MCN Originals Archive for January, 2013
Sundance Review: Upstream Color
“Love, love Amy Seimetz’s pixie cut. Love,” I wrote on Twitter directly after the press and industry screening of Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color as a couple of colleagues disagreed loudly nearby. I meant those words as highest praise: the remarkable Seimetz is as central to the film as women in Kieślowski’s late films.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »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.
Read the full article »Sundance Review: Computer Chess, Escape From Tomorrow
Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess and Randy Moore’s Escape from Tomorrow, two small, subversive films shot in black-and-white, will leave Park City with critical favor and audience intrigue speeding them on their way.
Read the full article »Sundance Review: We Are What We Are
There are some terrific performances in this film, most notably from Childers and Garner, who move seamlessly from wide-eyed naivete to fierce protectiveness. And man, is this a gorgeous, well-put together film, with frame after carefully composed frame of black and blue color palette sumptuously filling the screen, light and shadow effectively evoking mood, some nicely literary use of metaphor, and a score that moves things along without being heavy-handed or manipulative. The contrast of the beauty with which the film is shot and its macabre subject matter creates its own sort of tension that quite effectively serves the story.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Sundance Review: The World According To Dick Cheney, After Tiller
A credulous, shallow, near-hagiography of an elected official; a tender, melancholy yet emphatic observational doc.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »The Weekend Report
Mama scared up an estimated $27.9 million (all figures reflect 3-day period) during the MLK-Inauguration holiday frame to take top honors in the weekend movie sweepstakes. Two other new national releases bowed to less auspicious results.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Sundance Review: Kill Your Darlings
Radcliffe flawlessly takes Ginsberg on his journey from naïve middle-class Jersey boy to awakening young writer, from an emerging poet inspired by the casting aside of tradition and structure of Walt Whitman to the early stages of manic creative energy that shaped the influential writer he would grow to become. It’s terrific to see Radcliffe making such smart choices in his post-Harry Potter career, establishing himself as a young actor who’s pushing himself and stretching far beyond what anyone might have imagined.
Read the full article »Sundance Review: May In The Summer; Crystal Fairy
As Sundance is a festival dedicated to discovering the latest gems of independent cinema, it’s appropriate that the event takes place in a historic mining town; the majestic Wasatch mountain range acting as a panoramic backdrop for all the festivities.
Read the full article » 3 Comments »Friday Estimates
Another January horror film takes the top spot with an opening in the mid-20s. Both Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook pass $50 million this weekend, the former slowing down and the latter speeding up thanks to a massive expansion.
Read the full article »Sundance Review: After Tiller
Imagine being pregnant with a lovingly anticipated child, having what you thought was a normal pregnancy, preparing the baby’s room, dreaming about the future the child kicking inside you will have – and then learning late in the pregnancy that your child has something terribly wrong with it, so wrong that the most humane choice you can make is to allow a doctor to gently euthanize him in the womb so that you can go through the pain of labor and delivery to push forth your already dead child. I know women who have had to make that awful choice. I’m grateful I never had to.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Wilmington on Movies: Mama
Mama is something of a throwback, and at times a stunning one. But at its best, this state-of-the-art modern ghost story—another scare saga from the Guillermo Del Toro factory—recalls those earlier, less bloody days of fear and (not necessarily) loathing, when horror films were made for adults, and when they could even strive to be a little subtle, and even literate.
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Movies By John Ford
The 2008 nonpareil massive re-issue of John Ford‘s films for Twentieth Century Fox comes in several ways: In the huge 25-film Ford at Fox package, and in several smaller sets. Here is an essential one, if you‘re not getting the big box (and most people, of course, aren’t). It includes four supreme classics, a feature documentary on Ford, and an earlier version, by “Last Pioneer” Allan Dwan, of the saga of Wyatt Earp and the Clantons Ford told in My Darling Clementine.
Read the full article »Sundance Review: Who is Dayani Cristal?
By failing to include any perspective at all from the other side of the immigration discussion, the filmmakers miss an opportunity here to answer those arguments with reasoned and impassioned counterpoints and proposed solutions. This lack of objectivity works to the film’s detriment as anything much beyond emotional tug-and-pull by spoon-feeding the viewer with what they should feel, rather than offering compelling arguments from both sides, stirring debate, and leaving it to the audience to decide what they think and feel about this issue for themselves.
Read the full article »Sundance 2013 Preview: US Documentary Competition Picks
Much like last year’s US Dramatic preview, my curtain-raiser on the US Documentary competition for the 2012 Sundance is packed with notable alumni: Chasing Ice, Detropia, The House I Live In, The Invisible War, and The Queen of Versailles all played at Park City last January. This year’s slate could potentially be just as solid. Here are my picks.
Read the full article »Sundance 2013 Preview: US Dramatic Competition Picks
Finally, finally! Upstream Color, the long-awaited second film from do-it-all-yourself Primer director Shane Carruth arrives at Sundance off some pretty heady buzz at New York pre-fest screenings. Primer, in case you don’t know, is an astounding, complex sci-fi indie that was shot for $7,000 and went on to snatch the Sundance Grand Jury prize in 2004 from films like Napolean Dynamite and Garden State. It’s also one of my favorite indie films of the past decade and I, like many of you, have been eagerly anticipating Carruth making another film. I am super excited to get my eyeballs on this film. Must. See.
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup
From Rome With Love, Taken 2, Won’t Back Down, 17 Girls, Farewell My Queen, Compliance, Jack & Diane, Detropia and more.
Read the full article »Sundance13 Preview: Women of U.S. Dramatic
In honor of the Sundance Film Festival’s decision to invite an equal amount of men and women to compete in the U.S. Dramatic Competition (and perhaps recent discrepancies in representation, as seen in the 2012 Palme d’Or Competition), a look at the eight female director-screenwriters who will vie for the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic: who they are, how you may know them, and what they’ve done so far.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »The Weekend Report
Though well-repped in major Academy categories, Zero Dark Thirty had been receiving the most ink for the absence of a best direction nomination. It attracted an audience 59% composed of males and was 62% that was 30 and older. Though the era of big Oscar bumps has largely evaporated, it should come as no great surprise that some films have benefited from the spotlight by dint of strategic release patterns. Silver Linings Playbook got an outsized lift with the modest addition of 65 screens. Otherwise, Lincoln and The Life of Pi were steady and Les MisérablesAmour received considerably more love with nominations in Picture, Direction and Actress categories in addition to its anticipated slot among Foreign Language contenders.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Friday Estimates
Though some have wildly overestimated Zero Dark Thirty‘s Friday haul, it is still easily enough to take the #1 slot by over $2 million and looks to be close to $27 million for the weekend as it finally expands, an Oscar nomination for Best Picture in hand. A slight surprise—which we have seen happen before with this kind of film—is the Wayans-y A Haunted House coming in second on Friday ahead of WB’s more lavishly-sold Gangster Squad. By the end of the weekend, the two films may well flip slots, but both are likely to come up just short of $20 million. Django and Les Mis, both around $120m domestic cume, didn’t get any real Oscar nominations hit, both dropping in the 40s. Both Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook, which also added theaters, felt mood elevations on Friday.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Gangster Squad
The story is simple — which is probably exactly what the police-vs.-Mickey Cohen wars were not. But even though everything in the movie is painfully predictable, everything is also painfully unmemorable.
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