Sundance Review: Rebecca Hall & Tim Roth In ‘Resurrection’

Naman Ramachandran The BAFTA revealed a bunch of diverse nominations on Thursday and the talent behind the recognized films are understandably ecstatic.Jane Campion’s moody western “The Power of the Dog” scored eight nominations. Benedict Cumberbatch, best actor nominee for the film, said: “I’m deeply humbled and grateful to BAFTA for this nomination.

Tim Reid Howard Hesseman, the veteran actor known for starring in sitcoms “WKRP in Cincinnati” and “Head of the Class,” died Jan. 29 at the age of 81. The actor is remembered here by his friend and fellow “WKRP” star, actor-director Tim Reid.I first met Howard Hesseman at a cast meeting before we shot the pilot for “WKRP in Cincinnati.” The first thing I had to do was admit that I’d lifted something from him years back.Back in the early 1970s, I was one-half of a Black and white comedy duo with Tom Dreesen.

Most kids wouldn’t want to endure high school twice, although there are some who would no doubt prefer to remain there forever. Brandon Lee (no, not the late actor son of Bruce Lee) chose a third path by re-enrolling when he was 32 years old and getting away with it, at least for a while. How it all happened is whimsically recounted in My Old School, a clever, amusing and rather slight account of a Scottish misfit’s most irregular education. Or, as Woody Allen used to describe himself, it’s “thin but fun.”

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaIFC Films and Shudder has acquired North American rights to psychological thriller “Resurrection” following its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film stars Rebecca Hall as Margaret, a woman who balances the demands of a busy career and single parenthood. Her carefully constructed life is upended when an unwelcome shadow from her past, David (Tim Roth) returns, forcing her to confront the monster she’s evaded for two decades.“Resurrection” was written and directed by Andrew Semans (“Nancy, Please”) and co-stars Grace Kaufman and Michael Esper.

IFC Films and Shudder have taken North American rights to Andrew Semans’ psychological thriller Resurrection starring Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman and Michael Esper.

Tim Roth is a director’s actor. The London native began his on-screen career under the helm of Alan Clarke with a volatile role in his 1982 television play “Made In Britain,” exploding in front of the camera and immediately putting himself on the map.

Utama (Our Home) is precisely the sort of discovery that justifies film festivals and makes them useful: a small, hitherto unheard-of work from an out-of-the-way country that grabs you from the opening minutes and afterwards makes you want to tell your friends they’ve got a real treat to look forward to. A rare Bolivian entry in a major festival, this Sundance World Dramatic Competition title and feature debut by Alejandro Loayza Grisi is gorgeously made and brings to life a backwater existence in a distant land with skill and assurance.

A man sits on the edge of an infinity pool contemplating his existence in Michel Franco’s “ Sundown.” It’s one of many such ennui-laden images, though the settings get less luxurious as we go along on this strange journey with Neil, a man who decides to drop out of his own life suddenly and with no explanation.Tim Roth, in a quiet and intentionally inscrutable turn, plays Neil who is vacationing with family members, Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and teenagers Colin (Samuel Bottomley) and Alexa (Albertine Kotting McMillan) at a tastefully extravagant resort near Acapulco. Fans of the beautiful, unhappy families on holiday in “The White Lotus” may find “Sundown” a natural companion to that, at least at the start. Polite hotel workers shuffle in and out of their palatial suite that includes a private infinity pool, ocean view and in-room massages.

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s highest-profile opposition figure, perennial thorn in Putin’s side and currently a guest in state prison, gets a vigorous up-close-and-personal look in this eventful, fest-moving, never-a-dull-moment documentary from Daniel Roher. A collaboration between HBO Max and CNN Films, Navalny, provides a sustained look at a good-looking, articulate and seemingly unafraid family man who came very close to being murdered on August 20, 2020 by what were quite clearly politically hired killers. The privileged access provides the opportunity for an international public to get a handle on a driven personality who consistently said things very few others are willing to risk. Anyone who follows contemporary international politics will eat it up.

Things have not been going well for Emily. Some of it is just terrible luck.

Albeit beautifully shot and made tolerable by the warm presence of Carla Juri in the leading role, blood is a frustratingly indulgent study of emotional recovery after the loss of a loved one. This fourth feature by Bradley Rust Gray is splendidly appointed with locations in Japan and Iceland and an appreciation of emotional openness expressed by all the characters. All the same, the mostly short scenes of recent widow Chloe handling her grief day by day possess little compelling drama and are handicapped by a scruffy Japanese male lead who just doesn’t match up with his appealing female counterpart in any credible way. As with the director’s previous work, you come out of it wondering who this film was made for.

Writer-director Jamie Dack has expanded her widely admired 2018 short film Palm Trees and Power Lines into a considerably more thorny and disturbing feature of the same title. Shot verité style on the most banal possible locations, the film, which is making its world premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section of the Sundance Film Festival, takes an unvarnished look at an environment that is arid both literally and figuratively, one in which young people seem to be given precious little guidance or structure by family or society. Dack doesn’t explicitly editorialize but makes acutely clear the vulnerability of adolescents left too much to their own devices at a formative age.

In 2009, when I was in the Air Force and stationed in Germany, I traveled to Berlin on New Year’s Eve to celebrate. As my friends and I were getting turnt up in the bar, I came out as a lesbian. The moment was random and unprovoked. I shared the news with all my friends and had a dope night ringing in the 2010s, but panic set in when I woke up the next day. I’m 27 years old and a lesbian: what do I do now? 

Attempting to remake a classic film is never an easy assignment. Especially when said classic is as revered as Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 drama “Ikiru.” Director Oliver Hermanus and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro could have placed the story in contemporary times, making a new version more palatable for some critics, but instead, set it in the exact same era only interchanging London for Tokyo.

With a promising start with his first film Shithouse for which he starred, directed and wrote and won the Grand Jury Narrative Prize at SXSW, Cooper Raiff looms now also to be one of the breakouts of this year’s Sundance Film Festival where Cha Cha Real Smooth, his small but splendid second film for which he performs the same triple threat duties debuted Sunday as part of the Dramatic Competition lineup. I can only imagine if the festival had managed to be in person as originally planned rather than virtual in this Omicron-stricken year it would be met with a massive standing ovation. Raiff is bound to become an indie darling as if further proof was needed, but Cha Cha Real Smooth cements him as the real deal both in front of and behind the camera.

A blistering psychological thriller and enigmatic horror film that already has Sundance audiences divided thanks to its provocative, polarizing premise, filmmaker Andrew Semans’ “Resurrection” is emotionally searing, wildly unhinged and maybe even a little batshit crazy. However, as anchored by its two fiercely committed and convincing lead performances (Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth), a menacingly disquieting tone, and a frightening ambiguity about a disintegrating mental state, “Resurrection” is a deeply distressing and compelling drama that will shock and shake you to your core.

The film had its premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition lineup at the Sundance Film Festival.

Even right down to the title this religious comedy debuting appropriately today on a Sunday  in the Premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. Is it Honk For Jesus.? Or is it Save Our Soul.? OR is it as the credits say both? It is a indication of the main problem with this self-styled satire on scandal-ridden Southern Baptist megachurches. Is it supposed to be a comedy? Or is it aiming to be something deeper and more dramatic?  Or is it both?  Even for the best of satirists trying to keep an even tone without watching the whole souffle fall is a slippery slope, one that writer/director Adamma Ebo hasn’t quite solved, but not for lack of trying. As many have discovered, drama is easy, comedy is hard.

Jessica Kiang There are very few actors with Rebecca Hall’s facility for making difficult, even contradictory characters seem plausible. So it’s quite something to say that even her knack for the dignified and intelligent portrayal of mental and behavioral instability meets its Waterloo with Andrew Semans’ “Resurrection,” a psychological thriller that starts off promisingly before swerving into serious (and sadly self-serious) derangement.

Rarely has a filmmaker kept his central character at such a distance as writer-director Ricky D’Ambrose does in The Cathedral. This is clearly an autobiographical work in some very important ways, and no doubt a purging of some demons as well. And yet the kid here, whose life the film follows from birth to his acceptance at college, has very few lines of dialogue and for the most part remains a cipher. All the same, this is a penetrating look at childhood that, distinctively, focuses more than anything on the foibles and shortcomings of the child’s parents, particularly his father.