Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

31 October 2003

Summary of Sundance Series

I will say this about the Sundance Film Series: they chose four very different movies. The most important was probably In This World and the most entertaining was probably Die Mommie Die.

But I've complained about the series more than I've praised it, and let me try to summarize why. Three reasons:

The stated goals of the mini-festival don't seem to match the execution in any way (yet another intersection of movies and national politics).
For example, if the goal is to bring the "festival circuit" to places that don't already have it, why does nearly every one of the ten cities hosting the Sundance event already have a major annual festival? or two? Ironically, Dopamine and Die Mommie Die had already played at festivals in San Francisco months before the Sundance series began. This may also have been the case in other cities.

Yes, it's true that this time these movies played longer, and in regular multiplexes instead of art houses. Ah, so maybe the Sundance series reached a new set of people who may be ignoring movies that are already available to them. Well, if you're curious about how many people went to see these movies, in terms of dollars, look here, here, here, and here. The total is $257,144, excluding Die Mommie Die which opens today and the screens that may have shown Dopamine a few more times past Oct 26. Sundance estimated that the marketing budget was $10 to $15 million, much of which comes from the sponsors.

Nevertheless, speaking at a recent preview screening, the head of the Sundance Channel said plans had begun for next year's event. Do you think they'll recoup their costs by selling DVDs? Nah. Do you think they'll recoup their costs by increasing the exposure of the Sundance brand? You bet.

Maybe I was turned off when the first course came out of the kitchen, and although the menu made it sound mouth-watering, and the maitre d' kissed his fingertips and said, "Magnifique!" the chef obviously had not used the freshest of ingredients.

Or maybe I was turned off by what seemed to be an appeal to the admiration that "independent" movies still enjoy, a warm, comforting, vague, surface-level acknowledgment of artistry. I don't mind Sundance doing an end-run around the studios, distributing movies to theaters, DVD, and their cable channel, but I'd be a lot happier about it if this new studio proved its differences by picking good, unsung movies. Instead, the new distribution method brought us movies that ranged from terrible to inconsequential (I'd throw a "well-meaning" in there for one of them).

Not to worry, it was all dressed up in the costume of independent film. We saw a 60-second, MTV-style clip of the director talking before each movie. We heard Robert Redford say a few sentences about the Sundance desire for small voices to be heard. And we saw ads with an indie-film theme. Aren't we lucky.

Oh yes, the ads. The initial word was that the Sundance folks, because they had special control over the exhibition, would improve the experience by deleting a lot of the junk that runs before most movies.

They did delete some minutes. But what they deleted were the trailers for competing films, the only part of the pre-show material that most people are interested in. They had just as many ads for Coke and Entertainment Weekly as anybody else. And we got to watch an NYU student stand there and introduce his Coke advertisement, seemingly without embarrassment, as "my film."

Choice in movies is good, but most people in the US don't have much, although they can choose not to go. If a movie is not (expected to be) in the top 10 by gross, nationwide, it doesn't play in Springfield, MO, or Ft. Wayne, IN. Those are the places that seem ripe for the staging of a true and honest attempt to expand the festival experience beyond its urban niche.

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