B’klyn rants; Shia la-buff!
PARK CITY, Utah — Two movies revved up Sundance midweek: a comedy about out Brooklynites who’ve had d enough and a drama about a woman who can’t get enough.
“Hits,” the directorial debut of David Cross (“Arrested Development”), is about a fortyish guy (Matt Walsh) whose YouTube rants about injustice make him a patsy for two hipsters wanting to promote causes. es. Julia Stiles and Michael Cera have ve supporting roles.
As Cross came onstage after r the film, he started thanking folks, then stopped himself. “Wait, I haven’t won an award or anything,” he joked.
Cross insisted that no topic is off-limits for him.
“Nothing is taboo,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings who doesn’t deserve it, but any topic is good for parody.”
Cross doesn’t appear in the movie, but if you listen, he’s there. “The music you hear singing a fake Edith Piaf song was taken from ‘Mr. Show,’” Cross said, invoking his old HBO sketchcomedy series. “And there are other reminders of my wonderful earlier work.”
A “secret screening” turned out to be a sneak peek of Danish director Lars von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac Vol. I,” starring French-British actress Charlotte Gainsbourg. She plays a woman confessing her life of promiscuity to a stranger (Stellan Skarsgard).
The film’s “dirty parts” are mostly quick shots of unknown European actors having sex with a younger version of Gainsbourg’s character (Stacy Martin). In the film’s one extended — and graphic — sex scene, Shia LaBeouf appears fully nude. Reports of LaBeouf’s beef pretty much broke the Internet last year, and the screening lived up to the hype. Indeed, there’s one very graphic scene of him having full-on, porno-style sex. And yes, we can see it’s him.
How did all this go over? The audience alternately laughed, groaned and sometimes even seemed engaged by the movie, due in U.S. arthouses in March. More boring than shocking, the film is like a 1970s European art-skin flick with X-rated shots inserted.