Don't give up on fresh crop

The hype surrounding the festival may sound like there's not much to see, but there are a few gems.
By CHRISTOPHER KELLY
(FORT WORTH) STAR-TELEGRAM
ven before the first movie had unspooled at this year's Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, the buzz had turned sour: Internet bloggers were writing that there would be nothing here on the order of "Little Miss Sunshine," last year's massive breakout hit. I overheard one critic telling another that he heard all the films this year would be "small" and "arty." Better luck next year.
If this all sounds a little screwy -- that a film festival should be judged before anyone has seen even a single film -- well, welcome to Sundance, an event that runs on hype, half-truths and innuendo the way cars run on gasoline. This festival runs on irony, too: The movies here might turn out to be dreadful, but that still wouldn't stop anyone from mobbing the theaters to see them.
So is the advance word accurate? After only a half-dozen screenings, it's tough to say. Things could go either way. The festival kicked off with "Chicago 10," an ambitious documentary that aims to reconstruct the famous Chicago Seven trial, with a mixture of archival footage and long animated sequences in which celebrities (Nick Nolte, Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo) provide the voices of famed radicals such as Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden. It's called "10" rather than "7" because the film includes Bobby Seale and two lawyers, according to David Poland's online "10 Days of Sundance."
This is certainly an interesting attempt to make potentially stuffy PBS-style material relevant for a modern audience. (Beastie Boys and Eminem songs periodically blare on the soundtrack.) If only director Brett Morgen were interested in seriously reckoning with the trial or were willing to question the actions of Hoffman and his ilk. Instead, "Chicago 10" upholds the notion of these "yippies" as heroes and saints, and the movie begins to drown in '60s liberal nostalgia.
Another disappointment
The other high-profile disappointment of the opening weekend was "Joshua," a thriller directed by Texan George Ratliff (who made a fine 2001 documentary called "Hell House," set in Cedar Hill, Texas). It stars indie darling du jour Vera Farmiga ("The Departed") and Sam Rockwell "(The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") as a married New York City couple with a slightly creepy, piano-playing son named Joshua (Jacob Kogan). When mom gives birth to a beautiful baby girl, well, let's just say Joshua doesn't exactly cotton to his little sister.
Ratliff is working from some very obvious influences, including "Rosemary's Baby" and "Birth" -- though, at least for the first hour, he provides just enough of a fresh spin on the material to hold our attention. The problem is that, just when the screws should begin tightening and the shivers should start running up and down our backs, Joshua turns increasingly ludicrous and silly -- basically "Child's Play" with a pint-size music prodigy in place of Chucky the Doll.
"Joshua" and "Chicago 10" are among many titles hoping to leave Park City with an American distributor. That tends to be the way movies get judged at this festival: It's either a "Little Miss Sunshine"-type smash (that film sold here last year for nearly 10 million -- setting a record), or it's worthless. But this dog-eat-dog atmosphere often means that a bunch of wonderful, deserving movies -- the "small" and "arty" ones -- tend to slip beneath the radar.
Well worth your time
To that end, a brief note of praise about the two best films I've seen at the festival so far. "Once," directed by John Carney, is a romance told in song, about two strangers who meet, decide to record a CD together and then promptly fall in love. The strangers are played by Glen Hansard (of the Irish band The Frames) and Czech singer Marketa Irglova, and as the movie glides through one gorgeous musical number after another, it proves utterly bewitching.
Even smaller -- and even better -- is "Reprise," this year's Norwegian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, getting its American premiere at Sundance. This razor-sharp drama follows the rising and falling fortunes of two young men who dream of becoming famous novelists. Director Joachim Trier is inspired by the great '60s French New Wave films of Francois Truffaut, but his observations feel completely of the moment -- especially about how a mixture of rudderlessness and entitlement seems to have crippled the most promising members of Generation Y.
Here's hoping that the hype-makers don't entirely dismiss Sundance '07 without at least giving both of these films a look. They're the kinds of movies -- independent and bracingly youthful in spirit -- upon which this festival built its reputation.
The Sundance Film Festival opened Jan. 18 and runs through Sunday.