10 Days of Sundance
Sundance: Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary, The Magic Life of V and Walden
What sets “Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary” apart is that about midway through the film there’s a plot twist, followed by another plot twist, followed by a period of tense relationship between documentarian and subject that left Berman sad, morose, feeling badly used, and uncertain as to whether he’d ever finish his film. It’s here that “Untitled Amazing Johnathan Documentary,” not unlike “Winnebago Man,” becomes a film as much about the filmmaker unearthing deep and sometimes unpleasant truths about himself and ultimately becoming part of his own film, as it is about the subject the film thought it was going to be when it grew up.
Read the full article »Sundance: New Frontier Round-up
If you’re going to sell me that you have a six-player “epic ‘80s fantasy” experience featuring female warriors, man, I want some interactivity with that that goes beyond white-labeling last year’s cat cannon functionality reworked to shoot lasers out of my arms, and I want some story and character development that makes the female warriors feel actually incepted out of story and a hero’s journey, with enough substance wrapped around the experience to give me a connection to my character and the other avatars and to care why we are there.
Read the full article »The Daily Buzz Podcast from Sundance
It’s officially Day One of Sundance 2018, and the first episode for The Daily Buzz is packed with amazing films. This episode begins with a heartwarming tribute to the late Irene Cho, the founder of Daily Buzz; moves on to a fascinating account of the lives and training of service dogs in Pick of the Litter, made by Dana Nachman and Don Hardy; and ends with a packed panel with Nick Offerman, Kersey Clemons and Brett Haley for Hearts Beat Loud.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Sundance 2017 Sets Premieres, Doc Premieres, Midnight
Sundance Institute announces the lineup for Premieres, Documentary Premieres, Midnight, Spotlight, Kids and Special Events. The Festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort January 19-29. Three projects announced today are part of The New Climate, the Festival’s new environmental program: Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman(Documentary Premieres), Look & See: A…
Read the full article »Sundance Announces 2016 Juries
SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES JURY MEMBERS FOR 2016 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL TAIKA WAITITI TO HOST LIVE-STREAMED AWARDS CEREMONY ON J Park City, UT — Sundance Institute has summoned 23 film, theatre, culture and science experts for jury duty to award 27 prizes at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival,January 21-31 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden…
Read the full article »Sundance Seen Part 1
The whispering of powder from a dull quiet sky. Snowflakes fall between the screenings. Then the sun is bright and powder dusts off the slopes.
Read the full article »Six Films To Watch At Sundance
Attending Sundance this year means personally jumping through a lot of difficult hoops to make it happen, but this festival is becoming legendary—2014’s iteration eclipsed both Cannes and TIFF combined—and I simply couldn’t skip this year.
Read the full article »Picturing Sundance 2014 x 13 (Plus 140-Character Grasps For Instantaneous Truth)
If you go to parties, you miss movies. If you go to movie after movie after movie, you don’t have time to write, let alone think. But! Thank the Movie Godz for Twitter and for photographs.
Read the full article »Sundance 2014 Review: Boyhood
A little after 1 AM on Monday, January 20, 2014, in a 1,296-seat high school auditorium in Park City, Utah, a piece of cinema history was made: the lights came up on the world premiere of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, a film in production for more than a decade.
Read the full article » 3 Comments »Sundance 2014 Reviews: Overnighters, Whiplash
Even in these scenes of heartwarming fraternity, there’s always this nagging feeling that Reinke’s generosity is perhaps misguided and downright bizarre, as if there’s something unhealthy or otherwise unspoken that drives his desire to help these men.
Read the full article »Pre-Sundance, Dargis Sez It’s Time To Stem The Flood Of “Spendies”
“It’s hard to see how American independent cinema can sustain itself if it continues to focus on consumption rather than curation. There are, bluntly, too many lackluster, forgettable and just plain bad movies pouring into theaters, distracting the entertainment media and, more important, overwhelming the audience.” Pre-Sundance, Dargis Sez It’s Time To Stem The Flood…
Read the full article »14 Must-See Films at Sundance ‘14
What sounds good?
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Sundance Review: Prince Avalanche
There is humor here, but of the gentle, nudging, self-aware kind more than broad slapstick, save for one scene toward the end that injects a quick dose of mostly painless comic relief. But mostly there is an excavation of character going on here, as Alvin sorts and sifts through his own understanding of who he is and his place in the world. A letter for Alvin forces him to reassess his own life and understanding of himself and his relationship, causing him to dig, as it were, through his own ashes in search of the answers to where he’s veered off track in his own life.
Read the full article »Wrapping Up Sundance, Pt 1: The Not-Docs
Sundance is still easily the most important film festival in the world for American independents. It is pretty well run. They have pretty good taste. And even the swag shite that journalists love to mock as they try to figure out how to snag a pair of jeans that will make their ass look like J-Lo’s and their chests look like either Scarlett Johansson or Taylor Whomever is not nearly as rampant as it once was.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Sundance Reviews: Cutie and the Boxer, Fallen City
There is vividness of color here, and contrast between the pair’s struggles in the real world and the way in which they express themselves artistically. Like all artists, including no doubt many of the filmmakers with films at Sundance, for Ushio and Noriko the financial struggles of an artist being able to survive while still creating are a constant source of tension, but there’s never a time when either of them says, well, we’re not getting rich of this, so we should give it up and get a steady job to pay the bills. They fight and they struggle, but the art and being able to keep creating it remains at the forefront of their relationship through it all.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »2013 Sundance Film Festival Awards
For Immediate Release January 26, 2013 2013 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FEATURE FILM AWARD. Blood Brother, Fruitvale, A River Changes Course and Jiseul Earn Grand Jury Prizes Audience Favorites Include Blood Brother, Fruitvale, The Square (Al Midan), Metro Manila and This is Martin Bonner Park City, UT — Sundance Institute this evening announced the Jury,…
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Sundance Review: Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer
The performance footage is most engaging, when we see the girls of Pussy Riot rehearsing and performing; it’s guerrilla activism, shot guerrilla style, and it’s just great that it was even captured for historical purposes, given that the Pussy Riot collective has become a big enough deal to be of note as one of the more relevant and effective activist groups of our time, along with Occupy. Interviews with the girls’ parents round things out nicely, giving us a broader perspective on who these young women are.
Read the full article »Sundance Review: Upstream Color
The patterns of nature and mathematics – and the breaking of those patterns which in turn make new patterns – are heavily threaded throughout the structure of this film, and the complexity of the ideas it explores and the way in which it inevitably requires the audience to actively participate in seeking to understand it is very much like a cinematic Socratic Circle. Socrates taught that all thinking derives from asking questions; the aim therefore is not to arrive at one right answer, but that asking one question should lead to further questions, and from this collective back-and-forth we construct meaning and answers.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Sundance Review: Blood Brother
Perhaps it was some deeper spiritual call, a desire to strip away the typically materialistic Western values with which he’d been raised, to find the purity in a life of giving to others rather than taking from them. Or perhaps Rocky simply found in the children of that orphanage the closeness of family and unconditional love that he lacked at home. Whatever the case, he also found he didn’t want to leave. These kids needed him, and perhaps he needed them as well.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Sundance Review: Escape from Tomorrow
A pair of flirtatious young French girls catches Jim’s eye, and soon he’s following them around the park, dragging his young son along with him for the ride, and getting increasingly shameless in revealing his lust as the film progresses. How much of the girls’ flirtation is real and how much is Jim’s delusion is left to you to judge, though given the rest of what’s happening here, I think it’s maybe a little of both; regardless, it’s a lot creepy, this middle-aged man trolling after a pair of young girls, but it also makes a statement of sorts about sexual fantasy and objectification that one doesn’t expect to overtly find in a film about Disney anything.
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