There are any number of ways the story of Linda Lovelace and Deep Throat could be told to make a potentially fascinating movie, from the sociological to the political, the personal to the satiric. The laziest–one might even say the most cowardly–would be to simply repeat the events as they were originally presented to the public […]
>Benh Zeitlin’s BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD is the kind of movie that makes people wince when they hear “independent film”. A tale, with magical realist overtones, set in the mostly African-American poverty of the Louisiana bayous, it’s narrated by its precocious child protagonist, known as Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis). Hushpuppy lives with her father Wink […]
PALM TREES AND POWER LINES (no distrib): Jamie Dack’s first feature film (from a script written with Audrey Findlay) means to unsettle, and it does. 17-year old Lea (Lily McInerny) is stuck in a dead-end Southern California beach town at the end of summer with a distracted single mom (Gretchen Mol) and friends whose […]
James Ponsoldt’s SMASHED (not to be confused with NBC’s Smash), which premiered in the Dramatic Competition at Sundance, is a new spin on a fairly old story. The concept goes back (at least) to 1962’s Days of Wine and Roses: a couple (Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul), very much in love with both […]
THE PERSIAN VERSION (Sony Classics): Maryam Keshavarz’s dramedy won the Sundance Audience Award in the US Dramatic Competition, and it’s a smart mixture of broad comedy and family drama. The comedy is mostly set in the present day, where aspiring filmmaker Leila (Layla Mohammadi), tries to keep her distance from her mother Shireen (Niousha […]
SERGIO (Netflix – April 17): Greg Barker’s film has an unusual pedigree. Barker, up to this point a documentarian, directed a nonfiction version of the same story (and with the same title) in 2009, but decided that he wanted to explore the life of UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello further in a way […]
HORSE GIRL (Netflix – February 7): Every one of the four films Jeff Baena has directed had its premiere at Sundance, with Horse Girl following Life After Beth, Joshy and The Little Hours. It’s an impressive accomplishment for a filmmaker who hasn’t made a particular commercial or critical breakout hit. Horse Girl may have […]
A couple of Sundances ago, the actress/writer/producer Brit Marling was a festival darling, with two acclaimed pictures unveiled the same week. In the end, while both Another Earth and Sound of My Voice received distribution, neither found much of a mainstream audience. (Marling’s also established an acting career that included a very good turn in last year’s Arbitrage.) […]