Sundance: Keira Knightley has "Official Secrets"

Abe Fried-Tanzer reporting from Sundance

As if there wasn’t enough going on in today’s American and international politics, events that happened a decade and a half ago seem to be coming into focus again. The start of the Iraq war and its implications were covered in the Best Picture nominee Vice and are the subject of two new films premiering at Sundance. Murtada just shared his thoughts on The Report, which focuses on the investigation into torture practices used by the United States. Official Secrets takes place across the pond, following the fallout of one British intelligence translator’s decision to leak an NSA memo detailing plans to blackmail United Nations security council members into voting to go to war in Iraq...

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Sundance: Great acting in "Clemency," an education in "The Report"

Murtada Elfadl reporting from Sundance

Should we react to movies based on content or artistic merit? I struggled with two movies at Sundance this week which had incendiary, important content and tackled either a crucial part of history or provided necessary social commentary. Artistically, however, I found both Clemency and The Report lacking...

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Tweetweek @ Snowy Sundance

A+ usage of fav Addams Family Values quote

pic.twitter.com/KO9D1o0dYj

— Bryan Fuller (@BryanFuller) January 25, 2019

After the jump, searching for hobbies post Filmstruck, post-Oscar nomination giggles, and several tidbits from Sundance Film Festival featuring Selma, Children of Men, Shia Labeouf, Annette Bening, Julianne More, and more...

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Interview: Nadine Labaki on directing children in her riveting Oscar contender "Capernaum"

by Nathaniel R

Nadine Labaki is three-for-three. Lebanon's most prominent filmmaker has seen all three of her films premiere at Cannes to considerable acclaim and go on to represent her country as Oscar submissions. The first two Caramel (2007) and Where Do We Go Now? (2011) became international arthouse hits. Her newest feature Capernaum, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, recently began its platform release in the US and will hopefully see the same warm reception. It's her best shot yet at an Oscar nomination, having made the finals in foreign film. Her Cannes jury prize winner looks at the refugee crisis in Lebanon by focusing on one Syrian boy named Zain (played by Zain Al Rafeea) who is trying to survive on his own. It's a visceral must-see and should elevate Labaki's already healthy reputation as a world class director.

To my surprise, she isn't sure what she's doing next, admitting that this one has been particularly hard to let go of...

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Double Feature: On the Basis of Sex & RBG

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

It’s not uncommon for documentaries and narrative features about the same subject to be released around the same time. In some cases, the impetus for a narrative film comes from the success of a documentary, as with recent Robert Zemeckis' movies the The Walk and Welcome to Marwen, which told the same stories as the hit docs Man on Wire  and Marwencol, respectively. 2010 saw concurrent releases of documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money and the feature Casino Jack.

This season's double feature is undeniably inspired by the need to champion strong women in the face of divisive times. Who better than civil rights icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female justice appointed to the Supreme Court, to serve as the figurehead for two very different movies in 2018?

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