“Reservoir Dogs”
What It’s About: A group of criminals (including Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen and Steve Buscemi) try to hide from cops after a robbery gone bloodily wrong, only to find themselves at each other’s throats in an attempt to uncover a mole.
Year It Played Sundance: 1992, when “Reservoir Dogs” inexplicably lost the Grand Jury prize to the largely forgotten “In The Soup” (which also starred Buscemi—this was a banner year for him). Other notable films
that year were “Gas, Food, Lodging,” “Johnny Suede” and “The Living End.”
How Was It Received At The Time? Opinions were intense and sometimes divided, particularly in regards to the film’s violence. Gene Siskel felt it had “more style than substance,” while Todd McCarthy admitted it was “undeniably impressive…but impossible to love.” Hey, speak for yourself, McCarthy.
How Big Did It Get? The picture recovered from the rumored walkouts occurring at screenings nationwide to gross a decent $14 million. However it has proven to be more successful overseas, especially in the U.K. where Empire recently named it “The Greatest Independent Film Of All Time,” and at Cannes where it was invited to screen Out of Competition, thereby inaugurating a long relationship between Tarantino and the festival. But if, stateside, its reputation was more as a watershed moment in the depiction of onscreen violence, it did collect enough eyes to allow director Quentin Tarantino to produce “Pulp Fiction,” and the rest is F-bomb laden, bloody history.
Is It Worth The Hype? As far as debuts go, you can’t get much more intense or impressive than “Reservoir Dogs.” All the QT trademarks are in place as if he’d been making this movie repeatedly for years in his head (which he probably had). The cast, including a never-better Steve Buscemi and an absolutely-savage-but-chillingly-subdued Michael Madsen, keeps this film whirring and, whenever the material begins to stretch, Tarantino effortlessly knits in one of his long, mundane, yet brilliant monologues. All these years later, the debut of QT remains just as much of a gas as it was back at Sundance, and a remarkably lean, precise piece of work that the director himself could revisit and take a few notes from these days. In our humble opinion.
“Beasts Of The Southern Wild”
What It’s About: Residents in an area of New Orleans known as The Bathtub are forced to evacuate as floodwaters rise, leaving behind a tiny ragtag community, which includes a feckless dad and his young daughter Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) who is forced to learn independence and who might just be magic.
Year It Played Sundance: 2012, where it won the Grand Jury prize against “The Comedy,” “Keep The Lights On,” “The Sessions,” “ Smashed” and “Middle Of Nowhere.”
How Was It Received At The Time? Director Benh Zeitlin was hailed almost immediately after the film’s premiere, and it duly went on to win the Grand Jury Prize as it became the sensation of the festival. A.O. Scott called it “a blast of sheer, improbable joy,” and Roger Ebert hailed it as a “remarkable creation.”
How Big Did It Get? First-timer Zeitlin was feted with the Camera d’Or at Cannes and received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Director. The film grossed an impressive $21 million as well.
Is It Worth The Hype? The critiques of this film loom larger a couple of years after it hit, with accusations of “poverty porn” and cultural misappropriation. But when you’re watching this debut feature, it’s impossible to ignore the triumphant central performance of Quvenzhané Wallis as the heartbreaking little girl at the center of this pastoral magic-realist melodrama. Zeitlin and Dan Romer’s rousing score boosts her journey of self-discovery in a frighteningly changeable world, and when she belts out “After you die I’ll go to your grave and eat birthday cake all by myself!” it’s impossible not to want, like a big lumbering prehistoric creature, to follow this kid wherever she wants to go.
“The Blair Witch Project”
What’s It About: Three young filmmakers head out to the woods to investigate the stories of a malevolent spirit haunting Burkitsville, Maryland.
Year It Played Sundance: 1999, an otherwise-legendary year for film, but one where Sundance honored the likes of “Happy, Texas,” “Tumbleweeds,”
“The Minus Man,” and “Judy Berlin.” Huh.
How Was It Received At The Time? Maybe the first big hit of the internet era, “The Blair Witch Project” benefitted from a multimedia advertising approach, spurring word-of-mouth that was equal parts misinformation and speculation in an attempt to convince filmgoers that what they were seeing was real, or at least presented in such a realistic way that you’d find yourself in some doubt. For some, it worked: Roger Ebert awarded the film four stars. For others, not so much: the picture also earned a Razzie nomination for Worst Movie.
How Big Did It Get? One of the films that made Artisan a hot distributor before the studio folded into Lionsgate, it collected an absolutely unprecedented $248
million worldwide and was a massive hit on video and DVD. The sensation fizzled out soon after though: the actors involved couldn’t seem to find much other work, with one of them allegedly working for a furniture-moving company years later. A hasty sequel, “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2,” materialized a year later, ditching the found footage angle and performing far worse than the first picture, scuttling plans for a trilogy. Directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick eventually split up, both of them making under-the-radar horror films that frequently went straight-to-DVD.
That being said, the film’s influence was considerable. Not only did movies start utilizing the internet heavily for their marketing campaigns, particularly horror films, but the found footage “genre” took off. A decade after the film was released, one could argue that found footage horror films made up half of the genre’s output, yielding pictures like “The Last Exorcism,” “Paranormal Activity,” “Cloverfield” and “[Rec].”
Is It Worth The Hype? A found footage snob would consider that the method of storytelling wasn’t new, with stuff like “Cannibal Holocaust” and “Man Bites Dog” from years earlier. Still, it’s hard to deny the visceral force of the film today. Watching it in the dark, maybe with a glass of wine, you can still forget that this was the start of a Sundance sensation, and get the sense that you are watching something forbidden, not meant to be seen. The hate is understandable: found footage is a ridiculous genre, one where movies only happen because we’re to assume someone concerned with self-preservation wouldn’t just put down the camera. But among the genre’s scariest entries, this one still rises above.
“Blood Simple”
What’s It About: A man (Dan Hedaya) who suspects his wife (Frances McDormand) of infidelity hires a shady P.I. (M. Emmet Walsh) to murder her and her lover (John Getz) only to find that the killer has his own twisty motives.
Year It Played Sundance: The Coen brothers had some hearty company in 1985, where “Blood Simple” played alongside “Stranger Than Paradise” (elsewhere on this list) and “The Brother From Another Planet.”
How Was It Received At The Time? “Blood Simple” was the deserved Grand Prize winner at Sundance, and the film earned the Coens worldwide attention, grossing a little under $4 million—at the time strong numbers for an independent release. In his four-star review, Roger Ebert praised its economy, saying it is a film in which “everything that happens seems necessary.”
How Big Did It Get? Though not as oft-quoted or deeply beloved as some of the Coens’ other films, “Blood Simple” is considered a touchstone of eighties independent cinema. It was also tthe debut of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who went on to essay the “Men In Black” films. The young lady in the lead is Frances McDormand in her first role: she later won an Oscar for a Coen Brothers film, “Fargo.” In the late nineties, the Coens supervised a “Director’s Cut” that shortened the film by three minutes, allowing the picture’s reputation to grow. It’s also, as far as we know, the sole Coens film to spawn a Chinese-language remake (albeit a loose one): acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yimou later tackled the material in his sumptuous comedy, “A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop.”
Is It Worth The Hype? “Blood Simple” is something of a Rosetta Stone for the Coens’ filmography. Sparse, funny, and archly ironic, the picture encapsulates the duo’s subtle, consistent ode to hardboiled noir as well as existential comedy, and remains a picture of infinite pleasures through and through.
“Pi”
What’s It About: In Darren Aronofsky‘s feature directorial debut, a math savant (Sean Gullette) becomes dangerously obsessed with the power of a 216-digit number, and his knowledge of how to use it draws the attention of insidious, sinister outside forces.
Year It Played Sundance: “Pi” shared space at Sundance with Grand Prize winner “Slam” as well as “Buffalo ’66,” “Smoke Signals,” “High Art” and “Hav Plenty.”
How Was It Received At The Time? “Pi” was a surprising $1 million purchase by Artisan. Most critics were impressed but guarded, and certainly circumspect when it came to the film’s box office potential: Owen Gleiberman claimed it looked “like the ultimate college masterpiece,” while Richard Corliss preferred to discuss director Aronofsky himself, claiming he was a “genuine experimenter.” Ultimately the film pulled in a little more than $3 million at the worldwide box office.
How Big Did It Get? “Pi” marked the beginning of an auspicious big-screen career for Aronofsky, who unveils the megabudget “Noah” in the spring. The movie itself has a considerable reputation in indie circles, but it’s not considered an essential watch, particularly considering the rough edges of Aronofsky’s craft had been, in many ways, sanded down by the time of the Oscar-acclaimed “Black Swan.”
Is It Worth The Hype? “Pi” is ultimately a minor affair, a ludicrous no-budget tripfest that carries a propulsive rhythm (no doubt thanks to a colorful soundtrack) and an action movie verve, but ultimately it’s fairly incomprehensible. You can see exactly why Aronofsky was in demand after watching the film, but you can also see why a movie like “Pi” offers very little for the audience to absorb. Often, it feels lifted by youthful creative energy alone, never coalescing into the enigmatic mind-bender it thinks it is.
