sundance

The Sundance Review Revue: FILLY BROWN

Critics are divided on FILLY BROWN, but they agree on Gina Rodriguez, the actress who plays Filly and is being hailed as one of the breakout stars of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Response to FILLY — a drama about a young woman trying to navigate the morally murky waters of the hip-hop game — has been decidedly mixed, but response to Rodriguez has been decidedly positive, suggesting she is one to watch, even if the film itself might not be.

ARBITRAGE hopes to sell high at Sundance ’12

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “arbitrage” is “the nearly simultaneous purchase and sale of securities or foreign exchange in different markets in order to profit from price discrepancies.” I don’t really understand what that means, so I am providing an alternate definition for the intelligence impaired. ARBITRAGE is “a dramatic thriller set in the world of high finance that is also one of the most buzzed about titles at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.” That’s a lot easier to understand, right? I think so. Let’s give Mr. Merriam and Lord Webster or whoever it is a ring and tell them it’s time to update that book.

A rewrite-the-ending-contest to affect social change

Through our friend, Lynn Harris, writer, co-creator of Breakup Girl, and now communications strategist for something called Breakthrough, we heard about a “Rewrite the Ending” contest (which ended last month):

Show of hands- How many of you wish that:

- Andy (Pretty in Pink) had ended up with Ducky?
- After Willy dies (Death of a Salesman), his wife gets a great sales job without having to play the “poor widow” card?
- When Simran’s father finally releases her hand (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge), she runs for the train to Goa and finds happiness on her own?
- Ariel (Little Mermaid) had kept her voice and won American Idol.

In other words: How often have you been enjoying a book, movie, play, or TV episode…when all of a sudden things take a turn for the sexist, misogynist, needlessly violent, or worse? Have you ever wished you could jump into a story, shout at the characters, grab the pen (or keyboard) of the writer, and make it turn out the way you think it should?

Of course we have! So I (Lo) entered the contest (you could do it via Twitter, Facebook or email, from 140 characters up to a couple hundred words). Here was my entry:

Mobile graffiti van

Art collective Everfresh Studio built this tongue-in-cheek service van outfitted with all the gear and material, such as spray paint, masks, ropes, wire cutters necessary for a team to infiltrate and graffiti bomb a neighborhood. The van is also outfitted with a boombox to provide the accompanying soundtrack. [Via]

Hair is growing back on Broadway

The classic anti-war hippie musical of the 1960s, Hair, won’t stop growing! After a Central Park revival scored three years ago, it moved to Broadway and won a Tony award, and now it’s back there again in the same production, but with some new cast members and fresh energy.

I just called the show’s legendary cowriter, James Rado, to untangle exactly what’s going on here and throw some conditioner on it.

Me: Hi, James. Is the show’s anti-war message still relevant?

Rado: Very intensely. People want to think about other things in our mutli-faceted culture that offers so many distractions, but this thing of war still hangs over us. It plays to that part of our consciousness.

Green tech finds (5/5/11)

Blimps, chicken feathers, and viruses… your green tech finds for the week.

• The 10,000 year heat pump: Heat pumps aren’t sexy; they are, however, an incredibly efficient technology means of heating and cooling buildings. Researchers in Norway are experimenting with a new, more simple design framework that they think will create a heat pump with a “dramatically longer life.” (via @adamwerbach)
  
  
• Tracking e-waste: Where do your old electronics end up? The basement? The trash? Or in a developing country for “recycling?” The UN’s StEP project wants to find out, and the US EPA has provided them with $2.5 million to track US electronic waste. (via @TerracomChicago)
  
  

Backstage with Isabelle Fuhrman before the premiere of SALVATION BOULEVARD

SUNcovered joins actress Isabelle Fuhrman for the premiere of SALVATION BOULEVARD. Want to see more? Check out clips from the festival here. Be sure to satisfy all your festival needs with the latest buzz, top stories, and celebrity interviews from Sundance Channel’s coverage of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

The Oscars are coming! Here’s some advice!

On February 27, the annual Academy Awards telecast will attempt to make millions of people interested in movies they didn’t care enough to see in the first place.

They’ll do so with glitz, celebrity drop-ins, gushy tributes, high fashion, and the wonderful sight of four people being devastated in each category.

As an inveterate Oscar watcher despite it all, I have some handy ideas for pepping up the show and grabbing way higher ratings than they ever imagined.

Here goes, for free:

*Serve booze. The Golden Globes are always more fun than the Oscars because the guests are flat-out drunk and not that self-conscious about the evening’s high-pressure antics. The Oscars should serve tray upon tray of ratings-making cocktails. It’s a recipe for absolute hilarity!

A Happy ANOTHER HAPPY DAY Story

A meet-cute Sundance Film Festival story has the gossip press sighing: Ashton Kutcher reportedly surprised wife Demi Moore by showing up at a bash for Sam Levinson’s generally well-received ANOTHER HAPPY DAY, in which Moore stars with Ellen Barkin and Kate Bosworth. (The film debuted Sunday night in the festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition.) According to [...]

Kevin Smith Makes Waves With RED STATE

Kevin Smith’s RED STATE, which opened at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday night amidst protests by the inflammatory Christian fundamentalist group that inspired it (and counter-protests, in which Smith himself participated), is “cleverly contrarian enough to get a rise out of almost any audience,” Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy writes in one of the [...]

Sundance Film Festival Deals: MARGIN CALL

Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions announced Sunday that, following all-night negotiations, they had teamed up to acquire the domestic distribution rights to J.C. Chandor’s financial-industry thriller MARGIN CALL. The film, which officially debuts at the Sundance Film Festival on Tuesday, Jan. 25, but was screened for the press and members of the industry on Friday morning, [...]

Festival Parties: James Franco Channels Suzanne Somers

James Franco’s installation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, THREE’S COMPANY: THE DRAMA, sounds like something you have to experience firsthand to fully appreciate. In it, he seeks to examine the classic ‘70s sitcom, featuring those three kooky roomies Chrissy, Janet and Jack, by, according to the official description, “breaking out individual elements of narrative, [...]

Where is SOMEWHERE going?

Nowhere, says Perrin Drumm on this site, and I wouldn’t want to argue. It’s a valid point, and the extraordinarily plot-less plot of this new film is not for everyone. We watch the mundane unfold as Sofia Coppola’s protagonist, famous actor Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) wanders from hotel room to pool to lobby to shower to car to press conference to the bed of yet one more blonde … then he hangs out with his eleven year-old daughter (Elle Fanning). She cries, he cries … he’s now vaguely more aware of a nagging dissatisfaction … and that’s about it! But some people do like these sorts of very-low-to-the-ground films – and I’m always one of them. The problem with Coppola’s film? It’s not the visuals, which are absolutely captivating — it’s the content. If I have to watch this amazingly talented woman do one more study of excess, wealth and celebrity, even I will cancel my subscription to Town and Country and move out of the Chateau Marmont for good, just in protest. In all seriousness, — c’mon, Sof, it’s a recession out there. Most of us can’t even afford Gray’s Papaya anymore.

Woody Allen Meets A Tall Dark Stranger

Woody Allen Talks About His Latest Film Photo Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics Woody Allen’s latest film “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” starring an ensemble that includes Gemma Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, and Josh Brolin, opens in U.S. theaters tomorrow,  September 22nd. On September 8th,  Kultur Kritic excitedly attended a press screening [...]

Bullet time photography

Dutch photographer Alexander Augusteijn stops time and captures these incredible high-speed photographs of bullets shooting through water drops. He explains: I use a normal flash to achieve very short illuminations. The most critical parameter in this kind of photography is timing, which is achieved by computer control of shutter, flash, valve, gun or whatever other [...]

Do this tonight: Brooklyn Botanic Garden

See photos of the process after the jump.

Three weeks ago artist Patrick Dougherty and a group of volunteers set out for Staten Island to harvest 5 truck loads of an invasive, non-native willow species to use in the installation he spent the month of August building at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Visitors were welcome to observe the process, and the finishing touches were made last Friday, a few days ahead of schedule. Doughtery has made structures of this kind before, and describes this particular set of woven willow domes as “lairs for feral children and wayward adults.” They’ll be up all year and in all seasons to celebrate BBG’s centennial.

New solar cells could mean a plug-less future

Professor Michael Gratzel is the planet’s next hero. Gratzel recently won this year’s Millennium Technology Prize, a competition that seeks out the most innovative life-enhancing technology, with his dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC). DSC are not as efficient as silicone solar cells, but unlike silicone they’re made organically and are inexpensive to produce, two factors that will hopefully make them ubiquitous in no time. Extremely lightweight, DSC can be folded up for transportation and applied to glass. They go on clear or can be tinted any number of colors from dyes made from crushed fruit. That means every pane of glass in any structure can be used to generate solar power – think of what that would mean for a 90-story office building.

Oops… Wrong Cookie.

Here’s something to bring a little levity in your day: Jennifer 8 Lee (a must-follow on Twitter and author of “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles,” a book exploring the history and Americaness of Chinese food in the US) posted on her blog the above funny fortune that she received in a fortune cookie during a taped [...]

Real life hoverboard

HOVERBOARD – NILS GUADAGNIN from nils guadagnin on Vimeo. Ever since I first saw BACK TO THE FUTURE II when it was released in 1989 and starred Michael J Fox escaping bullies again on a floating skateboard sans wheels, I’ve been entranced with the hoverboard. I recall endless discussions with my peers in elementary school [...]

Michael Jordan’s Hitler Mustache, Part 2

The stink over “The Hanes” (see previous post) continues to waft in the air, Jordan.  Ashton Kutcher  was aghast on Kimmel. Even old pal Charles Barkely got into the act,  dialing out  a full court beat down that extended well beyond Dwayne Wade and his usual fave five.  But beyond the celebrity backlash, Johnny Mainstreet [...]

Similarities in airline logos

As our Sunfiltered fans are (I assume) a handsome, sophisticated, and well-traveled bunch, I thought this find by Kottke would be of interest to our globe trotting readers. It seems that a LOT of airlines flock to the more obvious of symbols-birds-when designing their brand logos. The bird and circle combo motif is especially popular. [...]

Mercury in retrograde: Time for self-medication

You’re letting all the cold air in… I am writing this column from my sofa, under two down comforters because…DAMN! It is cold out! Of course, we get this “never happened before” frigid blast from winters past the week after I put all my fall/winter clothes away. To get to a warm jacket and something [...]

Vince Clarke’s cabin

Vince Clarke, though not gay, is a gay icon. He was a founding member of Depeche Mode. He created Yazoo with Alison Moyet. And as one half of Erasure, he’s been part of one of the most out and proud musical groups ever. Clarke typically gets less press than the lyricist and lead singer of [...]

The Dragulator!

RuPaul’s Drag Race is back on Logo and I am thrilled. You know whenever anyone asks me what my dream job is I always reply “rock star.” But what I really mean is drag queen. Um, David Bowie. Hello. Anyway. This show is amazing. It takes all the elements of your favorite reality shows and [...]

Obama and Hatoyama Pledge ‘Success’ at Copenhagen Climate Summit

Meeting for the first time on Japanese soil, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and President Barack Obama today committed their governments to “a new era in the global fight against climate change” by shifting to low-carbon growth and achieving “a successful outcome” at the UN climate conference next month.