OK, I’ve told you about some very good new films we saw at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, like “American Teen” and “The Wackness.”
But the worst film, the one that easily rivaled Alan Ball’s “Towelhead” from last fall’s Toronto Fest? “Downloading Nancy,” starring Maria Bello, Jason Patric and Rufus Sewell. Maria, one of my favorite actresses, plays Nancy. She hires a murderous pen pal on the Internet to come and kill her. (I think it’s because she’s depressed.)
While she’s waiting to be offed by Patric, Nancy self-mutilates with a razor blade. She cuts herself all over the place. Not even her shrink, played by “Judging” Amy Brenneman, can talk her out of it. Nancy’s husband, played by British theater star Sewell, has no luck either.
By the time Nancy meets up with Patric’s Louis, she’s cut herself to ribbons and bleeding all over.
When did I walk out, er, escape from the theater? At the point that Louis ties her up in bed. Bello, naked, squirms while Patric cuts her and has sex with her. You can’t imagine all the distributors and journalists I ran into in the lobby. “One woman was crying when she left,” a ticket taker told me.
Why Bello did this movie is a mystery to me. In her other Sundance film this year, "The Yellow Handkerchief," directed by Uduyan Prasad, Bello is simply exceptional. Her performance alongside co-star William Hurt is sexy and vulnerable, and never overstated.
“Downloading Nancy,” although surely titillating, is completely unwatchable. I’m not sure if it’s worse than “Towelhead” — that’s the film in which 35-year-old Aaron Eckhart has sex twice with a 13-year-old girl played by a young-looking 18-year-old actress. But it’s close.
By the way, the movie ends with Patric strangling Bello. Kudos to Ray Liotta, who managed to get out of making this thing before it began. It would have topped his final scenes in Ridley Scott’s “Hannibal,” when Anthony Hopkins dines on his brains. I guess he figured stop while you’re ahead.
_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 am Posts: 46000 Location: Reasonville
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_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
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