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Sundance Film Festival: one of the few places a person can see over thirty movies in ten days and still walkaway with a lengthy list of regretful misses. This year was full of positive buzz, from rabid studio purchasing to the general thumbs-up public reactions to Park City's packed slate. More... |
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No one would argue that Woody Allen has made a prolific career for himself as a filmmaker. With his unique storytelling voice, Allen carved out a place for himself among the greats, fusing comedy and drama to create a form all is own. He uses similar characters, scenarios and techniques, but the films feel fresh. More... |
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How do you turn a dry setting like an insurance sales conference into a lively comedy? Fill it with A-list talent. That's exactly what director Miguel Arteta did when he recruited his ragtag cast of Cedar Rapids, mixing the straight-laced comedy of Ed Helms, the demented zingers of John C. Reilly, the reserved sensibilities of Wire co-star Isiah Whitlock Jr. and the grounded keystone of the bunch: Anne Heche. More... |
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Sundance wouldn’t be Sundance without the quirky popular comedies (two this year with My Idiot Brother and Cedar Rapids) and the overly melodramatic. This year's super serious drama Pariah, the coming of age story of a lesbian teenager in Brooklyn, just got picked up by Focus Features. Written and directed by Dee Rees, the film has been received well at the festival; so much so that Focus also bought Rees’ next project that she’ll write and likely direct. More... |
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There are few "real" movie stars out in Hollywood. Great actors lie around every corner, but can a chiseled man like Brad Pitt play a run-of-the-mill guy from New Jersey without the audience thinking, "hey, it's Brad Pitt!" Not quite. More... |
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Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite, (500) Days of Summer - while Sundance shepherds many traditional dramas and comedies, the festival has also become a breeding ground for the alternative. Fusing clever writing with stylistic techniques, these off-beat films walk a fine line between traditional narrative and experimental filmmaking. They've also been huge hits. More... |
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This year, Sundance introduced the "NEXT" series, a much-needed new category of competition films with a focus on the little -to-no budget indies that, through mostly miracle, are completed and primed for an audience. More... |
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After receiving postivie reviews, Lionsgate has swooped down on Sundance entry The Devil's Double, Lee Tamahori's new film chronicling the relationship between Saddam Hussein's sadistic son Uday and his reluctant body double. Dominic Cooper stars in dual roles, portraying both the madman and the family man who must risk his own life to protect him. More... |
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Watching films day in and day out over ten days is a harder task then it may seem. Waking up at 8am for your first screening and rolling out of midnight movies day in and day out can be an exhausting task and a challenge to find the real winners.
Every Sundance is filled with a spectrum of titles, ranging from the big, buzzed-about hits to the lame ducks of the festival (which end up being equally infamous). We're halfway through the epic indie marathon and here are a few of the films you will want to keep a look out for later this year - and a few you may not. More... |
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The idea of "Sci-Fi" evokes flashes of classics - Star Wars, Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey - and the countless mega-budget summer movies that come and go every year, most collecting dust at the local Netflix depot. But the indie scene, and the Sundance playground, breeds a whole other sect of genre filmmaking: low-budget, heady Sci-Fi. More... |
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The faux-documentary is taking over the world.
The Blair Witch Project opened our eyes to its true potential, Cloverfield blew it up into a bona fide moneymaking opportunity and now filmmakers around the world are capitalizing on the ease and milage of the mock doc. When a movie like Paranormal Activity can be shot, edited and delivered for $15,000 and gross over $100 million, it's a no brainer that budding Spielberg's would want a piece of the action. More... |
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A few days in to the exhilarating chaos of Sundance, it's finally time for the buzzworthy films of the fest to be picked up by distributors. One of the first films that came single and quickly paired up is Homework, a coming of age drama starring Freddie Highmore, Emma Roberts, Rita Wilson, Blair Underwood and was written and directed by newcomer Gavin Wiesen. The odd part of the deal with distributor Fox Searchlight is that Homework... well, it's atypically dull. More... |
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In 2010, Dominic Cooper made a big splash opposite Carey Mulligan in the Oscar-nominated An Education. The role showed off his suave, dapper side, but in his latest film, the Sundance debut The Devil's Double, Cooper really sinks his teeth into a role (or in this case, roles) and pushes himself to the extreme. More... |
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Always the Hollywood renegade, Kevin Smith debuted his new film Red State at this year's Sundance Film Festival and turned the massive screening into a three-ring circus. Fans and film buffs weren't just attending the premiere to get a sneak peak of Smith's daring new horror film, but to see what the future held for the controversial picture. More... |
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IFC has been on a roll recently, picking up several buzz-worthy films from Sundance that might not have gotten distribution otherwise. The latest acquisition is The Ledge, a character driven drama about a guy threatening to jump off the top of a building. Well, it's slightly more complicated than that: The guy jumping is an atheist involved in a love triangle with a woman and the other guy is a big believer who actually talked him up to the roof in the first place. Then throw in a detective assigned to talk him down and you have your twisted thriller. More... |
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The underdog. The coach. The big match. The knockout.
Boxing movies - they're a staple of Hollywood. And why not? They're adrenaline-pumping stories loaded with metaphors. Audiences will always be able to relate to two men duking it out, which means the genre won't be slowing down anytime soon. 2010's two entries to the genre, David O. Russell's true story The Fighter and FX's newest drama Lights Out, make that perfectly clear. More... |
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When the impeccable drama Pariah eventually finds distribution, you will hear it positively lauded as "the next Precious." That's the quickie evaluation you hear around Park City, where Sundance 2011 is currently in full swing.
Thanks to the Sundance 2010 hit and the combined powers of Tyler Perry and Oprah, it would seem any film led by an African-American must now undergo the Precious comparison. It's a simple write-off, and in the case of Pariah, completely unwarranted. More... |
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Money is starting to get tossed around Park City, Utah at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival as select titles have begun to get distribution deals from a variety of buyers. We've recently found out that J.C. Chandor's Margin Call has been acquired in a joint venture by Lionsgate Films and Roadside Attractions. The film is an ensemble thriller set over the course of a 24-hour period during the early stages of the 2008 financial collapse. More... |
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Finally, America will get what it's always wanted: Paul Rudd sporting a huge fucking beard. At the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, The Weinstein Company just closed a deal to distribute My Idiot Brother, the new comedy starring Rudd as a paroled pot dealer. It guarantees a minimum of $6 million and has a $15 million P&A commitment for a wide theatrical release. More... |
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In the past few years, actor Paul Rudd has become a staple of cinematic comedy, a go-to guy to up the funny quotient of any movie. With a simple shrug, the man has guys keeling over with laughter and ladies swooning over his adorable antics (...and visa versa). We all know this. More... |
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Every year at the Sundance Film Festival there a handful of movies that enter the event with high prospects of being purchased by a distributor. There are always surprises - under the radar crowdpleasers that find an audience without the aid of star-power like last year's Winter's Bone - but it's easy to tell which movies have the best chances based on their cast alone. More... |
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Recently I had the opportunity to chat with production team of Bellflower. The film is an Official Selection for The Sundance Film Festival which starts this week and is featured in a Hollywood.com story about the Sundance Film Festival called The Films We're Looking Forward To At Sundance 2011. More... |
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