Here's Your Sundance 2022

by Jason Adams

The main line-up for the 2022 edition of the Sundance Film Festival was announced this afternoon -- can I get a huzzah? Running from January 20th through the 30th they'll be screening 82 feature films and assorted other cinematic ephemera over the course of those ten days -- they're keeping themselves to the middle space in between in-person and virtual for their 2022 edition, with everything premiering in person in Utah and then subsequently screening via their (truly outstanding) online platform for those of us who can't make it to the mountains, for whatever reason. Like, for instance, the still-happening pandemic, which is certainly my own personal reason for only attending virtually again this time, and which it would be irresponsible for me to not recommend you all take into account. (That said their safety protocols seem very much on point, so your own mileage may vary.) 

I've got the entire press release with the word on everything announced today way down below -- and you can check out each title even more thoroughly on the fest's website, of course -- but I figured before that megaton of information I'd go ahead and poison your opinions with my opinions, highlighting ten movies that are immediately leaping forward onto my face for one particular reason or another.  

Sharp Stick -- Lena Dunham's new movie, her first in over a decade, will surely, as with everything Dunham-related, invite enthusiastic conversation from all angles. That's one way to say it! People sure do have opinions on her and her work, and the story here... 

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Passing: Finding the Grey between Black and White

by Patrick Ball

In Rebecca Hall’s devastatingly delicate Passing, light plays a powerful role. One I haven't seen in many films before. The use and placement of natural and artificial light introduces and reintroduces us to the characters over and over. Depending on how the situation suits them, they bask in it, hide from it, are able to play up their ruses, daring us to look a little closer, or cling to shadows, to the safety of the shade. 

As many of us in America came to a new and widened understanding of the foundational race issues in our country following the deaths of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor last year, and the resulting national reckoning that came after, I spent a lot of time considering how my experience as an “ethnically ambiguous” mixed-race black person has shaped my perception of race, and of media. In Passing, Tessa Thompson’s Irene wryly remarks to a white acquaintance that “we all are passing for something or another, aren’t we?” And isn’t that at the heart of the imposter syndrome we all feel at a new job or opportunity, the shades of ourselves we put on in social gatherings, the walls we build to hide our flaws and insecurities? There is something universal in the facade...

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Sundance: "Passing" review

by Jason Adams

I hope that after fifteen years of me writing on the internet you all will have an inkling of what a big deal it is for me to start a film review off with talk of Awards, a subject I normally pay very little attention to. Perhaps it's that this is my first Sundance -- I've heard people get exclamatory brains in these places, although it being virtual this year I don't have the excuse of the mountain's thin oxygen supply. But here's the deal -- if every single person involved with Rebecca Hall's directorial debut Passing isn't nominated for awards next season I'll eat my shoe. Hell I'll eat one of Ruth Negga's shoes, and they look complicated. Buckles and snaps. But seriously. Everybody gets an Oscar. Do they have Oscars for Craft Services? Give them an Oscar. They kept these geniuses fed well enough to make this beautiful, blessed film...

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Supersized "Nomadland"... what will Searchlight do for a follow up?

by Nathaniel R

Click for the full illustrated new poster

The prolongued 2020 Oscar season is going to make 2021 weird, isn't it. Take Nomadland, for instance, which is just a smidge over HALFWAY through its long trek to Oscar night after its September bow). Hopefully the Biden Administration can figure out a way to speed up vaccine distribution and we can all get back to our favourite pasttime -- MOVIEGOING -- by summer 2021 when the new stuff starts arriving. Alas, that's too late to enjoy Nomadland on IMAX screens, beginning January 29th, which frankly sounds like heaven to us after watching it on a bad streaming link with a watermark across it.

Though Nomadland is not my #1 film of the year -- top ten list coming in a few days! -- there isn't a single film from 2020 that I'd rather see on the most gigantic screen possible. Joshua James Richards' cinematography and the beautifully aged resilient face of Frances McDormand deserve it.

After Nomadland's Oscar run, whether or not it wins the biggest prize in Hollywood, here's what Searchlight (now owned by Disney) will be releasing in 2021...

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Showbiz History: Ryan Phillipe's debut, Diane Kruger's next project, and the Luu brothers

7 random things that happened on this day (July 15th) in history as it relates to showbiz

1858 Emmeline Pankhurst is born in Manchester. She becomes a major and controversial leader in the suffragrette movement in the UK. She became so culturally famous that Glynis Johns even sang about her in the family musical Mary Poppins

Political equality and equal rights with men!
Take heart for Missus Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again! 🎵

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