sundance
nathan rabin and noel murray of the onion have been in park city, utah at the sundance film festival all week. most are probably familiar, but sundance is one of the two premier north american film festivals every year, and the only one in the first half of the year (the other being toronto in the fall). as such, sundance serves as one of the best opportunities to find out what to look forward to in the near future. and even if the movies that play sundance don’t always show up among the best movies at the end of the year, a few almost always find their place among the most interesting. which is an important distinction. as onion writer murray himself has said, “i’d rather see an overreaching C+ film crazy with ambition and audacity than a dozen B movies content to be merely solid”. so here’s hoping this year’s crop offers more of the former and less of the latter. and if we’re lucky, 1 or 2 A+ films crazy with ambition and audacity, if for no other reason than making sure that those overreaching C+ directors stay ambitious.
in actuality, the week in park city is now drawing to a close, so here’s a brief gloss over a couple of this year’s movies.
joseph gordon-levitt/ natalie portman/ rainn wilson starrer hesher
josh radnor debut feature (which he also writes and stars in) happythankyoumoreplease
ryan gosling/ michelle williams starrer blue valentine
note: these aren’t necessarily the movies i’m most looking forward to, just the ones i could easily find videos for. if both hesher and happythankyoumoreplease garnered a somewhat lukewarm response from the two onion writers, they were outright effusive in their praise of blue valentine, and this is one i’ll be making a special effort to keep an eye out for. gosling and williams are part of a group of young actors (gordon-levitt also among them) who came from mildly auspicious early work in movies and television to find a nice little niche as very talented actors who have chosen their projects both carefully and well, especially of late. i can’t wait to see this movie.
other highlights include french prison drama and cannes smash hit a prophet, the new nicole holofcener joint please give, allen ginsberg biopic howl (with james franco as ginsberg, which sounds just crazy enough that it couldn’t not be awesome), michael shannon’s turn as runaways manager kim fowley in the runaways, banksy-directed doc exit through the gift shop, and the farcical jihadism comedy (yup) four lions.
note 2: in order to keep my percentage of posts that link to the onion avclub down, i’m going to tack this on to the end and direct everyone over to rabin’s new piece for the onion’s better late than never? series on season 1 of the wire. an excellent read and, if you haven’t yet watched the show, don’t worry. it takes away nothing from the viewing experience.
