Reservoir Dogs. sex, lies, and videotape. El Mariachi. Clerks. Slacker. The Blair Witch Project. Blood Simple. Napoleon Dynamite. Memento. Yes, the Sundance Film Festival (which kicks off less than a week from today) is the Holy Grail for aspiring indie filmmakers, who can rattle off those titles (and more) as examples of the wildest-dream scenario: Make a movie on the cheap, take it to the ‘dance, ignite a fierce bidding war, sell it to a scrappy and ingenious distributor with deep pockets, watch as they unleash it on the world, do big box office, become the next Tarantino or Soderbergh.
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For the past six years, Franklin Leonard, a mid-level studio executive, has put together the annual Black List — a compilation of the year’s best unproduced screenplays according to him and 300 or so of his industry pals. But these aren’t just projects that will never see the light of day. A few of the films are in production now, and six of the top 10 screenplays — which we’ve posted after the jump — have already been scooped up by studios. Let us know in the comments what you think sounds the most promising; our money’s on Jackie, a film about Jacqueline Kennedy’s life in the days following her husband’s death, which is set to be directed by Darren Aronofsky.
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Today at Flavorpill, we looked at pictures of the new life that NASA discovered and thought that it resembled potatoes. We lusted after this Great Gatsby-inspired tattoo. We discovered that the rating on This Is Spinal Tap on IMDB goes all the way up to 11. We started getting excited about the slate for this year’s Sundance Film Festival. We saw what cocaine looks like inside of a drug mule’s stomach. We enjoyed The Atlantic‘s roundup of the 10 best ideas of the year. We wanted to own some of these hilarious fake Criterion Collection posters. We watched Robyn’s entire MySpace “Secret Show.” We realized just how much the Harry Potter stars have grown up over the past nine years. And finally, we ended our day by dancing along to the candy-colored music video for Cee Lo’s “It’s OK.” You should too.
Today at Flavorpill, we streamed and then danced around to Cee-Lo’s forthcoming album, The Lady Killer. We were intrigued to hear that James Franco is working on a film about Three’s Company — more specifically, “a multi-media examination of the classic 70s sitcom” that will premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. We cooed over the 25 cutest kids at The Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear. We couldn’t believe that Ryan Seacrest gets to interview Obama. We said a sad goodbye to Shoot the Freak, the Coney Island boardwalk game where anyone could shoot paintballs at a living human for $5. We were shocked to discover that zombies > Don Draper — at least when it comes to ratings. The ’90s music fan in us got excited by the idea of a new Garbage album/reunion tour. We wished that our apartment building had a void deck for throwing enormous parties. And finally we wanted to own this typewriter that can play Zork. How cool is that?
Katie Aselton wrote, directed, and stars in The Freebie, opposite Dax Shepard. They play a married couple, Darren and Annie, who agree to allow each “a one night stand” to spice up their life after seven years of marriage. “Maybe being with one person for the rest of your life isn’t natural at all,” wonders an off-screen voice. The film premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, generating positive buzz. It seems like one of those quiet, subtle, low-budget indie films with a small but dedicated cast, allowing for a deep and sincere exploration of, in this case, sex and fidelity.
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This year’s Sundance Film Festival ended yesterday. The awards have been handed out. The film nerds have vacated Park City. And some not-so-big deals have been made. But did Festival Director John Cooper live up to his promise that this year’s offerings would put the indie back in Sundance? Let’s examine some of the buzziest new films after the jump.
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1. So this is fun: A bunch of shorts from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival are streaming on YouTube. [via @ebertchicago]
2. What happens when Jay Leno sits down with Oprah? You get a lot of odd metaphors. [via A.V. Club]
3. Neil Patrick Harris will host the US version of UK game show The Cube; people win money by completing simple tasks while inside a chamber that’s designed to induce stress. [via The Wrap]
4. Is “Seymour: An Introduction” — J.D. Salinger‘s last anthologized work — the best story he ever wrote? [via Slate]
5. LA’s Amoeba Music will launch a digital download store later this year that will focus on rare, out-of-print and deep catalog material. [via LAT]
Bonus link: Every episode of Lost is now on Hulu.
So this is really cool, especially if you’ve always dreamed of heading out to Park City (cough, cough): Tonight eight filmmakers currently showing their films at the Sundance Film Festival will visit eight cities across the country to screen and discuss their new work with audiences. Tickets are available through each theater’s individual box office. We imagine they might already be sold out, but it’s definitely worth a shot — especially if you live in Ann Arbor. The Duplass Bros. are dreamy.
* Cyrus (Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass) – Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, MI
* The Company Men (John Wells) – Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA
* Daddy Longlegs (Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie) – BAM, Brooklyn, NY
* Jack Goes Boating (Philip Seymour Hoffman) – Music Box Theatre, Chicago, IL
* Teenage Paparazzo (Adrian Grenier) – Downtown Independent, Los Angeles, CA
* The Extra Man (Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini) – The Belcourt Theatre, Nashville, TN
* The Runaways (Floria Sigismondi) – Sundance Cinemas Madison, Madison, WI
* Howl (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman) – Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, San Francisco, CA
Ryan Reynolds has played a wisecracking college legend (Van Wilder), a wisecracking vampire hunter (Blade: Trinity), and a wisecracking mutant swordsman (X-Men Origins: Wolverine). It’s a testament to his smarmy charm that he has managed to carve out such a reliable, likable niche. If you’ve grown tired of the shtick, then Buried (which was just snatched up at Sundance by Lionsgate for about $3.2 million) is not the movie for you.
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For the bleak little indie that made such an unmitigated splash at last year’s Sundance Film Festival (although back then it was known as Push), Precious has had a rough time of it in wide release. While real people liked it (including us), certain critics found the film racist and felt the storyline perpetuated negative stereotypes.
Like Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy. He called it “a film of prurient interest that has about as much redeeming social value as a porn flick.” Noted critical loon Armond White was just as offended: “Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious…Offering racist hysteria masquerading as social sensitivity, it’s been acclaimed on the international festival circuit that usually disdains movies about black Americans as somehow inartistic and unworthy.”
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