Sundance

If people were ever scared of the image of a ghost as a big white sheet with two black eyeholes those days are long gone. Today, the image is a total joke; the go-to costume for lazy children everywhere. One of the most amazing things about David Lowery’s A Ghost Story — and there are a few amazing things about this audacious movie — is the way it imbues that cliched ghost with renewed horror and even poignance. You will never look at that ghost emoji the same way again.

There’s always a stupid reason why the couple in a romantic comedy can’t be together until the closing credits. An ex-girlfriend or boyfriend appears at the most narratively conveniently moment, or one of the leads becomes a ghost, or there’s a misunderstanding that could easily be cleared up if the characters just sat and talked to one another for literally 15 seconds. One of the best things about The Big Sick is that the obstacles (plural, there are several) facing this relationship are real and relatable and believable and hugely serious.

On paper, everything about The Incredible Jessica James sounds redundant and cliche. A young New York City transplant living in gentrified Brooklyn struggles to find success in the arts, she’s still not over a recent break-up, then meets and falls for an unlikely guy. We’ve certainly heard this story before, but its a sharp, refreshing sense of humor, and a stellar performance from actress-comedian Jessica Williams that brings Jim Strouse’s Closing Night Film to life.

When Melanie Lynskey’s Ruth, a depressed nursing assistant, goes to the home of the thief who stole her laptop and grandmother’s silverware, the thief’s father offers to pay her off. When she refuses money he asks, “Well what do you want?” “Everyone to not be such an asshole,” she says earnestly. In I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore Ruth is on a mission, not just to get her belongings back, but to try to understand why everyone around her perpetually sucks.

This morning, our trusty staffers Matt Singer and Erin Whitney head off to Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, the biggest week in American indie cinema. For us commoners who won’t be able to attend, however, we’ll have to subsist on the steady stream of coverage along with the deluge of trailers that always accompanies these parade of premieres. The next week-or-so will offer first looks at the toast of the fest in an effort to get the general public gassed for an eventual wide release, and the fun got going today with a sneak peek at one of the Midnight selections.

Weather Underground’s current forecast for Park City, Utah calls for snow on five out of the first six days of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, including a possible (gulp) five to eight inches on Monday. ScreenCrush’s current forecast for Park City, Utah, snow be damned, calls for as many movies as we can cram into those six days while we’re on the ground covering Sundance 2017. Editor-in-Chief Matt Singer and Senior Editor Erin Whitney will be there, doing their best to honor the mailman’s creed: Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat (okay maybe we won’t have to worry about that one), nor gloom of night will keep them from their appointed rounds. (It’s possible a party or two might; it’s probably too early to tell right now.)

Al Gore is one of those people who gets me thinking about legacy. When Gore’s time on the earth comes to a close, how will he be remembered? As a solid vice president who lost one of the most hotly disputed elections of all time? Or as a champion of environmental conservationism? From the outside, it certainly appears that Gore is angling for the latter. Just this past weekend, it was announced by Paramount Pictures (via Variety) that Al Gore has been working on a sequel to his 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth and that the film was set to be the opening night film at next year’s Sundance Film Festival.

On the heels last week’s hotly anticipated program announcement for the 2017 Sundance Film Festival comes today’s new list of all the premieres, section updates, and special events festivalgoers can expect after their long pilgrimage to Utah this January. Sundance always hosts the first of the big premieres of each year, and carefully curates programs of films to screen at their Midnight and Spotlight sections.

Much like the Golden Globes is considered “the fun one” of all the Hollywood awards ceremonies, Sundance is “the fun one” of American film festivals. It’s where celebrities old and new can rub shoulders with directors, critics, production agents, cinematographers, and everyone in between at the largest independent film festival on U.S. soil. Today, the Sundance Institute announced the lineup for the 2017 festival, and there are a ton of possible future gems on the list.

By now, we’re all familiar with Courtney Love’s rock-star ways, but she recently revealed a new side of herself – her hip-hop side. On Jan. 21 at the Sundance Film Festival's Star Bar, the sometime Hole frontwoman put her own unique spin on Jay-Z’s '99 Problems.'