SUNDANCE 2007

Since Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape put Sundance on the film lover’s map, I’ve naturally kept my eye on what’s emerged from the snowy slopes in the initial months of any given year, and 2007’s bringing an interesting batch.

At the moment, some of the films that are really grabbing my attention are the ones from names we normally associate with in-front-of-the-camera work.

Away From Her (based on Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”) is brought to us by Sarah Polley. I’ve had a crush on Polley for the longest time. She’s come out in Doug Liman’s Go, Hal Hartley’s No Such Thing, Isabel Coixet’s My Life Without Me, and (surprise!) Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead. And now she’s directed her first feature, with the luminous Julie Christie (Polley’s co-star in No Such Thing) as a woman faced with the onset of Alzheimer’s.

Then there’s Slipstream, from the second Hannibal the Cannibal, Sir Anthony Hopkins. It’s about writers and the creative process, with a cast that includes John Turturro, Christian Slater, Camryn Manheim, and Sir Anthony himself. (As with Polley, this is the feature directorial debut of Sir Anthony.)

Then there’re the films from names I’ve come to trust in the director’s chair.
There’s Smiley Face, from Gregg Araki, the mad genius behind The Doom Generation and the incredibly moving Mysterious Skin. Araki’s back with this doped-up misadventure starring the funny Anna Faris (who most people will probably recognize from the Scary Movie franchise; see her in Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation, or Lucky McKee’s May, or even Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain—though she’s underutilized there).

There’s also Bugmaster, from Katsuhiro Otomo. Though widely known for his anime features, Akira and Steamboy, Bugmaster is actually Otomo’s second live-action feature, after World Apartment Horror.

There’s Teeth. Though I’m unfamiliar with director Mitchell Lichtenstein’s work, two words make me blazingly curious about this film: vagina dentata. Enough said.

A few more films round off my initial curious-to-see list: Robert Shaye’s The Last Mimzy (Shaye is better known as the founder of New Line Cinema) from an adapted script co-written by Bruce Joel Rubin (who penned the brilliant Jacob’s Ladder, as well as the mainstream crowd-pleaser, Ghost); John August’s The Nines (August’s directorial debut, though he’s written brilliant scripts for Go and Big Fish, as well as two other Tim Burton films, Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; he’s also, much to my existential horror, penned the scripts for both Charlie’s Angels movies); and Andrew Currie’s Fido, where zombies have become indentured servants to humanity. Yes, you read right: zombies.

Wish I were in Park City right now, but I’m not. So here’s hoping these (and all the other good films at Sundance this year) get bitchin’ distribution deals.

See you at the movies.