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January 25, 2008

Sundance - In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of Thurs Evening

This evening offered two of the buzz films of the festival, Anvil: The Story Of Anvil and Sunshine Cleaning.

Anvil is this year's American Movie, albeit less wildly funny and more poignant, as it tells the story of two Canadian heavy metalargy.

Anvil is this year's American Movie (from the great Chris Smith), albeit less wildly funny and more poignant, as it tells the story of two Canadian heavy metallurgists who are still aspiring to career greatness in their 50s. Aspiring is a lot funnier when the aspirant is young. But these guys are resilient and unshakable… a different kind of power.

The movie, directed by former Anvil roadie (and established Hollywood screenwriter) Sacha Gervasi, picks up on the group, which is really fronted by two men – Lips & Robbo (who is Robb Reiner with two “b”s) – who have been like brothers from the beginning, back at the start of the U.S. heavy metal craze. They are revered by some, looked up to by many, and still nearly invisible to most.

Curious about what the face of three decades of aspiring – and the families of the aspiring - looks like? This is the movie for you. And it has the advantage of engaging the rare event of a certain success in failure. The result is a pleasure to watch and engage with, even if you, like I, would flip off the radio the second any metal came over the airwaves.

Sunshine Cleaning, on the other hand, seemed like a slam dunk. The producers of Little Miss Sunshine team rising stars Amy Adams and Emily Blunt as sisters – the first mistake, as it turns out – with Alan Arkin as dad, a cute oddball kid, the great Clifton Collins, Jr as The One Armed Man and even throw in Steve Zahn as further bait.

But the idea of the film is very complex, really. As such, Christine Jeffs was a great choice. But what the screenplay needed was simplifying, really. The idea of two sisters, kinda broken, in need of clarity decades after their mother’s suicide ending up cleaning crime scenes is more than a little interesting. And the idea that they will find clarity in the process is the thing of indie dreams. But somehow, that notion, which does lead to a few excellent speeches, doesn’t quite work out.

As I say, the first problem is that you never really believe the sisters as sisters, no matter how good and charming these two actresses are. (Mary Lynn Rajskub has a small role opposite Blunt and they seem more like sisters from the second we see them together.) And Alan Arkin as their dad is odd.

And who the hell allowed the movie to be shot in the dark? Gordon F-ing Willis would be looking for an additional light source in some of these scenes!

But mostly, it’s the screenplay, which has the great ideas, but not the connective tissue. Amy Adams has a great speech about why the work fulfills her… but that is the only real evidence of it in the film. As a result, you get an entertaining, well made, well acted film… but the big heart never takes hold the way you want it to… the way the film keeps threatening to.

One major sequence that illustrated actively how the job has gotten under their skin (emotional, not physical) could well have transformed this into a truly great little film.

So you win some, you lose some. And so goes The Dance…

Posted by poland at January 25, 2008 01:04 AM

Comments

Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at January 25, 2008 05:05 AM

Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at January 25, 2008 05:05 AM

Posted by: Krazy Eyes at January 25, 2008 06:54 AM

Posted by: EDouglas at January 25, 2008 07:26 AM

Posted by: Cadavra at January 25, 2008 10:53 AM

Posted by: David Poland at January 25, 2008 03:58 PM

Posted by: Craptastic at January 26, 2008 01:31 AM

Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at January 26, 2008 04:36 AM

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