In a little more than 24 hours the Cinema Blend festival team will bend over for a body cavity search at the airport, before hopping a plane bound for Salt Lake, City. From there we’ll cram into some sort of tourist transporting shuttle where we’ll be driven over icy mountain roads by an underpaid, half-crazed Mormon who could probably use some caffeine to keep him awake but won’t drink it because of his religious beliefs thus endangering everyone with him, until we reach Park City. It’s Sundance Film Festival time again, and we couldn’t be more excited.
Before we kick off our coverage, we’re going to ease you into the whole festival thing slowly with a look at just some of the films we’re most looking forward to at this year’s festival. Then some time late Thursday night, after we drag our luggage into our budget condo and haul out our laptops, Cinema Blend’s Sundance Coverage will go full force until either we pass out from exhaustion or they send us all home. I’m betting on the former, sleep is generally an impossibility at these things.
Below in now particular order is a quick look at the movies we’re dying to see this year. Take a look and keep checking back throughout the next week for our complete Sundance Film Festival coverage.
Brooklyn’s Finest
This is one of the big, splashy premiere flicks hitting the festival this year. That also means it’ll be one of the most difficult films to get into. Is it worth the trouble? Maybe. It’s directed by Antoine Fuqua, of Training Day noteworthiness, and he’s returning to the cop genre with Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes, and Ethan Hawke in tow. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: Tango is an undercover officer on a narcotics detail that forces him to choose between duty and friendship. Having been to hell and back, he wants
out, but the powers that be won’t let him quit.
Family-man Sal is a detective tempted by greed and
corruption. He can barely make ends meet, and now
his wife has an illness that threatens the life of their
unborn twins. Eddie is nearing retirement age and
has long since lost his dedication to his job as a cop.
He wakes up every morning trying to come up with
a reason to go on living...and he can’t think of one.
Fate brings the three men to the same Brooklyn
housing project as each takes the law into his own
hands
Lymelife
I’m interested in this one for two reasons. First it’s the story of a Star Wars nerd fending off bullies and dysfunctional parents. It could well be the Josh Tyler story. It also co-stars Alec Baldwin who can absolutely do no wrong. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin) is a typical 15-year-old
boy growing up in late-1970s Long Island. His suburban
existence is primarily marked by a nerdy interest
in Star Wars, fending off bullies at high school, his
longtime crush on neighbor/best friend Adrianna
Bragg (Emma Roberts), and navigating the dysfunctional
terrain of his parents’ rocky marriage—all
against the paranoid backdrop of a Lyme disease
outbreak, which has freaked out Scott’s high-strung
mother, Brenda (Jill Hennessy), and has already
claimed Adrianna’s father, Charlie (Timothy Hutton),
as a victim. With Charlie out of work due to his
illness, Adrianna’s mother, Melissa (Cynthia Nixon),
takes a job working for Scott’s father, Mickey (Alec
Baldwin), a successful real-estate developer, and
soon embarks on a messy affair. When eldest son
Jimmy (Kieran Culkin) returns from army training
and confronts his father about Mickey’s less-thandiscreet
adultery, both families are forever changed
by the devastating consequences.
The Clone Returns Home
This is a Japanese film, one which sounds like it might be in the vein of the very excellent sci-fi flick Solaris. I’m a sucker for deep, thoughtful science fiction, and we never seem to get much of it here in the United States. I’m looking forward to having a good think. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: Kohei, a young astronaut, agrees to participate in an
experimental cloning program that will “regenerate”
his body and memory should he die. So when he’s
killed during a space mission, scientists are able to
regenerate his clone. But problems occur with its
memory, which regresses to Kohei’s youth and the
accidental death of his twin brother. Distressed, the
clone flees the lab in search of his childhood home.
Along the way, he finds his own lifeless body in a
space suit. Mistaking it for his brother, he continues
his journey carrying the body on his back.
Adventureland
Yet another big, splashy, studio premiere. This one has Twilight’s Kristen Stewart, which instantly makes it a hot ticket. However I’m interested because it’s directed by Greg Mottola, the guy responsible for helming Superbad. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: It’s the summer of 1987, and James Brennan, an
uptight, recent college grad, can’t wait to embark on
his dream tour of Europe. But when his parents announce
they can no longer subsidize his trip, James
has little choice but to take a lowly job at a local
amusement park. Forget about German beer, worldfamous
museums, and cute French girls—James’s
summer will now be populated by belligerent dads,
stuffed pandas, and screaming kids high on cotton
candy. Lucky for James, what should be his worst
summer ever turns into quite an adventure when he
discovers love in the most unlikely place.
Big Fan
Fanboy comedian Patton Oswalt plays a sports nut who takes his fandom a little too far. Can Patton act? His fantastic voice work in Rattatouile suggests it may be possible, and the fan/nerd thing is something he already has down pretty well. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: Paul Aufiero, a 35-year-old parking-garage attendant
from working-class Staten Island, is the selfdescribed
“world’s biggest New York Giants fan.”
One night Paul and his best friend, Sal, spot star
Giants linebacker Quantrell Bishop at a gas station
in Staten Island. They impulsively follow his SUV into
Manhattan to a strip club, where they finally muster
up the courage to talk to their hero. What starts
out as a dream come true turns into a nightmare as
a misunderstanding ignites a violent confrontation,
and Paul is sent down a path that will test his devotion
to the extreme.
Cold Souls
It sounds like a darker, more macabre take on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and it has Paul Giamatti in a starring role playing himself. What’s not to like? The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: Balancing on a tightrope between deadpan humor
and pathos, and between reality and fantasy, the
film presents Paul Giamatti as himself, agonizing
over his interpretation of Uncle Vanya. Paralyzed
with anxiety, he stumbles upon a solution via a New
Yorker article about a high-tech company promising
to alleviate suffering by deep-freezing souls.
Giamatti enlists its services, intending to reinstate
his soul once he survives the performance. But
complications ensue when a mysterious, soultrafficking
“mule,” transporting product to and
from Russia, “borrows” Giamatti’s stored soul for an
ambitious, but unfortunately talentless, soap-opera
actress. Rendered soulless, he is left with no choice
but to follow the trail back to bleak St. Petersburg.
He comes to value that happiness isn’t merely the
absence of pain, but the integration of the full range
of emotion into life.
Prom Night in Mississippi
Nearly all of the documentaries at Sundance, or any film festival for that matter, seem to fall into the disease/war/global warming category. This and the one other documentary on this list are two of the very few which buck the trend and seem to be trying something different. The official synopsis goes a little something like this: Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman follows students,
teachers, and parents in the lead-up to the big day.
Freeman addresses the student body. Girls shop for
dresses and get their hair done. Boys rent tuxedoes
and buy corsages. These seemingly inconsequential
rites of passage suddenly become profound as the
weight of history falls on teenage shoulders. We
quickly learn that change does not come easily in
this sleepy Delta town. Freeman’s generosity fans
the flames of racism—and racism in Charleston has
a distinctly generational tinge. Some white parents
forbid their children to attend the integrated prom
and hold a separate white-only dance. “Billy Joe,”
an enlightened white senior, appears on camera in
shadow, fearing his racist parents will disown him if
they know his true feelings.
Black Dynamite
If you’ve seen the trailer then you know why I’m talking bout Black Dynamite. if you haven’t seen the trailer, then what are you waiting for? Forget the synopsis, watch it below:
Mary and Max
This is the opening night film this year, and while I’m not entirely sure if we’ll make it to town in time to catch it, I hope we do. It’s claymation and you can’t go wrong with stop-motion. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: It tells the simple story of a 20-
year pen-pal friendship between two very different
people: Mary Dinkle, a chubby, lonely 8-year-old
girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max
Horowitz, a 44-year-old Jewish man, who is severely
obese, suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, and lives
an isolated life in New York City.
Moon
The last time we sent Sam Rockwell into space, it resulted in the death of a very large well and a very small bowl of petunias. This time he’s going to the Moon and bringing another one of those deep, though-provoking science fiction tales I love so much along with him. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: Nearing the end of a three-year contract with Lunar
Industries, Sam Bell is counting the days until his
return to Earth. The lone occupant of a lunar mining
base, Sam monitors the tractors that harvest the
moon’s surface for helium energy. Buoyed by sporadic
transmissions from his wife and young daughter,
he combats monotony and isolation by tending
to plants, continuing his predecessor’s woodcraft
project, and interacting with the station’s robotic
computer, Gerty. But Sam is beginning to unravel
mentally. After a hallucination causes him to crash
his lunar rover, he wakes up in the sick bay and soon
realizes that his life at the base is not what it seems.
Humpday
Amateur porn worked for Kevin Smith, maybe they’ll be able to pull it off here. Except in this case it’s gay porn from heterosexual dudes. Unlikely you’ll ever see this playing anywhere outside of a film festival, so we’d better catch it while we can. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: It’s been a decade since Ben and Andrew were the
bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled
down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took
the alternate route as a vagabond artist, skipping
the globe from Chiapas to Cambodia. When Andrew
shows up, unannounced, on Ben’s doorstep, they
easily fall back into their old dynamic of heterosexual
one-upmanship. After a night of perfunctory
carousing, the two find themselves locked in a
mutual dare: to enter an amateur porn contest. But
what kind of boundary-breaking porn can two dudes
make? After the booze and “big talk” run out, only
one idea remains—they will have sex together…on
camera. It’s not gay; it’s beyond gay. It’s not porn;
it’s an art project. But how will it work? And more
importantly, who will tell Anna, Ben’s wife?
I Love You Phillip Morris
Here’s yet another splashy, studio premiere. In this one, Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor totally make out for 90 minutes. Or at least that’s what I’m assuming going in. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: When a local Texas policeman, Steve Russell (Carrey),
turns to cons and fraud to allow him to change his
lifestyle (in more ways than one), his subsequent
stay in the state penitentiary results in his meeting
the love of his life, a sensitive fellow inmate
named Phillip Morris, perfectly portrayed by Ewan
McGregor. What ensues can only be described as a
relentless quest as Russell attempts escape after
escape and executes con after con, all in the name
of love.
500 Days of Summer
I’ll follow Joseph-Gordon Levitt anywhere… except into that war movie he did last year which nobody saw. He’s paired with Zooey Deschanel in what seems to be a cute little boy meets girl flick, but with dance numbers. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: That Tom, a hapless greeting-card copywriter, and
the alluring Summer, his temporary office mate,
fluctuate between the highs and lows of infatuation,
dating, sex, and separation is the conventional
aspect of an unconventional tale of self-discovery
and relationships.
Good Hair
This is the other non-war/environment/disease documentary playing at Sundance this year. To be honest I’m not particularly interested in the subject of hair, but I’m confident in the ability of Chris Rock to keep it interesting. As long as he’s not asked to act. The official synopsis goes a little something like this: When Chris Rock’s daughter, Lola, came up to him
crying and asked, “Daddy, how come I don’t have
good hair?” the bewildered comic committed himself
to search the ends of the earth and the depths of
black culture to find out who had put that question
into his little girl’s head! Good Hair visits hair salons and
styling battles, scientific laboratories, and Indian
temples to explore the way black hairstyles impact
the activities, pocketbooks, sexual relationships, and
self-esteem of black people.
The Informers
Mickey Rourke follows up his acclaimed performance in The Wrestler with this: The star-studded story of sex and drugs in 80s Los Angelese. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: Sex, drugs, and new wave...Los Angeles in the early
1980s: a time of excess and decadence, and nobody
captures it better than Bret Easton Ellis as he
coadapts his own acclaimed novel for the screen. Its
multistrand narrative deftly balances a vast array of
characters, who represent both the top of the heap
(a Hollywood dream merchant, a dissolute rock star,
an aging newscaster) and the bottom (a voyeuristic
doorman and an amoral ex-con). Connecting his
intertwining strands are the quintessential Ellis
protagonists—a group of beautiful, blonde young
men and women who sleep all day and party all
night, doing drugs—and one another—with abandon,
never realizing that they are dancing on the
edge of an abyss.
Mystery Team
In the notes for this film it’s described as “If Encyclopedia Brown, the kids from American Pie,
and Nancy Drew all had sex, their baby would probably
look something like Mystery Team”. If I can find a cab to drive me back to our distant condo at 2am after this midnight screening is over, I’ll be there. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: When they were kids, the Mystery Team solved
pint-sized mysteries like “Who stuck his finger
in the pie?” Now it’s senior year of high school,
and they are still solving mysteries the same way.
Though each member of the team has a supposed
specialty—Jason is the Master of Disguise; Charlie
is the Strongest Kid in Town; and Duncan is the Boy
Genius—they are really just stunted and na?ve kids.
When a little girl asks them to find out who killed
her parents, Jason realizes they have an opportunity
to prove to the town, and themselves, that they are
real detectives.
Spring Breakdown
Amy Poehler and Parker Posey lead a group of blonde, college-coeds on a crazed, vapid, sex-filled tour of beer parties and dorm rooms. The official plot synopsis goes a little something like this: Skanky, semen-doused hotel rooms? Scantily clad,
upchucking coeds? Sweaty, cramped, beer-foam
parties? Judi and Gayle morph into unstoppable
party animals, leaping into the vapid, anarchic
euphoria without so much as a hiccup. Gayle’s latent
popularity fantasy becomes a living wet dream as
she’s inducted into a sorority of sweet, half-starved
half-wits. Judi unlocks seventh heaven as she drinks
her way to blissful oblivion and a life-changing
night with a sexy, confused jock. Becky, our staunch
ecofeminist, remains firmly on the sidelines, devoted
to her principles and flowing skirts…until she and
her young ward swallow a bit of spring-break elixir
themselves.
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