sundance

While countless people descend on Park City to watch the best and brightest of independent film, things aren’t all bad out here on the sidelines. True, the people in Utah may get to gorge themselves on brand new films, but the Sundance Film Festival also means a deluge of new reviews, interviews, release dates, and, yes, trailers for those of us who couldn’t make it. Which means you can read about the buzz for a movie like Golden Exits and find yourself with a new trailer to watch almost simultaneously.

This morning, our trusty staffers Matt Singer and Erin Whitney head off to Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, the biggest week in American indie cinema. For us commoners who won’t be able to attend, however, we’ll have to subsist on the steady stream of coverage along with the deluge of trailers that always accompanies these parade of premieres. The next week-or-so will offer first looks at the toast of the fest in an effort to get the general public gassed for an eventual wide release, and the fun got going today with a sneak peek at one of the Midnight selections.

When that weird trailer premiered last week that looked like either a really cool futuristic sci-fi movie or a strange, oblique advertisement for touchscreens, we all wondered what exactly A24 was announcing. The long-awaited return of a director? The debut of someone new? A collaboration? An intern’s mistake? Now, after some sly detective work, we know what it is: the trailer was for a short film called Toru that’ll be premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Despite being around for more than a century, one of the major failings of cinema as an art-form is that it hasn’t found a way to make an entire film where Cate Blanchett plays every single role. Thankfully, 2017 will bring that horrifying streak to a close with Manifesto, a film adaptation of the Julian Rosefeldt art installation that will feature Blanchett in a total of 13 different roles. The only downside is that we’re going to have a tough time adjusting back to the non-Cate Blanchett characters out there. It all seems like such a waste of time now.

With the upcoming dramedy The Last Word, gem of screen and stage Shirley MacLaine takes on the sort of role that actresses over eighty (hell, actresses over fifty) don’t get nearly enough of. She portrays one Harriet Lauler, a retired businesswoman and an objectively insufferable bee-yotch. She’s rude and condescending when not outright abusive to those around her, insistent on controlling everything and commanding everyone. (The most clutch line from the trailer above: when her OB/GYN recalls being told, “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”) She’s a difficult, contemptible character, and for mature actresses, those are always in short supply.

Six months ago, this looked like a very different weekend at the box office. While the strong start for The Girl on the Train isn’t surprising, the weak opening for The Birth of a Nation reflects how the film, once seen as a surefire Oscar-contender, has been affected by a series of real world controversies. There’s an alternate timeline out there where it’s a sizable hit. Instead, the adaptation of a popular mystery novel starring Emily Blunt gets its picture at the top of this article.

Sundance’s quieter-than-quiet crime drama Rectify announced long ago that Season 4 would represent the last for Daniel Holden (figuratively, anyway) and at last we know when the convicted killer will plead his last. Sundance has set an official October premiere for the final eight-episode run, promising answers along with its first trailer.

Every film is a cultural artifact. As singular works of art, movies are their own self-contained contributions to popular culture, but their often essential inclusion of things like music, fashion, and slang within their own narratives puts them into a unique space – art wrapped around art, culture enveloped in culture. It’s why even bad period-set films are so fun to watch, as seeing canny cultur

Before he went on to direct four entries in the lovably ludicrous 'Fast and Furious' series, Justin Lin was known for his small, personal film, 'Better Luck Tomorrow' (and, uh, 'Annapolis'). The latest project on his plate looks like it could be a return to the smaller, more character-driven films of his early work: producing a feature adaptation of the acclaimed documentary 'The Battered Bastards

Before I write anything else about 'Don Jon': yes, there are some guys in Northern New Jersey who really do act this way. Some of the particulars are exaggerated, but not really. Whether the interior life of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's protagonist gym rat, club denizen, muscle car driver is accurate is something I'll never know, and considering the emotional dysfunction on display, I think I'm okay wit

Nobody asked for this movie. But someone was going to make it. I'm just glad it was Matthew Johnson, a young (but not as young as he looks!) Canadian director/co-writer/co-star who has the chutzpah to take on a really difficult subject and the chops to deliver without coming off as crass or exploitative. There are plenty who will refuse to give 'The Dirties' the time of day, and that's somewhat un

Amanda Seyfried appears nude in 'Lovelace' - this we pretty much knew, considering it's a biopic based on the life of legendary adult film star Linda Lovelace. While some audience members at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival premiere were taken aback by the nudity, Seyfried herself didn't think much of it and spoke out about any potential controversy.