Sundance 2015

[ordinaryperson]

Sundance's day one press conference is up.

[ordinaryperson]

Cinema Cafe: Melissa Rauch and Leslye Headland @ 2015 Sundance Film Festival

"What Happened, Miss Simone?"

"The Bronze"

"The Witch" may be a breakout hit

Yes I am going to use Indiewire a lot.

[ordinaryperson]

Here is a review of "Summer of Sandgail".

A review of "How To Change The World"

[ordinaryperson]

"James White"

[lacritfan]

I'm about to write the Grim Reaper a very sternly-worded letter. Groovin' Gary (Richard LaVon Griffiths) from The Beaver Trilogy is dead.

In an attempt to explain why this is such sad news, a micro-trilogy:
Groovin' Gary
Groovin' Sean
Groovin' Crispin

Beaver Trilogy Part IV at Sundance!

[ordinaryperson]

Power of Story: Serious Ladies at 2015 Sundance Film Festival with every Criteronite's favorite Lena Dunham

Cinema Cafe: Tig Notaro and Sarah Silverman at 2015 Sundance Film Festival

"Tangerine"

"True Story"

"The Overnight"

"Cartel Land"

"The Hunting Ground"

"Stockholm,Pennsylvania"

"Ten Thousand Saints"

"I Am Michael"

"Chuck Norris Vs. Communism"

"Entertainment"

"The End Of The Tour"

[Jeff]

A24 just announced that they picked up The Witch, which has been getting some of the best notices of the festival thus far.

[ordinaryperson]

Here are some performances from Sundance (Note: you may want to delete your watch history after watching these)

B.o.B. performance 1

B.o.B performance 2

Skrillex

Michael Shannon has beef with video on demand.

And some reviews

"The D Train"

"Knock Knock"

"Shawn The Sheep Movie"

"The Diary Of A Teenage Girl"

[ordinaryperson]

Review time!

"Nasty Baby"

"Z for Zachariah"

"Christmas Again"

"Western"

"Sleeping With Other People"

"Dope"

"Misstress America"

"The Amina Profile"

"I Am Thor"

Here's a video

Cinema Cafe: Saoirse Ronan and Toni Collette @ 2015 Sundance Film Festival

and this

IFC gets "The D Train"

[Jeff]

The most buzzed about titles seem to be Me & Earl & The Dying Girl and Dope.

Me & Earl & The Dying Girl is from Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (whom Wiki tells me was personal assistant to Martin Scorsese, Nora Ephron, Robert De Niro and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu before directing second unit on a lot of major films, and directing that new version of The Town That Dreaded Sundown). It sold to Fox Searchlight through some sort of financing and distribution deal reportedly worth up to $12 million.

Dope is by Rick Famuyiwa who has done several features, including the underrated Talk to Me. It went to Open Road for $7 million.

Both films sound very "Sundancy," but both are getting solid reviews from people whose opinions I respect so hopefully it's not all a lot of Little Miss Sunshine.

[ordinaryperson]

"Experimenter"

"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

"I Smile Back"

"Unexpected"

"Body"

"Going Clear:Scientology & the Prison of Belief"

"Last Days in the Desert"

"Partisan"

"Homesick"

"Dennis Rodman's Big Bang In Pyongyang"

"People, Places, Things"

I might not be able to update tomorrow (or maybe Wednesday) because of a snowstorm. Does anybody want to update us if I don't have power?

[ianungstad]

Kyle Patrick Alvarez is getting RAVE reviews on social media for his ultra-transgressive take on The Stanford Prison Experiment. It only screened a few hours ago and the only full review I could find is courtesy of former Variety writer Josh Dickney who states that visually and tonally the film is heavily influenced by the work of David Fincher.

[ordinaryperson]

"The Wolfpack"with comparisons to "Being There" I'm intrested.

"Chlorine"

"The Stanford Prison Experiment"

"Take Me to the River"

"Princess"

"Advantageous"

"Digging for Fire"

"Grandma"

"Finders Keepers"

"Songs My Brothers Taught Me"

"Don Verdean"

"Zipper"

"Umrika"

"I'll See You In My Dreams

"Hot Girls Wanted"

[Dylan]

An extremely positive review of Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan. The film has been picked up by Fox Searchlight.

[rohmerin]

My friend Claudia Llosa visits Sundance for 2nd time, this time with Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly. Aloft

http://variety.com/video/sundance-aloft ... -connelly/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ordinaryperson]

Awards Ceremony

[Cronenfly]

Though it's nice to see contemporary American filmmakers taking cues from him, I worry that James White will be to La Gueule Ouverte what Listen Up Philip is to Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble: an earnest attempt to match Pialat's hairpin emotional turns and deft character shadings that isn't quite successful enough to make you wish you weren't watching the Pialat again instead.

[hearthesilence]

Though it's nice to see contemporary American filmmakers taking cues from him, I worry that James White will be to La Gueule Ouverte what Listen Up Philip is to Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble: an earnest attempt to match Pialat's hairpin emotional turns and deft character shadings that isn't quite successful enough to make you wish you weren't watching the Pialat again instead.

I never thought of Listen Up Philip in that way, but I've seen both of those films. I see what you mean and definitely prefer Pialat's. Wasn't Albert Brook's Modern Romance actually based on it? I've been meaning to see it but it's tough to track down - I know it was released on DVD so I don't want to go the VOD route until I find a disc that's cheap to buy or rent.

Looking back at the last festival, three competitive films clearly stand-out: Boyhood, Ida and Whiplash. The first didn't need Sundance, it was made by an established filmmaker doing pretty damn well and IFC was going to put it out. Ida was well-established, it already had a terrific run through major European festivals - Sundance was simply its first exposure to the American market. That kind of leaves Whiplash, and I'd side with the naysayers on that one. It definitely has big supporters here though.

Which films this time around are likely have the same critical respect at the end of this year?

[Cronenfly]

Perry has discussed Pialat as an influence in interviews about Philip (We Won't Grow Old Together in particular; he even provides an introduction on the recent Kino Blu-Ray). Modern Romance seems to me a much better translation of WWGOT to an American context, and even if it was a fairly direct homage (had not heard the two mentioned in the same breath before) fits well enough within the wider context of Brooks' cinema of neurosis as to be the best kind of artistic tip of the hat. The lurching emotional rollercoaster of the Pialat is ripe for Brooks' equally horrifying but more overtly comic treatment of ruinous codependence and consumerism-as-emotional-balm; worth seeing under any conditions, but particularly good as a tonic to Sundance's tendency to put a feel-good gloss on what would in reality be disastrous interpersonal issues.