Sundance has announced the 12 projects they have chosen for the 2010 January Screenwriters lab. Why should you care? Well because the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program has hand picked some of the most original filmmakers of the last 28 years.
Here are some of the films that have come out of the program: Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Hard Eight, Kimberly Peirce’s Boy’s Don’t Cry, Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Peter Sollett’s Raising Victor Vargas, Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson, and most recently Cary Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre and Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer.
So, what 12 projects have been chosen for this year’s Summer labs? Find out after the jump.
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A Town Called Panic was one of the more well-received films at Fantastic Fest last month, where it also picked an Audience Award. The unorthodox, stop-motion style of this Belgian animated film needs to be seen to be fully understood, as it taps a mesmerizing, madcap absurdity from the disposability of cheap, plastic toys (think a bag of multi-colored waxy dinosaurs). A limited release is now set in the U.S. for late this year and early next, which is rad given that countless glowing reviews accentuate the theatrical experience.
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Repeat the following name after me three times: Ti West. Ti West. Ti West. Pray that Hollywood doesn’t tuck him into its throbbing succubus and then wring his brilliance out into its rancid, gold spittoon gifted by Dubai. With The House of the Devil, one of the most gorgeous, sexy, and vital horror films in recent memory, the 29-year-old writer/director has bowled me over. I haven’t been this excited by an independent film from a new, uncompromising voice in modern cinema since Jody Hill’s The Foot Fist Way. If you follow my work at /Film, oh shit, you know what that means: I might proceed to drive my unwieldy love-cart off a cliff that is this oncoming jump…so if you choose not to follow, I’ll leave you with an echo. “Take those greedy scumbags at Platinum Dunes hostage, tie them up at the bottom of a Lake and force them to watch THOTD a million times…Happy Halloween.” The pool will be good for Mr. Devin. This is the best horror film of 2009.
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After three viewings, I can say without a doubt that Ti West’s The House of the Devil is a lock for my top five films of 2009, and for best horror film of the year. My review is taking a while, schedule permitting, because it’s difficult to express and explain just how perfectly THotD works as a gorgeous, genuinely creepy period piece rather than another witty homage to horror films past (a la Scream or Hatchet). Magnolia, currently red hot on the indie scene, will release the film in limited theaters on Halloween, but it’s quietly been made available for rental on Amazon and VOD (at least in some markets, I’ve seen a few complaints).
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It takes a lot to wow me when it comes to animation stills, especially ones conjuring yet another rainy, dreary, effing dystopia. Part of me still hopes for a vibrant comeback for traditional animation and the swathing warmth and human connection that computer animation simply cannot match, at least in my opinion. But there is a mesmerizing and bewitching appeal to the following stills, and coinciding trailer, for Metropia that, as you may have guessed, I’m a bit gaga for. Add voice/character work from Vincent Gallo, Juliette Lewis, and Stellan Skarsgård (the first two POTC) an adult rating, and years in the making to further alleviate the Philip K. Dickian tropes.
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Even a broken clock is right two times a day. And it was bound to happen eventually…. Uwe Boll has made a good movie. Not a great movie, but a decent film. Not just good in comparison to the rest of his filmography, but a good movie in its own right. Rampage isn’t based on the 1986 Midway arcade video game, although you might assume so since Boll is involved in a lot of video game adaptations.
Instead, Rampage is the movie that Postal should have been. It is Falling Down without the morals. Rampage is angry, sadistic, fun, yet disturbing.
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Tim League, the owner and founder of the greatest movie theater on the planet - The Alamo Drafthouse (and co founder of Fantastic Fest), gave me a tour of his newest creation — The High Ball. League revolutionized the movie going experience in Austin and is now attempting to add a before and after party into the mix with an entertainment complex located just a few steps away from the Alamo’s South Lamar multiplex in Austin, Texas. The Highball features a vintage bowling alley, skeeball, a full kitchen, bar, karaoke rooms, party space, and much more. You can see the High Ball, a work in progress, in the video tour embedded after the jump.
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When George Romero walked on stage at the Paramount theatre for the introduction to his latest zombie film Survival of the Dead, over 1,000 Fantastic Festers gave the filmmaker not just one, but two standing ovations. If there is any crowd thankful of Romero’s contributions to cinema, it has to be the film fanatics at the Alamo Drafthouse-run genre festival.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m also very grateful of Romero’s body of work, and I’m not going to claim he doesn’t deserve a standing ovation for his past achievements. But I’m getting tired of celebrating Romero’s recent lackluster additions to the Zombie horror subgenre. Romero hasn’t made a good movie since 1985 when the original Day of the Dead was released.
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Peter and many other editors have been earning my jealousy over the last five days as they attend Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX. The major reason for my jealousy is obvious if you just glance at the Fest’s schedule. But a more minor reason is that in conjunction with the event the Alamo Drafthouse and MondoTees roll out quite a few posters for films that are on the bill.
One such film is Antichrist, the latest from provocateur Lars Von Trier. The Drafthouse has given us the exclusive full-size look at the poster, which MondoTees teased last Thursday on Twitter. Read More »
Over the summer, I briefly heard about a torture-pornish horror movie entitled The Human Centipede (First Sequence) but didn’t give it (or the title) a second thought. Well, over the weekend Centipede slithered into the orgasmic Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas and after the screening the buzz suddenly recalled the barfers-barfing-on-barfers scene from Stand By Me. Capitalizing on the barf, the producers have released a teaser clip from the film, posted below. Combined with the plot synopsis, also below, you might just barf, so put away your burrito and wait a few minutes if applicable. Seriously, this is likely the movie for people who think Deadgirl is for pussies. It sounds like a cyclic-themed film that Matthew Barney might have thought up if he was on death row. Etc. As the parenthetical title implies, a sequel is officially planned. Might this be the next-lev Saw franchise? A diverse, international cast doesn’t hurt. Haha. Wait until Nikki Finke gets a load of this…
[Ed. Note: If you can't guess, the following clip is obviously NSFW]
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