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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Putting the Genre in Gender at Sundance

by Jason Adams

A lot of ink, possibly pink, has already been spilled on this year's Sundance marking a flashpoint for female filmmakers. (You can find the same sort of headlines if you look back at last year's fest, which included Eliza Hittman's Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Kirsten Johnson's Dick Johnson is Dead, and Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman.) Still, women's voices at this year's fest feel dominant in a way I'm not sure they ever have before, and it strikes me that the ways we're seeing women re-working genre as a tool of dissembling trauma and male-dominance is in particular fascinating, especially as the Trump years come to their ignominious, death-rattling end...

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Sundance: The Best Way to Go Out in “How It Ends”

By Abe Friedtanzer

It’s been quite revealing to see how the film and television industries have responded to the limitations imposed by stringent regulations during the pandemic. We saw a few shows like Connecting… and Social Distance, the Coastal Elites special, and radically different release strategies from studios and streamers. What excites me most is the way that filmmakers have used new approaches to create stories that don’t directly reference what’s going on now in the world but try something innovative instead. To best illustrate this, let’s look at How It Ends, the new collaboration between Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein, who were last at Sundance with White Rabbit in 2018.

It’s the end of the world – a comet is headed towards Earth and so there’s literally going to be no tomorrow...

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Sundance Review: Ailey

by Murtada Elfadl

Like Summer of Soul, Ailey tells the story of Black art through testimonials from the artists who lived through it. In this case the story of pioneering dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey. He was only 27 years old when he founded what would eventually become one of the most renowned dance companies in the world; the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater...

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Sundance: No grouches allowed for "Street Gang"

by Jason Adams

Okay so I was maybe the easiest mark in the world, broad and tall as Snuffleupagus, for Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street, Marilyn Agrelo's documentary adaptation of Michael Davis' book about the origins of the PBS puppet upstart turned cultural touchstone. I have, after all, read that book more than once. And for another like maybe most of you reading this my first playmates in this world were all Sesame Street inspired -- I had dolls, I had books and records; heck I could show you right now a photo of me in kindergarten wearing Big-Bird-patterned pants (but then I'd have to kill you)...

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