Sundance 2024 Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

A raw examination of labor organization at its most powerful, pure, and fragile, “Union” is a look at union drama uncut and without any guardrails. Verité to a fault, directors Stephen Maing and Brett Story present the documentary with a detached remove that isn’t matched by the framing of the central conflict, and yet morsels of true inspiration still manage to tumble forth.

Since returning from his announced retirement from feature filmmaking, Steven Soderbergh has been on a tear of productivity unmatched since the heyday of Hollywood’s studio system. His quickie projects might feel like slight exercises in style or storytelling, but they have never felt disposable.

Men can be overbearing. Some of us know this firsthand because, with a bit of self-awareness, we can recognize we have, at least at some point, been the pompous bloviating jackass while more introverted people, sometimes women, silently sit and endure our blowhard monologues.

Coachella, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Summerfest, Pitchfork Music, etc. They all owe an enormous debt to Lollapalooza, the groundbreaking music festival that helped change the touring and music industry just as alternative music peaked in the early 90s.

PARK CITY – Coming up with a new twist for a teen movie ain’t easy. There have been so many over the decades that someone has likely already tried it.

PARK CITY – There are multiple meanings to the title of Jesse Eisenberg’s latest directorial effort, “A Real Pain.” There is the pain that cousins Benji Kaplan (Eisenberg) and David Kaplan (Keiran Culkin) are experiencing over the passing of their beloved grandmother and there is the pain Benji is feeling over a horrifying incident in his cousin’s life. The most pressing example, however, is in David’s soul.

Titus Kaphar’s luminous directorial debut, “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” featuring another electrifying turn by the always-captivating André Holland, begins with a James Baldwin quote. “If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.” READ MORE: Sundance 2024: The 23 Most Anticipated Movies To Watch It’s a bruising quote, given the context of the personal and aching movie, a superbly incandescent but wrenching tale of generational pain, inexcusable parental mistakes, the legacy of family trauma, and, at its core, a broken father/son relationship.

Kobi Libii’s work on the sadly short-lived Comedy Central show “The Opposition with Jordan Klepper” always tended toward the confrontational. By donning the guise of right-wing media provocateurs, he highlighted the absurd internal contradictions of ideological hardliners.

There’s commitment to the bit, and then there’s David and Nathan Zellner. The brothers’ latest film “Sasquatch Sunset,” billed to Sundance audiences as only “a year in the life of a singular family,” makes good on the filmmaking duo’s long desire to make a film about the legend of Bigfoot.

Early in Yance Ford’s visual essay “Power,” he tells the audience that the film to come either requires “curiosity” or  “at least suspicion” from the viewer. It’s the type of bold claim that might pack a punch as a rhetorical hook, especially for a documentary that dives into the cultural, social, economic, and political history of policing in the United States.

“The Greatest Night In Pop” is so entertaining and eminently watchable, and it’s as simple as that. Directed by Bao Nguyen, the acclaimed filmmaker of the Bruce Lee doc “Be Water,” the already-engaging subject matter doesn’t hurt: nearly 50 of the top American music artists in the world all in one room, recording a soon-to-be global hit single.

PARK CITY – To suggest that director Jack Bergert and co-screenwriter Dani Goffstein are playing with fire with the first act of their feature film debuts is an understatement of massive proportions. We haven’t walked out of a movie at a major film festival since before the pandemic, but if we weren’t assigned to review “Little Death” we might have.

PARK CITY – How do you critique a movie about recovery? It’s not new territory. The storylines are often similar.

Seemingly not wasting one of its 111 offbeat minutes, sprawling and long for a comedy, but not undeserved here, Nate Silver’s “Between The Temples” begins with immediate hilarity. Ben Gottlieb (a terrific Jason Schwartzman) is a sad sack cantor living at home.

Within minutes following the opening fade-in of “Gaucho Gaucho,” a trio of individuals can be seen dashing across a barren landscape, each sitting astride their own majestic-looking horse bathed in a sea of black and white with a South American backdrop beautifully framing the moment. It’s an appropriate setup to this documentary about gauchos, the colloquialism used to describe Argentinian cowboys and cowgirls, as the 84-minute runtime serves as little more than an exercise in striking photography mixed with a series of vignettes that’s as slice of life as one’s likely to find.

It all seems so idyllic at first and sensible, too. Mother of four Maria Gros Vatne narrates the opening minutes of “A New Kind of Wilderness” as the documentary shows videos and still photographs of her husband and kids romping through Norway’s unassuming fields, streams, and woods.

PARK CITY – Whatever your thoughts on Sam and Andy Zuchero’s “Love Me” few will dispute that for an independently financed film it’s a unique and creative achievement. At least a third of the movie is CG animation, another third is motion capture animation, and the final portion is live action.

It’s barely been two months since Melissa Barrera got fired from “Scream VII,” but the actress has put the franchise and Spyglass Media in her rearview mirror. She’s still happy with her time working on the slasher series, though.

When is an aspiring sociopolitical satire so exasperated with what it’s supposedly lampooning that its anger and indignation threaten to undermine the irony of what it’s trying to ridicule? Directed by Austrian pair Daniel Hoesl and Julia Nieman, their Sahara dry, deadpan social satire, “Veni Vidi Vici” (Latin for “I came; I saw; I conquered”)— about the untouchable nature of the rich and powerful of the world, and how consequences for their actions have largely vanished — isn’t necessarily that film.

PARK CITY – Are you ready for a 93-year-old action hero? No, we’re not referring to whatever movie or television show Sylvester Stallone is working on at the moment (he’s also just a spry 77, by the way). We’re talking about one of the most unlikely heroes of all portrayed by none other than June Squibb.

PARK CITY – It’s 2024. Are you ready for a movie set in the pandemic summer of 2020? Or, like September 11th, another historical event that was hard for Americans to stomach on screen for a good while, do you need a decade or so to process? Your answer to those questions will likely, for better or worse, determine your opinion of Theda Hammel’s “Stress Positions” which debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

PARK CITY – Sometimes the star of the movie isn’t the cast or the director. It’s not the cinematography or the score.

There’s an odd tension and dichotomy coursing throughout the new documentary, “Frida,” an intimacy meets a standard-issue form: a lyrical, magical quality next to something just maybe too safely chronological for its own good. Carla Gutierrez’s new documentary, her directorial debut, is well-meaning and has a clear devotion and affection for her subject, the legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, but as a primarily told cradle-to-grave story, it is doggedly linear and therefore often feels a little familiar.

PARK CITY – Trend alert: drag queen movies might just be the not new thing in the contemporary indie film world. And as a fan of both the visual arts of cinema and drag performance, we certainly aren’t complaining.

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is right around the corner and kicks off later this week. And one of the titles on our Sundance 2024: The 23 Most Anticipated Movies To Watch feature is “Suncoast.” The directorial debut of actor turned writer/director Laura Chinn, “Suncoast,” is semi-biographical and is based on the filmmaker’s personal teenage experience growing up in St.

The United States is approaching an incredibly important election this November, and it seems as if our choices for President are going to come down to two incredibly old, wealthy white men. For the most part, that’s been our choice since the country was founded more than two centuries ago.

Kristen Stewart has a busy 2024 ahead of her with two films ready to premiere at Sundance, the lesbian crime thriller “Love Lies Bleeding” and the sci-fi romance “Love Me.” And she also has “Sacramento,” a road trip comedy on the way later this year, too. But Stewart may put off doing any other acting gigs until she gets the funding to make her directorial debut, “The Chronology Of Water.” In fact, that’s what she’s threatened to do in a new cover story for Variety.

There are lots of intriguing films premiering at Sundance this year, like “Love Lies Bleeding,” “A Different Man,” and Steven Soderbegh’s “Presence.” But how about a social satire that sounds like a mix between HBO’s “Succession” and the 2020 Blumhouse flick “The Hunt”? Enter “Veni Vidi Vici,” ready to premiere on the fest’s opening night.

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is right around the corner and that means it’s time to finalize guests and, most importantly, jurors. The festival has a long tradition of honoring its multiple competition slates and over the years has recruited jurors such as Jane Campion, Sarah Polley, Edgar Wright, Jon Hamm, Darren Aronofsky, Quentin Tarantino, Parker Posey, and even RuPaul Charles.

Sundance is celebrating its 40th Anniversary next month and the festival has revealed more programming to highlight its cinematic legacy. Topping the list of events are new 4K restorations of “Napoleon Dynamite,” “Go Fish,” “Three Seasons,” and an extended version of “DIG!,” with over 30 minutes of new footage, retitled “DIG!XX.” Additionally, there will be screenings of “The Babadook,” and “Pariah” as well as restorations of “Mississippi Masala” and “The Times of Harvey Milk.” READ MORE: Sundance 2024: New works from Steven Sodergh, Debra Granik, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck and more Alumni always have a home to return to in Park City and 2024 will be no exception.

Earlier today, the lineup was finally announced for the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Once again, Sundance has cemented itself as the premier festival in the U.S.

The Sundance Film Festival is celebrating its 40th anniversary in January and it’s no surprise that some legendary Park City filmmakers are returning with new films for the 2024 edition. Among the alumni are Steven Soderbergh, whose landmark film “Sex, Lies and Videotape” debuted at the 1989 fest; Debra Granik, whose Best Picture nominated “Winter’s Bone” won the Grand Jury Dramatic prize at the 2010 festival; and Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who will premiere their fourth movie at Sundance following 2006’s “Half Nelson,” 2008’s “Sugar” and 2015’s “Mississippi Grind.” READ MORE: “American Fiction,” “May December,” and “Past Lives” Top 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards Soderbergh’s latest effort is “Presence,” starring Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, and Julia Fox.

With the Venice, Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals right around the corner, it appears to be an opportune time for January’s major film industry event, the Sundance Film Festival, to provide an update for 2024. This celebratory 40th edition under the Sundance moniker is Eugene Hernandez’s first as Festival Director and he’s written a letter to the film community providing an update on this year’s event.