Telluride Film Fest Part 1

Hey everyone, This weekend Thomas, Jen, Dave, Wade and I all went to the Telluride Film Festival. Telluride is the only place in the world where I could see 9 movies in 4 days and still wish I'd caught a couple more. It's also the only place where if you attend without a pass, you feel blessed no matter what the movie you manage to get into. We went up Friday and checked into our absolutely gorgeous condo in Mountain Village. It's been six years since I've been to Telluride and since then, a lot has changed. They've developed the area, but they've done it in an amazingly smart way. The condos, new restaurants, grocery stores, etc., have all been built up the mountain, so they don't overpower the town. To get to Mountain Village, rather than driving all the time, they have a free enclosed gondola that runs constantly that drops you off in the middle of town or Mt Village. We drove our car to the condo, parked it and didn't move it until we left. Why can't every place be this smart? Plus you got to admire the abundant and gorgeous scenery and wildlife along the 10 minute gondola ride. Now to the films ranked in order of viewing:

Friday:

• The Lost City - Andy Garcia brought this movie to Telluride and we saw it Friday night at the outdoor cinema. Prior to the movie, Garcia and his band played Cuban music for the crowd and got people dancing. The band was awesome and Garcia played keyboard (I got a couple of great pics that I'll publish shortly). The Lost City is based on a novel by Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Three Trapped Tigers, called the Ulysses of Cuba. The movie is about pre-revolutionary Havana and follows the different paths taken by brothers in a wealthy, intellectual family. Garcia plays Fico who owns a nightclub and Enrique Murciano (he's Danny from TV's Without a Trace) plays his revolutionary brother Ricardo. The movie is full of great music and good performances, but they could have spent a little more time showing different characters' motivations. The cinematography is beautiful, though I doubt much of it was actually filmed in Cuba given the anti-Castro and anti-Che slant of the film. I'm surprised Garcia was even able to get the movie made given Hollywood's infatuation with both. Instead Garcia showed how Cuba went from being repressed by Batista to terrorized by Castro. No one can tell you how bad living under a Communist/Marxist regime is like one who escaped it, or whose family escaped it. The Lost City definitely made me wish I could have seen Havana pre-Castro, as it looks like a very romantic place. Given its tropical setting it also reminded me of New Orleans, another Lost City and made me really glad I got to see it a couple of times before Katrina.

• Edmond -Director Stuart Gordon and star William H. Macy introduced this movie to us at the midnight show. The good news is that I didn't fall asleep. The bad news is that no one liked Edmond. It's based on the play by David Mamet, a notorious misanthrope, and Mamet also wrote the screenplay. Basically Edmond leaves his wife in the first five minutes and spends the rest of the movie in a downward spiral as he confronts the underbelly of NYC. There's nothing redeeming about this movie, and I do not recommend it. I must say though that the five of us talked about it again and again - debating the point, whether Edmond was a racist, a misogynist, or both, and introducing the phrase "pulling an Edmond" into the vernacular. So though I hated the movie, I'm glad I saw it. Mamet's wife Rebecca Pidgeon, Mena Suvari, Bai Ling, Joe Manegna (in my favorite part) and Julia Stiles all make brief appearances.

Saturday:
Saturday afternoon I got to see a great panel that I'll discuss in a subsequent entry. We spent the rest of the day walking around Telluride and shopping for Thomas some new outdoorsy clothes. This was our one really rainy day, so there were no movies for us until the midnight movie.

• Everything is Illuminated - Based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything tells the story of the character Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood, aka Frodo....on yet another quest that ends up involving a ring, believe it or not) who travels to the Ukraine to find out about the woman who saved his grandfather during WWII. Jonathan is a pretty odd duck - a collector constantly putting arcane items in a variety of ziplock bags. He hires Alex (newcomer Eugene Hutz who in my mind stole the movie) to be his guide. Along for the ride are Alex's gripy grandfather and his deranged dog, Sammy Davis Junior Junior (aka the Seeing Eye Bitch). Part of the charm of the movie and the book (so I've heard, since I have not read it) is Alex's obsession with American culture and his mangling of American slang. The first half of Everything is really funny, but as Jonathan and crew discover the identity of the mystery woman who helped his grandfather, the movie takes a turn to the tragic. Anyone who's ever been to Telluride can tell you that this is a necessity for almost every film that makes it into the festival. Light-hearted flicks need not apply. But Everything never loses its sense of humor, pulls off the tragedy and turned out to be a festival favorite. Everything was introduced by first time director, Liev Schreiber, who complimented our rowdy midnight audience who waited in the rain for an hour to see his film as being its ideal audience. I'd have to say he was right. Schreiber has a good eye and did a great job, though I hope we continue to see him in front of the cameras as well.

Sunday:

• Brokeback Mountain - Thomas and I must have been among the few people going into this movie that knew the subject matter. The writeup in the festival guide definitely did not let on that the Ang Lee helmed movie was about two cowboys in the 1960s played by hotties Jake Gyllenhall and Heath Ledger that are gay. Yep, there was shock in the theater during the first graphic and violent coupling of two of Hollywood's most dreamed abould leading men. This happens early on, so I don't feel like I'm giving anything away. I'm really curious to see how this does in the box office. It's so not the feel good movie of the year. In fact, it's quite depressing. But the love story worked and the movie was beautifully filmed. Ledger's performance was especially good, though Thomas thought his accent was a bit too contrived. Also starring in the movie are Michelle Williams (Jen from Dawson's Creek who is now carrying Ledger's baby IRL), Anne Hathaway, and Randy Quaid. No one was there representing the movie because they were at the Venice Film Festival instead. As the T-ride spokeswoman said, it seemed like Ang should have been here since the movie was a Western.
  

I'll wrap up the rest of the movie reviews in my next entry. Let me just say though that the best movies are definitely yet to come.

-sunday

Telluride Bumpersticker of the Day: America needs an oil change.

p.s. A late Happy 37th Anniversary to Tom and Marlene and a late Happy Birthday to Jess!