All Sundance articles – Page 92
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Reviews
The King of Ping Pong (Ping-Pongkingen)
Dir: Jens Jonsson. Sweden. 2007. 107 mins.Growing pains in a cold climate: this formula has reaped handsome dividends for Nordic cinema in the past, most spectacularly for Lasse Hallström's My Life as a Dog, and more modestly for Dagur Kári's Icelandic art-house hit of 2003 Noi Albinoi. Swedish comedy-drama The ...
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Reviews
Transsiberian
Dir: Brad Anderson. US. 2008. 111 mins.The latest entry in Brad Anderson's increasingly fascinating oeuvre is an ambitious thriller set on the Transsiberian train from China to Moscow which recalls train-set thrillers from the 1970s like Silver Streak, The Cassandra Crossing and Murder On The Orient Express, not to mention ...
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Reviews
The Great Buck Howard
Dir: Sean McGinly. US. 2008. 87 minsThe Great Buck Howard is a well-made character piece which is so slight, good-natured and ever so slightly bland that it is likely to land in a commercial no man's land somewhere between the mainstream and the arthouse. Produced by Gary Goetzman and Tom ...
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Reviews
Donkey Punch (2007)
Dir. Olly Blackburn, 2007, UK, 90 minutesDonkey Punch, in young male slang, is a term for a hard blow to the back of the neck during sex, which produces a clench that gives pleasure to at least one person in a couple. This act kills a vacationing girl from Leeds ...
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Reviews
The Escapist
Dir: Rupert Wyatt. UK/Ireland. 2008. 105mins.In his debut feature The Escapist director Rupert Wyatt animates the virtues of the B-movie thriller - direct expression, taut construction and a stripped down psychology-with a more conceptually unorthodox narrative design that collapses time and space.In the script he wrote with Daniel Hardy, Wyatt ...
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News
River, Water take top prizes at Sundance Film Festival 08
Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's Hurricane Katrina tale Trouble The Water won the 2007 Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize: Documentary award and Courtney Hunt's tale of immigrant smuggling in Frozen River took the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic prize at the awards night ceremony in Park City on Saturday [Jan ...
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News
Manda Bala film-makers win Microsoft HDi Grant during Sundance
Director Jason Kohn and producer Jared Goldman received the Microsoft HDi Grant during the Sundance Film Festival last week from the Sundance Institute and Microsoft Corp for their 2007 festival entry Manda Bala (Send A Bullet).The prize is worth an estimated $100,000 and provides the film-makers with the resources to ...
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Reviews
Hamlet 2
Dir: Andrew Fleming. US. 2008. 92mins.Britain's Steve Coogan finally finds a US vehicle which effectively showcases his comedic talents in Hamlet 2, a more-hit-than-miss gagfest in which he plays a talentless high school drama teacher called Dana Marszh. Often wildly funny, this puerile romp was a welcome oasis of frivolity ...
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Reviews
The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh
Dir: Rawson Marshall Thurber. US. 2008. 95minsPittsburgh in 1983 is the setting of this coming of age based on Michael Chabon's novel about a young man, entangled in affairs, breaks free from the rule of his mafia-boss father in the first summer of his adult life. A genre that's as ...
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Reviews
Henry Poole Is Here
Dir: Mark Pellington. US. 2008. 100minsThe skeptical notion that ‘believing is seeing’ is put to rest in Henry Poole Is Here, a new twist on magic realism directed by Mark Pellington. Backyard miracles transform the life of a man who retreats from the world into a dull California suburb after ...
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Reviews
Sugar
Dir/scr: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. US. 2008. 117minsIn a word, Sugar is extraordinary. The second feature of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden deepens the promise and talent they exhibited on their debut Half Nelson. A singular examination of sports, class and the American social fabric refracted through the perspective ...
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Reviews
Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden'
Dir: Morgan Spurlock. US. 2008. 93minsIn Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden', Morgan Spurlock super-sizes the scope of the one-man quest for truth and goes global, searching around the Middle East for the Al Qaeda leader with a $25 million price on his head. After sitting down with ...
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News
Sundance deal-making speeds up midway through festival
Four days of dark pronouncements about the dearth of commercial narrative films at Sundance vanished on Tuesday [Jan 22] as business exploded with a flurry of activity headed by Focus Features' $10m deal for worldwide rights to Andrew Fleming's comedy Hamlet 2.In two other prominent deals, Fox Searchlight reportedly paid ...
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News
Digital distributor FilmCatcher.com launches with two deals
Digital distributor and online magazine FilmCatcher.com has launched at Sundance [Jan 20] with the aim of spotlighting quality films that slip through the traditional distribution net.The Filmcatcher.com website contains editorial and community oriented content and was co-founded by Trumbo producer Alan Klingenstein and Talking Pictures Company co-founders Alan Hruska and ...
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News
Sundance: Documentaries overshadow dramatic entries
Documentaries continued to overshadow early Sundance business as HBO Documentary Films took all US rights to Marina Zenovich's Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired. Click here to see review.The high six-figure deal closed on Sunday a little over a day after The Weinstein Company pounced on international rights to the film, ...
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News
Roman Polanski doc gets international deal at Sundance with TWC
When Harvey Weinstein flies in to Sundance things usually happen and so it proved to be as The Weinstein Comapny (TWC) made the first play of the festival, paying low six figures for all international rights to Marina Zenovich's documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired.The deal excludes North American rights ...
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News
Celluloid Dreams takes on Dennis Gansel's Sundance title The Wave
Celluloid Dreams has announced the acquisition of Dennis Gansel's The Wave. The film is a world dramatic competition entry at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival.Produced by Christian Becker of Rat Pack films and co-produced by Martin Moszkowicz of Constantin Film, The Wave tells the story of a high school teacher, ...
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News
Classic Jarman, Araki films to screen in Sundance Collection programme
Derek Jarman's Edward II and Gregg Araki's The Living End will be shown at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival to mark the 10th anniversary of the festival's From the Collection category.Jarman's 1991 drama Edward II updates Christopher Marlowe's 16th century Elizabethan tragedy about the newly crowned king of England's gay ...
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News
Gondry, Spurlock, Levinson, Haneke films to be unveiled at Sundance
The Sundance Film Festival rolled out the star power as they announced the line-up of Premieres, Spectrum, New Frontier and Park City At Midnight films today [Nov 29].As previously announced the festival will open on January 17 with Martin McDonagh's feature directorial debut In Bruges starring Ralph Fiennes, Colin Farrell ...