Telluride: Final Day Movies

We can't believe this is our last day.  Time flew by, as always, although T3 told me today she thinks she hit her limit this year.  Here's what we saw:

Labor Day
Here's the unusual case of a mediocre book (by Joyce Maynard) being made into a better film. It's a story about an escaped convict who barges into the home and lives of a mother and son.  Despite a treacly ending, we both enjoyed the film.

Just as an aside, we suspect that this film made it to Telluride because the festival was offering a sneak peek at the new Salinger biopic. Because Maynard had a short affair and a longer legal battle with Salinger, pehaps it seemed fitting (to the festival director) to show both films at the festival.

Prisoners
Oof.  Neither Tanya nor I were big fans of this movie - a blatantly commercial film starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. The plot is time worn: Two young girls are kidnapped and the police are working frantically against the clock.. Meanwhile, one of the girls' father is going berserk at the lack of progress and decides to take matters into his own hands. I had to hide my eyes a lot during this film.

Tracks
I quite enjoyed this film adaptation of Robyn Davidson's memoir about her camel trek across the Australian desert. Tanya had issues with the film that I can't tell you about without giving something away.

Festival favorites that the Middle Sisters did not see:
Nebraska
Gravity
Ida
Tim's Vermeer
All is Lost

And there you have it. Over and out until next year.

T2

Telluride: Day 4 Movies

After a shaky start, the festival has bloomed into one of the best we've attended.  Today we saw:

Manuscripts Don't Burn
This difficult (emotionally) film is about the Iranian government's campaign to silence the country's intellectual dissidents. It's powerful and interesting (i.e. not boring), but perhaps most remarkable because it was made clandestinely (is that a word?). The filmmaker is only recently out of jail, so we are unclear about how he managed to turn up at Telluride where he is showing his movie and trashing the Iranian government on a public stage. Pray for him.

Mahanagar
My sister, Trina, introduced me to Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray when we were both in college. (I mean she introduced me to his films.) I am a huge fan, so I was eager to see Mahanager lo these many years after it was made. It was selected for the festival (as a classic film) and introduced to us by Salman Rushdie, who told inappropriate jokes and sounded professorial and genial. If only Rushdie's books were as good as Ray's films.

Invisible Woman
What is it with directors who try to turn a famous old man's obsession with a teenage girl into a touching romance. This time it was Ralph Fiennes as Dickens (at 47) doing the dirty with a barely 18 year old actress he "discovered."  Maybe Fiennes (the director) was trying to show Dickens as a sympathetic mess, but to me he was just a mess, and a disgusting one at that.  The plot is Back Street all over again. Well acted, tho.

Lunchbox
Loved it! This Indian film starring the amazing Infan Kahn was a huge hit here. Apparently in Bombay (and maybe other places) office workers can and often do have lunches delivered to them. The lunch might be prepared by a commercial outfit or it might come from home, fresh off the stove. So this is a story about what happened when a lunch was delivered to the wrong person.  An interesting tidbit about the filmmaker: He was a lunch delivery boy before he made this film.

t2

Telluride: Day 3 Movies

T-Bone Burnett and the Coen brothers started our day off right by bringing a live band to their Q & A session.  Even at 9 a.m. it was a foot-tapping mood lifter (as if our mood needed lifting). Then we saw:

Inside Llewyn Davis
Loved it!  If you like music and you like the Coen brothers you will love this movie about a talented musician who just can't catch the bank-busting break.

The Past
Loved it! Anyone who liked A Separation will undoubtedly like this too. It's another complex family drama that takes a no-win situation and sees what one family does with it.  If you slept through A Separation, don't bother with this.  We overheard one guy go on and on about how slow the movie was and how he missed a bunch of stuff because he fell asleep. His friend said, "Oh really?  I loved it," whereupon the sleepy guy said, "Yeah, it was a great movie."  Seriously. I couldn't make this stuff up.

12 Years a Slave
Did any of you see Shame?  I think Tanya and I reported (was it last year?) that Shame was an interesting film but hard to watch.  Now the director, Steve McQueen, has presented us with a movie about slavery. I can tell you that it's the same old story but told very well. Personally, I've seen enough flesh-stripping, unless the filmmaker has something new to say.

T2

TFF Oh what a relief it is

So here we are at the Telluride Film Festival.  I will leave the film reviews to T2, well for the most part.

I do have to make a comment about two movies. 

One Sardonis butterflies - Huh?  If ever I was made to feel inept this film did it for me.  I mean really I felt I walked into the middle of Twin Peaks dream sequence.  But who am I to comment on anothers genuis.  But truly if I were to give it a grade - it would probably be an F.

Two Under the Skin.  Yikes I actually liked this movie.  True it could have been forty-five minutes shorter, maybe even making it a short - I mean how many times do we have to see a hunt to understand the hunt or for that matter a fight or car chase.  If it is intergral to the subject is a fight good for 10 minutes of a two hour movie, or 80 minutes because there is more than one fight? 

So in the middle of the movie my seat mate (not T2) grunted said oh my god, and got up and walked out.  Then came the exodus.  Half the theater walked out.   Twenty minutes later the other half walked out.  By  the end of the movie there were maybe ten people remaining (it was a sold out crowd to start) - yup not everybodies cup of tea.

Would I see it in a theater - no, but I would see it on DVD and fast forward - definitely.

T3
 

Telluride: Day 2 Movies

After spending the morning with Robert Redford (yes, he still runs Sundance yet showed up at his competitor's festival. what a guy.), we saw:

Gloria
This was Looking for Mr. Goodbar without the brutality and with a middle-aged protagonist. Performances were good, but we both still gave it a C. In my case it was not because it was a bad movie, but because it made me squeamish.

Before the Winter Chill
Another movie about people trying to find their way later (not LATE, but later) in life. This one I liked. This film was by the same director who made I've Loved You So Long, one of my all-time favorite Telluride films.  Winter Chill features Kristin Scott-Thomas and Daniel Auteuil, two terrific actors.

Under the Skin
We overheard someone in the gondola say that *everyone* who saw this film hated it and that she, herself, gave it an F-.  Then Tanya piped up with, "I liked it."

It's science fiction and stars Scarlett Johansson playing a seductress, so you know none of the males in the gondola gave it an F- either.

My opinion: it is definitely strange and it could have used an edit, but it was interesting enough to provoke a good discussion (just not in the gondola). Approach with caution.

T2

Telluride: Day 1 Movies

Sadourni's Butterflies
Our reaction after seeing this movie from Argentina: Huh?
Think weird melding of Dave Lynch and Rico Fellini.
Beware of movies about a Dwarf!
(What were they thinking when they decided to start the festival with this movie???)

Fifi Howls From Happiness
We both quite liked this documentary about reclusive Iranian artist (and dissident) Bahman Mohasses. I know, I know, you already suspect there's a dwarf in the movie, but there isn't. One of the best parts of this movie was that every time Mohassess laughed, the whole theater cracked up. Some people just have the gift of contagious laughter.

T2

Telluride!

We have arrived for the 40th Telluride Film Festival! The first of the three movies we will see today starts at 4:45 p.m.

To maximize our chances of sleeping through all three, we went on a hike this morning that had a 1000 foot climb in the middle of it and now we are going to have an early dinner WITH wine.

Whether we sleep through the movies or not, we will provide reviews.  Stay tooned! (get it?)

T2