Sundance Breakout ‘Handling the Undead,’ Where ‘Dread Infuses Each Frame,’ Sells Wide for TrustNordisk (EXCLUSIVE)

Filmmakers have parsed the zombie genre from seemingly every angle possible. George A.

SPOILER ALERT: This story features details from recent episodes of The Traitors.

“We Are the World” was a once-in-a-generation meeting of musical giants when it was recorded Jan. 28, 1985 — and released two months later on March 7 — to benefit African famine relief.Anyone who was anyone in music at that moment — a who’s who of legends, including everyone from Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Bob Dylan to Billy Joel, Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen — showed up to support the cause.Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones and ’80s hitmaker Michael Omartian, the single sold a whopping 20 million copies.

Angelique Jackson When basketball legend Sue Bird decided to let a team of filmmakers capture her final season after playing 21 years in the WNBA, she wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from watching her career be contextualized on film, but it turned out to be wonderful. “You play such a long time — so many different moments, so many different memories — and to have it now, in this one film is amazing,” Bird said, visiting the Variety Studio presented by Audible at the Sundance Film Festival.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Here we are, three weeks into January, and the Sundance Film Festival has delivered what promises to be the year’s most uncomfortable date movie: a grubby New York-set fable about a facially distinctive actor (modeled on Adam Pearson) who undergoes an experimental procedure that leaves him looking like Sebastian Stan — presumably an improvement, until he realizes that under the skin, he’s still the same miserable loser. The kind of oddball satire only indie studio A24 would dare to produce, Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man” asks what it means to be “normal,” and whether, if we could wave a magic wand and “correct” those qualities that set us apart, that’s really something we’d want.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Devo is headed to Sundance, not just for the festival premiere of the Chris Smith-directed documentary film that share’s the band’s name, but a Jan. 21 performance by the group at the just-opened Marquis on Main Street.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Norwegian director Thea Hvistendahl’s zombie movie “Handling the Undead,” premiering at Sundance and to be released in the U.S. by Neon, sees the reunion of Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, the stars of Oscar-nominated “The Worst Person in the World,” in a poetic, visually-charged chronicling of a hot summer’s day in Oslo when the dead mysteriously come back to life.

Guy Lodge Film Critic If zombies weren’t so fixated on eating our brains, perhaps they’d be poignant to have around: semi-living, semi-breathing semblances of people we’ve loved, there to be seen and held and talked to, not truly present but not absent either. Whether that’s preferable to the void of death is the question underpinning “Handling the Undead” for much of its running time, even as the threat of the undead reverting to their usual habits gives this soft, sorrowful bereavement drama a core of cold-blooded horror.

In the realm of zombie-themed films, a genre often filled with clichés and predictable plot lines, Handling the Undead aims to stand out as something different.

A growing number of people, particularly millennial women are becoming conscious of looking after their spiritual well-being as part of their daily self-care routine. Whether that be through paying close attention to angel numbers, crystal healing, practicing meditation/ reiki, or looking into astrology for life guidance, the need for such pursuits has never been so popular.

The Flight Attendant will not be returning for a third season. The show, which was originally set as a limited series, aired two seasons on Max, with the second season ending in May 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the Sundance debut of her latest short, The Looming, filmmaker Masha Ko has taken on new management at Range Media Partners.

The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters and Neil Young and Crazy Horse are among a litany of huge names announced for this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.Also at the top of the bill are The Killers, Vampire Weekend, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, Chris Stapleton, Hozier and Jon Batiste.The festival, which takes place over two weekends between April 25 and May 5 at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, goes out of its way to celebrate the rich musical heritage of the city.Jazz Fest 2024 Music Lineup!GA Weekend Passes and VIP Packages on sale now!Full Music Lineup and Purchase tickets at https://t.co/dApNCrvPYZ. pic.twitter.com/Ba5Q8QDwNG— New Orleans JazzFest (@jazzfest) January 18, 2024Representing the city’s cultural legacy are names such as Irma Thomas, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Dixie Cups, Big Freedia, Trombone Shorty and Cyril Neville.Also set to feature at the festival are The Beach Boys, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bonnie Raitt, Queen Latifah, Greta Van Fleet and Heart.Tickets for both weekends of the festival and all VIP packages can be found here.In November, the Stones confirmed details of a huge US tour for 2024, opening with a show in Houston on April 28, and continuing for 15 more dates going into the summer, wrapping up in Santa Clara, California on July 17.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck’s documentary “Eternal You,” which will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the world cinema doc competition section on Saturday, explores ways that artificial intelligence is being used to comfort the bereaved. The doc follows people from around the globe who are using AI to to create avatars of the deceased people to allow their loved ones to interact with them.

Caroline Brew editor “Killers of the Flower Moon” won best picture at AARP The Magazine’s Movies for Grownups Awards, which spotlights films and TV content that speaks to a 50-plus audience. “It’s been a good year for shows and movies by and for people over 50,” AARP TV and Film Critic Tim Appelo said in a statement.

Hannah Waddingham, the Emmy-winning Ted Lasso star, says the words of a teacher helped fuel her ambition to become a star of the screen.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of what many consider to be one of the greatest TV shows of all time— “The Sopranos.” However, when you hear from creator David Chase, this anniversary is less of a celebration and more of “a funeral.” But he doesn’t just mean for his TV show. He thinks we are now experiencing the end of the era of prestige TV.

“It was a good night,” Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, said after the Emmy ceremony, and not only because HBO/Max topped the list of networks and platforms with 31 wins across 11 series.

EXCLUSIVE: It is only after Eric Roth invites you to sit on his front porch and discuss screenwriting and the thorny process of making great movies that you find yourself saying, wait, you wrote that one too? He’ll tell you you’re sitting in a chair where Nobel Laureates and Pulitzer winners held court — as if sitting with arguably the greatest and most successful living screenwriter isn’t intimidating enough — and there will be the occasional interruption as neighbors or passersby stop by this covered birdhouse looking repository at the edge of his lawn where Roth places books he’s read and admired, to help others revel in his lifelong love of words. They all want to talk about what they read and Roth is in no hurry to send them on their way.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic The feelings some of us have about the Sundance Film Festival border on the religious. I don’t mean that we’re a cult; I mean that the force that Sundance represents is a religion worth believing in. By the end of the 1980s, the action/comedy/horror/fantasy grind of Hollywood cinema had become bloated and exhausting.