The Sundance Institute announced today the addition of three world premieres which will screen out of competition at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival:
- It’s a Wonderful Afterlife: Bend it Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha and co-screenwriter Paul Mayeda Berges return to Sundance with a comedy centered on an Indian mother who discovers that finding the perfect son-in-law can be murder. Staring Shabana Azmi, Goldy Notay, Sendhil Ramamurthy, and Sally Hawkins.
- The Kids are Alright: Laurel Canyon director Lisa Cholodenko returns to Sundance with a soty of two children conceived by artificial insemination who bring their birth father into their family life. Written by Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko, and starring Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson, Mark Ruffalo, and Annette Bening. Cholodenko received the 1998 Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance for High Art.
- The Romantics: Director and screenwriter Galt Niederhoffer returns to Sundance with an adaptation of her novel, The Romantics, a zeitgeist love story and generational comedy, takes place over the course of one night at a deluxe seaside wedding. The cast includes Katie Holmes, Josh Duhamel, Anna Paquin, Adam Brody, Malin Ackerman, Elijah Wood, Candice Bergen, Jeremy Strong, and Dianna Agron. Niederhoffer received the 2007 Sundance Audience Award for producing Grace is Gone. She also produced the Sundance Film Festival films Lonesome Jim, Dedication, Diminished Capacity, Birds of America, and Hurricane.
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It’s casting notes time again! First up, Michael Fassbender, the British film critic lieutenant from Inglourious Basterds, has been cast in the thriller A Single Shot, working under director David Jacobson. He’s appearing alongside a great cast: William H. Macy, Thomas Haden Church and a newly slim Forest Whitaker. (Seriously, check out this pic of Whitaker in The Experiment. Give the guy a sandwich!) Fassbender will be a poacher on the run from killers — we don’t yet know the killers, but it’s not difficult to speculate that Church and Whitaker might be the guys.[Variety]
After the break, more William H. Macy news, with Juno Temple, and an on-the-nose vampiric turn from the guy who reminded us that Bela Lugosi is dead. Read More »
Shooting has this week started on Mark Romanek‘s Never Let Me Go, an eerie but tender science fiction drama adapted from the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. Already announced as starring were Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan, with Sally Hawkins, Nathalie Richard, Andrea Riseborough and Charlotte Rampling now named as members of the supporting cast by ScreenDaily.
Staggering stuff – Garfield, Mulligan, Hawkins and Riseborough are amongst the very best of this new generation of UK actors. To see them all lined up to contribute, and collaborate with Romanek, teases me cruelly with an almost absurd anticipation for the finished work.
More details, and images, after the break.
Read More »
They say that if you give out positive energy than you should receive positive energy in return. The person who coined that phrase never met Poppy. Dressed in bright colors and wearing big earrings, Poppy has a personality that is as obnoxiously perky as her wardrobe, if not more so.
Mike Leigh‘s latest film is a character study focusing on a 30-year-old primary school teacher with the attitude of a child, who has to deal with a series of problems ranging from her bicycle being stolen to a problem child at school, to her pregnant/married sister who lectures her about responsibility and settling down. She joins a dancing class with a co-worker and takes driving lessons from an angry racist.
If you’re looking for a story, there isn’t much of one. The film is purely about Poppy, and how the world reacts to her quirky upbeat attitude. Sally Hawkins delivers one hell of a performance, which you might only begin to realize late into the film when Poppy is forced to get serious. Happy-Go-Lucky is fun and endearing, but the character might be too in-your-face for easily annoyed viewers.
/Film Rating: 7 out of 10
Happy-Go-Lucky seems like one of those wonderfull indie films which will bring a smile to your face. Mike Leigh‘s (Vera Drake / Secrets & Lies / Topsy-Turvy) latest film stars Sally Hawkins as Poppy, “an irrepressibly free-spirited school teacher who brings an infectious laugh and an unsinkable sense of optimism to every situation she encounters.” But when things start to go wrong in Poppy’s world, her positive state of mind is put to the test.The film has played the film festival circiut and is currently getting a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Total Film calls it “Fresh, Funny, and uplifting” and BBC says that it “establishes Hawkins as a major talent to watch.”
[flv:http://bitcast-a.bitgravity.com/slashfilm/trailers/happy-go-lucky.flv 470 200]
Happy-Go-Lucky hits theaters on October 10th 2008.
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