SXSW is a fest that caters to alterna-sensibilities, so it's no surprise genre fare has done well thus far. Insidious scored high marks with the horror crowd, but The Kill List notched all-out raves from even mainstream press -- though the Conan O'Brien documentary Conan O'Brien Can't Stop contains enough rage and demon-exorcising to give both a run for their money. Meanwhile, Bellflower -- a Sundance entry in the Emerging Visions sidebar -- screens on Monday night, as does the Dance Dance Revolution thriller The FP. Yes, you read that right: a gang warfare film about Dance Dance Revolution. Don't you wish you were in Austin?
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SNL superstar Kristen Wiig breezed into Austin midnight Sunday for what director Paul Feig accurately termed "Kristen Wiig Appreciation Night" -- a double header of this Friday's Paul followed by a special work in progress screening of this summer's Bridesmaids. The May 13 comedy marks Wiig's first honest-to-goodness starring vehicle, an event in itself, but here's even better news: Bridesmaids isn't just the smart and grounded antidote to the shrill chick flicks we all hate; it's the most raunchy, sweet and wonderfully vulgar R-rated comedy in recent memory. Bring it, Hangover 2.
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Universal's geek bonding road trip flick Paul screens shortly tonight at SXSW, but another sci-fi alien pic with ties to the Nick Frost-Edgar Wright-Simon Pegg universe may have already stolen its thunder: Attack the Block, director Joe Cornish's horror comedy about inner-city London kids who channel their delinquent ways into survival skills when vicious space invaders descend.
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Austin is a place that likes to think of itself as strange -- as in the city's motto, "Keep Austin Weird." But it really seems more nerdy than weird when the massive film-music-tech bonanza that is South by Southwest kicks off every year, drawing thousands of geeks of all stripes to congregate. And for the next week or so, Movieline will be among the crowds of geek illuminati reporting on film goings-on from the ground. Join us, with the magic of technology!
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The great thing about the massive program at the SXSW Film Festival, which starts this week, is that it runs so deep and it takes so many chances, whether on up-and-coming directors, megastars in need of PR miracles (looking at you, Mel), or random collaborations between artists so awesome, the mere idea of them working together blows your mind (four words: Die Antwoord + Harmony Korine). But many of these folks have a lot riding on their SXSW debuts. Movieline names 10 films and filmmakers with something big prove this week in Austin.
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Now we're talking. After releasing a trickle of competition selections that dazzled pretty much nobody, the Sundance Film Festival cut loose with a torrent of high-profile titles -- some indies, some already set for release -- that will keep festgoers (and hopefully the rest of the world, eventually) busy with quality new movies for a while. The full programs for the Premieres, Spotlight, Midnight and the remaining Sundance sections are after the jump.
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It's Sundance time again, meaning it's time to either wrinkle your nose with genre apprehension or dig in with a highlighter and get your ticket selections straight. Or maybe you're trying to get an early bead on next year's Precious or Winter's Bone. You might be looking a while, to be honest -- though at least Vera Farmiga's directing debut is in there.
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November means many things to many people, but to me, it's an excuse to get excited for Sundance! Wooo! Movies! Altitude sickness! And right on cue, the festival has sent along word of its selections for the 2011 New Frontier program -- its repository of multimedia installations, avant-garde experiments and actorly diversions into visual art. And a year after Joseph Gordon-Levitt raised the stakes on Main Street, here comes James Franco and his riff on '70s TV to blow everyone out of the water.
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Austin, Texas, is nice, but sometimes you just want a film festival to come to you, you know? Enter Fantastic Fest, which kicked off yesterday and will offer four of this year's selections on IFC on Demand starting next week. Among them you'll find the demonic thriller Heartless, the psychological thriller Red, White & Blue, the mountain-climbing horror show High Lane, and the Ozploitation entry Primal. And they're even bringing last year's fave Human Centipede back because hey, what the hell. You'll miss the Q&A's, alas, but it's a trade-off for avoiding airport security. Enjoy! [Fantastic Fest]
It took arriving 90 minutes early and consuming seven cups of coffee, but I managed to snag a spot at this morning's standing-room only New York Film Festival preview screening of The Social Network -- apparently the only one featuring director David Fincher, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, and stars Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake in one place to discuss their massively anticipated movie about the exhilarating (if ugly) advent of Facebook. And apart from learning that the film is excellent, there was much more to be discovered afterward at the Walter Reade Theater. To wit:
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Reports yesterday that Clint Eastwood approached Joaquin Phoenix to play the G-man object of affection in Hoover stimulated a new flurry of rumors about the project, from whether Leonardo DiCaprio is actually set to play the father of the FBI to whether Eastwood or Phoenix can attract enough studio confidence after their respective fall fizzles of Hereafter and I'm Still Here. The jury remains out on Phoenix, but as Dustin Lance Black told Movieline last week, don't worry about the power duo at the top.
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According an official count just released by the Toronto International Film Festival, this year's event spawned nearly two dozen U.S. distribution deals for selections including Super, Rabbit Hole, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, The Conspirator and Beautiful Boy -- with more to come in the days and weeks ahead. But one high-profile title in particular -- currently idling on Miramax's shelf -- has yielded exactly no industry buzz and a surprising dearth of discussion since its first screening nearly a week ago.
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Maybe that headline is being a tad reductive about the actor/filmmaker's absence from both the Venice and Toronto film festivals, but if Gallo is going to scornfully hypergeneralize about me and my peers, we might as well get our money's worth. Especially when his most amusing public statement to date is hiding in plain sight for all to see.
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It was just a matter of time before the Nicole Kidman/Aaron Eckhart drama Rabbit Hole found a buyer up in Toronto, and now that Lionsgate has staked its claim, the Oscar race is reportedly next. It's strikingly new territory for John Cameron Mitchell, the writer-director best known for the cult-classic fringe musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch and the sexually explicit ensemble dramedy Shortbus. Here, directing David Lindsay-Abaire's adaptation of his own celebrated play, Mitchell settles admirably into a suburban idyll riven by grief, guilt, frigidity and dark humor eight months after the accidental death of Becca (Kidman) and Howie's (Eckhart) young son. And then there was the year of editing.
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Rowan Joffe may be in Toronto to premiere (and hopefully sell) his directing debut Brighton Rock, but the awkward afterglow of this month's box-office triumph The American -- which Joffe adapted from Martin Booth's novel A Very Private Gentleman -- followed the screenwriter north to TIFF. That's where I caught up with him to talk over the film's box-office success, the split personality of its moodiness and its marketing, and what Tony Gilroy's DVD extras taught him about writing for George Clooney.
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