LA TIMES “1999 PROJECT” Features “AMERICAN MOVIE”
1/18/2024
All year the LA TIMES will be marking the 25th anniversary of pop culture milestones that remade the world as we knew it then and created the world we live in now. They are calling it The 1999 Project and today they reflect upon the Sundance premiere of “AMERICAN MOVIE” — which was edited by September Club founder Barry Poltermann, who also provided seed funding and was a producer on the film.
“American Movie,” which premiered 25 years ago this week at the Sundance Film Festival, took Borchardt’s aspirations and shaped them into something more suggestive, crystallizing the moment when independent features were storming the gates of the Hollywood castle. It’s worth returning to Crystal’s monologue, in which he glibly calls that year’s Oscars “Sundance by the Sea.” The idea that such interlopers would ever dominate the film industry’s big night seemed mildly amusing to him then; now, the moment drips with irony.