Posts tagged Sundance 2012
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‘Sleepwalk with Me’, particularly funny for procrastinators waiting for disastrous events to push them into action
Sleepwalk With Me
Directed by Mike Birbiglia
Screenplay by Joe Birbiglia and Mike Birbiglia
Mike Birbiglia is now a successful comedian heard on NPR’s This American Life and seen on the Comedy Central but not so very long ago he was struggling personally with an eight year relationship he wasn’t exactly committing to coupled with a career that just wouldn’t take off. Sleepwalk with Me is about the long road to any sense of stability for him. Literally ignoring every piece of advice from the most important people in his life, he delays major decisions for what seem like pipe dreams. This is about a time in Birbiglia’s life where he was stuck in limbo- torn between what his ideal life might be like and existing in the middling reality that kept him clamouring for something better but just wasn’t pushing him hard enough to propel real action.
Money squelches dreams and character development in ‘Price Check’
Price Check
Written and directed by Michael Walker
2012, USA
Parker Posey is undeniably fun to watch as the mean and conniving Susan Felders in Price Check. Her one liners have real sting and lost to her is an awkward but amusing inability to actually connect to others without unabashed self-promotion. The problem is that she embodies the worst stereotypes of a woman in power out there. She is ball crushing yet sexually available, jealous of women with families and motivated purely by what power she can grab. It is hard to get past this and how her lust for money rubs off on everyone else to the point where they become even more empty and detestable versions of herself.
Sundance 2012: ‘Robot and Frank’ finds machinery can hold a mirror up to the connections we’ve lost with loved ones and ourselves
Robot and Frank
Directed by Jack Schreier
Screenplay by Christopher D. Ford
2012, USA
Director Jake Schreier’s Robot and Frank is a tale set sometime in the near future when robots will be at our beck and call for menial tasks or even to watch over the elderly as they become no longer fit to be on their own. Frank Langella (seasoned thespian and recently seen in The Box, Starting Out in the Evening) plays a man unable to let go of his glory years as a suave cat burglar. In and out of prison for most of his life, he was an absent father focused on short term gains from jewelry heists. Now his children (James Marsden, Liv Tyler) are grown and have become independent people with legitimate careers that carry them away from their estranged father. Deteriorating from old age, Frank’s isolating situation threatens to depress him into an early grave. The passive aggressive gift of a caretaker robot from his son inadvertently invigorates his sense of purpose and manages to reopen avenues of illegal opportunity for the veteran thief.
Trailer for the Sundance Hit ‘L’, a film from the writer of ‘Dogtooth’
A trailer has been released for L, a film directed by Greek filmmaker Babis Makridis and co-written by Dogtooth and Alps writer Efthimis Filippou – and shot by cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis, who also worked on Dogtooth. As we’ve been told, the film looks pretty bizarre, but the reviews coming of out of Sundance have been extremely positive.
Here’s the synopsis, via Twitch:
A man lives in his car. He’s 40 and separated from his wife and kids, who live in a different car. They meet in parking lots. A professional driver, the man delivers honey to a narcoleptic man and often dreams of his friend, who was killed when a hunter mistook him for a bear. Frequently late delivering honey, the man is fired, and his driving skills are questioned. Thrust into existential uncertainty, he abandons “car life” and joins a rogue motorbike gang.
Sundance 2012: ‘The End of Love’ asks how lives and dreams fall through the cracks
The End Of Love
Directed by Mark Webber
Screenplay by Mark Webber
2012, USA
In The End of Love director and actor Mark Webber creates a reality steeped in grief. At the center of the story is Mark (played by Webber) who has become a full time dad in the face of his girlfriend’s untimely death. His love and affection for his son, played by Webber’s real life toddler feels genuine. This is a film that is improvised but has the feel of a written script in that the dialogue is often very compact, funny and poignant. Perhaps there isn’t anything that could be written for a child of this age that wouldn’t feel forced or counterfeit. Webber and son’s back and force wavers between love and frustration. The character has no one to share this burden or joy with.
It’s the desperation that stems out of this that nearly causes a breakdown every time he tries to intimately encounter women. In a local woman (Jocelin Donahue) who runs an indoor playground for small children, he finds a friend but is obviously looking rather intensely at her as a potential new partner and mother for his son. It is captivating, refreshing and at the same time distressing to witness this man’s want for immediate connection and commitment. His is in over his head so deeply that the overall atmosphere of the story gives the impression that whatever time he has with other adults as seen with friends and potential lovers, must be lived to the fullest.
Sundance 2012: ‘West of Memphis’ heartwrenching and triumphant, but no victory lap
You might think you know the story of the West Memphis Three as it was covered extensively by the press and the Paradise Lost documentary trilogy throughout the last 18 years. Then comes along West of Memphis which brings to the table a closer, more intensely personal reading of the infamous tragedy that devastated so many lives but brought to light how political ambition, pride and ego can so easily corrupt the United States justice system.
Director Amy Berg (Deliver Us From Evil) encapsulates and condenses the length of the case by first presenting the facts which were previously the most widely known about the case. In 1993, three little boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. The bodies appeared to be hogtied, tortured and their privates mutilated in what was believed to be a satanic ritual. Three local teenagers who were branded by their community as outsiders were arrested and convicted. It was a closed case that the documentary Paradise Lost cast doubt on. At two and a half hours long the film never feels overly long or rushed It does recap much of the material from Paradise but does so swiftly and deftly.
New poster for Rodrigo Cortes’ RED LIGHTS
(Source: aledipa)
#Sundance2012 Fishing With Nets - must see short
At age 25, Cutter Hodierne is headed to Sundance with his short film Fishing Without Nets, where it will have its world premiere Thursday night at Park City’s Egyptian Theatre. The 17-minute film is a fictional drama about an impoverished Somali fisherman who is lured into working with a group of pirates. The short film has already began garnering interest in Hollywood and a feature-length version is said to start shooting as early as the summer. Here’s the trailer.
Click to watch the trailer
(Source: soundonsight.org)
#Sundance2012 - films to look out for - #Wrong
French filmmaker Quentin Dupiex, aka electro artist Mr. Oizo, is back after making quite an impression with his psychic-killer-tire movie Rubber back in 2010. He has crafted a follow-up that may seem a little more down-to-earth but promises to be just as equally bizarre as his previous film. The Sundance catalogue promises another rule-breaking piece of cinema, so those who didn’t like Rubber may want to avoid Wrong. Also worth noting: the soundtrack comes courtesy of Dupieux collaborating with French fuzzpop band Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree Family.
Synopsis: Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog, Paul. During his quest to get Paul (and his life) back, Dolph radically changes the lives of others: a pizza-delivering nymphomaniac, a jogging-addict neighbor in search of completeness, an opportunistic French Mexican gardener, and an off-kilter pet detective. In his journey to find Paul, Dolph may lose something even more vital—his mind.
(Source: soundonsight.org)
#Sundance - films to look out for Filly Brown
Regional Mexican superstar Jenni Rivera’s first film, Filly Brown, is heading to the 2012 Sundance Film Festival as part of the U.S. dramatic competition. Directed by Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos, the film follows an aspiring hip-hop artist (Gina Rodriguez) coming to grips with the fact that her mother (Rivera) is in prison. Propelled by an exceptional cast, and fused with a fierce hip-hop score, Filly Brown promises to have everyone talking, especially about the performance from Gina Rodriguez. Seven years ago, Hustle & Flow premiered at Sundance, and ended up winning an Oscar and made a career for director Craig Brewer. Can Philly Brown follow in its footsteps?
Synopsis: “Majo” Tonorio, a.k.a. Filly Brown, is a raw, young Los Angeles hip-hop artist who spits from the heart. When a sleazy record producer offers her a crack at rap stardom, Majo faces some daunting choices. With an incarcerated mother, a record contract could be the ticket out for her struggling family. But taking the deal means selling out her talent and the true friends who helped her to the cusp of success.
(Source: soundonsight.org)
#Sundance - Films to look out for The End Of Love
Writer/director/actor Mark Webber who starred in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, steps back behind the camera to follow-up his debut Explicit Ills, which won three awards at SXSW, including the Narrative Feature Audience Award. Here he not only directs but stars as well, alongside his real life two-year-old son in a drama centered on the relationship between a young father and his infant boy who deals with death of the mother. The impressive cast extends to Shannyn Sossamon, Michael Cera, Jason Ritter and Amanda Seyfried.
Synopsis: Mark is a struggling actor stuck between the life he once knew and the one waiting for him. When the mother of his two-year-old son suddenly passes away, Mark is forced to confront his shortcomings. Their fates, now intertwined, hang in the balance as Mark grapples with his ability to grow up. When he meets Lydia, a young mother, he is no longer able to live in the comfort of denial.
(Source: soundonsight.org)
My most anticipated film from #Sundance2012
Bones Brigade: An Autobiography
Stacy Peralta, the director of two of my favourite docs of all time (Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants) returns to Sundance this year with Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, a continuation of sorts of his first documentary, Dogtown, which had its premiere in Park City in 2001. Peralta’s fourth film picks up in the early 1980s, when he and an unlikely group of outsiders formed the titular Bones Brigade, and revitalized skateboarding.
Synopsis: Today skateboarding is omnipresent. Take a walk down any street in any town, and you are destined to see someone riding a skateboard. Well, it wasn’t always like that. In the early ’80s, skateboarding was fading away until Stacy Peralta brought a profoundly talented group of outsiders together and dubbed them the Bones Brigade. This documentary chronicles their epic rise, using awesome archival footage and moving first-person accounts from Brigade members Steve Caballero, Tommy Guerrero, Tony Hawk, Mike McGill, Lance Mountain, and Rodney Mullen, among others. Through passion, drive, creativity, and a surprising sense of teamwork, they revitalized the sport and influenced generations to come.
(Source: soundonsight.org)
#Sundance - Films to look out for #Arbitrage
Nicholas Jarecki (the brother of documentarians Andrew and Eugene) makes one hell of a directorial debut with a timely suspense thriller about love, loyalty, and high finance. The all-star cast includes Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling, Tim Roth, and Nate Parker and Cliff Martinez (Drive, Contagion) is handling the score.
Synopsis: Arbitrage—buying low and selling high—depends on a person’s ability to determine the true value of any given market. It’s a talent that has made billionaire hedge fund magnate Robert Miller the very portrait of success in American business. But on the eve of his sixtieth birthday, Miller finds himself desperately trying to sell his trading empire to a major bank before the extent of his fraud is discovered. When an unexpected bloody error challenges his perception of what things are worth, Miller finds that his business is not the only thing hanging in the balance.
#Sundance 2012 - Red Lights
I was a huge fan of Rodrigo Cortés’ directorial debut, Buried - experimental minimalist genre filmmaking at it’s best. Cortés’ follow-up is a much more ambitious film with a bigger budget, bigger stars (including (Sigourney Weaver, Cilian Murphy, Robert De Niro and Elizabeth Olsen) and an actual plot and premise that expands outside the box.
Synopsis: Two investigators of paranormal hoaxes, the veteran Dr. Margaret Matheson and her young assistant, Tom Buckley, study the most varied metaphysical phenomena with the aim of proving their fraudulent origins. Simon Silver, a legendary blind psychic, reappears after an enigmatic absence of 30 years to become the greatest international challenge to both orthodox science and professional sceptics. Tom starts to develop an intense obsession with Silver, whose magnetism becomes stronger with each new manifestation of inexplicable events. As Tom gets closer to Silver, tension mounts, and his worldview is threatened to its core.
Notable Premieres at #Sundance
Shut Up and Play the Hits
There are several music related documentaries on the horizon but the one that has everyone talking is Shut Up and Play the Hits, which chronicles the last 48 hours of LCD Soundsystem’s existence and features a rare and frank interview between James Murphy. The film is directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace whose documentary on the band Blur, No Distance Left to Run, was nominated for a Grammy.
Synopsis: With the release of their debut album in 2005, New York City’s LCD Soundsystem changed the face of dance music, combining equal parts punk, soul, and disco. Their devoted fan base steadily grew, bolstered by Grammy nominations and recognition as one of the best live bands in the world. In early 2011, touring to support their first Billboard Top 10 debut, LCD Soundsystem announced its largest gig to date—Madison Square Garden—and that the concert would be their last ever.
(Source: soundonsight.org)
