The Linking Point

Write Out of LA on underappreciated directors of 2014's awards season
Playbill Into the Woods cast members sang to Rob Marshall at the Artios Awards
xkcd The Star Wars tipping point
Script Notes talks about the "default male" problem in screenwriting
Empire Warner Bros still wants to make a feature adaptation of The Jetsons
Jason Robert Brown, the great composer of The Last Five Years shares a new live concert online with Tony winner and movie Dreamgirl Anika Noni Rose. It's $5

Vulture cable programmings explosion over the past 15 years. This is why no one can keep up. 
Awards Daily the Oscar bump is helping the indies. Even the long since faded Whiplash was up 114% this past weekend 
Dissolve Martin Scorsese finally approaching production of the long-gestatingSilence about Jesuit missionaries in 17th-century Japan

Comics Alliance casting young versions of the X-Men for X-Men: Apocalypse. Tye Sheridan is a fine young actor so no qualms there but I didn't enjoy Sophie Turner's work on Game of Thrones (I only watched the first season - did she improve?) so I worry about her Jean Grey 
Carpetbagger The Witch still hasn't technically premiered at Sundance (just press screenings) but reviews are so good it's not helping the attempt at a mysterious low profile

Good Morning! "Teen Girl" & Sales Notes from Sundance

Sundance is keeping me mighty occupied though I promise that more reviews are coming. Yesterday I caught Glassland (reviewed), and two gay films, one of which I loved (Tangerine - not to be confused with the Estonian picture nominated for an Oscar right now) and the other that I'm trying to parse my feelings for still (I Am Michael) but both reviews are in the queue.

 

Inbetween every movie I keep hearing people enthusing about The End of the Tour starring Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel (the latter winning dream reviews). If it wasn't that it was people bitching about being shut out of additional screenings added to keep up with demand for The Witch. The two of those seem to be the fest's buzziest title (thus far) so of course I didn't schedule either! It's always a crapshoot when you work out a schedule... or don't work one out early enough which tends to be my problem. There was no warning on the success of The Witch at all as it's a period piece (set before the Salem witch trials) from a first time director without any stars in the cast. Fresh voices as festival breakouts? Yes please. Sundance always hopes to be about that, actually, but quite often the buzziest titles are less unfamiliar.

My final film yesterday was one of Sundance's other hot titles, The Diary of a Teenage Girl. The film stars a very young looking 22 year old British actress named Bel Powley as a precocious 15 year old who is experimenting with and embracing her burgeoning sexuality in 1970s San Francisco. The film opens with a line that goes something like 'Today I had sex for the first time. Holy shit!' Her bohemian mother (Kristen Wiig, excellent again) is rather oblivious to her daughter's horniness and doesn't realize that her own boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard) is sleeping with Minnie. Writer/director Marielle Heller (as well as, presumably, the novelist Phoebe Gloekner who provided the source material) daringly shows Minnie initiating the sex in Lolita-esque fashion....

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Birdman Surprises at PGA. Is it a Three Way Best Picture Race?

The Film Experience has never loved the complacency of locked up Oscar races, so it is with great pleasure that I share the news (though you probably didn't miss it) that Birdman won the Producers Guild Award tonight. Do we have an actual race for Best Picture? Have you voted as to who should win yet?

This doesn't mean that Boyhood is in trouble, necessarily, but it's a fascinating curveball, especially given that Boyhood was such a feat of producing; Imagine bankrolling and shepherding a small scale but dozen yaer experiment when you had no idea how it would turn out or if it would work at all?!

As you know from my top ten list I do slightly prefer Birdman to Boyhood but let's forget about Oscar's unfortunate "side-taking" for a minute and face facts: either of those films would make thrilling, atypical and totally deserving Best Picture winners.

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Sundance: "Glassland", a Compassionate But Bleak Mother/Son Drama

Breaking News: Someone finally gave Toni Collette something to act onscreen again. She has lines and emotions and everything. (Tammy and Hitchcock -- never forget!). But I'm jumping too far ahead since Glassland takes some time to come around to her story. When we finally get to it she all but dares you to listen with hostile self-pity in an amazing and amazingly lengthy monologue. [More...]

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Anne Hathaway's Producing Debut "Song One" Is a Labor of Love

She's an actress, a singer, an Academy Award winner, and now Anne Hathaway can add producer to her growing list of credits. Her producing debut (a family affair as husband Adam Schulman is a co-producer) Song One is a heartfelt, indie drama about family, relationships, and just how much music affects our lives. 

And if producing for the first time wasn't enough of a challenge, she also chose a writer/director making her feature film debut. Hathaway previously met Katie Barker-Froyland when she worked as an assistant director on Hathaway's hit film The Devil Wears Prada (2006). But it was another director Jonathan Demme, who brought them together. During the Q & A that followed the screening at The Museum of the Moving Image, Hathaway revealed that her role as Kym in Demme's Rachel Getting Married ranks as her favorite. Knowing that Hathaway was looking for something to produce, he sent her Barker-Froyland's script and the actress felt such a connection to the main character that she ended up playing the role as well. [More...]

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