Homelessness pulls up to the curb
Movie review: The Lady in the Van
Maggie Smith stars as a woman who makes her home in a rusty van parked outside the house of an uptight playwright named Alan Bennett in this story about finding safe harbor
The Hollars cried out for Krasinski
Film: Sundance Film Festival
The veteran star of The Office says becoming a father brought new meaning to Jim Strouse's tragic-comedy about a dysfunctional family struggling to connect
By Katherine Monk
PARK CITY, UT — The closing night moment bordered on awkward. Sundance Film Festival director John Cooper celebrated the fact he wouldn’t have to introduce any more films at this year’s festival, and in the next breath, introduced the world premiere of John Krasinksi’s The Hollars.
The veteran star of The Office and Michael Bay’s 13 Hours looked a little surprised at the suggestion of duress, but took it all in stride as he thanked Sundance for the incredible privilege of unveiling his sophomore effort on Sundance’s final night of premieres.
“Sundance was always the goal,” said Krasinski to a sold-out crowd at Park City's Eccles theatre Friday. Originally attached to the script as the star, Krasinski said he took on actor-director duties because he was ...
Southside With You takes rom-com in new direction
Film: Sundance Film Festival
Movie about Barack and Michelle Obama's first date takes the frame off the official portrait to paint a tender picture of two people falling in love
By Katherine Monk
PARK CITY, UT — There’s a good chance this year’s Sundance Film Festival will be defined by a larger, and perhaps more honest, discussion about race in America. And if it is, we can look at Richard Tanne’s debut feature Southside With You as a beautiful example of a paradigm shift.
It’s not just an accessible romance starring two rising African-American stars in Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers, it’s a fictionalized take on the first date between would-be First Lady Michelle Robinson and a young Harvard law student named Barack Obama.
We knew the two met at a corporate law firm. We knew she was his advisor. And we knew she wasn’t eager to get involved with a junior, fearing it would erode her professional edge and play into white expectation.
The rest became the ...
Redford defends Sundance’s record on diversity
Film: Sundance Film Festival 2016
Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford says the whole reason he started programming films in Utah's Wasatch Mountains was to broaden the world of mainstream filmmaking to include other voices.
By Katherine Monk
PARK CITY, UTAH - It used to be called an “Oscar race.” Now it’s all about race and the Oscars.
It’s an issue that’s settled into the tissue of the film industry like a bad infection, threatening to throw the whole system into sepsis, and prompting a wholesale change to the way the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences functions as an organization.
Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced new initiatives Friday, hoping to stop the growing momentum behind a celebrity boycott, assuring the public the Academy membership would look a lot different by the year 2020, with more representation from non-white males, and more women.
Even here at the Sundance Film Festival, where the mountain air and a host of ...
Dirty Grandpa leaves a stain
Movie review: Dirty Grandpa
Robert De Niro and Zac Efron hit the road, and rock bottom, in this grotesquely sexist and vulgar attempt at comedy that uses crack and pedophilia as fodder.
Ten Sundance titles that tweak our critical antenna
Film: The 2016 Sundance Film Festival
This year's festival includes a testament to Kristen Stewart's continuing career in art house cinema, Don Cheadle tooting his own horn as Miles Davis and one movie about a wiener dog, and another about a dog named Weiner.
By Katherine Monk
The festival kicks off in earnest later today with Robert Redford's annual press conference, but before the press corps gets pressed together and becomes a blurb-spouting Borg, I made a list of ten standout titles that may, or may not, get mileage when it's all over:
Captain Fantastic: Viggo Mortensen plays a father who’s raised six kids off the grid, and — for reasons as yet unknown — is forced to plug back in the world he left behind.
Certain Women: Kelly Reichardt is a true independent who embodies the Sundance ethos, and she returns with Certain Women, an adaptation of Maile Meloy’s short stories that stars Michelle Williams, Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart and Lily Gladstone.
Complete ...
A direct hit to the head of the NFL
Movie review: Concussion
Thanks to a cast that's just as comfortable with comedy as drama, Peter Landesman's forensic examination of the NFL's inaction on head injuries is more than a preachy lesson in institutional denial, it's a gentle testament to the importance of human compassion
Metaphysics on a small scale
Movie review: Anomalisa
Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson create an existential nightmare that lets the viewer play god while the human comedy looks smaller, and more magical, than ever
