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Sundance Journal: The Sunlit Night

Jason Gorber — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:00:41 +0000

The Sunlit Night is the latest of a bunch of indie drama/comedies starring Jenny Slate in the last few years. They usually follow a similar formula – a fish out of water situation, someone dealing with a life-changing event like death or abortion or the like, and somehow our hapless protagonist has to figure this...

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Sundance Journal: The Souvenir

Jason Gorber — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 16:00:05 +0000

It’s relatively rare to have such austere, auteur-ish films as The Souvenir play at Sundance. Park City is normally the home of brash, sometimes clumsy indie fare, not the rarefied (some may chide as arrogant) Euro-style films that litter Cannes. The fact that the movie won the Grand Jury prize for international cinema is even...

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Sundance Journal: The Nightingale

Jason Gorber — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 18:00:28 +0000

Few films are more brutal than The Nightingale. The follow-up from The Babadook director Jennifer Kent is an unapologetic look at the vile, dehumanizing violence at the heart of colonial Australia in the 19th Century. Clare (Aisling Franciosi) is a young Irish woman working for her papers of freedom, sentenced to a Tasmanian outpost under...

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Sundance Journal: Paddleton

Jason Gorber — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 16:00:33 +0000

Cancer dramas are usually mawkish, teary things, melodramatic films where the fear of loss is exuded in every frame. It’s somewhat refreshing that director Alex Lehmann and co-writer/star Mark Duplass managed with Paddleton to find a way of creating a warm, amusing, and deeply affecting film about friendship and mortality that avoids all the obvious...

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Sundance Journal: Late Night

Jason Gorber — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 18:00:45 +0000

From her writing and acting roles on The Office through her self-titled sitcom, Mindy Kaling has emerged as one of the great talents of her generation. Her self-critical comedy confronts major social issues while never forgetting to be entertaining. Kaling’s script for Late Night pointedly looks at changing cultural mores in a post #MeToo moment....

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Sundance Journal: The Report

Jason Gorber — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 16:00:56 +0000

As the American political system continues to devolve to tribalism, it’s often refreshing to remember that there are people within the trenches of power who continue to fight for a more perfect union not only for institutional but moral reasons. The Report is such a feel-good story, one where a near-anonymous bureaucrat toils in a...

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Sundance Journal: The Lodge

Jason Gorber — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 18:00:18 +0000

Sundance often has sleeper hits come out of the Midnight Section. (2018 saw both Mandy and Hereditary.) This year’s boldest film seems to be The Lodge, the English-language debut by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the Austrian team behind 2014’s celebrated Goodnight Mommy. Ostensibly a family drama where people outdo each other in behaving badly,...

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Sundance Journal: Luce

Jason Gorber — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 16:00:24 +0000

It’s rare to see a film so courageous as Luce. The movie demands a lot from its audience. It mercilessly refuses to be easily constrained, consistently undermines conventions and expectations, and delves deeply into moral uncertainty. Like other Sundance selections including Get Out and Sorry to Bother You, Luce is a powerful examination of the...

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Sundance Journal: Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile

Jason Gorber — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 20:00:44 +0000

Award-winning documentarian Joe Berlinger has spent much of his career investigating issues of justice and going beyond the headlines to find deeper stories of the accused. In collaboration with the late Bruce Sinofsky, his films including Brother’s Keeper and the Paradise Lost trilogy explored how perceptions and prejudice marred the search for justice. In the...

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Sundance Journal: The Farewell

Jason Gorber — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 17:00:58 +0000

Of all the things compelling about Lulu Wang’s cross-cultural family drama The Farewell, the starring role of Awkwafina as Billi firmly establishes this film as something special. The rapper/actress with the raspy voice elevated the likes of Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians in supporting roles. Here, she’s a star, and proves she can truly...

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Sundance Journal: Blinded by the Light

Jason Gorber — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 16:00:26 +0000

Blinded by the Light is a tribute to the power of the Boss. The film dramatically illustrates how Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics and power of storytelling can cross oceans and speak to those far removed from the original context where these tunes were created. For millions of fans, the songs of Bruce Springsteen are the stuff...

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Sundance Journal: Honey Boy

Jason Gorber — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 20:00:28 +0000

Honey Boy is a semi-autobiographical tale written by one of the most provocative actors of his generation. Shia LaBeouf has gone from child actor to blockbuster star, fostered by the likes of Steven Spielberg to appear in mega-franchises and seemingly thrust unprepared into the spotlight. His crash down was extremely public, rife with stories of...

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