Sundance has been over for a week, but a few films are still being picked up by distributors. One of the more acclaimed Sundance hits this year was a picture called Smashed, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul as an alcoholic married couple. When Winstead’s character sobers up, she has to deal with a few lingering issues from her drunk life.
The film, directed by James Ponsoldt (Off The Black), is being showered with praise for the performance from Winstead, which Pete called “powerful, moving — a must see. It will bring you to verge of tears.” Sony Pictures Classics picked up the film over the weekend in a deal said to be worth about $1m. If that price seems low, consider that several of the big Sundance faves from 2010, such as Like Crazy, Take Shelter, Another Earth and Martha Marcy May Marlene, all scored relatively low box-office grosses. All those films will have a strong post-theatrical life, but none managed to break out as a mainstream crossover hit. We don’t yet have a release date for Smashed, but when SPC decides on a date and releases a trailer we’ll pass them along. [The Wrap]
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Posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2012 by Angie Han
On paper, Lawrence Kasdan‘s Darling Companion sounds promising. Kasdan, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and filmmaker, directed the drama from a script he co-wrote with his wife Meg Kasdan, also an Oscar nominee. The star-studded cast, as the trailer is happy to remind you, includes two Academy Award nominees (Richard Jenkins and Sam Shepard) and three Academy Award winners (Diane Keaton, Dianne Wiest, and Kevin Kline), as well as promising younger actors like Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass. But at the end of the day, no number of collective accolades can guarantee an interesting picture, and unfortunately, the trailer for Darling Companion looks pretty cringeworthy.
The Kasdans’ screenplay revolves around a dissatisfied older woman named Beth (Keaton) who adopts an abandoned dog she finds on the side of the road and finds contentment in her bond with him. But when Beth’s self-absorbed husband (Kline) loses the dog, the couple pull together a search party to find him and everyone finds that they’re affected by the experience in unexpected ways. Watch the video after the jump.
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The Raid had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September and Peter touted it as the best action film he’s seen in years. Gareth Evans‘ Indonesian smash ‘em up has now moved south for its United States Premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festvial and it more than lives up to the hype.
Following a group of police who attempt to penetrate an impenetrable 15-story apartment building run by a powerful drug lord, The Raid is filled with the kind of insane gun battles, martial arts and stunts you’d expect from a $100 million dollar Hollywood blockbuster. The difference is this cost $1.1 million and is about 100 times cooler. It’ll be released by Sony Pictures Classics in March but, now, watch a video blog review featuring myself and Jordan Raup from The Film Stage where we react to the film, its new score, discuss its minor flaws and question an American remake.
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There are no magic tricks in Searching for Sugar Man. No one has a wand and the stakes are certainly not life or death. It just so happens that the fascinating real life story of Rodriguez, a rock singer from the early 1970s, shares some eerie parallels with everyone’s favorite boy wizard, Harry Potter.
Both were extremely famous in a world they weren’t aware of, yet total nobodies in their own lives. Both were surrounded by unfathomable urban legend. Both helped inspire a people to rise up against evil and, for both the mythic musician the fictional character, these two worlds ended up crashing together in a truly emotional and fascinating way.
Searching for Sugar Man, directed by Malik Bendjelloul, was one of the opening night films of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Sony Classics bought the film for US distribution this morning. Read more after the jump. Read More »
Briefly: 2011 was a great year for Woody Allen. His playful, entertaining film Midnight in Paris turned into the year’s runaway arthouse hit, taking in $60m to become Allen’s greatest domestic success. Sony Classics has distributed the director’s last few films and after their stellar success with Midnight in Paris, I think it has been pretty much a foregone conclusion that his next movie, Nero Fiddled, would go out via the company as well.
Variety reports that deal has been set, with Sony Classics picking up North American and UK rights to the film, which stars Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penelope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page. As is typically the case with a new Allen film we don’t know much about the plot — all we’ve got is that the Rome-set film “consists of four separate vignettes — two with American characters, two with Italian characters — but the vignettes never intersect.”
The film will get a summer 2012 release, and is a likely bet for a Cannes debut.
One of the biggest films to get buzz at this year’s Toronto Film Festival was The Raid, an Indonesian action film by Gareth Evans that features a SWAT team trapped in and trying to escape from an apartment block run by a drug lord. The attraction of the film is a non-stop barrage of action with loads of stunt work, gunplay and martial arts.
Peter called The Raid “the best action film I’ve seen in years,” and a remake has already been announced from Screen Gems. Don’t worry, though, as Sony Pictures classics will release the original version that wowed Pete and other festival audiences in Spring 2012.
To help make the wait a little more difficult to bear, here’s a new trailer out of Indonesia. There are more people getting punched, shot, and thrown against and through walls in this two-minute trailer than you’ll find in most action features. Read More »
Coming out of this year’s Toronto Film Festival, several films enjoyed massive buzz. You’re Next was one, God Bless America was another, Sleepless Night a third. But the one most with most heat was The Raid. Peter called this Indonesian action film about a SWAT team who attempts to infiltrate an apartment building controlled by a drug dealer “the best action film I’ve seen in years” and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions quickly gobbled up the rights. (Actually, the rights were bought at Cannes before the film was done.) With those rights, Screen Gems has been developing an America remake with no mention of when we might get to see the original.
Thanks to Sony Pictures Classics, we’ll now get a chance to see it this Spring. Read more after the jump. Read More »
The titles Carnage and Kill List sound like they could be the same movie. Kill List: Carnage. Carnage: The Kill List. I’d see that movie. In reality though, they’re two movies which, besides their ominous titles, couldn’t be more different. One is a comedy, the other a thriller. One is American, the other British. One is from a well-known filmmaker, the other an up and comer. And one has four of our most celebrated actors while the other is populated by unknowns. Yet despite being so different, these two films, both of which played at AFI Fest Presented by Audi, make nice bed fellows because they’re so different. Read some thoughts on both of them after the jump . Read More »
