Posts Tagged ‘Sundance Film Festival’
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Blinded By The Light” & “Judy and Punch”

  BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (New Line/Warners):  Sundance was somewhat awash in feel-good movies this year, which is unusual but not unprecedented.  One of the most successful in previous years was 2002’s Bend It Like B...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Reviews: “Save Yourselves!” & “The Fight”

  SAVE YOURSELVES! (no distrib):  A moderately amusing sketch that doesn’t quite have the heft for feature length.  Writer/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson satirize Brooklyn hipsters and sci-fi in t...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

ShowbuzzDaily Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Sidney Hall,” “To the Bone,” “The Little Hours” & “Beach Rats”

  SIDNEY HALL (no distrib):  Shawn Christensen’s literary drama (written with Jason Dolan) is initially engaging as a modern-day sort of J.D. Salinger story, told simultaneously across three time periods, with Sidne...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

ShowbuzzDaily Sundance 2022 Reviews: “Emily the Criminal” & “blood”

  EMILY THE CRIMINAL (no distrib):  John Patton Ford’s feature debut is a lean, gritty, accomplished thriller with a smashing star performance from Aubrey Plaza.  Plaza (who also produced) plays the titular Emily, ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

ShowbuzzDaily’s Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Ophelia” & “Burden”

  OPHELIA (no distrib):  Claire McCarthy’s film, written by Semi Chellas from Lisa Klein’s novel, dampens the fun of its own concept.  The idea is to re-tell Hamlet through the eyes of Shakespeare’s ill...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Brittany Runs A Marathon” & “Big Time Adolescence”

  BRITTANY RUNS A MARATHON (Amazon):  Paul Downs Colaizzo, previously a playwright, makes a remarkably assured film writing/directing debut with Brittany Runs a Marathon, which features a breakout star performance by Jill...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “Human Factors,” “Cryptozoo” & “How It Ends”

  HUMAN FACTORS:  Is Ronny Trocker’s Human Factors intended as a political allegory?  The married couple at its center are the German Jan (Mark Waschke) and the French Nina (Sabine Timoteo), and there’s a plo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Call Me By Your Name,” “Fun Mom Dinner,” “Before I Fall” & “Wind River”

  CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (Sony Classics):  Luca Guadagnino’s sumptuous gay romance has been anointed as the Sundance entry most likely to figure into next year’s Oscar race, and it’s easy to see why.  It ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Sundance Film Festival Reviews 2025: “Kiss of the Spider Woman” & “Two Women”

    KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN (no distrib):  The exercise in narrative that began with Manuel Puig’s 1976 Argentinian novel has found an enduring place in popular culture, first through a 1983 theatrical version...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Damsel” & “Puzzle”

  DAMSEL (no distrib):  A hipster representation of comedy rather than anything comic itself.  Written and directed by David and Nathan Zellner, whose previous work includes the similarly film festival-targeted Kumiko, T...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “State Of the Union” & “Fighting With My Family”

  STATE OF THE UNION (Sundance Channel):  The lines between narrative visual media continue to blur, and State Of the Union is an A-list talent contribution to a genre that doesn’t exactly exist yet.  It’s a ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “Eight For Silver” & “The Sparks Brothers”

  EIGHT FOR SILVER:  Sean Ellis’s 19th century werewolf movie takes itself very seriously.  Ellis has extensively revised the usual mythology of the genre:  the full moon doesn’t figure into things, the were...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Novitiate,” “The Incredible Jessica James” & “Marjorie Prime”

  NOVITIATE (Sony Classics):  It’s not clear how much of an audience there can be for a dark drama set amid the physical and psychological hardships of a pre-Vatican II midwestern abbey, but Margaret Betts’s N...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “A Kid Like Jake” & “You Were Never Really Here”

  A KID LIKE JAKE (no distrib):  Silas Howard’s dramedy is a small-scale triumph, successfully navigating its way from a wry account of upper-middle-class Brooklynites Alex and Greg (Claire Danes and Jim Parsons) tr...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Official Secrets” & “Greener Grass”

  OFFICIAL SECRETS (IFC):  Film festivals have a way of creating unintended double features when thematically similar films are seen in close proximity, and it’s hard to watch Gavin Hood’s Official Secrets wit...
by Mitch Salem