car driver from Brazil (and maybe the greatest race car driver that ever lived). Honestly, this film was so great that it is hard to even try to say anything about it. It was amazing to learn about this man and how he was a genuinely good person who did the right thing always and was the one thing that brought hope and pride to Brazil when they had nothing else to have hope in. He was an idol there, and for good reason. Watching his journey to the very end was inspiring and emotional and I loved it. Plus, he wasn’t too bad to look at for 90 min either. I wasn’t excited when I realized I would be seeing a documentary about a race car driver (boring!) but I am so glad I did!
Th-th-that’s all folks!
They were saying that more movies were bought this year than have been in a long time. I can’t wait to see some of these come out and how they were changed or edited. That will be interesting to see and cool that I was able to see the original version.
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