Now the film festival is over, what do I do? Sundance.
I finished on a high this weekend by seeing the spectacular The Spectacular Now and the dreary but solid The Past. I have seen 6 films at the festival and they were all great. I’m kinda sad that it’s over but then I realized that it isn’t just yet.
What I learned was four of the films I saw (well actually, I sorta already knew this because if i didn’t I wouldn’t have seen them) premiered at Sundance this year. For film noobs, Sundance is a film festival in Salt Lake City, Utah in the USA. Every January, filmmkares from all over the world send in the films, hoping they will be selected. This year, over 4000 applied, 191 got showcased. That figure makes me worried about when I start filmmaking, because I would love my first film to premiere there.
Anyway, it turns out that some of the films that played at Sundance, but not at MIFF are just in normal theatres now.
Tomorrow, I’m going off to see Mud, a film by Jeff Nichols, who directed the very strange but awesome Take Shelter. On Thursday, I’m planning to see Before Midnight, the final film in Richard Linklater’s romantic dialogue trilogy starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. I only watched Before Sunrise this morning so I need to watch Before Sunset within the next two days or else I probably won’t get as much as I could from it. Another film I want to see is The Way, Way Back, directed by the writers of The Decendants, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (or Dean Pelton from Community). That one stars Steve Carrell, Sam Rockwell and Toni Collette, but is lead by a new actor who was Sarah Linden’s son in the TV series The Killing. He was great in that and I’m sure he will shine in this waterpark dramady.
Other films coming out in the near future are Stoker, which I missed at MIFF, JGL’s directoral debut Don Jon, and Kill Your Darlings, starring Daniel Radcliff and one of my new favourite actors, Dane Dehaan.
Hopefully I’ll get to see all of these and enjoy them, because I love film. I hope you do too, because you should watch them.
Here’s the Sundance website for anyone who wants to do some digging.