ENJOY THE SHOW
Sundance Review: Josh Radnor's HappyThankYouMorePlease
I love this movie. Maybe I'm just a sucker for romantic comedies with quirky characters and storylines that aren't the exact same as those we all-too-often see in Hollywood. Or maybe I'm a sucker for happy, funny romantic comedies (like 500 Days of Summer). I'm not sure, but I loved HappyThankYouMorePlease. The film just won the Audience Award at Sundance and I saw it for my second time earlier tonight. It's such a sweet, charming, wonderful movie that's so uplifting and and so fun to watch. It won the Audience Award for good reason - everyone loves this movie. And even after seeing it twice, it's still one of my favorites.
⥤ Posted January 31 in Reviews, Sundance 10 | 7 Comments
Brandon's Sundance Review: Debra Granik's Winter's Bone
Winter's Bone puts shit in perspective. In the tradition of Precious (then, Push) last year, Winter's Bone won the Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic Competition. Like Precious, the film is a depiction of poverty and the dregs of society. It's a tough film to watch, both because of its subject matter -- a seventeen-year-old girl is tasked with rearing her younger brother and sister while trying to hunt down her drug-dealing father in order to keep her family intact -- and because it's just a slow film. All of the film's parts are excellent. The writing is stellar, and, in fact, it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award here at Sundance as well.
⥤ Posted January 31 in Reviews, Sundance 10 | 1 Comment
Sundance Review: Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right
There's been an outstanding showing of female filmmakers at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Lisa Cholodenko, director of The Kids Are All Right, is certainly among that group. The film finds its focus around a family that just so happens to consist of two lesbian parents and two children who were conceived through artificial insemination. It's when Joni, the eldest child played by Mia Wasikowska, decides to call her birth father -- read: the sperm donor -- that the film takes off. The film explores family, love, relationships, and all ranges of emotion better than most films. It's simply a beautiful portrayal of a
⥤ Posted January 31 in Reviews, Sundance 10 | 1 Comment
Indie Trailer Sunday: Teaser Trailer for Tony Jaa's Ong Bak 3
This has to be Thailand's most popular film franchise. I thought Ong Bak 2 was just barely hitting theaters and now apparently Ong Bak 3 is already done shooting, too? Who knew? Ain't It Cool News found the first teaser trailer for Ong Bak 3 (via YouTube) and it looks pretty cool. I haven't even seen the second one so I don't know where the heck the story is even going at this point, but it still looks cool. At some point I need to watch the first two back-to-back anyway. Believe it or not this is real footage from the third movie, as far as we know, but it's a badass little teaser worth checking out if you're a fan of this franchise. Enjoy!
⥤ Posted January 31 in Indies, To Watch, Trailers | 17 Comments
Zachary Quinto to Star in Spielberg's George Gershwin Biopic
Although much praise followed Zachary Quinto's breakout role as Spock in last summer's Star Trek, in a recent interview with Wired, Quinto said that aside from filming the sequel, he would be taking a two year break from the franchise ("no conventions, no anything for a while”) until it's time to promote the sequel. Wanting to venture into "other areas and other styles of storytelling," we now know, courtesy of Deadline that one of those areas involves him starring in the Steven Spielberg produced biopic about composer George Gershwin, which is one of three projects Spielberg is also looking to direct for his next feature.
⥤ Posted January 31 in Casting, Movie News, Opinions | 7 Comments
Interview: 12th & Delaware's Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady made one of the most terrifying films I've ever seen - Jesus Camp. Their even-handed, objective portrayal of their subjects is the hallmark of their filmmaking, and it's no wonder that objectivity continues with their latest documentary 12th & Delaware, which explores the microcosm in Florida where an abortion clinic and a pro-life pregnancy care center exist on opposite sides of the same street. I caught up with Heidi and Rachel in Park City (read my Sundance review) where they talked about their filmmaking process, the importance of objectivity, and what we can expect from them in the future.
⥤ Posted January 31 in Interviews, Sundance 10 | 1 Comment
Sundance Video Review: David Michôd's Animal Kingdom
A few days ago we featured the first teaser poster for David Michôd's Animal Kingdom, one of my favorite Sundance films that I saw a week ago during the first half of the fest. Also a few days ago, while working at our condo, Dave Chen from SlashFilm decided to record a video discussion of Animal Kingdom involving anyone who had seen the film (which included me, our own Brandon Lee Tenney, and Dave Chen himself). You can watch that video review below but in addition to that we've got a quick written review from Brandon as well (below). Watch this if you want to know why Animal Kingdom is one of the best films of the fest!
⥤ Posted January 31 in Reviews, Sundance 10 | 1 Comment
Brandon's Sundance 2010 Review: Rodrigo Cortés' Buried
One location. One actor. One phenomenal filmmaking achievement. Directed by Rodrigo Cortes, starring Ryan Reynolds, Buried is the story of Paul Conroy who, after his convoy is attacked in Iraq, is buried alive inside a coffin with only a lighter and a cell phone. That's it. For 94 minutes, we, the audience, are inside that coffin with Paul. As impossible as it might sound, it works. It's tense and horrifying. Claustrophobic, shocking, and awe-inspiring -- if not always because of the script, then because of the filmmaking. Buried's directing, cinematography, editing, and score all act in concert to form a remarkably singular vision.
⥤ Posted January 31 in Reviews, Sundance 10 | 9 Comments
Live-Action Ghost in the Shell Writer Talks About the Script
It was first announced almost two years ago that Steven Spielberg would be developing a new live-action adaptation of the beloved manga Ghost in the Shell. Since then we've heard bits and pieces regarding the project, but they still haven't really progressed past the development stage on it. We also learned last October that Shutter Island writer (and Avatar executive producer) Laeta Kalogridis would be writing the script for Spielberg. While out promoting the release of Shutter Island, both MoviesOnline and Screen Rant (via Anime News Network) caught up with Kalogridis and asked her about the latest on the adaptation.
⥤ Posted January 31 in Hype, Movie News, Opinions | 39 Comments
Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow Wins Directors Guild Award!
The Hurt Locker and director Kathryn Bigelow have finally won their first major award at the Directors Guild of America Awards held yesterday at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza. Bigelow won the award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film over her fellow nominees including: James Cameron for Avatar, Lee Daniels for Precious, Jason Reitman for Up in the Air, & Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds. Louie Psihoyos also won the documentary award for The Cove. Could this be an early sign that The Hurt Locker and/or Kathryn Bigelow might end up wining some Oscars in March? What do you think?
⥤ Posted January 31 in Awards News, Movie News, Opinions | 47 Comments
Sundance Film Festival 2010 Awards Officially Announced
The official awards for the 2010 Sundance Film Festival were announced tonight at a ceremony in Park City. The big winner this year is HappyThankYouMorePlease, taking home the coveted Audience Award, but there are plenty of other big winners as well. As expected, the juries made some odd choices, and this year no one thought Sympathy for Delicious or Obselidia should've won anything (but they did). Anyway, these awards always start to put the finishing touches on yet another Sundance, which means things are winding down. You can see the full list of winners below. Audience Award winners can be found at the bottom.
⥤ Posted January 30 in Awards News, Opinions, Sundance 10 | 4 Comments
Watch This: New Red Band Trailer for She's Out of My League
We featured the very first trailer for She's Out of My League just a few weeks ago and I guess at the time I thought it would be a PG-13 cheesy comedy, but boy was I wrong. Paramount has just debuted a red band trailer for the movie and it's a lot more raunchier, dirtier, and crude than I ever thought it would be. Sure, as expected, this red band includes more profanity and sexuality in hopes of getting horny teens in theaters, but I was begged by Ethan to run it because it's a lot funnier than that first trailer. He's definitely right about that. But will this be any good? I'm still not sure. That dinner table scene was pretty funny, though!
⥤ Posted January 30 in Opinions, To Watch, Trailers | 32 Comments
FEATURED POSTS
GET MORE UPDATES
POPULAR POSTS
- › 'The Expendables 2' Might Be Rated PG-13 Thanks to Chuck Norris? (113 Comments)
- › 84th Academy Awards Nominations Officially Announced - Full List! (110 Comments)
- › Watch: Paul W.S. Anderson's 'Resident Evil: Retribution' First Trailer (83 Comments)
- › Review: George Lucas' 'Red Tails' Poorly Commemorates Real Heroes (70 Comments)
- › Looking Back: Jeremy Picks the Top 10 Most Terrible Movies of 2011 (54 Comments)
- › Looking Back: Ethan Picks Five Pleasantly Surprising Hits from 2011 (44 Comments)
SOUND OFF NOW!
- › The Adventures of Tintin - Dec 21 (Comment)
- › Fincher's Dragon Tattoo - Dec 21 (Comment)
- › Brad Bird's Ghost Protocol - Dec 16 (Comment)
- › WB's Sherlock Holmes 2 - Dec 16 (Comment)
- › Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Dec 9 (Comment)
- › Steve McQueen's Shame - Dec 2 (Comment)
LATEST PODCAST
