“Coda” Is The First Big Acquisition At Sundance 2021

Being pressured to read a friend's extensive text conversation with their vexatious significant other is one of the scourges of modern life. As it happens, that comprises much of what's asked of the audience by R#J, the un-Googleable desktop film that adapts Romeo and Juliet for the Instagram age.

When Molly, the troubled but dogged protagonist of Knocking, moves into her new apartment, she notices the word "Help" scrawled high on the elevator wall. Whether this is a random bit of graffiti or a sign of a particular hyperawareness on Molly's part — a sensitivity to cries of anguish — goes to the heart of this smart, disquieting film.

More than 20 years ago, the Kosovo war with Serbia and Montenegro left 12,000 dead and more than 3,000 missing, mainly Kosovar Albanians. In Hive (Zgjoi), her first feature, writer-director Blerta Basholli is inspired by the true story of Fahrije Hoti, a single mother who, many years after her husband goes missing, is forced by economic necessity to face his loss.

The enormity of nature hits you like a freight train in the early scenes of James Ashcroft's taut and sinewy first feature, Coming Home in the Dark. The majestic rural landscape of Greater Wellington, on the southernmost tip of New Zealand's north island, changes in an instant from a place of enveloping tranquility to one of terrifying, helpless isolation as a family's encounter with a pair of murderous drifters uncovers past trauma.

Miley Cyrus kicked off the first Big Concert for Small Business by covering Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You after the Super Bowl on Sunday night (February 7, 2021).The pop star, who headlined the first TikTok Tailgate gig before the big game, joined Alicia Keys, Tiffany Haddish, and Eric Church and Jazmine Sullivan, who teamed up to perform the U.S.

Hunting for a name for your newborn is a mean feat, there’s no denying that, with such a huge range to choose from. Perhaps you’re after one of the most searched for names of 2020, or maybe you’re after a moniker inspired by royalty? Whatever takes your fancy, it’s always nice to have a place to start and a little helping hand, and Nameberry has got your back.

Multidisciplinary artist Amalia Ulman makes an appealingly idiosyncratic first foray into features with El Planeta, a captivating throwback to the shaggy aesthetic of micro-budget '90s New York indies that plays like Grey Gardens with a hint of early Almodóvar. Ulman and her real-life mother Ale play a reduced family unit in the Spanish seaside town of Gijón, living beyond their dwindling means in willful denial as the foundations crumble beneath them.

The Dog Who Wouldn't Be Quiet is very much its own creature. In ways that can pull you in and also keep you at a distance, it has no use for movie conventions of plot and characterization as it traces turning points in its 30-something protagonist's life — a life shaped by ordinary strife and joy and, for a while, a strange planetary phenomenon.

I did), you will see genius (I did), but you generally won’t see the highly anticipated mega hits found in Toronto, where “Joker” and “Hustlers” premiered. At Sundance, you’re just as likely to encounter “Call Me by Your Name,” a rapturous love story, as you are “Swiss Army Man,” a little-known flick in which Daniel Radcliffe pals around with a farting corpse.

"If anyone's taking that gay horse, it's me," declares ruthless ex-military cryptid poacher Nicholas, while Lauren Gray, the heroic protector of mythological creatures in Cryptozoo, prepares to take off on a snowy white Pegasus with a mane and wings in pastel rainbow shades. That kind of droll humor was a constant in graphic novelist Dash Shaw's 2016 feature debut, My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea.

ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE Theo Anthony's gripping new documentary confronts the permeating presence in our lives of automated surveillance, and the false and dangerous premises it's built on.

Within just a few years, Theo Anthony has proven himself a master of the cine-essay. He doesn't neatly connect the dots for us, instead creating dynamic, synapse-sparking terrains, with particular focus on city life and social justice.

It's the most common question whenever an outsider — be it Ross Perot or Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump — runs for a position of power in an entrenched political system: Having big ideas or exciting the electorate is one thing, but when you challenge the political orthodoxy, how do you actually govern if you happen to win? This is the backdrop of Ted Passon, Yoni Brook and Nicole Salazar's eight-part Independent Lens docuseries Philly D.A., which is premiering its first two hours as part of the

After its immense success last year, Big Brother is back for a second season on Seven and fans have been given a glimpse into this year's housemates.

Dua Lipa has announced that she will be releasing a new single called ‘We’re Good’ next week.It’s the pop star’s first new material of 2021 and follows recent singles ‘Levitating’ and ‘Fever’ – both taken from the singer’s ‘Future Nostalgia’ album – and her ‘Prisoner’ collaboration with Miley Cyrus.Sharing the news on social media, Lipa posted the track’s artwork which has an emerald theme and sees her donning a green dress, green gloves and a huge diamond ring.“WE’RE GOOD – 11TH FEB,” the

Sundance Film Festival, would more accurately be described as the nihilistic machinations of a tiny psychopath.He’s not a gremlin — he’s John (Charlie Shotwell), a quiet suburban boy who plays tennis video games all day and relies mostly on one long-distance friend for companionship. One day, he stumbles on an unfinished underground bunker in the woods beyond his backyard.

So Nic Cage is a bank robber sprung, naked except for a sumo-nappy, from a lengthy stint in jail by the white-hatted, black-hearted Governor (Bill Moseley) of a fake Japanese cowboy town populated exclusively by caged Geisha prostitutes, one of the favorites of whom, Bernice (Sofia Boutella, being bafflingly good again despite the material) recently escaped, so The Governor straps Cage into a leather suit rigged with explosives on the arms, neck and testicles that are primed to explode if they

An out-all-night odyssey in which romance is interrupted by a compounding series of mishaps and crimes, Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp's First Date follows in the tradition of similarly named predecessors like Date Night, Blake Edwards' Blind Date, et cetera. In this case, the misadventure is mostly had by the would-be suitor (Tyson Brown), who gets waylaid time and again before he can even meet the longtime crush (Shelby Duclos) he can't believe agreed to go out with him.

Also Read: Sundance 2021: What Has Sold So Far, From 'CODA' to 'Flee' (Photos)Other Sundance films that have nothing to do with viruses have somehow caught the mood of the moment. Lucy Walker’s “Bring Your Own Brigade,” for example, is a documentary about the wildfires that have grown increasingly deadly in California over the past few years.