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Sundance is all about risk and experimentation. Well, at least, it ought to be. It should be the place where caution is abandoned, if only just for the days of the festival. And sometimes the risks endorsed by Sundance hint at the next cinematic evolution. Hey, think about it, last year, we got the 3D experience “U2 3D.”

Over the years we’ve seen some other great examples. In 1999, folks were shocked and probably a little nauseated by “The Blair Witch Project.” And in 2001, Christopher Nolan offered up “Memento,” a film that used a unique story-telling style that was linked to the fading memory of its brain damaged protagonist. But mixing the narrative up and challenging classic linear structure has advantages and disadvantages. My feeling is that such techniques ought not to take center stage in a film, rather, the story and characters need to be strong first structure should be second.

I mention this because this year several films mix things up. Scott Mantz is very high on “500 Days of Summer” which, I’m told, has a unique structure. And in that vein, I took in Jay DiPietro’s handsome looking and well-acted film “Peter and Vandy.” The movie, adapted from DiPietro’s stage play, tells the story of a relationship between the two title characters (played by Jason Ritter and “Teeth’s” Jess Weixler). We get the beginning of the relationship, the middle, and ultimately the end, but these sign points are displayed out of order. DiPietro’s script contains a constantly shifting timeline. But as good as the film looks (the colors are rich and texture saturated with a deep grain) and as strong as the performances are, the characters and story don’t measure up to the complex treatment DiPietro gives them. If the audience cares at all for Peter and Vandy it is because the narrative creates a kind of mystery hidden in the mixed up story-line. And Ritter and Weixler have good chemistry and look very great in the roles, but their mundane relationship ultimately lacks real significance--not enough happened to them for me to fully engage. On stage, the innovative structure must have been charming, but on screen, something seemed lacking.

Still, I suspect that the charisma and hipness of the players here will enchant younger viewers. There’s an audience for experimental films like “Peter and Vandy” and most critics would do well not to demonize such earnest efforts. And it is only through experimenting can cinema evolve meaningfully. Sundance, even in its star-driven Hollywood infused state, is still a laboratory where movie scientists can concoct their next potion. And while the clinical trial of “Peter and Vandy” might produce mixed results, these kinds of experiments should be the hallmark of the Sundance Film Festival.

After a marathon of interviews today the video of which will be posted later this week, I thought I’d offer up my thoughts on two solid Sundance offerings: “Amreeka” and “Paper Heart.”

In “Amreeka,” Muna (Nisreen Faour) gets the chance of a lifetime—a green card. That chance comes at great expense, but she’d rather be a stranger in a foreign country than a prisoner in her homeland. You see, when “Amreeka” opens, single mother Muna and her son, Fadi (Melkar Muallem) live in the dangerous West Bank. Fadi is a good kid and Muna works a job in a bank, but the pressures of the West Bank environment have begun to take its toll. And when presented with the green card opportunity, Fadi reasons with Muna, even if he gets a top-notch high school education, he pleads, where will he attend college? And in the West Bank, where will Fadi get a good job?

Director/screenwriter Cherien Dabis’ wonderful “Amreeka” was a real surprise to me. I wondered if the film would play on stereotypes and unfairly depict prejudice. But to my delight, instead of indulging in the kind of simplistic racial demagoguery that we’ve seen is other lesser films Dabis smartly populates the movie with complex and sensitive characters. And Misreen Faour shines as the patient Muna, a capable and loving mother intent on doing the right thing even when that option requires great personal sacrifice. After seeing this terrific film, it is not surprising that folks are talking about it winning an award at this year’s festival.

Today, I spoke with the cast and found Nisreen to be utterly charming, the smile that enchanted audiences in “Amreeka” was even more disarming and enchanting in person. More on that interview later when I post the video.

A year can’t go by without a youthful romantic comedy staring none other than Michael Cera. And in “Paper Heart” he even plays himself, well, kinda. It’s a romantic comedy that trades on and will certainly extend Cera’s likable brand. “Paper Heart” is a mockumentary that’s tender and really hip.

“Paper Heart” is the brainchild of director/co-screenwriter Nicholas Jasenovec and co-screenwriter Charlyne Yi. Yi, a comedian who had a notable minor role in “Knocked Up,” also plays a version of herself and, at least in the film, she’s on a mission to find out whether she is capable of loving another person. Part road pic, part romantic comedy, “Paper Heart” mixes documentary with narrative filmmaking delivering a film that feels awfully authentic. As Cera courts the irresistibly cute Yi, she and Jasenovec (played by Jake Johnson) travel the country interviewing couples about marriage and true love. Taking a page from the excellent film “Protagonist,” Yi annotates the couples’ stories and remembrances with crude but clever puppets. This technique makes Yi even more endearing—this is a star on the rise. While the film begins to run out of steam as the Cera/Yi relationship twists and turns, the casual style of the production boosted by Cera’s presence and Yi’s cuteness should ensure solid returns for Anchor Bay.

More to come, but just today I shot a number of interviews including one with Adam Scott from “The Vicious Kind.” After talking with Scott, I’m convinced he’s one to watch. Sundance 2009 rolls on….

Yesterday I played a little catch up but managed to take in a number of films. Billed as a documentary and competing in the World Cinema Documentary competition is “Big River Man.” Profiling endurance swimmer Martin Strel as he undertakes and attempts to swim the entire length of the Amazon, “River Man” feels very much like a Wes Anderson film by way of Werner Herzog. While there is plenty of swimming and the characters in this film play versions of themselves, I found myself questioning whether it is a “documentary” and instead something of a faux doc. As the film draws to a close it appeared that filmmaker John Maringouin winks at us a little telling viewers that not everything is meant to be taken literally.

But the bottom line about “Big River Man” is that it is a hugely entertaining film. For a solid 45 minutes I was positively enchanted by Strel and his son as they prepare for the big swim. We learn that Strel is managed by his son and has already swam the Mississippi, the Danube, and the Yangtze. Archive footage shows the man braving very polluted waters while making his way down the Yangtze. Frankly, it all seems too amazing to be true. You see the Slovenian Strel is over 50 years old and not in peak physical condition. In fact, the man is fairly overweight and an alcoholic. But his charisma and the plain spoken narration of his son makes the whole adventure seem credible and even touching as Strel struggles to maintain his sanity during the sixty plus days of constant swimming. Whether all the events depicted are spontaneous is irrelevant, the movie is chiefly about the personality of the performer that is the Big River Man. My thought is that the Strel story will be purchased and adapted into a narrative feature very soon. And it would be perfect to see Bill Murray playing Strel and Wes Anderson directing.

I attended the public screening of Lee Toland Krieger’s sensitive family drama “The Vicious Kind.” Although the movie is awfully well made, the highlight is the star-making performance of Adam Scott as the troubled Caleb who is recovering from a bad breakup and finds himself smitten with his younger brother’s girlfriend (played by Brittany Snow). Scott, who I spoke with last year about “August,” takes center stage here looking brutally tired and emotionally damaged for much of the dialogue heavy narrative. I swear that his scruffy appearance and caustic personality reminded me of Tom Cruise. Also dragging the pathos out of the audience is JK Simmons (“Juno”) playing a father (once again) who is estranged from Caleb. Sundance alum Neil LeBute serves as an executive producer for the film. Krieger’s sharp dialogue overcomes patches of incongruity especially as rather loud night-time activities go conveniently unnoticed by fellow inhabitants in the family home. But Scott’s work alone makes the film worth seeing.

I saw several short films yesterday, but the best one was “Little Minx Exquisite Corpse: Rope a Dope.” The film, directed by Laurent Briet, is essentially a music video featuring some amazing jump roping. The movie takes place in a boxing gym that is visited by a young girl wearing headphones who finds herself in a kind of jump rope battle with a boxer. The audience I saw the film with was captivated by the frenetic camera work and impressive jump roping. I thought the slow motion effects were some of the smoothest I’ve seen. I spoke with filmmaker Briet who told me that he shot the movie on 35mm film in just one day. Anyone who knows even very little about filmmaking will instantly recognize this as an impressive accomplishment. And this is especially true given the fluid nature of the cinematography that captures so much fast movement.

After my last screening, I spent some time with the cast and director of “Grace.” One interesting footnote worth mentioning is that Malcolm Stewart, one of the creepy stars of “Grace,” is reportedly the only actor to appear in three films at this year’s festival. In addition to the breast milk sipping doctor in “Grace,” Stewart told me that he has roles in “Moon” and in “Helen.” This is quite a feat, and based on his good work in “Grace,” I’m sure that other larger roles are coming.

More movies await as Sundance 2009 continues.

Sundance 2009: Reviews of MOON and THRILLER IN MANILA

My Sundance 2009 experience continues. I popped out of a theater and thought I’d give you my thoughts on two films: “Moon” and “Thriller in Manila.”

Sam Rockwell takes on science fiction in a virtual one-man show that is “Moon.” Basically, blending a number of successful and intelligent futuristic ideas that have been done in previous films, “Moon” follows Sam Bell (Rockwell) as he reaches the end of a three year contract harvesting something called H3 on the moon for the energy needs of earth. But when something goes wrong, Sam finds himself talking to himself. Is he losing it? Or is there two of him? “Moon” is much better looking than last year’s interesting “Sleep Dealer” but not quite as much fun. Where “Moon” packaged social commentary about immigration around a fairly conventional and even mainstream story, “Moon” is much more niche oriented. SF fans, you know who you are, will admire the restrained nature of the story and the deliberate narrative that feels like something from “I, Robot” (the Asimov source material not the Will Smith movie, mind you). This is a view of the future that hits not far from home. Rockwell is excellent here taking on another role that does not make him look very appealing, especially as one version of his character begins to get very sick, even vomiting blood and losing teeth. The market for “Moon” will likely be limited here, but EI’s Tony Sullivan predicts success in the UK and Europe.

I took in HBO’s “Thriller in Manila” earlier today and it made for very informative and moving viewing. Capitalizing greatly on the built in entertainment value of a wealth of archived boxing footage, “Thriller” finally tells Joe Frasier’s side of the Ali-Frazier story. Admittedly, Muhammad Ali isn’t able to conduct interviews due to his disabilities, but I seriously doubt that filmmaker John Dower sought out Ali’s involvement. “Thriller in Manila” is Frazier’s movie, and he remains defiant even today claiming that Ali mistreated him in the 1970s. To be fair, it does appear that Ali’s reasons for denigrating Frazier back then was part showmanship in order to build a rivalry between the two boxers. But Frazier took the verbal sparring (which focused on Ali’s use of the phrase Uncle Tom to racial polarize the conflict) personally. There is a lot of revealing stuff here, as Dower bags some amazing interviews including Imelda Marcos and others. “Thriller in Manila” caused me to see Joe Frazier in a completely different light. Of course, given the treatment of Muhammad Ali here, I wonder what he will say when and if he sees the film?

More to come….

Now entering its 25th year, the Sundance Film Festival kicked off last night with a screening of the Claymation animated feature “Mary and Max.”

The film is directed by Oscar winning filmmaker Adam Elliot who took home the golden statue in the animated short film category in 2004 for “Harvie Krumpet.” “Mary and Max” is the story of a pen-pal friendship (pre-email) between Mary Dinkle, a chubby, lonely 8-year-old girl, and Max Horowitz, an obese 44-year-old Jewish man. Mary lives in Melbourne and Max in New York City, where he lives an isolated existence suffering from Asperger’s syndrome.

“Mary and Max” is the best opening night film I’ve see in several years at the festival. Not a movie for everyone, the story covers 20 years in the lives of its protagonists focusing tightly on their separate but eerily similar worlds. Mary is voiced by Toni Collette and Max by Philip Seymour Hoffman, although neither voice is really recognizable. And Elliot’s brilliant use of voice-over narration delivered well by Barry Humphries, keeps dialogue to a scant minimum making every word count.

The visuals in “Mary and Max” are something to behold starting with the depth of the film’s opening shot featuring a Melbourne neighborhood from a stranger's perspective. Everything in the movie is familiar, but even shots of Claymation versions of everyday ordinary household items seem to come alive. Filmmaker Elliot, who is credited for writing, directing, and designing “Mary and Max” uses color almost in the same way he scatters dialogue in fits and starts throughout the film. It is a largely muted canvas except when a splash of color helps accentuate a scene.

I’m told that the about to be released “Coraline” (which I will see next week with the added benefit of 3D) is a wonderful piece of cinema, and after seeing “Mary and Max” I’m more and more convinced that the future of the movies just might be animated. And Sundance, no stranger to highlighting edgy animated fare, made the right decision by giving “Mary and Max” the limelight to open the 2009 festival.

I’ve already seen Paul Saltzman’s “Prom Night in Mississippi” that will probably garner as much interest for its subject matter as it will for the presence of Morgan Freeman who is largely responsible for the film. A documentary shot in much the same way as last year’s Sundance darling, “American Teen,” “Prom Night” covers Freeman’s efforts to help integrate the Prom at a small high school in Charleston, Mississippi. The mission is very personal to Freeman who lived in the town until age 6. While the movie will be lambasted for its alleged one-sided look at the issue, I came away moved by the ultimate coming together of the children in one of high school’s most important rites of passage. I’m looking forward to speaking with filmmaker Saltzman on Monday about the difficulty in covering the story when only some of the players would talk with him. Those students who did not want a “mixed” or integrated prom are represented by a small-town attorney who does his job but clearly did not understand the opportunity afforded him to broker a compromise. As such an attorney myself, I appreciated the position he was in, his client’s tied his hands to be sure, but there was room for a town meeting that could have turned the event and the film into something much more important. For those of you out there that think that Obama’s Presidency may end a great amount of racial strife, I offer up “Prom Night in Mississippi” as exhibit “A.”

HBO’s presence is continuing at Sundance this year and I’ve seen a short documentary called “I Knew It Was You” that will be of particular interest to cineastes out there. Looking at the life and brief career of actor John Cazale, Filmmaker Richard Shepard (“The Matador”) returns to Sundance with an engaging biography that reminds us of what might have been. Cazale, who died of cancer in 1978, appeared in just five (5) movies all of which were nominated for Oscars. Those movies were both “Godfather” films, “The Conversation,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” and “The Deer Hunter.” Sadly, Cazale did not live to see the release of “The Deer Hunter.” Shepard includes interviews with many filmmakers and actors (including Meryl Streep of which Cazale was romantically involved) who reminiscence about the greatest actor no one has really heard of. Shepard, who I’ll talk with on Monday, gets a lot out of the film’s 40 minute running time. He colorfully reminds us of what might have been and of a brief but brilliant career cut too short. Shepard’s movie really makes me want to revisit these films for the express purpose of watching Cazale more closely.

Sterlin Harjo returns to Sundance this year with “Barking Water,” a touching road pic that mixes classic independent conceits with Native American pathos. Incredibly well shot on high-definition video and sensitively acted, “Barking Water” follows the story of Irene (Casey Camp-Horinek) and Frankie (Richard Ray Whitman) as they visit friends and relatives. Frankie is dying and Irene, his one-time lover, has agreed to spring him from the hospital and take him on a trip of redemption.

Harjo, whose first feature, “Four Sheets to the Wind,” played Sundance in 2007, has a steady hand here, never forcing the narrative and even having fun as the sad material progresses. “Barking Water” will charm audiences with its mature story-telling and Native American sensitivity.

EI’s Tony Sullivan had a chance to attend the opening press conference and snapped a number of photos of festival founder Robert Redford. I’ve posted them in this column. In addition, I took a picture of the Brita water bottles given to us at this year’s fest. There are water stations all over the place, apparently, this year we are expected to stay hydrated. More to come, especially tonight when EI’s Adam Barnick joins me to cover the midnight screening of “Grace” the horror feature from Paul Solet.

Film Fix Audio Interview: Actor Jason Ritter talks about THE DEAL and the '09 Sundance Film Festival

In this interview, Jason talks with Jonathan about THE DEAL, which comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray on January 20th. He also talks about returning to the Sundance Film Festival after last year's success with GOOD DICK. Ritter further discusses his role as one of the producers of an independent film OH MY SOUL. Look for him next at this year's Sundance Film Festival in Jay DiPietro's PETER AND VANDY.

Jonathan W. Hickman