We began our preview for the upcoming Sundance Film Festival yesterday by covering The Jacket, Ellie Parker, Kung Fu Hustle, Thumbsucker and Strangers with Candy and it seems people are taking quite an interest, so in the spirit of celebrating movies here comes the next five films we promised as we make ready to preview The Matador, Loverboy, Layer Cake, Grizzly Man and Game 6.
In an effort to make sure you are immediately interested in this batch of previews we decided to bring you the latest film from Pierce Brosnan since his After the Sunset debacle of 2004.
The Matador is a comedic drama, but it doesn’t seem to be disguising itself as a clever caper flick such as After the Sunset did, instead we find Brosnan as Julian, a lonely hit man, and his chance encounter with a traveling salesman played by Greg Kinnear.
Described by Sundance writer, Geoffrey Gilmore, the film is a delightful mix of genres that simultaneously spoofs the buddy film, killers, and ordinary American life while it plumbs the complexities of the human heart. Oh yeah, and for the ladies in the crowd he promises Brosnan is wearing a black Speedo, cowboy boots, and sunglasses all while smoking a cigar in the flick.
The film also stars Hope Davis, Adam Scott, Jonah Meyerson, Dylan Baker and Philip Baker Hall and is directed by Richard Shepard with a running time of 97 minutes.
We were fortunate as well, to score three pics from the film, so be sure to check those out here.
Up next we have the feature film directorial debut from Kevin Bacon himself. Loverboy is a dramatic romance tale that attempts to answer the question, “What happens if a mother loves her child too much?”
Bacon has brought on a superb cast to weave his web with himself, Kyra Sedgwick, Matt Dillon, Oliver Platt, Marisa Tomei and Dominic Scott Kay all featured in the film.
The story follows Emily (Sedgwick) on a relentless for her one true wish, to have a child of her own. When artificial insemination fails, she engages in many anonymous liaisons with a wide variety of fathers, equaling nothing but memories and a miscarriage. But when a traveling businessman passes through her life one night, she conceives a boy and names him Paul. But to her, the child will always be her little “Loverboy.”
The definition above is the short version, if you want more you can find it here, along with two stills from the film.
As to the quality of the film, Sundance writer, Shari Frilot, says that it successfully embodies the delirium that results from confusing self-love with motherly love while it also speaks universally about the challenges of single parenthood.
Layer Cake? Really, that is the name of this one? What could it be about? Well, this isn’t some Martha Stewart cooking show as JJ Connelly’s London crime novel is brought to life by Matthew Vaughn, producer of the stylized British crime-genre hits as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.
This time around he steps into the director’s chair to tell the story of a successful cocaine dealer recently assigned the job of finding Charlotte Ryder, a missing rich princess. Unfortunately this job is handed down by big boss Jimmy Price, one of England’s most notorious, and to complicate the situation layer on two million pounds’ worth of Grade A ecstasy, a brutal neo-Nazi sect and a whole series of double crossings.
Obviously “layer” becomes the adequate word as the movie becomes a tour of everything our dealer must do to achieve his assigned duty.
Daniel Craig plays our lead dealer and his performance is described as gripping and effortlessly, breathing depth into the character, revealing a vulnerable strength that draws the audience in and escorts them along the exhilarating ride.
We have uploaded 17 total pics from the film for your approval, so don’t hesitate, check them all out here while previewing the rest of the cast.
Layer Cake happens to be one of the films with a release date outside of Sundance as it is expected to hit the theaters in NY and LA on April 15th thanks to Sony Pictures Classics. We also have a look at the trailer and 11 Clips by clicking here.
Can’t do a Sundance preview without at least one documentary and here we bring you the latest effort by Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man.
This is not exactly going to be a tale of teddy bears and beautiful nights under the stars, while those things may pop-up the main point of this story is to tell the experience of Timothy Treadwell and his partner, Amie Huguenard, as they venture out into Alaska to spend a little time with the grizzly bears.
The two presumed life among the grizzlies would be as safe as could be, unfortunately that wasn’t exactly the case as the two were eventually killed and devoured by one of the very animals to whom he had devoted years of study.
Werner Herzog is known for his telling documentaries and Sundance writer, Diane Weyermann, feels this one is not at all a departure from what we have come to expect. As the majority of this film is told using Treadwell’s own video footage she describes Treadwell as an intriguing, infuriating, perhaps even tragic figure, and Herzog as equally compelling, saying this brilliant film is just one reason why.
To check out a gallery of seven pics from the film simply click here.
And you thought Michael Keaton had disappeared off the face of the Earth after his two Batman films. Well, besides his small role in First Daughter and his recent film, White Noise, it may have seemed like that, but here he is popping up at Sundance in Game 6, the story of Nicky Rogan, a New York playwright on a run of bad luck who is committed to the inevitability of failure. He woos it, coddles it, rolls it around in his mouth before he swallows it.
Also starring Robert Downey Jr. and Catherine O’Hara this drama is described by Sundance’s Geoffrey Gilmore as a wonderfully rarefied world of a man whose affairs are crumbling even as he plunges forward to open a new play.
Director Michael Hoffman takes the simple story of a down-on-his-luck playwright and mixes in a poisonously powerful critic (Downey, Jr.) lying in wait, setting up a finale that challenges the fates and opens Nicky to a new understanding of life’s vagaries.
To check out three early stills from the film click here.
And we reach the end of our second preview, if you have not yet checked out our first click here to do so, if you have then just be patient as we will bring you five more films tomorrow as we preview Jenny McCarthy’s Dirty Love, the star filled flick Chumbscrubber, the latest with Daniel Day-Lewis The Ballad of Jack and Rose, the horrorific Wolf Creek and the film begging not to be compared to Beauty Shop, The Salon.
