Sundance 2016: Complete Unknown, Morris From America & More are Sold
As the first major film festival of the year, and arguably one of the most important on the ever expanding festival circuit, the Sundance Film Festival is something of a taste maker. Studios small and large vie for the distribution rights of a number of films, while unknown talents can, in a single Park City night, become hot commodities. Here's a look at the news coming out of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Before we get into what films have sold thus far,
Talking to the Writer/Director of the Epic Balkan Western Aferim!
It’s a safe bet that you’ve never seen a movie quite like Aferim!
An epic Balkan Western shot in 35mm black-and-white, Romanian director Radu Jude’s third feature earned a Silver Bear for best director at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival and was the Official Selection at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.
Aferim! (an Ottoman Turkish expression that apparently translates as “bravo!” and is used ironically in the film) is set in the barren landscape of mid-19th-century Wallachia.
Dates Set for Dates for Star Wars: Episode VIII & Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Walt Disney Studios has announced new release dates for two of their biggest upcoming films, hoping (and very likely) to recapture the magic that The Force Awakens managed in its mid-December slot.
Owing to the crazy huge success of J.J. Abrams first installment in the new trilogy, Star Wars: Episode VIII, originally scheduled for release on May 26, 2017, will now debut on December 15,
Watch Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Extended Look
And the final piece of last night's "DC Films Presents: Dawn of the Justice League" on The CW that we want to share with you is the three minute deep-dive into the film that's going to bring the Justice League to the big screen, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Director Zack Synder, and Batman and Superman themselves, Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill, discuss the evolution of their characters and why,
Check out the First Footage of Wonder Woman in Action
You probably already know that Wonder Woman, played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, has a pretty decently sized part in the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. While her involvement in the film was always known, we finally got to see her in action, briefly, in the most recent trailer. And ironically, when she arrives it wasn't Superman (Henry Cavill) whose hide she saves at the nick of time,
Pee-wee is Back in new Trailer for his Netflix Original Film
“Heh, heh,” time for a winter’s giggle and bit of zany whimsy. Pee-wee Herman is hitting the road after a 30 year hiatus, and it's as if time stood still for the childlike Pee-wee. Netflix just released the first 39-second trailer for its original film, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, in all its Rube Goldberg glory. This feature will star the ageless Paul Reubens, reprising the role he created in the mid-1980s for his television show,
Writer/Director Andrew Haigh on his Quiet, Devastating 45 Years
Writer-director Andrew Haigh jokes that his new film 45 Years is a sequel to Weekend, his 2011, intimate look at a hookup between two young gay men that develops into more. Sure, 45 Years is about a long heterosexual marriage between Kate and Geoff Mercer (Charlotte Rampling, nominated for an Oscar for her performance, and Tom Courtenay) but it’s still about the nuances,
10 Cloverfield Lane and the Year of J.J. Abrams
Eight years ago, television impresario JJ Abrams triggered the biggest marketing juggernaut since The Blair Witch Project with a short, unassuming teaser for a then-unnamed horror film. Appearing in front of Michael Bay’s highly anticipated Transformers, the trailer featured familiar comedy faces in Lizzy Caplan and T.J Miller and clocked in at less than two minutes long. Despite its minimal length, the teaser didn’t lack in impact as it depicted the devolution of a casual house party into apocalyptic mania,
Spike Lee’s Michael Jackson Doc Coming to Showtime
Did you know that there are lyrics in Michael Jacskon's seminal "Don't Stop Until You Get Enough" that pertain to…Star Wars? Don't believe us? You can check out the lyrics here, you can hear them in the trailer below, and you can revel in the fact that the chorus for Jackson's first huge hit goes like this: Keep on with the force don't stop/Don't stop 'til you get enough.
Reporters Corner J.J. Abrams After Panel to Talk Star Wars Rumors
At some point, you sort of want to feel bad for J.J. Abrams. Okay, you don't, but the guy has moved the Star Wars franchise into the future admirably, after years of work and the most intense pre-release media scrutiny, possibly in film history, and he's still getting pigeonholed by reporters at events that have nothing to do with Star Wars. Poor guy! (Not really).
Abrams was at the Television Critics Association for a panel on his upcoming Showtime series
Writer/Director Michael J. Larnell on Cronies, His Inspirations & More
The NYU Production Lab helps finance a handful of student and alumni films every year. This past year, one of those films was the Spike Lee executive produced Cronies, which was a 2015 Sundance hit, and a first feature from NYU graduate Michael J. Larnell, who was one of Spike's students. Larnell wrote, directed, produced and edited it while earning his MFA at Tisch. Not too shabby a start for the young man.
Cronies is set in Larnell's hometown of St.
Marvel Nabs Ryan Coogler to Direct Black Panther
The Motion Picture Association of American hosted an evening with director Ryan Coogler after his breakout directorial debut, Fruitvale Station. Coogler was still fresh out of film school, and Fruitvale Station, which he wrote and directed, had recently won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature and Audience Award for U.S. Dramatic Film at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and, a few months later,
Your Full List of Golden Globe Winners
That's a wrap for the Golden Globes. We'll be taking a look at the highlights from the show, but for now, here's a list of every winner in every category.
Best Motion Picture, Drama
Winner: The Revenant
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
Room
Spotlight
Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Winner: The Martian
The Big Short
Joy
Spy
Trainwreck
Best Director,
Get to Know Your Golden Globe Nominees for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Earlier we published a primer for the Golden Globe nominees for Best Motion Picture, Drama. The idea here is while you probably haven't had the time to see all these films, we have, and we've also interviewed a ton of people from them, thus offering you a chance to give these interviews a glance and bolster your film IQ going into the big night. You can do with this info what you want—we suggest you use it to casually mention minute details of the filmmaking process to whoever you might be watching with.
Get to Know Your Golden Globe Nominees for Best Motion Picture, Drama
With the Golden Globes airing this Sunday night, we figured we'd put together a little hyperlinked primer for you. Unless your job it is to know how these films are actually made, chances are you've seen some, missed others, and know who the bold faced names are. With that in mind, and to shed a little light on the folks behind the stars you'll be watching during the broadcast, we've rounded up the interviews we've done over the past year with the below-the-liners who helped make these movies.
I Like the Way You Die, Boy: Tarantino’s 8 Best Villains
It’s no secret that professional provocateur Quentin Tarantino has one of the most twisted minds in the business, spawning some of the most vile (and violent) characters to ever exist on screen, with quirks and sadism aplenty.
Perhaps more unsettling is the knowledge that Tarantino’s cinematic worlds intersect, which means that Reservoir Dogs’ psychotic Mr. Blonde has ties to the menacing pawn shop owners Maynard and Zed of Pulp Fiction,
Director Vanessa Block & Producer Steve Tisch Discuss Their Oscar Shortlisted Doc The Testimony
"The conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has cost more lives than any other since World War II." This startling fact is one of the first things you learn in director Vanessa Block's documentary short The Testimony, and it lingers in your mind long after the film is finished. What's more astonishing than this brutal metric is the unquestionable strength of the women who live in Congo, specifically Eastern Congo,
Director Amy Berg on her Joplin Doc Janis: Little Girl Blue
Director Amy Berg is best known for her hard-hitting investigative documentaries, particularly the Oscar-nominated Deliver Us From Evil (2006), about clergy sex abuse, and West of Memphis (2012), about the rush to judgement in the murder convictions of three young men in Arkansas who were released after spending nearly 20 years in prison. The prolific Berg also made An Open Secret, about the sexual abuse of teenagers and children within the entertainment industry,
Let’s Talk About Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Have you seen The Force Awakens? If so, great, stick around so we can discuss it. If not, stop reading this article. This piece is going to do a bit of a deep dive and there's going to be spoilers aplenty. I'll give you a minute to bail.
Are they gone? Good. Let's take a look.
The Big Picture
The script was penned by J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back,
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lands on AFI’s Movies of the Year List
While Star Wars: The Force Awakens only opened last night, it's probably safe to say the film is a huge successs. J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan have not only survived the most fraught resurrection in film history, they have plainly prevailed, with a 95% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes, a whopping 234 positive reviews out of the 246 that have been aggregated thus far.
It was always going to be a success financially,
