Sundance: Julianne Moore in the American remake of "After the Wedding"

Abe Fried-Tanzer reporting from Sundance

Danish director Susanne Bier won an Oscar for her incredible film In a Better World (2010), her second time contending for Best Foreign Language Film. The first was her equally involving and magnetic After the Wedding (2006). That earlier film is actually one of two popular foreign hits remade for US audiences with Julianne Moore in the lead role this year (recent Oscar winner Sebastián Lelio remade his own 2013 Chilean film Gloria as Gloria Bell, due in March this year). Taking over Bier’s duties on this other do-over is Moore’s husband Bart Freundlich, whose last film was the underrated 2016 Tribeca entry Wolves. In addition to bringing this story back on the screen, this is a reunion for the real-life couple with leading man Billy Crudup after the three of them collaborated on both World Traveler (2001) and Trust the Man (2005).

What’s most changed – of surprisingly few modifications overall – from the Danish original to the 2019 remake that premiered at Sundance are the genders...

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Sundance: Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling in "Late Night"

The Film Experience has two contributors at Sundance this year, Murtada and Abe. Here's Murtada's first missive, on a film that's currently closing a record Sundance deal with Amazon -Editor.

by Murtada Elfadl

Emma Thompson plays legendary late night talk show host Katherine Newbery (think Letterman, 2 decades younger, English and a woman but just as famous and revered and still on TV) in the new comedy Late Night. Early in the film Newbery meets a male employee from the writers room who is asking for a raise because he recently had a baby. In two minutes Thompson eviscerates him, and all of the decades of sexism and inequality in the workplace. She likens having babies to having a drug problem that one can’t shake. The latter is an unexpected and illogical simile until, that is, you hear it coming out of Thompson’s mouth. The writing’s funny and sharp, and Thompson is on full throttle hilarious commitment. Late Night has a few more of these golden moments, but also a few that are clichéd...

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Sundance: "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley"

The Film Experience has two contributors at Sundance this year, Murtada and Abe. So here's your first of several reports. -Editor

Alex Gibney discussing his new doc on opening night of Sundance 2019

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

One of the first films to premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival comes from renowned documentarian Alex Gibney, who has previously taken on the Catholic Church, Scientology, Enron, and Lance Armstrong. He won an Oscar for his exposé on torture practices in the disturbing Taxi to the Dark Side (2007). It’s fair, at this point in his filmography, to assume that whatever Gibney wants to spotlight is going to be interesting.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley tells the recent story of young entrepeneur Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos, which launched with the promise of performing over 200 medical tests using just a tiny drop of blood...

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Sundance 2019 Lineup: Lots of Promising Topics and Great Actresses

The Sundance Film Festival runs January 24th through February 3rd next year. Let's look at the five of the key program lineups in brief. Which films are you most excited about. TFE might be going this year, we're not yet sure.

U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION

Alfred Woodard stars in "Clemency"

16 World Premieres will be competing for the Sundance crown (won last year by The Miseducation of Cameron Post). The new crop is all writer/directors (except where noted) and Sundance has been very careful about diversity, noting in their press release that the US dramatic competition section is 53% female directors, 41% directors of color and 18% LGBTQ directors. But they had a ton to choose from which helps with diversity. There was a record number of submissions for the 2019 festival with 4,018 features hoping to be selected, 1767 if those made from within the US...

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"Hereditary" and Toni Collette Lurking

by Chris Feil

This year has made for a quiet Sundance Film Festival, no? While there seems to be less word on major deals and potential Oscar players in the year to come, one premiere that has quickly become must-see material is Ari Aster's horror debut Hereditary. Cryptic reviews have promised genuine genre scares and (much to our excitement) a worthy showcase for Toni Collette. Collette's co-stars include Ann Dowd and Gabriel Byrne.

The film centers on a family after the death of their not-so-beloved grandmother. Her artist daughter (played by Collette) deals with the increasingly spooky fallout...

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