It combined the raffishness of ’70s movies by Robert Altman and Ivan Passer with a ’90s indie-rock sensibility, while distilling something unique about both San Francisco and weed-growing redwood country at the time. But Dream With the Fishes was-still is-slyly funny, mordant, surprising, and ultimately touching in ways that never feel sentimental. That outline might sound like a recipe for cutesy inspirational schmaltz. It’s a macabre arrangement between a man who wants to die and another who doesn’t want to (but is terminally ill, it turns out), one that somewhat inadvertently lends them both a new lease on life. Oakland native Finn Taylor’s Dream With the Fishes was an autobiographically inspired fiction about a nerdy, withdrawn loner (David Arquette) who makes a deal with a stranger (Brad Hunt) who stops him committing suicide. The zenith was another first directorial feature, one that effortlessly had all the hipster cred the aforementioned effort strained for. I don’t think it ever actually got released. The nadir was something called Rhinoceros Hunting in Budapest, an attempt at surreal Eurotrash whimsy involving fashion-model “actors,” Nick Cave, John Cale, homophobic humor, and fussy visuals redolent of its director’s resume in music videos and advertising campaigns. My first visit to Park City, Utah 25 years ago was memorable for a lot of reasons, including providing a couple candidates for all-time favorite and worst Sundance Film Festival feature that have maintained prominent headspace all this time.
0 kommentar(er)
