Telluride is sort of a fantasy land for film lovers. Not only is it in the middle of a beautiful box canyon in an awesome little town that really can’t grow any bigger than it already is, but the directors of the festival make sure to play almost as many old films that you won’t get to see anywhere else as they do new films that you’ll want to tell all of your friends to see when they hit theatres later in the year.
It’s also devoid of the red carpet events and press that most festivals have devolved into lately.
This was not only the 40th anniversary for the festival, but it was the first time in five years that I’ve been able to make it out there. I’ve missed it immensely and going back there was a little like going home.
Here are the five best new films that I saw at Telluride.
LABOR DAY
Written and directed by Jason Reitman
Based on a book by Joyce Maynard
Jason Reitman is great at making us laugh with people that we care about. The people are usually caught in sad situations, but they make the best of them and turn them into something that we can not only relate to, but laugh at. Sometimes the characters are even unlikeable, but we end up feeling for them anyway.
With Labor Day, Reitman is taking a completely different approach. This time, he wants us to cry our freakin’ eyes out and, for the most part, he achieves his goal.
Adele (Kate Winslet) is a broken woman who finds it very hard to leave her home or believe that she is a decent member of society. Her son, Henry (Gattlin Griffith, who absolutely holds his own with the two adult powerhouses around him) helps her as much as he can, but there are some things that a son can’t do for his mother. Enter Frank (Josh Brolin), a wounded escaped convict who basically kidnaps them and makes them hide him until he’s well enough to hop a train. His stay gets longer and longer until, eventually, Adele and Henry both realize that Frank isn’t the awful man that he’s made out to be. In fact, he’s a good guy who got caught in a bad situation.
This is where the romance kicks in.
It’s a little bit unbelievable, but Reitman and his actors make it believable, so much so that you barely bat an eye when you find out that Frank is also a very good cook. I was hungry through the entire movie.
Labor Day was so good that I overlooked a lot of little quibbles along the way. This is absolutely a Nicholas Sparks-esque romance…but it’s as if Sparks could actually write and make you care about the characters. That’s what makes it different.
(For those of you wanting some of the old Reitman humor, there’s a little This is also a coming of age movie about how Henry grows up and meets and kinda falls for a little gothy girl. She’s pretty hilarious.)
NEBRASKA
Directed by Alexander Payne
Written by Bob Nelson
Alexander Payne is one of my favorite modern filmmakers. In fact, I would say that he is the consummate modern American filmmaker. I mean, he’s got nothing on John Ford or Frank Capra, but his films are always incredibly American…and they typically center around some sort of road trip.
Nebraska is no different. Woody Grant (Bruce Dern in a performance that had better earn him an Oscar) firmly believes that he has one a Publisher’s Clearinghouse type million dollar prize. His oncoming dementia makes him take off at inopportune times of the day and night to begin walking to Lincoln, Nebraska from Billings, Montana. Finally, he goads his youngest son, David (Will Forte) into driving him to Lincoln to collect his imaginary prize. The two men end up stopping in Woody’s hometown of Hawthorne, NB, where they meet up with his extended family and Woody’s old “best friend,” Ed Pegram (Stacy Keach, who also deserves some accolades).
Eventually, the whole family shows up, including David’s older brother (Bob Odenkirk) and their mom (June Squibb, who played Mrs. Schmidt for Payne a few years ago). All hell breaks loose, as usual, and the family rallies together.
Nebraska is a beautifully funny film about fathers and sons, family and the ties that bind. It’s also about the desolation that can happen in small midwestern towns. (The stark black and white photography brings that desolation out throughout the film.) My own grandfather grew up in Nebraska and I can see him having the same upbringing that Woody had. In fact, I’ve had the same tv watching sessions with my family when I’ve visited Wisconsin. People have a superficial conversation while staring at the tv, but you know that there’s some sort of awkward love there…somewhere…deep down.
The only weak point of the whole film is actually Forte. He’s just not that great of an actor. He does his best, but he still comes off as stilted and strangely stagey. Other than that, though, it’s a great film that belongs with Payne’s best.
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
A new Coen Brothers movie is always cause for celebration. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve never made a terrible film. They’ve made a couple of mediocre ones (Intolerable Cruelty? Really?), but they’re always watchable in some way and even fun at times. Many of them have been some of the best films made in the last 20 years.
Inside Llewyn Davis has grown on me more as time goes by. I saw it last week and I like it more now than I did immediately after the screening. It centers around a pretty unlikeable guy (Oscar Isaac in an amazing performance), but somehow makes you feel for him. He’s a folk musician in Greenwich Village in 1961, just before Bob Dylan blew that scene right out of the water and made everyone else has-beens before they ever got a chance to be.
Llewyn is a great musician (the music by T-Bone Burnett is among the highlights of the film), but he tends to sabotage all of his relationships before they can even begin. His friend Jim (Justin Timberlake) lets him sleep on the couch when he needs to, but Jim’s girlfriend, Jean (Carey Mulligan) hates Llewyn for reasons I won’t go into. Llewyn has friends on the Upper East side (Ethan Phillips and Robin Bartlett), but he abuses them and nearly loses their cat (a running gag that turns out to be indicative of Llewyn’s humanity).
Llewyn meets a lot of people on his odyssey to get a real contract (including the hilariously threatening John Goodman) but, of course, his real journey is inside himself. The forbidding world of New York City in the winter isn’t nearly as forbidding as the soul of a man who knows he’s done wrong by his friends. And Inside Llewyn Davis takes us on that journey with him, making us hate and love the guy at the same time, as only the Coens can.
ALL IS LOST
Written and directed by JC Chandor
I debated on this one. The similarly themed Tracks also played the festival and was very good. All Is Lost, though, won out by a hair if only because of the central performance of Robert Redford. Not only is Redford’s the central performance, but it’s the ONLY performance. And it’s done with almost no dialogue. (The film opens with a short monologue and he tries to raise someone on a radio once…and he lets out an expletive once or twice. Other than that, he never speaks.)
Our Man (as he’s credited on IMDb) is all alone on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean. We don’t know exactly where he is or what led to his decision to make this journey alone except that he feels regret for something that he did to someone. We’re not even really sure who. He’s an old man alone on a boat.
Then he hits a storage box dropped by a freighter. Then the storm hits. Then things get worse.
The movie itself might be fairly predictable, but you could say the same thing about the Jack London stories that it was obviously inspired by. This is Man Against Nature at its best. What truly matters, though, is Redford. At nearly 80 years old, he can still pull off a physical role like this without it looking ridiculous. He makes you believe that Our Man could do everything that he does in this film. He reminds you of what a powerhouse he truly is. Between him and Bruce Dern, this festival was full of 70s icons coming back with a vengeance.
JODOROWSKY’S DUNE
Directed by: Frank Pavich
Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of the most divisive filmmakers in the history of film. You either like his highly surreal and symbolic films that often make no sort of narrative sense, or you think they’re the most pretentious crap you’ve seen this side of Matthew Barney’s filmic stains. (I hate that guy.) Personally, I find Jodorowsky strange and wonderful, even if I don’t understand everything he’s saying in his films. Plus, he just seems like a super nice and funny guy with a lot of interesting things to say.
In 1974, after the one-two punch of El Topo and Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky decided to tackle Frank Herbert’s Dune. He wanted to make a film that changed peoples’ perspectives, not only on film and sci-fi, but on life. He wanted people to have an LSD trip without the LSD. In short, he wanted to make the greatest film ever made.
Needless to say, that goal was not achieved.
Or was it? Pavich’s film makes the case for the fact that Jodorowsky’s Dune is the most influential film never made. He gathers all of the surviving players in the story and gets their take on it. What comes out the other side is the most optimistic and inspiring story of a film that wasn’t made that I’ve ever heard. Typically, the filmmakers are filled with regret and feel betrayed by someone along the way. While Jodorowsky has some of those feelings, he remains upbeat and sees what his non-film has brought to history. Like I said, he’s a pretty amazing guy.
I loved everything about this film. It was, bar none, the best film I saw at the festival this year.
