Well, it's that time of the year again. I'm here at the 16th Nantucket Film Festival. I will be seeing 17 movies in 5 days. Day One was a light day with only two movies. The splashy opening movie was
Cars 2 only a couple of days away from it's opening. And the second film was
Buck, a documentary which was a Sundance selection and has quite a bit of buzz. It has opened in NY and LA and will be going into more theatres as the summer progresses.
Cars 2 is a sequel to Pixar's
Cars. In general, I love Pixar movies like
Finding Nemo,
Toy Story and
The Incredibles. But I didn't like
Cars. For some reason, I have no problem with fish, toys and super heroes coming to life but cars? Anyway,
Cars 2 is more of the same except that the main character this time is the broken-down tow-truck, Mater. This sequel which involves a round the world series of races and some international intrigue is a real snoozer. I had a nice nap in the middle. The only interesting thing in
Cars 2 is that they introduce the Bond car voiced by Michael Caine as a member of the British secret service. He is great. I was sitting in the same row as Vera Farmiga and her husband and kid. She had an Oscar nomination as George Clooney's love interest in
Up in the Air, and has her first try at directing opening later in the festival.
Buck is a really nice film. It is about the life of Buck Brannaman. He was the technical advisor on Robert Redford's film,
The Horse Whisperer, starring a 13 year old Scarlett Johansson. But Buck is the real deal, an actual horse whisperer. This film follows him around the country as he gives clinics on "starting" colts. He doesn't use the word, "breaking." It also details his childhood when he and his brother were trick ropers trained by their abusive father.
Buck, directed by Cindy Meehl, is very well put together. It is heart-warming, to say the least, but it also shows Brannaman as a 3-dimensional character, even showing him failing to train a difficult horse. You should see this one if comes to a theatre near you.
No comments:
Post a Comment