It’s not unusual for last minute selections to be added to the Sundance Film Festival line-up in the weeks leading up to the Park City Festival. Last year it was Hamlet 2, and this year it is screenwriter turned director James C. Strouse’s second feature film The Winning Season (note: this news has been rumored elsewhere, but this is the first time Sundance has officially confirmed the report).
The film stars Sam Rockwell as an adult alcoholic misfit brought on to coach his local girl’s high school basketball team. Rockwell has described the movie as Bad News Bears meets Half Nelson meets Hoosiers. It’s worth mentioning that Strouse’s semi-autobiographical first screenplay Lonesome Jim involved a story line where Jim (played by Casey Affleck) has to take over his brother’s girls youth basketball team.
The film’s cast also includes Emma Roberts, Rob Corddry, Shareeka Epps and Emily Rios. Festival director Geoffrey Gilmore calls the film “a completely gratifying cinematic drama marked by sharp dialogue and perfectly toned performances.”
Rockwell’s Sci-fi Thriller Moon also premieres at the festival. Roberts’ Lymelife is also screening at the festival. The Strouse penned Lonesome Jim premiered at Sundance in 2005, and his directorial debut Grace is Gone played at the 2007 festival.
Not that we didn’t already expect this but, an attorney for 20th Century Fox told AP that the studio is planning to continue to seek an injunction to prevent the release of Watchmen. U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess ruled last week that Warner Bros had infringed on 20th Century Fox’s rights to develop and distribute a movie adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen graphic novel.
A Warner Bros.’ attorney told the AP that hhe believes “a trial is necessary and a settlement unlikely.” As of right now, a trial is still scheduled for January 20th to decide the remaining issues. If Warners and Fox can’t reach a settlement before that date, it is likely that the Judge will grant the injunction which will at very least push back the release date of the comic book movie adaptation until a settlement is agreed upon.
Who would have thought that a movie trailer for 20th Century Fox’s Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li wouldn’t look that bad. I dare to say that all the intense action in this Japanese trailer actually makes me want to see the film, just a little. Then again, I’ve always had a theory that anything in Japanese is at least three times as cool (look at some of the Japanese versions of classic movie posters for example).
We also don’t get to see any scenes involving dialogue between the main characters, or for that matter, we aren’t even explained/shown anything that can resemble the plot of the film. Add onto that the fact that 20th Century Fox has been on a really bad run as of late, and the fact that video game to movie adaptations notoriously suck. I’m still pretty sure this film is going to suck (likely not as bad as Dragonball) but the trailer gives me a sense of false hope. Please share your thoughts in the comments below!
Yesterday, the first photos from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were released online thanks to Empire Magazine. Now Dreamworks has released a second batch of photos in the latest edition of USA Today. Here are a few tidbits we learned from the article: Read More »
Hot Toys will be released a 14 inch highly poseable Predator collectible figure in the second quarter of 2009. The figure is 1/6 scale (14 inches/ 35 cm tall) based on the Predator from the first Predator movie. Read More »
It is easy to get lost looking at the 118 feature-length films in the 2009 Sundance Film Festival catalog. I know I usually become fixated on the U.S. Dramatic Competition, Premieres and American Spectrum selections, and I have often been criticized for my lack of international film coverage. So as Sundance nears on the horizon, I thought I’d include a couple not so typical films in the mix of previews. Sure, everyone is going to cover Big Fan or Adventureland, but what about the next Once or Eagle vs. Shark?
Alexis Dos Santos‘ debut film Glue played at many film festivals domestically and internationally in 2006, but pretty much flew under the radar of mainstream America. His new film, Unmade Beds premieres in Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition. The film is described by Sundance programmer Caroline Libresco as “startlingly visceral and original” and “a rhythmic stream-of-consciousness mood collage”.
Adam Salky’s feature directorial debut Dare premieres at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival (photos seen below).
The movie is based on Salky’s 2005 short film which was met with acclaim at film festivals. The feature length version which premieres at Sundance stars Emmy Rossum in a story about “three very different teenagers discover that, even in the safe world of a suburban prep school, no one is who she or he appears to be.” IMDB also provides a different teaser synopsis: “The good girl, the outsider and the bad boy…like you’ve never seen them before.”
Salky’s original short seems to be very different – “High school senior Ben secretly lusts after bad boy classmate Johnny. After Ben gives Johnny a ride home one night, the boys end up in Johnny’s swimming pool and have an encounter that breaks the rules and blows Ben’s mind.” I’m guessing that this might be one of the stories told in Salky’s film.
Michael Cassidy, who plays Johnny in the short, went on to have reoccurring roles in The O.C., Smallville and Privileged. The “Alexa” that Johnny mentions in the short film is played by Emmy Rossum in the feature. Zach Gilford plays Johnny in the expanded film and Alan Cumming co-stars. You can watch the original short film below:
Video of the Day is a daily feature of /Film showcasing geekarific video creations. Have a video we should be feature on VOTD? E-Mail us at orfilms@gmail.com.
The new issue of Empire Magazine also has a new photo from Pixar’s Up. The photo shows 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen and the chubby eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer neighbor Russell. Aside from the mysterious far away locale visible in the background, not much is new. Head on over the Empire for the full resolution photo. Up hits theaters in Digital Disney 3-D on May 29th 2009.
Amazon is selling Seasons 1-11 of The Simpsons for $15 each on DVD. Free shipping on orders over $25. So if you wanted, you could buy the entire 11-season run released thus far for only $165 shipped, something like 65% off the suggested retail price of $450.
Amazon also has Seasons 1-5 of Sex and The City for only $9 each. Part 1 and 2 of Season six are also available for $9 each as well. Not exactly a geek deal, but I’m some of our readers have some female friends that are owed late Christmas gifts.
In what has become a weekly occurrence, ABC has released a new television promo for the fifth season premiere of LOST. Only 24 more days to go until the January 25th airing. Thanks to SL-Lost for the tip.
