Sundance: 'Entertainment' is a Twisted Misfire

Michael C here reporting from Park City

The failing comedian at the center of Rick Alverson's Entertainment performs as if he loathes the very idea of humor. He flings his hackneyed one-liners at disinterested barflies with a disdain that aims to wound, not amuse. His appearance mocks the very idea of a comic, a slouched caricature of failure who takes the stage in a cheap tuxedo with a microphone and a vodka in one hand and three more vodkas cradled in his other arm. His desperate combover is pasted to his head giving the appearance of permanent flop sweat. It would be surprising to learn that he has genuinely laughed in years...

Click to read more ...

Good Morning! "Teen Girl" & Sales Notes from Sundance

Sundance is keeping me mighty occupied though I promise that more reviews are coming. Yesterday I caught Glassland (reviewed), and two gay films, one of which I loved (Tangerine - not to be confused with the Estonian picture nominated for an Oscar right now) and the other that I'm trying to parse my feelings for still (I Am Michael) but both reviews are in the queue.

 

Inbetween every movie I keep hearing people enthusing about The End of the Tour starring Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel (the latter winning dream reviews). If it wasn't that it was people bitching about being shut out of additional screenings added to keep up with demand for The Witch. The two of those seem to be the fest's buzziest title (thus far) so of course I didn't schedule either! It's always a crapshoot when you work out a schedule... or don't work one out early enough which tends to be my problem. There was no warning on the success of The Witch at all as it's a period piece (set before the Salem witch trials) from a first time director without any stars in the cast. Fresh voices as festival breakouts? Yes please. Sundance always hopes to be about that, actually, but quite often the buzziest titles are less unfamiliar.

My final film yesterday was one of Sundance's other hot titles, The Diary of a Teenage Girl. The film stars a very young looking 22 year old British actress named Bel Powley as a precocious 15 year old who is experimenting with and embracing her burgeoning sexuality in 1970s San Francisco. The film opens with a line that goes something like 'Today I had sex for the first time. Holy shit!' Her bohemian mother (Kristen Wiig, excellent again) is rather oblivious to her daughter's horniness and doesn't realize that her own boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard) is sleeping with Minnie. Writer/director Marielle Heller (as well as, presumably, the novelist Phoebe Gloekner who provided the source material) daringly shows Minnie initiating the sex in Lolita-esque fashion....

Click to read more ...

Sundance: "Glassland", a Compassionate But Bleak Mother/Son Drama

Breaking News: Someone finally gave Toni Collette something to act onscreen again. She has lines and emotions and everything. (Tammy and Hitchcock -- never forget!). But I'm jumping too far ahead since Glassland takes some time to come around to her story. When we finally get to it she all but dares you to listen with hostile self-pity in an amazing and amazingly lengthy monologue. [More...]

Click to read more ...

Sundance Begins: The Bronze, Dark Horse & Nicole Kidman

Sebastian Stan from his InstagramNathaniel, reporting from the snowy mountains of Park City Utah for the annual Sundance Film Festival. Michael, currently en route, will also be covering though we both missed opening night (I was still visiting family in Utah).

From what I gather the opening night talk mostly revolved around Sebastian Stan's muscular performance in a raunchy sex scene in The Bronze. While that event was happening (unbeknownst to me) I was still visiting my mom and brother and they made me* watch muscular Sebastian Stan and his robot arm terrorizing Captain America and The Black Widow.

So, it was unofficially Sebastian Stan Day. Perhaps this is a good omen for the actor's 2015, which he already seems rather happy about (see photo evidence, left). Variety interviewed him at the premiere and he said the script for The Bronze was so funny that before he even got the role he was quoting his own character to friends. It's a supporting role but a showy one, as a former gold medalist Olympic gymnast 

Dark Horse
After picking up my badge, I raced off to my first movie, the only thing I could squeeze in before a Nicole Kidman party I had no intention of missing. [More...]

Click to read more ...

Sundance Wrap-Up / Review Index

Thanks to everyone who commented on or read our Sundance coverage! We braved Park City's confounding bus system for you, you know. (If you appreciated it why not like us on Facebook and follow Michael and Glenn and I on twitter?)  I had attended Sundance twice before. Once before I was a writer during college and once officially as press in 2010 when the highlight was dancing with Parker Posey at a party! But this felt like a first time again, mostly because I brought a team so we did it up right. Well, mostly right. 75% right. We definitely didn't attend enough parties but there's always next year if -- no, I can't even think about leaving NYC again any time soon. I've woken up in my own cozy bed the past few mornings for the first time in two weeks (a quick LA trip was before Sundance, remember) and it feels great.

Park City was not without its charms. I got to take a ski lift "to work" each day which was fun. 

those are not actually tears of joy but tears from the cold

(Those are not actually tears of joy I'm shedding but tears from the cold. I love that kind of bracing cold weather.  But I digress.)

Between the three of us we saw over 60 films and wrote up half of them up for you! We'll get around to some of the others eventually... but the constant barrage of Sundance coverage must now end since it's Oscar time.

THE AWARDS
The Official Sundance Prizes in case you missed them. I heard joking on twitter that if you screen at Sundance you win an award but this isn't actually true. Of the 42 pictures we wrote about (!!!) only 7 of them won something.

Elisabeth Moss had every reason to smile at SundanceMY PERSONAL JURY OF ONE PRIZES
PICTURE: Love is Strange or Boyhood
DIRECTOR: Richard Linklater
ACTRESS: All hail Elisabeth Moss. For many actors "Peggy" on Mad Men would be a crowning glory. But after Top of the Lake and now, for our Sundance purposes, Listen Up Philip (reviewed) and The One I Love, it seems clear that Moss is just warming up. Embarassingly talented. 
ACTOR: Alfred Molina & John Lithgow in tandem in Love is Strange
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Vera Vitali, Blind
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jonathan Pryce, Listen Up Philip
MOST BEAUTIFUL: Andrew Leung in Lilting
BEST CAMEO: Shirley Venard, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter
FUNNIEST BABY: Jude Swanberg in Happy Christmas 

OUR COVERAGE in alpha order by film
52 Tuesdays (Glenn) - world cinema director winner
Appropriate Behavior (Nathaniel) 
Blind (Nathaniel) - world cinema screenplay winner
Blue Ruin (Michael)
Boyhood (Nathaniel)
Calvary (Michael)
Cooties (Glenn)
Dear White People (Michael) - breakthrough talent winner
Drunktown's Finest (Glenn)
Ernest & Celestine (Tim, screened before the festival)
The Girl From Nagasaki (Glenn)
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Glenn)
God's Pocket (Michael)
Happy Christmas (Nathaniel)
Happy Valley (Glenn)
Hellion (Nathaniel)
Hits (Michael)
I Origins (Glenn) -walter p sloan winner
Infinitely Polar Bear (Nathaniel)
Kumiko The Treasure Hunter (Nathaniel) - original music winner
Laggies (Michael)
Land Ho! (Glenn)
Last Days of Vietnam (Glenn)
Life Itself (Michael)
Lilting (Nathaniel) -world cinema cinematography winner
Listen Up Philip (Glenn)
Love is Strange (Nathaniel)
Mitt (Michael)
My Prairie Home (Glenn)
Only Lovers Left Alive (Michael, screened before the festival)
Obvious Child (Michael)
Private Violence (Glenn)
The Raid 2 (Glenn)
Rich Hill (Glenn) - Grand Jury Documentary winner
Song One (Nathaniel)
Stranger By The Lake (Nathaniel, screened before the festival) 
The Trip To Italy (Michael)
The Voices (Nathaniel)
War Story (Nathaniel) 
Web Junkie (Nathaniel)
What We Do In the Shadows (Glenn)
White Shadow (Nathaniel)