You need to stay for the entire 90 minutes of French-Canadian director Francois Delisle’s “Chorus,” and not get up and leave midway through.
Although you will want to.
Sundance Film Festival: “The End of the Tour” treats David Foster Wallace with compassion and insight
Jason Segel gets David Foster Wallace just right in James Ponsoldt’s “The End of the Tour.” He looks just like the big, shaggy, brilliant author of “Infinite Jest,” and he sounds just like him too, the mix of pithy insights, tangents of self-doubts, and moments of unshakable compassion towards the human condition all tumbling out.
He sounds like him. But he sounds like us, too.
Sundance Film Festival: Koreans just wanna have fun, but ‘Seoul Searching’ doesn’t always let them
They were a group of strangers meeting for the first time. A punker, a jarhead, a tomboy, a bad girl, a good girl. They had nothing in common, except each other. And that they were Korean.
Sundance Film Festival: Prepare to meet the challenge of the New Frontiers
Take a run in the woods, chased by a dark figure. Cower in terror from giant kaiju monsters terrorizing the city. Or sit on a rock with Reese Witherspoon.
All these experiences and more are at your disposal at the Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontiers pavilion on Park City’s Main Street. When I first started checking out New Frontiers in 2010, much of the exhibits had to do with incorporating film projection into art installations.
Sundance Film Festival: “What Happened, Miss Simone?” dives into the eye of Hurricane Nina
There’s a double meaning inherent in the title of the documentary “What Happened, Miss Simone?” which opened the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on Thursday night.
At face value, the question seems innocuous: “What things occurred?” But the undercurrent of the question, which was posed by Maya Angelou in a poem, is “What went so wrong?”
“The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness”: Is Studio Ghibli getting spirited away?
“The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness” has its Madison premiere on Friday, Jan. 23 at 7 p.m. at UW-Cinematheque screening room, 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave. FREE! Not rated, 1:57, three stars out of four.
UW-Cinematheque will also show “The Wind Rises” on Saturday, Jan. 24 at 2 p.m. And the Union South Marquee Theatre, 1208 W. Dayton St., will show “The Tale of Princess Kaguya” on Saturday, Feb. 28 and Sunday, March 1.
Responsible for some of the most delightful and imaginative animated films in the last 50 years (“Spirited Away”, “Ponyo”) from his Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki has been called the “Japanese Walt Disney.”
I’ll bet he hates that.
“Love is the Devil”: A portrait of a cruel affair
Take away the drinking, the sadomasochism, the horrific visions, and the fact that one of Britain’s great modern painters is involved, and “Love is the Devil” might be just like any other love story. Boy meets boy, boy falls for boy, boy loses interest in boy, boy has nightmares about sitting perched on the end of the diving board screaming and covered in blood.
Okay, maybe not that last bit.
Instant Gratification: “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and four other good movies to watch on Netflix Instant
Pick of the week: “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy“ — My full review is here. An unlikely spy thriller masterpiece, Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel about British intelligence rooting out a mole is both a twisty, engrossing mystery and a meditation on those who keep secrets.
Looking forward to the 2015 Sundance Film Festival
Last January, at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, I was at the second screening ever of Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” which has gone on to top critics’ best-of lists, and, perhaps more surprisingly, be a serious contender at this year’s Oscars. I missed the festival’s opening-night film, “Whiplash,” which has also gone onto a lot of Oscar attention.
Also at that festival, I was one of about 100 people crammed into a room for a discussion on digital storytelling, which included the world premiere of a new show for the then-fledgling Amazon Prime Video. That show was “Transparent,” which went on to also top critics’ best-of lists and win Golden Globes last week for Best Comedy/Musical Show and Actor.
The idea that the Sundance Film Festival is a hothouse for precious indie films destined to wither away once they hit the cold cruel world of the marketplace doesn’t seem so valid anymore.
Sundance Screening Room returns with Oscar shorts, “Mr. Turner,” “Hits”
The Sundance Cinemas Screening Room calendar is revving up again at the end of the month, presenting foreign films, documentaries and indies every week start on Jan. 30.
I’ll be back doing post-show chats for a couple of the films (more of those to come), and I’ll have some details coming soon on how you can win tickets to those movies. But until then, here’s a look at what’s coming:
Madison Movie 