Sundance 2007 -- Day 10

On the last day of the festival, they show all the award-winning movies. I had tickets to the directing award and the dramatic award. Jeffrey Blitz, who did the spelling bee documentary a few years ago, won best director for Rocket Science, which he also wrote. He must have been inspired by his previous movie because this one's about a stutterer who, at the invitation of a pretty and supremely confident girl, joins the high school debate team. It's funny and kept me guessing all the way through.

The big winner, dramatic jury, was Padre Nuestro, a United States film noted for being in Spanish. A young Mexican thug steals an immigrant youth's letter of introduction to the father he's never met. The thug pretends to be the son while the real son looks for the father. All three main characters have plenty to dislike about them, which distanced me a bit from the film emotionally. Also, the thug was played by a weak actor, who is a star in Mexico. Still, I was fairly engrossed. Writer-director Christopher Zalla explained that this isn't an "immigrant" movie, that he wanted to show these characters as real, multi-dimensional people. One man in the audience said he rather found the characters' often unsympathetic portrayal to be a put-down to immigrants. I'd have to side with the latter's view.

So the award-winning movies weren't my favorite. I saw 17 movies, all pretty good, and they didn't make my top 10:

1) The Pool (18-year-old boy in India dreams of a simple life)
2) Snow Angels (divorce and tragedy in a small town)
3) Teeth (h.s. girl's anatomical uniqueness is empowering; scary, funny, thought-provoking; award-winning performance by actress Jess Weixler)
4) Grace is Gone (the always natural John Cusack can't bring himself to tell his daughters their mother died in Iraq)
5) Ezra (France/Nigeria; child soldier recounts his experience to a truth and reconciliation commission)
6) Expired (Emily Watson falls for a difficult man, both humorously and frighteningly played by Jason Patric)
7) Little Chenier (Park City Film Music Festival; young man looks out for his younger, mentally disabled brother in rough Cajun country)
8) Eagle vs. Shark (New Zealand; young woman chases a self-absorbed nerd -- Napolean Dynamite meets Little Miss Sunshine)
9) Joshua (Vera Farmiga's son may be evil)
10) Broken English (Parker Posey looks for a man but needs to find herself)

There are a slew of Sundance 2007 films I still want to see:
Drained
Enemies of Happiness
Fay Grim
For the Bible Tells Me So
Interview
Waitress
Good Life
The Ten
Adrift in Manhattan
Away From Her
Banished
Black Snake Moan
Delirious
Hounddog
Legacy
Longford
Manda Bala
The Nines
The Savages
Save Me
Smiley Face
Four Sheets to the Wind
The Good Life
Starting Out in the Evening
Blame it on Fidel
Once
An American Crime
King of California
Angel-A
The Go-Getter
Red Road