(A special New York City roadshow presentation of the Red Riding trilogy opened at the IFC Center on February 5, 2010. It opens in LA exclusively at Landmark’s Nuart on February 12th, followed by select theaters nationwide on February 19th. Visit the film’s official page at IFC Films to learn more.)

David Thomson opens an essay on the Red Riding trilogy by stating: “Red Riding is better than The Godfather.” I’m not sure if this is true, because I’ve never seen The Godfather. According to every guy I’ve ever dated, this renders me ineligible for making films or even discussing them. But I know myself, for better or worse, and mafia narratives (be they tragic, comic, starring a Pacino, a De Niro, or even my beloved Hugh Grant) leave me utterly cold. I guess I’m generally nonplussed by a complex web of crime. For instance, I cannot get into The Wire and refuse to be sorry, or to “hang on until season two.” …click to read more

Slamdance doesn’t need to have a separate NEXT section like Sundance. The whole festival is focused on the low budget, innovative, cutting edge, non-star driven material that embodies our concept of truly-free indie film. No need for mavericky rebel slogans at Slamdance because the festival is actually curated by a vision that understands that well done, innovative genre films can be as radical or even bolder than straightforward character driven stories. It was Slamdance—not Sundance—that screened Paranormal Activity (in 2008) and consequently this year I heard more chatter than ever about the Slamdance films. It takes a bit of an effort to get up to the top of Main St., especially when you are consumed by trying to get into your next Sundance film, but I highly recommend that people start fitting Slamdance films into your Sundance schedule. Because the festival is smaller, the odds are higher that you will see something unique, be it shorts, docs or features. …click to read more

(Promised Lands screens through Wednesday February 10th at Anthology Film Archives in New York City. Visit distributor The Film Desk’s official website to learn more. Monday February 8th at 7pm the artist Paul Chan will introduce the screening. He has also designed, on the occasion of this release, a new screen print in a numbered edition of 100, with all proceeds going to support The Film Desk. Please contact info@thefilmdesk.com for more information and pricing.) …click to read more

From the moment one set foot in Park City for the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, it became quite clear that the powers-that-be were using the departure of longtime festival director Geoffrey Gilmore as a subconscious marketing tool. Though the ad campaign didn’t directly reference the transition of power from Gilmore to John Cooper (a “Now that Gilmore’s splashy ‘Sundance sensibility’ is gone, let’s get back to the nitty gritty!” poster would have done the trick), the overdependence on words like “rebellion” and “roots” implied that Robert Redford and his team were speaking in some way, shape, or form to the way Gilmore had skied the fest down the slope. …click to read more

This week brings one of the top American independent films from 2009 to viewers everywhere, as well as a few other titles that I missed last year but am looking forward to finally checking out: …click to read more

On my fourth day, I finally emerged from my screening doldrums. After the streets and the buses became free of the non-film skiers and LA lookeeloos and I saw 3 Backyards, Blue Valentine, and Winter’s Bone, I started to think about how essential Sundance still is to American Indie film. Where else would such stellar, uncommercial work be better presented to the public? If these films have any chance of securing a healthy life in your local mall, it is for sure due to their introduction via the national press that has really gathered to grab shots of stars in wacky fur hats. That is the dialectical reality of the Sundance condition. …click to read more

Truth be told, my second three days in Park City have been more underwhelming than the first, though there were still some delights to be had. On a social note, Tuesday night’s first ever Hammer to Nail Sundance party was a rockin’ success. Thanks so much to everybody for coming! No ropes, no guest list, just a house party with the coolest of the cool. I would love to make this an annual event, so keep reading the site and watching great movies. …click to read more

(Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy is available from Amazon.)

The challenge is to see things with a fresh eye. When a film has been called a “classic” for too long, it comes to us cloaked in a fog of received opinion, textbook platitude, knee-jerk veneration, and other impediments to clear perception. In the case of Rome Open City (1945)—the first film in the Criterion Collection’s new DVD box set, Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy—the fog is especially thick. We’re not talking about your average, everyday classic here. This is one of the epochal, paradigm-shifting events in cinema history, the grubby, stitched-together DIY indie that announced a renaissance in the cultural life of its nation and set off the Italian Neorealist movement—a movement whose influence was immediate, worldwide in scope, and enduring: to this day, whenever filmmakers reject studio artifice and escapist story formulas in favor of capturing observable social reality and everyday behavior, they’re said to be working in the Neorealist tradition. …click to read more

Well, well, well. This week brings quite an impressive list of new titles to add to your collection. Let’s begin with the very best of the very best—I’m talking about you, Ms. Campion—before moving on to the rest: …click to read more

I saw six films Saturday the 23rd. Actually I walked out on Boy since I don t like films that rely on cute kids and/or cute animals. Boy is directed with punchy quirky energy by Taika Waititi, who made Eagle Vs. Shark. It seems to work for people and I am sure it will be at a theater near you at some point. I also attended the new version of MTV’s Five Dollar Cover. The series was launched by Craig Brewer in Memphis, but has now been franchised and Lynn Shelton (Humpday) has done her take on Seattle. I saw two more dissapointing NEXT section films (Homewrecker and One Too Many Mornings). I saw the doc Sins of the Father on Pablo Escobar made by his son as he tries to make peace with the sons of his father’s political assassinations. But my favorite film of the day was Debra Granik’s (Down to the Bone) return with Winter’s Bone. …click to read more

Sunday was a good day for me. Let’s get to it (in order): …click to read more

This year’s Sundance Film Festival theme, pushed via trailers and the cover of the film guide, is: REBEL. Trailers push lines like “this is the rebirth of the battle for new ideas” and other blather like “this is the recharged fight against the establishment of the expected”. The REBEL message is so obviously a result of Sundance’s fear that they have become the Hollywood establishment and that their position in the new world of indie film is seriously in jeopardy. …click to read more

(Family Affair world premieres in the US Documentary Competition at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It first screens on Friday, January 22nd, but has several more screenings throughout the week. Check the Sundance website for specific screening information, and be sure to visit the film’s official website to learn more.)

On the surface, those of us who have never had to suffer severe abuse at the hands of a parent, be it verbal, physical or sexual, do not necessarily look (or act) any differently from those children who have. As childhood and teenage photos of what appear to be three happy, well adjusted, doted upon, beautiful girls floats across the screen in Chico Colvard’s feature documentary debut, Family Affair (world premiering in the Sundance US Documentary Competition), the insidious nature of how deep and well-hidden a family’s dark secrets can go becomes almost too much to bear. …click to read more

At the very moment, I am too tired to write an even somewhat developed post wrapping up my first two days of viewing at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival—I realize this doesn’t bode well for the days to come—but I wanted to let you know that I am very much grooving on this year’s lineup so far. I haven’t seen anything that I’ve outright hated, but better than that, there have already been two seriously major revelations. They are: …click to read more

(The Red Chapel first screens at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, January 22, 2010, at 9pm in Salt Lake City. Go here for full screening information.)

In Mads Brügger’s The Red Chapel, we get a rare glimpse of the dystopic urban nightmare that is Pyongyang, North Korea. The film has gone out into the world as a Danish film, but it is very much a North Korean one as well, a chilling and fascinating glimpse of that clandestine place. And, what at first seems like a Python-esque charade played just for laughs, manages to provide plenty of fiercely sobering moments due mostly to a brilliant script masterminded by its director, a star journalist and personality in his native Denmark. …click to read more