Sundance, day six: L'Amour Phew

Another Sundance, another great Dan Klores movie. This guy is probably the best publicist-turned-documentarian act there is. First there was "The Boys of 2nd Street Park," then "Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffiths Story," now "Crazy Love." Like the others it's steeped in the aggressiveness and eccentricity of Klores' beloved Noo Yawk City, and it painstakingly (occasionally too painstakingly) tells the tale of Burt Pugach and Linda Riss. He was married when he met her in 1957 but went nuts for her anyway. Then he really went nuts, hiring thugs to blind her with lye after she broke up with him. Then he went to jail for a decade and a half, and when he got out, she married him. Like I said, only in New York.

It's a deeply sad, surprisingly funny movie about pathology and desire, about two people who (after all is said and done) are a pretty good match, and about how we all create our great loves and enemies. Pugach just took it to psychopathic extremes. And got away with it.

I also saw my first dud of this festival, Chen Shi-Zheng's "Dark Matter," which somehow manages to waste Meryl Streep. How is that even possible?