| Dceptive
Blessing |
|
No big news flash when saying that Hollywood makes a lot of mistakes. This summer, Van Helsing and Troy both made well over 100 million dollars and were still called flops. The fact that these films lured victims into theaters opening weekend shows that Hollywood knows how to do one thing right: promote. The film Napoleon Dynamite, by first-time director Jared Hess, is receiving a lot of heavy attention and promotion these days, with commercials on MTV, banners all over internet film sites, and multitudes of free screenings in almost every major city. Most of this attention comes from the fact that the film caused a bidding war after its screening at last January’s Sundance Film Festival. Must be a pretty good movie then, right? It’s not. Although its heart is in the right place, it’s uneven, borderline cruel in scenes, and never seems to get whatever its point may be across the audience. It comes off not so much as the sleeper comedy hit of the summer but more as an unfinished mediocre student film by someone who has played his Rushmore DVD one too many times. That being the case, how come it got so much acclaim at Sundance? That’s the festival showcases new talent like Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino, right? Sort of—Soderbergh’s groundbreaking Sex Lies & Videotape was the festival’s first big breakout hit, Tarintino’s Reservoir Dogs wasn’t even allowed in 1992’s competition. The festival’s track record of highly praised Grand Jury prize winning films is certainly not without its icky spots either. For every American Splendor, Blood Simple, Super Size Me or Welcome to the Dollhouse, there’s been a What Happened Was or The Brothers McMullen. The Sundance Film Festival, which is held yearly in Park City, UT, began in 1989 as the United States Film and Video Festival along with actor Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, which he founded to help independent film makers. Over the past fifteen years, the festival has morphed into what has become a chance for buyers, distributors and reps from every major studio’s new “indie” division to catch up on skiing, schoozing, boozing and spending big bucks on what they think may be that next breakthrough smash. Still, the festival is a chance for the underdog film maker to hit the big time, right? Not really. You pay the festival’s entry fee, then wait. Your film gets screened only if it is selected by the festival’s organizing committee. Hundreds of thousands of films go right in the Sundance dumpsters every year. So
if Sundance is not the safe haven for the starving director, is
there any hope left to get some kind of new truly independent vision
in the multiplexes of America? At this time, no. A theory not shared
by the Sundance festival, where it’s against the law to hand
out flyers advertising your film on the street, is that to reach
a new audience with your film, the future is not in hundreds of
free screenings but in a new kind of grassroots approach. Thanks
to festivals that have no admission fee, like Slam Dance, Troma
Dance and about 200 hundred other festivals with “dance”
in the title, the future of independent film could end up being
found in the DVD stores of America where it may just live a long,
happy life. That is, if anyone decides to rent or buy a film a film
they’ve never heard of. And why should they when 50 First
Dates just came out? Viva la revolution! A2P
|
|
 |
INTERVIEWS COLUMNS PLUS: Art: |
| MUSIC |
| MOVIES |