Seven Audience Buzz Films.
After the awaited kick off of the festival by Robert Redford and John Cooper, several films have already created an impression to the attending audience and festival goers becoming in matter of a few hours the most talked item, creating a buzz, the films to watch first. Here are seven films that are a "hot tamale" for the many distributors camped on both sides of snowy Main Street going from Relativity Media to the Weinstein Company, Fox Searchlight, Summit, Lionsgate, Focus, CBS Films and the recently merged Ryan Kavanaugh's, Overture Films. The bids are going over the table, as we speak, literally, maybe at Talisker or maybe at 350 Main or at The Riverhorse (great ribeye steak) and tomorrow morning any of these newly acquired films could become a mainstream property that we will see competing again on the awards season next year.
Life in a Day. Premiere. A documentary compiling the most compelling images honed by Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald and executive producer Ridley Scott and his team.
My Idiot Brother. Premiere. Director Jesse Peretz has a keen eye for idiosyncratic human foibles, especially those that make you laugh. My Idiot Brother rolls along with fine-tuned precision by enlisting the talents of Paul Rudd and a talented cast, who can make uncomfortable moments delightful by infusing characters with the perfect balance of humor and pathos.
Higher Ground U.S. Dramatic Competition. Directed by Vera Farmiga on her directorial debut. Charting one woman’s spiritual journey through life while exploring and embracing her own humanity, Higher Ground is that rare film that is rich in ideas but also charged with emotion.
Page One. Category: U.S documentary. With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, newspapers going bankrupt, and outlets focusing on content they claim audiences (or is it advertisers?) want, Page One chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy if in-depth investigative reporting becomes extinct.
I Melt With You. Category Premieres Writer/director Mark Pellington returns to the Sundance Film Festival with a riveting and emotionally raw story that puts the modern male psyche under the knife, opening it up and exposing it for what it is. The four leads deliver crackling performances as they dig deeply within themselves to portray painfully honest characters.
Cedar Rapids. Premiere. Miguel Arteta returns to the Sundance Film Festival with a comedy about a group of insurance salesmen who use the opportunity to attend an annual convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as a way to escape their doleful existence ...like Vegas but with corn.
Hobo (With a Shotgun). Park City at Midnight. Director Jason Eisener’s blood-soaked return to the Sundance Film Festival is more than just a nod to the grindhouse flicks of the 1970s and ’80s; he ups the ante in a major way, and Rutger Hauer’s performance is a legendary display of brutal. ass-kicking and meticulous name-taking that is not to be missed.
Red State. Premiere.Directed by Kevin Smith. Red State begins by following three horny high-school boys who come across an online ad from an older woman looking for a gang bang. Boys being boys, they hit the road to satisfy their libidinal urges. But what begins as a fantasy takes a dark turn as they come face-to-face with a terrifying "holy" force with a fatal agenda.
