Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

Every year, at the Sundance Film Festival, there are actors or directors who are featured in multiple projects. Lili Taylor’s year was 1996 with I SHOT ANDY WARHOL and GIRLS TOWN. In 2003, Patricia Clarkson appeared in THE STATION AGENT, ALL THE REAL GIRLS and PIECES OF APRIL.

In 2004, it was a Cox/Arquette reunion at Sundance. Indigent’s NOVEMBER starred Courteney Cox (and won a cinematography award for Nancy Schreiber). Husband David Arquette starred in NEVER DIE ALONE with DMX. Sibling Patricia Arquette was in the offbeat TIPTOES.

What about 2005? Who are the repeat performers in this Sundance???

Glenn Close will star in three films: NINE LIVES, HEIGHTS and THE CHUMSCRUBBER. I’m looking forward to NINE LIVES. According to the guide, the film is about different characters at emotional crossroads, very different yet hauntingly the same. Nine women who find themselves captives of relationships, both past and present. One undeniable connection: amazing performances from the most talented actresses working in cinema today. Writer/director Rodrigo Garcia is a master at capturing every nuance of a scene, both in words and images. And they are scenes in the purest form, raw yet ripe. Garcia mines these gems of drama to their fullest potential. His genius lies in his strategic employment of the camera; he finds just the right moment in the arc of the characters’ lives to study them. You don’t need to meet these characters beforehand to learn exactly who they are. All is revealed if you watch closely. Desires crack the surface of resolution, conflict seeps into dialogue, and anger flickers in the women’s eyes. The short time spent with each character reveals an amazing amount of personal history, at once recognizable and poignant.

Evan Rachel Wood (who you may recall from 2003’s THIRTEEN and I recall from the television series “The Profiler”) will appear in THE UPSIDE OF ANGER and PRETTY PERSUASION. I want to see THE UPSIDE OF ANGER. The story is set in motion when the alcoholic matriarch (the amazing (Wisconsinite) Joan Allen) of the well-to-do midwestern Wolfmeyer family discovers her husband has disappeared and left her to raise four headstrong daughters (all in various stages of young adulthood) on her own, without any clear means of support. Her drunken rants fuel her already combative parenting style, and the situation really erupts when a middle-aged neighbor makes a play for her attention. The stellar cast, including Erika Christensen, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell, and Alicia Witt, makes this portrayal of a family’s emotional transformation one of the most pleasurable and surprisingly unpredictable romantic dramas you’ll see this year.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who you may recall from the television series “3RD Rock from the Sun”) will appear in BRICK and MYSTERIOUS SKIN. Gregg Araki’s MYSTERIOUS SKIN will be a dramatic opportunity for Gordon-Levitt. The wrenching childhood mystery of two individually desperate teens–one who believes he was abducted by aliens, the other a working hustler–who become reconnected by sexual abuses they shared as boys.

And, as already noted, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE’s Aaron Ruell directs TWO short films in this festival. In EVERYTHING’S GONE GREEN, William hasn’t stepped outside of the building where he works and lives for 14 years. Rosemarie, the secretary from the floor below wants to change that. MARY screens ahead of documentary NEW YORK DOLL so no description is available.