So day 7 of the Sundance Film Festival proved to be a unique one! It started out with quite possibly my favorite venue of all: my house! I was planning on seeing director Dan Gilroy’s new film Velvet Buzzsaw at the festival on Sunday but then I heard it was already playing on netflix so I figured why bother? Especially since I had done a midnight movie the previous night I needed to take a lighter day today. Watching the first movie at home proved to be the perfect solution!

The next 2 movies were at the library and I must say those seats at the library are mighty uncomfortable after 2 long movies. My knees are still aching! Luckily tomorrow I have my screening of Lego Movie 2: the Second Part in the morning and then 3 movies at The Grand Theater which is pretty comfortable (and free parking!). In fact, all my remaining screenings are at either The Grand or the Rose Garden theater. Not the most comfortable but better than the Library.

Anyway here are my thoughts on today’s movies

VELVET BUZZSAW

It’s an interesting experience watching Velvet Buzzsaw in the midst of the Sundance Film Festival. There is perhaps no better place to view films that truly espouse to be abstract art rather than narratives than at Sundance (see We are Little Zombies below or The Last Black Man in San Francisco for examples). Some of these artpiece films work for me and then others are frustrating experiences. Either way what’s even more frustrating is when you have the pedantic hipster types who try to tell you how to you should be responding and what classifies as ‘true art’.  Velvet Buzzsaw tries to take aim at these irritating art snobs with a mixture of dark humor and horror and it meets with mixed success.

What can’t be argued is the tremendous cast they have assembled for this film. Jake Gyllenhaal, Toni Collette, Rene Russo and Zawe Ashton all do good work as stuffy art buyers/critics. They all seem to be having fun playing such stuffy characters and it helps elevate the material. I laughed quite a few times at the pompous behavior of these characters. It kind of made me wish the Christopher Guest crew had taken on the world of art criticism (movies like Best in Show or For Your Consideration have similarly self-obsessed characters).

Then you have the horror elements. A rich man dies leaving behind some beautiful artwork the team is dying to own. What they don’t know is this art is cursed and it kills the owners (think Final Destination). These kills were pretty creative, and I enjoyed seeing how each of our snobs was taken down.

However, there are problems with Velvet Buzzsaw. While I did laugh some, a lot of the humor falls flat, and you have the feeling it isn’t as creepy or as funny as it thinks it is. After a while, it starts to feel repetitive and that the actors are reaching for moments that the script isn’t delivering. It all feels a little undercooked if I’m honest- like it needed a few more times in the editing/writing room before it was greenlit.

Still, I’d say the good outweighed the bad and if you can handle some strong R rated content it’s worth a watch.

6 out of 10

Smile Worthy

PHOTOGRAPH

The next film I saw is an Indian export called Photograph that I have very mixed feelings on. Directed by Ritesh Batra, it has many elements I love. First, it is a classic romance where a poor man who takes photographs for tourists asks a young successful businesswoman to pretend to be his girlfriend for his nosy Grandma. There is nothing I love more than a fake fiance plotline in a romantic comedy.

As they pretend to be a couple their chemistry grows and there were many sweet moments between the 2. However, this relationship is SLOOOOOW going, which I was fine with, but then the director fails to give us the payoff this kind of story needs at the end to be satisfying. He spends a majority of the film getting a special gift for her and then the camera pans away before we get to see her get the gift, which was very disappointing.

If you are going to have something as conventional as a fake fiance plotline, the least you can do is give us a conventional happy ending. I am sure some people like the ambiguity of the ending, and I can see why, but for me I wanted a little bit more closure. It felt like the pilot of a tv show instead of a movie.

Photograph is beautifully shot and acted but I don’t know if I can quite go fresh with it. The pacing and the ending were just too frustrating. She needed to get the cola gosh darn it!

5 out of 10

Frown Worthy

WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES

Now there are art films and then there are ART FILMS! Japanese director Makoto Nagahisa’s We are Little Zombies is about as big an example of the latter as you are going to get. As such, some people will find it exhilarating, and others like myself, will find it exhausting and even nauseating. That’s just the way bold art works sometimes!

We are Little Zombies is about a group of 4 orphans that decide to form a band because they all hate their parents and are angry at the world. As they play we get 3 new songs that are fun and there are some witty moments particularly from each of the 4 kids.

However, we also get long sequences with blaring music, strobe lights, flashing nonsensical imagery and complete randomness. At one point they are in a womb waiting to be birthed. At another point they steal a car and are zooming around the countryside eating strawberries. Then they become famous musicians and are on covers of magazines. It’s non-stop and exhausting.

Like I said, I’m sure some will enjoy this film.  I felt like I was going to vomit after the first hour, and I would have left if I wasn’t crammed in the middle of the row. It’s especially problematic at the very long runtime of 2 hours. It simply was not for me.

2 out of 10

Frown Worthy