Karina on SpoutBlog

I’ve scoured the various Sundance schedules and picked out the 13 films that I’m most looking forward to over the course of the ten days in Park City. Note that this list does not include films that I’ve already seen, either at other festivals or through other means. It didn’t seem fair to include anything I have that kind of inside scoop on, and anyway, you’ll hear about those films soon enough — this is purely a catalog of my own current anticipations.

1 & 2: Moon and The Clone Returns Home

It’s the Philosophical Astronaut Double Feature! First, Sam Rockwell stars in Moon (the feature debut of Duncan Jones, AKA Zowie Bowie, David’s son) as a contract in a space pod, alone save for his trusty robot, who is nudged by the monotony (or, moonotony) of life in space towards an existential crisis. Then, there’s Clone, a Japanese feature executive produced by Wim Wenders, about a cloned astronaut who “flees the lab in search of his childhood home [and] finds his own lifeless body in a space suit. Mistaking it for his brother, he continues his journey carrying the body on his back.” Seriously, go read the Sundance catalogue description — it’s maybe the most evocative festival guide copy I’ve ever read. Clone is in the World Dramatic competition, Moon is a Premiere.

3. Humpday

A bromance directed by a broad. Lynn Shelton’s follow-up to My Effortless Brilliance (and her return to Park City after taking the Grand Prize at Slamdance in 2006 for her first feature, We Go Way Back) stars Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair) and Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project) as two college buddies who reunite as thirtysomethings and end up entering an amateur porn contest. Defintiely the domestic Narrative Competition feature that’s come up most in conversation with friends and colleagues since the lineup was announced.

4. The September Issue

RJ Cutler’s portrait of editor Anna Wintour spans the nine months of work that go into the creation of fashion’s annual bible, the September issue of VOGUE. I’m bit of a sucker for fashion documentaries, but even if you’re not, one hopes Cutler (producer of The War Room, director of A Perfect Candidate) will apply lessons learned in the deep end of politics to the politics of the superficial.

Under discussion:

Hudson Hawk  (1991)

Masculin/Feminin  (1966)

Jordan Galland, director of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead, truly has every press hook a Slamdance filmmaker could ask for, from the ample involvement of celebrity children (Jake “Son of Dustin” Hoffman stars, Bijou Phillips has a cameo and Sean Lennon composed the score), to, of course, the fantastic title recalling mid-century “poster first, script later” schlock horror (which, according to Wikipedia, Galland came up with at age 14 — yet another angle!). The director also has the foolhardy balls (or is it savvy?) to admit that his film was influenced by both Masculin Feminin and Hudson Hawk, which makes it sound pretty much irresistable. Undead premieres on Monday, January 19 at Slamdance; its trailer is above and Galland answers the 4 Questions We Ask Everyone after the jump.

Tell us about your movie: who did you work with, what did you shoot on, why did you make it? Give us the reductive, 25-word or less, “It’s like [pop culture reference a] meets [pop culture reference b]!” pitch, then explain what the quick and dirty sell leaves out.

It’s like The Hunger meets Waiting for Guffman. Or…. it’s like Fright Night meets Manhattan, meets Shakespeare in Love in a dark alley with a twist of The Da Vinci Code, with stretch limos with Mickey Blue Eyes-type mobsters and bumbling detectives, a la Pink Panther.

I worked with an absolutely fantastic ensemble, which includes Jake Hoffman, Devon Aoki, John Ventimilgia, Kris Lemche, Waris Ahluwalia, Ralph Macchio, Jeremy Sisto and a wonderful cameo from Bijou Phillips. The crew was also a complete godsend from the cinematographer Chris Lavasseur, the costume designer Cameron Folan and the first assistant director, Chris Carol.

We shot this film on the RED camera, which was really convenient and inexpensive. This film is the second feature film in New York City to use this RED camera technology.

I chose to make this film for many reasons, but the main reason was that I didn’t want to work in just one genre. I was able to make a film that allowed me to play with ideas from tons of movies I love, from Dr. Strangelove, to What’s Up Doc, Hudson Hawk, Goodfellas, Shakespeare in Love, Waiting for Guffman, The Hunger, Legend, True Romance, Masculin Feminin. It’s a smorgasbord, as they say.

If you funded your film through a “day job” or through working on projects that were not your own, tell us about that. If not, tell us a story from your past work life, before you became a professional filmmaker.

Although I still compose music as my day job, I used to have rock band called dopo yume which evolved into a rock band called Domino. Some interesting things have happened while we were touring such as opening for Lilly Allen, Rufus Wainwright, Maroon 5, Phantom Planet Ween, Rooney, Sean Lennon and Cibo Matto. Once, Fischerspooner hired my band to be their backing band so we flew to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where we played in front of forty thousand people. It would have been almost picturesque (as far rock moments go on stage) except Casey Spooner made my band where blue jump suits and head bands and wrist bands, and I had the goofiest outfit of them all.

Have you been to Sundance or Slamdance before? If so, tell us your best moment (or worst, which ever is funnier).

I went to Slamdance last year as a visitor and was very surprised and impressed to see how central Slamdance was in terms of the Sundance world. Also, because Slamdance is centered around one location on Main Street (Treasure Mountain Inn) there was a real sense of “Indie Community” and I loved every film I saw there. My favorite movies (besides Frost, which was produced by my producers) were Circus Rosaire and Paranormal Activity. I’m a big skiing fan and never get to do it since I live in New York City, so that added a whole level of “communing with nature” to my Slamdance experience last year. I hope I have time to go skiing again.

Let’s get hypothetical: You’re on death row. The night of your execution, you’re allowed to watch any two films of your choice. What would you pick for your last-night-on-Earth double feature?

As an actor on my set once said when he was lying in a coffin during his death scene, “I hate courting this kind of negative energy.” My favorite double feature experience, and one that I would gladly repeat: Hot August Night, which premiered at the 2006 Film Forum in NYC; and Superfly and The Warriors, which were part of the New York Film Noir Festival.

indieWIRE has info on two major European festival announcements this morning: the films selected for Rotterdam’s Tiger competition for early-career filmmakers; and “the first 21 films” slotted in Berlin’s Panorama program. The Berlin lineup includes Julie Delpy’s latest directorial effort, The Countess, a period piece starring the director and William Hurt; Pedro, the docudrama about the Real World San Francisco cast member who died of AIDS which premiered at Toronto last year; and two Sundance entries, Tom DiCillio’s Doors doc When You’re Strange and White Lightnin’, the “dancing outlaw” film scripted by VICE guys Shane Smith and Eddy Moretti.

Meanwhile, in Rotterdam, 14 films while vie for the award given to first and second time filmmakers. Among them: Michael Imperioli, best known as sometime-screenwriter, sometime-junkie Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos, whose The Hungry Ghosts will open the festival; and films from Chile, Indonesia, Iran, Taiwan and Turkey. The remainder of the festival’s lineup will be announced on January 15, six day before screenings get underway.