BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (New Line/Warners): Sundance was somewhat awash in feel-good movies this year, which is unusual but not unprecedented. One of the most successful in previous years was 2002’s Bend It Like Beckham, directed by Gurinder Chadha. Chadha returned to the festival this year after some time in the movie wilderness (Bride & Prejudice, It’s A Wonderful Afterlife, Viceroy’s House) with a different and yet very tonally similar story, this time with Bruce Springsteen substituted for David Beckham as the celebrity who changes a youthful enthusiast’s life. Inspired by the autobiography of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor, Blinded By The Light gives us Javed (Vivek Kaira), who’s trudging through his high school years in 1980s England when a friend turns him on to Springsteen. Almost instantly, his inner life feels validated and his attitude changes. Although his conflicts sharpen with his traditionalist Pakistani-immigrant father (Kulvinder Ghir), Javed is suddenly alive with a spirit that leads him to a pretty girlfriend and a desire to pursue a writing career. Everything here is predictable, and Blinded isn’t quite up to the level of Beckham, which had a wider scope of developed characters and more of a ticking-clock third act. Still, Blinded By The Light is nonstop charming, and often delightful, with an appealing cast and what seems to have been unlimited access to the Springsteen catalogue, some of which is used in full-scale musical numbers. New Line paid $15M for the movie, and it definitely has the potential, a la Beckham, to become a mainstream success.
JUDY & PUNCH (no distrib): Mirrah Foulkes’s feature writing/directing debut bites off a lot. It’s set in a fantasy version of the Middle Ages, where the peasants do tai chi (to a Leonard Cohen song on the soundtrack), and women are condemned to death as witches if they look too long at the moon. “Professor” Punch (Damon Herriman) and his wife Judy (Mia Wasikowska) return to their hometown of Seaside (which is landlocked) with a new baby and their puppetry act, for which inevitably Punch gets the credit although Judy is the real talent. Punch is a nightmare, misogynistic, adulterous and violently abusive, especially when he’s drunk, which he usually is. Judy & Punch is the tale of Judy’s gradual empowerment, and it has little use for subtlety, but Foulkes takes real tonal risks (the single most ghastly consequence of Punch’s behavior is played as a sight gag), and that makes the film consistently original. The comic violence, of course, ties in to the traditional Punch & Judy puppet shows, and Foulkes is asking audiences to question what underlies that comedy. Not all of this works, but Foulkes has created a thought-provoking farce-thriller, with an impressive visual style, and Wasikowska and Herriman are both charismatic and watchable as the story’s embodiments of evil and good.
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ShowbuzzDaily Sundance Film Festival Review: “Colette”
COLETTE (no distrib): These days, the early 20th Century French writer known as Colette is remembered mostly if at all for having written the story that became the musical Gigi, but her own life proves to be remarkably timely in Wash Westmoreland’s film. Westmoreland developed the project for a…
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SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Review: “I Think We’re Alone Now”
I THINK WE’RE ALONE NOW (no distrib): Pop culture seems to have an endless fascination with the post-apocalypse, and I Think We’re Alone Now has plenty of pedigree, hailing from Handmaid’s Tale pilot director Reed Morano, and with Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning as seemingly the last people on…
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SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Damsel” & “Puzzle”
DAMSEL (no distrib): A hipster representation of comedy rather than anything comic itself. Written and directed by David and Nathan Zellner, whose previous work includes the similarly film festival-targeted Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (they also appear in the film, David in a leading role), Damsel initially presents itself as…
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SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “The Last Word” & “Thoroughbred”
THE LAST WORD (Bleecker Street): Shirley MacLaine does the irascible codger thing. She’s smart enough not to overplay the very familiar hand she’s been dealt by screenwriter Stuart Ross Fink and director Mark Pellington, but still there’s little here we haven’t seen many times before. Harriet Lauler (MacLaine), while…
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (New Line/Warners): Sundance was somewhat awash in feel-good movies this year, which is unusual but not unprecedented. One of the most successful in previous years was 2002’s Bend It Like Beckham, directed by Gurinder Chadha. Chadha returned to the festival this year after some time in the movie wilderness (Bride & Prejudice, It’s A Wonderful Afterlife, Viceroy’s House) with a different and yet very tonally similar story, this time with Bruce Springsteen substituted for David Beckham as the celebrity who changes a youthful enthusiast’s life. Inspired by the autobiography of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor, Blinded By The Light gives us Javed (Vivek Kaira), who’s trudging through his high school years in 1980s England when a friend turns him on to Springsteen. Almost instantly, his inner life feels validated and his attitude changes. Although his conflicts sharpen with his traditionalist Pakistani-immigrant father (Kulvinder Ghir), Javed is suddenly alive with a spirit that leads him to a pretty girlfriend and a desire to pursue a writing career. Everything here is predictable, and Blinded isn’t quite up to the level of Beckham, which had a wider scope of developed characters and more of a ticking-clock third act. Still, Blinded By The Light is nonstop charming, and often delightful, with an appealing cast and what seems to have been unlimited access to the Springsteen catalogue, some of which is used in full-scale musical numbers. New Line paid $15M for the movie, and it definitely has the potential, a la Beckham, to become a mainstream success.
JUDY & PUNCH (no distrib): Mirrah Foulkes’s feature writing/directing debut bites off a lot. It’s set in a fantasy version of the Middle Ages, where the peasants do tai chi (to a Leonard Cohen song on the soundtrack), and women are condemned to death as witches if they look too long at the moon. “Professor” Punch (Damon Herriman) and his wife Judy (Mia Wasikowska) return to their hometown of Seaside (which is landlocked) with a new baby and their puppetry act, for which inevitably Punch gets the credit although Judy is the real talent. Punch is a nightmare, misogynistic, adulterous and violently abusive, especially when he’s drunk, which he usually is. Judy & Punch is the tale of Judy’s gradual empowerment, and it has little use for subtlety, but Foulkes takes real tonal risks (the single most ghastly consequence of Punch’s behavior is played as a sight gag), and that makes the film consistently original. The comic violence, of course, ties in to the traditional Punch & Judy puppet shows, and Foulkes is asking audiences to question what underlies that comedy. Not all of this works, but Foulkes has created a thought-provoking farce-thriller, with an impressive visual style, and Wasikowska and Herriman are both charismatic and watchable as the story’s embodiments of evil and good.
Related Posts
COLETTE (no distrib): These days, the early 20th Century French writer known as Colette is remembered mostly if at all for having written the story that became the musical Gigi, but her own life proves to be remarkably timely in Wash Westmoreland’s film. Westmoreland developed the project for a…
I THINK WE’RE ALONE NOW (no distrib): Pop culture seems to have an endless fascination with the post-apocalypse, and I Think We’re Alone Now has plenty of pedigree, hailing from Handmaid’s Tale pilot director Reed Morano, and with Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning as seemingly the last people on…
DAMSEL (no distrib): A hipster representation of comedy rather than anything comic itself. Written and directed by David and Nathan Zellner, whose previous work includes the similarly film festival-targeted Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (they also appear in the film, David in a leading role), Damsel initially presents itself as…
THE LAST WORD (Bleecker Street): Shirley MacLaine does the irascible codger thing. She’s smart enough not to overplay the very familiar hand she’s been dealt by screenwriter Stuart Ross Fink and director Mark Pellington, but still there’s little here we haven’t seen many times before. Harriet Lauler (MacLaine), while…