THEATER CAMP (Searchlight/Disney):  The odds are that a lot of people who’ll want to see a movie called Theater Camp are comfortable with the kind of ramshackle, hit-or-miss qualities associated with actual summer camp productions, and will likewise find plenty to enjoy in a movie that’s been made with more love and energy than […]

  Click on SHOWBUZZDAILY‘s reviews from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, in alphabetical order:   2 DAYS IN NEW YORK (Magnolia) BACHELORETTE (No Distrib) BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (Fox Searchlight) CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER (Sony Pictures Classics) COMPLIANCE (Magnolia) FILLY BROWN (No Distrib) THE FIRST TIME (No Distrib) FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL… (Focus) […]

  A surprisingly commercial concoction by Sundance standards, Gillian Robespierre’s OBVIOUS CHILD doesn’t feel very much unlike the pilot for a cable dramedy.  That’s not meant as any kind of dire criticism; TV could use more smart, funny female voices like Robespierre’s and star Jenny Slate’s (Slate is already featured in a multitude of high-class TV shows, […]

  WILDLIFE (no distrib):  If you’ve ever felt sorry for youngsters who are cordoned off from their parents’ difficult relationships, and then blindsided by the consequences, Paul Dano’s directing debut advises that pity should really be reserved for those children who know all too much about what’s going on.  Dano’s austere and disturbing drama isn’t […]

  IN THE EARTH (Neon):  After his foray into more commercial cinema with the Netflix remake of Rebecca that didn’t go very well, Ben Wheatley has returned to the stranger and more experimental style of his earlier films like Kill List and High Rise with In the Earth.  It’s not an easy movie to describe […]

  FREAKY TALES (no distrib):  The writer/directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have returned from their profitable but unbeloved sojourn in the land of Captain Marvel to their indie roots with Freaky Tales.  While heartfelt and entertaining, the effort is also intensely derivative.  Fleck was a child of 1987 Oakland, where Freaky Tales takes place, and it’s a […]

> Sundance changed the way it kicks things off this year. Instead of a single high-profile Opening Night Film (which has almost always turned out to be a disappointment), the festival screened several smaller films. For those of us who arrived before the madness begins in earnest tomorrow, there was the chance to get Wait […]

  TOY’S HOUSE is a delightful Sundance surprise, a fresh take on adolescent boys coming of age.  The conceit of Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ film, written by Chris Galletta, is that Joe Toy (Nick Robinson), his best friend Patrick (Gabriel Basso), and a very strange tagalong named Biaggio (Moises Arias) don’t just run away, they literally find an […]