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What's Going On At Sundance?

Parker Posey in "Price Check"If you're anything like me, you have trouble paying attention to Sundance unless you're actually there. It's not that it isn't a great festival. It's that it arrives during the explosion that is the Oscar Nominations. But nevertheless, a few crumbs about what's going on there, before they hand out their awards (the festival ends tomorrow). These are a few bits I found interesting from the vast amount of information that's pouring out of Park City. 

Parker Posey is baaaaack. She's starring in the dark comedy Price Check as an ambitious marketing head of a grocery store chain.  IndieWire talks to her about her various Sundance journeys which just gives me one more excuse to tell you that my fondest memory of Sundance ever was the time she danced with me on the dance floor at a party. That really happened. I sometimes think I dreamed it. She was as fun in person as she is onscreen.

Marc Webber's The End of Love is getting a lot of press by way of casting. The director -- who you'll know as an actor from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World -- cast his own two year old son Isaac as his co-star in this film about a widower and his son. Though it's based somewhat on his own life, Webber's is not a widower, he's a divorcee. Apparently people are l-o-v-i-n-g the toddler. Consider this tweet from Josh Dickey at Variety:

Awards season 2013 prediction: a viral supporting-actor campaign for 2-year old Isaac Love."

I could see that working in an Uggie for Best Supporting Actor kind of way. At the very least it's publicity.

One of TFE's favorite character actresses Melanie Lynskey (who recently shared her memories of Heavenly Creatures with TFE readers) has a lead role for once in Hello I Must Be Going. The film has been well reviewed, especially when it comes to her performance as a 30something divorcee who falls for a younger man. We'll see it the first chance we get. Go Melanie!

One comedy getting plentiful laughs and attention is the debut film Bachelorette which is a mean girls comedy starring Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan, James Marsden and Isla Fisher. I don't only bring this up because the cast sounds perfect/delicious.

I bring this up because the writer/director, first timer Lesley Headland is an old frienquaintance from here in NYC. She invited me to a workshop of one of her first plays here in NYC five years ago and I gave her one of her first quotes.

Hilarious. Forceful. Insightful. As a character (Leslye writes and acts the part) "Arden" has an infectiously raucous energy with that fascinating sexy and/or terrifying aura of a young Sandra Bernhard."

The play later opened in LA and then returned to New York. She even guest blogged for The Film Experience! And now she's directed a movie starring Kiki Dunst and I am still blogging. Oh christ. What have I done with my life?

The Surrogate is the film that's garnering the most Oscar buzz thus far but it's always hard to know with Sundance hits if they'll transfer once they're in lower altitudes. The film stars Winter's Bone Oscar nominee John Hawkes as a man with no movement below his neck (Oscar loves a disability) who loses his virginity to a sex therapist played by Helen Hunt. Fox Searchlight will distribute the film but since it's an Oscar hopeful, it might be 11 months until it's in theaters. (Sigh)

Helen Hunt and John Hawkes in "The Surrogate"

A Sample of The Deals from the Wintry Slopes of Park City
The Weinstein Co, usually a buyer, is mysteriously absent. But they have a ton of big name films already planned for 2012 including the latest from Tarantino so perhaps their schedule was already locked up. 

•Robot and Frank, "a sci-fi crowdpleaser" according to EW, stars Frank Langella as a man who develops an odd relationship with the robot his children gift him with. Sony Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn will partner on the release.
• How to Survive a Plague, an AIDS doc, purchased by Sundance Selects 
•For a Good Time Call... went to Focus Features.
•Beasts of the Southern Wild, a debut from Benh Zeitlin, purchased by Fox Searchlight
•Red Lights, a psychological thriller, will be distributed by Millenium Entertainment.
•Celeste and Jesse Forever was bought by SPC. It's a romantic comedy starring Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg.
• Liberal Arts is from writer/director/star Josh Radnor following up his happythankyoumoreplease with a romantic comedy costarring Elizabeth Olsen. I'm beginning to think she'll be the Jessica Chastain of 2012 or 2013. So so so so so so so many films.
•Arbitage, a financial drama starring Richard Gere that's been likened to Margin Call, jointly purchased by Roadside and Lionsgate
•Wish You Were Here, an Australian thriller starring Joel Edgerton, purchased by Entertainment One
•Simon Killer, from the collective that brought you After School and Martha Marcy purchased by IFC . Brady Corbet moves up to leading position after supporting roles in their other films.
•The Words starring Bradley Cooper, Dennis Quaid, Jeremy Irons, Olivia Wilde and Zoe Saldana is about a writer and a genius manuscript he finds. It went to CBS Films 

Q&A Pt. 1: Sexy Time, Big Scares, Grace Casting, Favorite Kubrick

As an apology for always taking so damn long with these Q & A columns, I'm doing two this week, but shorter just so I can get some questions done. I'm glad the feature is so popular so thanks for your patience when your questions aren't selected or delayed a week. Here we go. You asked. I select eight to answer... for now. Part Two in a day or three.

MARK: Do you think the success of The Help and Bridesmaids will get more female oriented films made, black or white?

Sadly I do not. It's actually not that rare for a female-driven film to become a big success. Everyone in positions of power just has collective amnesia about it the following year or assumes that it's a novelty even though novelty should imply "one off" and not something that occurs pretty much a couple of times a year. ;) 

KOKOLO: What is your favorite Kubrick film?
I haven't been a completist about everyone's favorite director but mine. But of those that I've seen my preference is The Shining. I don't like the ending very much but otherwise I love everything about it and I think it's spectacularly creepy. But this could be because I saw it in a spectacularly creepy way for a first time in (wait for it) a cabin in the woods without another house around for miles, surrounded by the pitch black of a forest. I was SO scared. And don't you think that the circumstances in which you first view a movie have a real longlasting impact on you (provided it's a great movie to begin with)?

As for Kubrick in general, I find his films somewhat alienating which I suppose is the point but he's just not a favorite of mine. We're all allowed our off-consensus feelings about "the masters" aren't we? I actively dislike Eyes Wide Shut (1999), hate its faux shocking orgy sequence and cheesy-ass pay cable looking fantasies and the molasses performance beats drive me utterly wild... not in the good way. No, I don't even like Kidman in it very much. I keep meaning to give it a second chance but... every time I see a scene out of context I hate it all over again. I do however worship the opening sequence with Nicole Kidman stripping in front of the mirror.

But because I have never written about Kubrick I will now allow of you to choose one of the following (I skipped ones I didn't feel like writing about) and I will rent and write about whichever one you choose before the end of November. Drum roll... GO!

poll by twiigs.com

BIA: Which actresses would you put on a shortlist for this new Grace Kelly movie?

Please god no. We don't need this movie! Unless it's an alternate reality fantasy in which Kelly loses the Oscar to Garland. Hee. But in all seriousness, I did look at my list of actresses in the right age range -- yes I keep age range lists like I'm some casting director! I am an actress nerd. I couldn't come up with anyone suitable - Grace Kelly was 25 at the peak of her movie fame and 27 when she married the prince and retired. [If you're curious some blondes in the 20something age range -- I'm not endorsing them just listing them...

Grace casting, Sexy & Scary movies and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Links: Arthur Laurents, Joel Edgerton, Parker Posey, Will Smith

TV Guide A brilliant suggestion: put Parker Posey in the boss's chair in The Office. Did you see her on Parks & Recreation last night? She's dependable with hilarity, that one.
The Art of Manliness how to jump from rooftop to rooftop, like a frenzied movie hero.
Boobs Radley Imagined conversations between Scarlett Johansson and Sean Penn. Teehee.
My New Plaid Pants a big week for Joel Edgerton. A leading role in the new Kathryn Bigelow flick? Yes please.
Variety Quentin Tarantino wants Will Smith for his Django Unchained movie. In our opinion any actor would be crazy to turn Tarantino down. He nearly always finds something new or untapped in their talent. He's pure magic that way.
The Beats Within new blog on Madonna as a musician (still underappreciated). This is a really interesting interview with Guy Sigsworth who cowrote "What It Feels Like For a Girl"
Movie Morlocksk spends an evening with Terence Stamp. We love him.

Hey U Guys shows the delightful first image from a pirate movie from Aardman Animations. Hugh Grant will be voicing it matey.
THR It might be Keanu Reeves for Akira. Hollywood is just determined not to cast Japanese actors even though the property is the selling point.
Movie|Line is every Kate Hudson movie the same? Chart!
Salon looks at the best devil portrayals on film.

Finally...I meant to write about Arthur Laurents passing yesterday but this one made me sick with loss. The theater great had a hand in so many properties that are just magic (Rope, West Side Story, The Way We Were, Gypsy ... the list goes on) and he lived to be 92 years old; a long and accomplished life it was. He won Tony Awards and was twice Oscar nominated (both nominations were for the ballet drama The Turning Point) but somehow they snubbed his brilliant screenplay for The Way We Were which is only among the pinnacle achievements of its entire genre. Seriously name ten romantic weepies that are better; you can't!

His life was inspiring, too. Imagine having the guts to live as an out gay man as early as the 1950s. I didn't know where to begin -- I'd need a whole blog week. MUBI is terrific with the obituaries, always rounding up good articles to read, like this recent lengthy dishy profile from New York Magazine when the revival of West Side Story opened on Broadway.