Reject Interrupted

I don’t ever think that I’ve said “I hate this job,” as that would be some serious bad Karma. But I have seen a few movies knowing that I had to review them and wanted to scratch my eyes out afterwards. There have been a few this year.

Furry Vengeance comes to mind as the most recent. Absolute waste of time. Or perhaps Robin Hood. That left me wanting a chunk of my life back.

There have been a great deal of movies I’ve seen at festivals that I would rather not have had to see. It’s salt in the wound really, as you know you could’ve seen something else in that time slot instead. Especially with bigger fests like Sundance. In recent years, I’ve had films like Blind Date (directed by Stanley Tucci), Funny Games, Downloading Nancy, Daddy Longlegs, Holy Rollers. All movies that, for good reason, you may never hear of again.

But perhaps the greatest blight against my world was struck by The Informers at Sundance 2009. And there’s a story to it. I was at the Eccles Theater with Peter Sciretta from /Film having just seen a movie (can’t remember which one, but I don’t remember it being bad — might have been I Love You Philip Morris or something) and we had about 20 minutes to get to the Yarrow theater, which was about a 5 minute cab ride, 15 minute bus ride, or 15 minute walk. With buses full and running extra slow that year, we chose the walking. Not a good idea. It was an unusually sunny and warm day in Park City and when combined with the fact that we were dressed for cold, both way out of shape and hustling through the thin mountain air, it was torture. We made it just in time to see the film start, but by then the theater was pitch black. Absolute black.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever gone directly from a bright and sunny environment into one that’s pitch black, but it renders you essentially blind. It took about 5-6 minutes of bumbling and stumbling to find a seat way in the back of the packed press screening room. I was hot, sweaty, dying for a drink of water and seated in a terrible spot. So yea, I went into the movie in the best possible mood. Then it terrible. Objectively terrible. Critical consensus.

So you can imagine how we felt, having nearly killed ourselves to get over to that screening, only to have the much-anticipated movie turn out to be pond-scum on the cinematic landscape. It was perhaps the worst moviegoing experience of my life.

Luckily that was Sundance ‘09, where we discovered Mystery Team, Moon, Bronson, Cold Souls, World’s Greatest Dad, Precious, An Education, 500 Days of Summer and Black Dynamite. So it turned out to be for the best.

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