10 Days of Sundance

Searchlight Lands On Another Earth

Searchlight Lands On Another Earth

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Sundance Dispatch: Homework and Hell and Back Again

We’re officially over the halfway point at Sundance, and already I’m feeling a little glumness trickling in at the thought of this year’s Sundance nearing its end.This morning, of course, were the Oscar noms, and along with most everyone here for Sundance I dragged my bleary-eyed self out of bed at the asscrack of dawn…

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Sundance Review: Pariah

The most gut-wrenching-yet-uplifting film I’ve seen so far at Sundance this year so far is Pariah, which has been getting some mixed buzz. Yes, yes, I know that gut-wrenching-yet-uplifting is practically its own genre here at Sundance, but like many cliches there’s some truth in the stereotype. And Pariah is so moving, so remarkably acted…

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Sundance Dispatch: Rants and Raves

It’s officially Day Four for me here at the Sundance Film Festival, and so far I have yet to see a film I actively dislike at the fest — which, if you’ve ever been to Sundance, you know is a bit of a minor miracle. Granted, I’ve been cherry-picking those films that I think have…

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Sundance Review: POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

I’ll say this about Morgan Spurlock: there’s no one quite like him. Especially when he’s wearing comfy Merrell shoes (hey, they have great arch support) while feeling Ban fresh!, and driving a stylish Mini-Cooper plastered with ads while sipping some refreshing POM Pomegranate juice on his way to catch a fight on JetBlue Airlines.

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Sundance Review: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Martha Marcy May Marlene explores the aftermath of a young girl’s involvement with a cult living on an isolated farm in the Catskills. The thoughtful script by writer/director Sean Durkin is a character study crafted as a deliberately paced psychological thriller, with Elizabeth Olsen (younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley, and an accomplished theatrical actress…

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Sundance Review: Project Nim

With Man on Wire, director James Marsh took a story that necessitated being pieced together with reflective interviews and archival footage of past events and wove it all together into a cohesive whole that resonated powerfully as it told the history of Phillipe Petit, a daredevil who pulled off a number of dangerous and unbelievable…

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Sundance Review: Kaboom

I’ll say this up front: Gregg Araki’s Kaboom is not for everyone. If, however, you enjoy completely crazy, immensely creative tales (and I mean crazy in the best Donnie Darko sense), and you’re neither homophobic nor averse to graphic sexual scenes (both hetero and homo), and you’re willing to forgive a few plot twists that,…

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Sundance Review: Silent House

I admit to being a bit paranoid about big spooky houses and things that go bump in the night. I can’t imagine that I would ever choose to live in a big, rambling old house so isolated from civilization that my cell phone wouldn’t work in an emergency. That’s just asking for trouble. And if…

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Sundance Dispatch: Good News, Bad News

The good news was, I flew Southwest, where Bags Fly Free!(tm) So I was able to bring two bags. Major bonus, because that meant I could bring more boots! And a stash of food cheaper than it would cost me at The Market Formerly Known As Albertsons. The bad news was, my flight was delayed…

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Sundance Preview

The independent film world is already descending upon beautiful Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. The shuttles will be crowded, Main Street will be packed with film buffs, talent, people who are there to socialize and score some free swag, and probably Banksy will not show up this year to adorn Park City…

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Sundance 2011: No Racquet Club

Park City’s Under Construction For Sundance 2011, So No Racquet Club Or Main Street Mall

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Ridley Scott-Kevin Macdonald-Signed YouTube-Sundance Project, “Life In A Day,” Logs 4,600 Hours Of Uploads

Ridley Scott-Kevin Macdonald-Signed YouTube-Sundance Project, “Life In A Day,” Logs 4,600 Hours Of Uploads

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Has The Kids Are All Right Snapped The Big-Buy “Sundance Curse”?

Has The Kids Are All Right Snapped The Big-Buy “Sundance Curse”?

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‘Dancing With The Wildman

Sundance – Day 7 “It was weird. But I knocked (on the bathroom door). I think that was a sign that I was polite.” As I was sitting in the theatre waiting for my first screening of the day to begin, my new indie film community nemesis approached me saying, “Hey man, you know I…

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‘Dancing With The Wildman

Sundance – Day 6 “I should’ve known that if a guy like me talked to a girl like that, someone would end up dead.” Before I start with today’s films, here are my thoughts about Gone To The Dogs and Armless which I saw a few days ago but never got around to writing about for one…

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Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon