MISERABLE.

The older I get, the more I hate winter. Today is my Saturday, so when I woke up to more snow I was pissed. The last few days have been almost spring-like (in Salt Lake, anyway) and I did everything I could to keep my hopes down. I knew it was only a matter of time before winter came back again and crushed my dreams of not dreading leaving my house, sitting outside at night and riding my bike around town.

To make matters worse, I just bought my plane ticket to a wedding in Florida in a couple of months. Granted, by the time the wedding rolls around, the snow will be long gone and Spring will be taking shape, but still. I've been looking at the pictures of the resort for the past hour and getting really excited. Then I remember that it's three months away and I have a lot more of this ahead of me:

Either I turn into my Grandpa (who bails for Arizona every September and stays away until May) or I suck it up and get really good at snowboarding so I can use bullshit phrases like "shredding the fresh pow" and sound like an idiot, or I can get the fuck out.

But you know what? I'm doing neither. I'll keep living here and bitching about it on the Internet. Because that's what it's for.

And I'll just keep looking at these pictures to tide me over until April. So thanks Dan and Kristin, but I do secretly wish your wedding was sooner.

THE DETAILS

My first (and probably only) Sundance screening of 2011 was a dark comedy/drama called THE DETAILS. Tobey Maguire was the star and if I'm being honest, it's going to take a few more movies before I stop expecting him to rip off his shirt and reveal a SPIDER-MAN costume underneath. He'll get there eventually, but not quite yet.

I've got mixed feelings on this one. It had a few great moments, but it also had a lot of moments that the writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes just seemed to throw in. He described it afterwards as an 'impulsive writing exercise' and it definitely showed. The tone shifted back and forth almost on a whim and the movie never quite found a rhythm.

In lesser hands, a script that lacks balance could have been a complete disaster, but luckily for THE DETAILS, the cast stepped up and kept it from ever going off the rails. Ray Liotta (always Henry Hill, Dennis Haysbert (forever Pedro Cerrano, eat your heart out President Palmer), Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney and Kerry Washington took what could have easily been mistaken for a script in someone's college screenwriting class and took it to another level.

Again, not without its flaws, but a solidly entertaining movie that fit the bill of a typical 'Sundance movie.'

The Q&A afterwards was lackluster though, with Estes seeming bored and disinterested, which is surprising considering that was the first showing of the film. It just felt like there was a million places he'd rather be than up there talking about his movie.

I've never made a film, but I think I'd be excited and show a little more enthusiasm after it played well (but didn't go over like gangbusters) at a festival like Sundance. That's just me though. I was kind of disappointed with his answers and demeanor as a whole.

My guess is that there are too many stars in THE DETAILS for it not to get picked up for limited distribution, but it didn't knock my socks off, which sadly, has become the norm for Sundance premieres.

CARMELITA

BEST. IDEA. EVER.

TRUE GRIT

The Coen Brothers rarely do wrong in my book (THE LADYKILLERS might be their one misstep, and yes, I did like A SERIOUS MAN, I'm standing by that) and TRUE GRIT was no exception. While I didn't love it enough for it to crack the Top 5 of 2010, I still loved it from start to finish. That probably has to do with three things more than any other.

1) I love Westerns. Something about them has always appealed to me and I watched a ton of them as a kid and appreciate them more now that I'm an adult (or as close to one as possible). The atmosphere, pacing, set design, dialogue—I love it all.

2) Jeff Bridges is fantastic. I would watch him in just about anything even if the rest of the movie was absolute garbage (spoiler alert for the upcoming Tron: Legacy half-assed review). Making him a drunken, one-eyed lawman that doesn't much care about the law as much as justice and you've got yourself a winner. He should be in more movies, but I'm glad he picks and chooses carefully.

3) Matt Damon. I don't care what anyone else says, I still think Matt Damon is great most of the time and he killed it here.

Add all three of those together and you've already got one hell of a movie. You probably wouldn't even need to try very hard to make it at least watchable with all that going for you. But the Coen's were able to find even more with TRUE GRIT. They've got a great story (that has surprisingly more heart than probably any of their others movies) and a fantastic young actor, Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, to push it over the top. I loved it from start to finish.

Can't wait for the next Coen Brothers movie. There are a bunch of projects that they've alluded to in the past but haven't ever materialized for one reason or another. HAIL CAESAR, about a matinee idol trying to make a biblical epic, set around the same time period or just after O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?, is one. TO THE WHITE SEA, about a WWII bomber shot down over Tokyo is another. Brad Pitt was supposed to star, but they couldn't ever get a budget that would realize what they had in mind. An adaptation of Michael Chabon's THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION is probably the best bet for their next one, but that's also been rumored for a while.

There are a couple of screenplays they wrote floating around too (a remake of the heist film GAMBIT and one called SUBURICON), but no one is entirely sure what's happening there.

Whatever they do though, I'm expecting great things.

MAYBE 'HATE' IS TOO STRONG A WORD

If you've been reading or following to some extent over the past few months, you probably read (or least saw, maybe even skimmed over) my Guitar Center post.

If you didn't, I'll give you the short version: I bought a guitar, they gave me the wrong one. Went back, got the right one, came back home to find they'd given me the wrong case. Took the case back, mass confusion occurred, got jerked around a bit, complained about it on the internet.

Well, there were two guys that heard about this and actually tried to make it better. They both did everything they could to make me not hate Guitar Center only to see the employees tear it down right after they'd built it up.

Long story short, I appreciate what they did for me, and even though Guitar Center will be my last option next time I have equipment or gear to purchase, I've at least put it back on the list as an option. A month ago, it wasn't even that.

Just wanted to throw out a 'Thanks' to Jeremy and Mike for doing everything they did. It meant a lot to do that when you didn't even have to. That's what customer service is all about. It's just too bad that your employees forced your hand in the first place. But I do appreciate it.

SLCFF IN SLUG

The SLCFF is still rolling along and we've got a pretty good article in SLUG this month. Check it out.

SLUG -- While most people’s attention will be turned towards the stuffy old celebrities, pantiless pseudo-celebrities and the handful of serious independent filmmakers inhabiting the streets of Park City this January, the organizers of the Salt Lake City Film Festival will be hard at work putting together the third installment of their annual event. Taking place every August, the SLCFF has featured a wide variety of independent films, from critical favorites like Best Worst Movie to local documentaries like Cleanflix and a number of obscure features and shorts that live and die in the film festival circuit. Even though this year’s festival doesn’t take place until the end of August, the organizers have been busy expanding their brand and planning for the future. On December 16, the SLCFF celebrated the launch of their new website and the opening of submissions for the 2011 festival at their monthly HEFFE’FILM’IN film screening at Brewvies. SLUG spoke with the Salt Lake City Film Festival’s organizers about what happens behind the scenes during the film festival’s off season and how the festival has evolved over the past few years.

The second annual Salt Lake City Film Festival concluded on August 15, 2010. However, the event’s organizers kept working. “After the first year we ended the festival and we were stoked about it, so we decided to take three months off, and that was a mistake,” says Matt Whittaker, one of the festival’s co-directors. Now that the film festival is entering its third year, the organizers are applying the lessons they’ve learned from past years to make organizing and running the film festival easier and more efficient. “We try to figure out new ways to organize ourselves every year. The first year we didn’t have online ticket sales, which was pretty nuts. Then we got online ticket sales for the second year, and it was even crazier to deal with that monster,” Whittaker says. “We’re slowly becoming nerdier and nerdier when it comes to organizing this thing, which is good.”

Read the rest...

WHAT HAPPENED?

I was doing so well with things last month, then the holidays hit and it just sort of came to a stand-still. Might have something to do with the fact that I got an exorbitant amount of DVD's over the last few weeks and have been holed up on my couch watching BIG LOVE and a bunch of other stuff.

Meanwhile, my list of topics has reached well in to double figures, I've slacked and haven't written my half-assed reviews of TRUE GRIT, TRON:LEGACY, I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS or THE KING'S SPEECH. And I know everyone is dying to hear what I thought about those, among other things.

So we might be back on track but only time will tell.

TERRIBLE. GENTLE. MAN.

This is my man Dan C. again. Remember him from all the Tamerlane posts last month? Well maybe this will either refresh your memory or introduce you to him.


Terrible. Gentle. Man. from Dan Christofferson on Vimeo.

CHEREM. 2003.

Tough.

JOURNALISTIC ENVY

For a couple of years, I was writing about music for the U of U newspaper and City Weekly, which meant I got to interview band members. I always enjoyed it, but it did take a little getting used to. I sort of winged it there at the first and learned how to do it as I went along, which is the best way to learn.

The part that I always got nervous about is when I had to interview someone from a band that I really liked. What if they were an asshole? If that was the case, I wouldn't be able to listen to the band and it would kind of bum me out. Thankfully, that never happened.

(Side Note - To this day I can't listen to Against Me, because I once booked a show for them and they bitched that I could only pay them $1000 after the show. There are a few others like that, too. I'll have to make that its own post sometime.)

I got pretty lucky and everyone I talked to, while definitely burned out from talking to so many writers over the course of a couple weeks, was very polite and I never had an issue. The only thing that ever came close is when one band's (Enon I think) publicist told me to call at 2PM, but forgot to factor in that they were on the other side of the country and the singer was a little pissed that I called two hours late.

I've never had to interview a real, honest to goodness celebrity though. I think that might be where things get a little tough and I don't know that I could handle it. I'm far too nice by nature and I would go along with any ridiculous guidelines and condescending attitude that they gave me because, at the end of the day, I'd feel like they were doing me a favor by letting me write about them. When in reality, they usually only do press to promote something and therefore would need my help more than I'd need theirs.

That's why, when I read the Christian Bale interview in last month's Esquire, I was really impressed with how the writer handled things. Bale had insisted that he'd only agree to the interview as long as it was only published as a strict Q&A piece, and the writer took issue with it.

I read it and was taken aback. Not only did he flat out call Bale a dick to his face, but the way it was printed made it sound like this was a very, very tense conversation. I don't think I'd have it in me to stand up to anyone like that, let alone a fucking movie star.

Which is why I'd never make an outstanding journalist. I do great when I'm writing about things I like, but if push came to shove, I don't think I'd be able to handle it. Maybe that will be one of my goals for 2011—schedule interviews with assholes and stand up to them. I'll get on that.

Here's a little excerpt from the article. You can head over to the Esquire site to read the whole thing.

Finally, the situation calls for extreme measures.

ESQUIRE: You don't want to be a vain movie star, I totally get it, I respect it. But there's nothing that's more of a dick movie-star move than to say, "It has to be printed as a Q&A." That's movie star. You and Tom Cruise back in the day are the only people who do that shit.

BALE: That's not true! [laughing] We're not the only ones. And it was like I said yesterday, it came from a couple of interviews where they just made up a whole bunch of crap in their effort to practice writing their novel.

ESQUIRE: That's very patronizing and insulting, you realize that?

BALE: What, that?

ESQUIRE: Yeah.

BALE: But these guys lied.

ESQUIRE: Has anybody in the movie business ever lied to you?

BALE: Oh man, listen, that's not restricted to any one line of work, is it?

ESQUIRE: But you're still in the movie business, right?

BALE: You really wanna be freed up from just doing the Q&A, don't ya?

ESQUIRE: I went back to my hotel last night thinking, This guy's very cool and he doesn't wanna act like a poncy movie star, he wants to be a regular bloke, but he's got instructions on what format the fucking story should take. He's delusional!

Bale is laughing...

ESQUIRE: Poor guy! He actually thinks he's normal!

BALE: I do love people ripping the shit out of me. I don't know what that's about, but I love it. The more crap you give me, the happier I get.

But Bale takes control again, a hint of British irony in his voice.

FUCK YOU

Late to the party yet again. Best song and video of 2010, hands down.

TOP 5 MOVIES OF 2010

I've been putting this off for a week now because I've been having a hard time with the four and five spots. One and two were set in stone the second I finished them, but rounding out the rest was no easy feat. I actually saw a lot of good movies this year, more than I expected when the year started, since last year was just a whole bunch of okay. I never got around to making a 'Best Of' list for last year, because at the end of the year, my list still looked a lot like it did in November.

This year though, I made it a point to get 'Best Of' lists from everyone that's working on the film festival and I couldn't really make them do it without doing one of my own. So without further ado, here's my Top 5 Movies of 2010.

5. INCEPTION - This movie was just so much fun. I love heist movies in general and this added another level to it. Every character was great and every performance was spot on (and I want to dress like Joseph Gordon-Levitt all the time now) and Christopher Nolan knocked it out of the park. He just made an awesome, fun movie.

4. THE SOCIAL NETWORK - How do you manage to take a story of talking heads that takes place largely in different offices and dorm rooms exciting? I'm not sure, but Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher figured it out and made sure I was focused, interested and enthralled for a full two hours.

3. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP - Hoax or not, I doubt we'll ever find out. But this movie, everything about it, was fascinating to me. This is the movie I saw the most times this year and I never get tired of it.

2. TOY STORY 3 - This is the only movie I've seen this year where I saw it one night and saw it again the next day because I loved it so much. The original and the sequel have long been favorites of mine and it might be the only satisfying 'Part 3' I've ever seen (because you know what? I hate LORD OF THE RINGS. Yeah, I said it). Pitch perfect movie from beginning to end.

1. BLACK SWAN - Not a day has gone by that I haven't thought about this movie in some way or another. I loved every single thing about this movie and Darren Aronofsky proved (again) that he is a massive talent and if Natalie Portman doesn't win every award, it's a god damn travesty.

HONORABLE MENTIONS - TRUE GRIT and THE FIGHTER were right there in the running for the four and five spot and it took me a considerable amount of time to figure out how to fit four movies into two spots. But at the end of the day, they just barely missed the cut.
UN PROPHETE (A PROPHET)
I'M PAT FUCKING TILLMAN
SCOTT PILGRIM vs. THE WORLD
WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY
Those would probably round out 6 through eleven if I had to go that far. But I'm keeping it at five.

So there you go.

TAKE YOUR MAMA

Continuing in my tradition of being a few years late on all sorts of music, I heard this for the first time last night and haven't been able to get enough of it since. I love it.

But this is probably the only song I like by this band. The rest of them sound just awful.

NEW LOVE, NEW FUN, NEW ME

Hell yes,  2011

Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

Now, if that song isn't stuck in your head for the rest of the day I haven't done my job correctly.

But, no part of that headline is true. It's just that I struggled for far too long with a good way to kick off the new year, blog-wise, and that's what kept popping in to my head each time I sat down to think about it. So there you go.

I saw a lot of people reflecting on 2010 in other blogs and places, because I guess that's what you do on blogs. But me? I go against the grain and right now I can't think of any funny jokes about 2010, so I'm only going to say one thing about it and then we're moving on.

Holy shit, that went by fast. Too fast. Slow down, for Christ's sake. This isn't a race.

I'm still recruiting people (and a camera) do do a Top 5 Anything of 2010 video post, so hopefully that will be done in the next two weeks. I don't have any New Years Resolutions, per se, but I do have some goals and I may formulate them into a post for you to read, but more for me to look at. Because I swear that I made some last year, but I just can't remember what they were, so I figure that if I have them down somewhere, I'll be able to see if I'm on track or if I've given up all together.

We'll see. But until then...

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Welcome to 2011.