sundance

The LCD Soundsystem funeral and James Murphy’s Sundance takeover

By now, you’ve probably seen the trailer for SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS, the LCD Soundsystem documentary about their last show/the greatest funeral ever. Yeah, it is pretty much the only thing anyone on the internet is talking about. We can’t wait, either and are gearing up for the big premiere on Sunday, January 22nd at the Egyptian Theater. It’s sold out, but you can also catch Mr. Murphy in the Tim and Eric helmed drama THE COMEDY.

The top ten biggest offenders from AOTL with Joe Zee, season one

With everyone in a serious tizzy over the Friday night premiere of season two of All on the Line with Joe Zee, I realize that some readers may not have caught the epic dose of reality that was season one. Luckily, you can watch the entire season on iTunes for $20.What else are you going to do this week in between bouts of turkey-induced stupor? And watching Joe dole out tough love to struggling designers is as addictive as tryptophan is soporific. I got a sneak peek of season two last week and I’m dying to see the rest of the designers that get sent under the gauntlet…

Creep-fest, kink and Kubrick: what to watch this week on Sundance Channel

As the weather gets chilly, so does our schedule of October films, packed with plenty of spine-tingling flicks to get you in the mood for Halloween. This weekend we’ve got back-to-back gruesome gore with…

Weekly movie trailer roundup: I MELT WITH YOU

This week we’re featuring just one trailer, and yeah, full disclosure, it made its debut at Sundance, but with record walkouts and a tangle of incredibly divisive reviews, it’s not exactly what you would call a Sundance success story. It could be argued, however, that the notoriety its initial screening incited is only to its benefit, and now that the trailer is out and it’ll be On Demand in just about a month, the people are talking…

My favorite Emily Watson – looking back at her most memorable roles

Emily Watson is one of those rare, highly versatile actresses that plays such a wide variety of roles – from a private eye to a housemaid to a dead bride and everything in between – that she literally defies typecasting. Two of her most memorable recent roles include Tammy, the assistant to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Caden Cotard in SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (2008) and Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker in the critically acclaimed ORANGES AND SUNSHINE (2010). I, along with everyone here at Sundance, am eagerly awaiting her next big role alongside Dominic West (The Wire) in APPROPRIATE ADULT, the upcoming Sundance Channel Original Mini-Series, airing this Fall.

Morgan Spurlock Does It Again

Morgan Spurlock (Photo by Jeff Vespa/WireImage).

There aren’t many people who can figure out how to make a documentary featuring both Noam Chomsky and Ben Silverman, but Morgan Spurlock is one of them. In his new film, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, which premiered on Saturday afternoon, having already picked up distribution from Sony Pictures Classics, Spurlock sits down with both the cognitive scientist and bad boy former TV exec to talk about branding.

The film is a documentary-within-a-documentary experiment in which Spurlock sets out to make a movie about our marketing and advertising-addled culture, and yet have that culture (i.e., sponsors) pay for it.

Sundance 2011: Previewing the Park City party scene

Which Park City music venue will feature cuisine from Mr. Chow’s Michael Chow and “Iron Chef” winner Jared Young and welcome stars like Kate Bosworth, Parker Posey, Vera Farmiga and Ben Foster during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday, Jan. 20? Which will host events for films including Ewan McGregor’s PERFECT SENSE [...]

Sundance Watch List: Gregg Araki’s KABOOM

It’s been called a “hyper-stylized TWIN PEAKS for the Coachella Generation,” “a sexier, more colorful, and more comedic DONNIE DARKO,” and even a zany, radical version of DUDE, WHERE’s MY CAR? Gregg Araki’s KABOOM, which premiered last year at the Cannes Film Festival, will have its U.S. premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and be [...]

Music in the shadow of Sundance

The Sundance Film Festival has long had a secondary focus on music. This year’s official, Sundance-sanctioned performers will include Lou Reed, who has a documentary short, RED SHIRLEY, premiering in the festival. And there are also afternoon showcases at the Sundance ASCAP Music Café. The festival provides “an especially welcoming environment for musicians; the Sundance [...]

Sundance Film Festival: Be There … if you’re serious about indie film

Last year, the Sundance Film Festival made a point of returning to its indie roots, away from glitzy Hollywood fare and back to the riskier films on which it made its name. In keeping with this back-to-basics approach, the 2010 festival played on themes of renewal, rebirth, rebellion … “ReWork.” So what to make of [...]

Ed Helms to star in CEDAR RAPIDS at Sundance

Ed Helms as a lovable loser, John C. Reilly as a lovable buffoon, Anne Heche as a lovable redhead, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as the lovable guy who gets the best lines. What’s not to look forward to in Miguel Arteta’s comedy about an insurance salesman (Helms) who learns about life beyond his small-town existence [...]

Sundance Institute announces films selected to screen as part of Sundance Film Festival USA on January 27, 2011

Official Festival Sponsors Chase SapphireSM and Southwest Airlines Help Bring Sundance Film Festival USA to Local Cities Across America

Seattle Joins List of Cities Hosting Filmmakers and Films Direct from Fest; Cedar Rapids to Screen Both Seattle and Ann Arbor

Initiative Continues Commitment to Audience Engagement, Support of Independent Theaters

Life in a Day Makes World Premiere in Park City

Park City, UT – Sundance Institute today announced the films from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival scheduled to screen in theaters in nine different cities, including the newly added Seattle, Washington Egyptian Theatre, on the evening of Thursday, January 27, 2011. The screenings are part of Sundance Film Festival USA, designed to introduce the Festival experience to film-loving audiences nationwide. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival opens January 20 and runs through January 30 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

CRUDE director “blown away” by outpouring of support

The shooting crew of Crude in the Ecuadorean Amazon with director Joe Berlinger (R).

Oral arguments begin today in the appeal of the Joe Berlinger/Chevron case, in which the oil behemoth is suing the filmmaker for all 600 hours of footage shot for his 2009 documentary CRUDE, about the company’s legal battle with a group of Ecuadorians who accuse it of contaminating their land and water. On the eve of the big hearing, in which Berlinger is seeking to have overturned an order that he hand over the footage, two more prominent entities stepped forward to express their support for the filmmaker, further proving that the David in this David-and-Goliath legal struggle represents the interests and sympathies of many and is not exactly fighting the giant alone.

Joe’s film CRUDE had its TV premiere on Sundance Channel and Joe continues to produce and direct the Sundance Channel Original Series ICONOCLASTS with his filmmaking partner Bruce Sinofsky.

Hey, Sundance! Revolt against REVOLT, get the MESSAGE?

The Sundance Film Festival is entering the home stretch, and the press coming from Park City details not only the hit movies, but also the state of the state of indie film (it’s that time of year to evaluate your union, comrades). Your correspondent from the mid-West — or really Appalachia, as we say around here in Southeast Ohio — is far, far, far from Park City, but has seen two films recently that prompted reflection on indies and Sundance, Miguel Arteta’s YOUTH IN REVOLT and Oren Moverman’s THE MESSENGER.

I think we were the slutty girls you were talking about!

From Left to Right: Fisher Stevens, Danny McBride and Jon Gosselin

Sundance is getting more surreal by the day. Or I should say night. Last night involved Danny McBride and his band of North Carolina brothers, Fisher Stevens, a bad basketball game, a choking man, a quart of booze, two feet of snow and a run in with reality retards.

Sundance Films Top 10 Infidelities

To count down to the Sundance Film Festival, we’ve been blogging about some of our favorite movie moments in the festival’s history. We’ve covered the Top 10 Lessons in Love, Top 10 Lessons in Young Love, Top 10 Oddest Couples, and Top 10 Sexy-FAIL Moments. This week is the final installment, and we saved the worst for last — infidelity, so bad for marriages, but so good for movie-makers. As Tolstoy sort of said, all happy marriages resemble one another, but each unhappy marriage is unhappy in its own way. Have a nice day!

1. PERSONAL VELOCITY: THREE PORTRAITS: This movie is soaked through with infidelity, in particular the knock-on effect that infidelity (and its close cousins, abandonment and divorce) has on the kids. Philip Larkin put it best: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do. / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you.”
2. THE INFORMERS: Based on Bret Easton Ellis’s story collection (’nuff said, perhaps?), this film’s speciality is early ’80s L.A. infidelity. In other words, the sex is fueled by booze and drugs and is even emptier than your average illicit shag.

Buzz, like swine flu is something you can pick up at a party

Image from THE OATH, the story of Salim Hamdan

That ephemeral Sundance commodity known as buzz used to be something you picked up at parties, on shuttles, waiting in line at screenings — now it’s quantified before the festival even begins, with films ranked on the Sundance site according to page views (and, once the screenings actually get under way, star ratings). Based on the track records of the parties involved (and on totally unscientific early word of mouth), here are the four movies — one from each of the competitive sections — I have the highest hopes for…

Tibet In Song

He was at Middlebury College, on a Fulbright scholarship, studying music and video production. In class he’d seen films about the musical traditions of many countries but never one about his own home, Tibet.

The Top Two (And Only?) Fistfights of the Week

I’ve asked a lot of people this week—no, not anyone famous—their thoughts on this year’s festival, and nearly everyone has said that it’s been a quiet year: less marketers, less media, and less celeb-stalkers (though, according to festival director Geoffrey Gilmore, no fewer ticket buyers).

Sony Grabs Rights to ‘Black Dynamite’

Scott Sanders’ blaxploitation comedy “Black Dynamite” has sold North American righs to Sony Pictures Worldwide for $2 million, a few hours after its Sundance Midnight preem.

Sundance Film Festival and Brita Filter For Good

Thanks to Brita and Nalgene, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival will reduce the need for 50,000 bottles* of water. Drinking water is a known remedy to altitude sickness, so at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, you can support a green cause by hydrating yourself with Brita filtered water.

Cops, Park City

As blogs and papers are rushing to get out their Sundance round up, I turn to the local Park Record’s “Police Blotter” [www.parkrecord.com] for the inside scoop of what really happened this week. Here is just a sampling of the week that was. “At 9:22 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 19, a man told the police [...]

Live From Cyberspace

Filmmaker Michel Gondry is back at Sundance with his latest romp BE KIND, REWIND [www.bekindmovie.com]. In it, a video store dude (Jack Black), who, after he accidentally erases the store’s merchandise, decides to remake all the lost films on video. Gondry, who has taken his DIY aesthetic to sublime places, is endorsing others video imagination this week. While at Sundance, he will be curating YouTube [www.youtube.com] videos all week.

The Poster Showdown

While Park City has passed strict laws governing film marketing that doesn’t mean problems don’t still occur. For example, while it is illegal to hand out flyers or post cards on Main Street, people can ask you for your card. Scott Foundas [blogs.laweekly.com] at the LA Weekly reported on a recent poster war that has erupted on main street. Elsewhere all about a town someone has been posting another sign promoting local town spirit, and, well, denigrating Sundance. I guess, it’s a love/hate relationship.

Ipod For You

Park City, Jan 23. In addition to weak beer, spicy chicken wings, and loud music, Sundance parties provide ideal networking opportunities. But how to show the person next to the steam table you’re up for the job? Up-and-coming cinematographer Jendra Jarnagin [www.floatingcamera.com] downloaded her reel onto her ipod and used it at the Technicolor party to show new friends her talent, a gesture that may have landed her gig shooting a new feature.