Hulu really is taking over the world.   Not only is Alec Baldwin extremely convincing in that Superbowl commercial, the site has got first dibs on the new red band trailer for ‘World’s Greatest Dad.’

I was lucky enough to catch this movie at CineVegas earlier this week, and I will have my review for it up soon enough.   I will say that it is sick and twisted in all the best ways, and it’s taking me some time to get my head all the way around it to talk about it in full detail.   Jody Hill sure seemed to like it.   God, that guy is fidgety in a movie theater.

Anyway, check out the red band trailer for this latest comedy directed by Bobcat Goldthwait:

‘World’s Greatest Dad’ comes out on August 21st in limited theaters.

Check out Scott’s rave review of the film from Sundance right here!

Source: Hulu

Now that Sundance is 2 months in the past I found my interview that I did with Ondi Timoner, and Josh Harris from ‘We Live In Public’. I posted it because the movie is so freaking awesome and will be playing at SXSW. So enjoy..

‘Mystery Team’ was one of the best movies at Sundance and it still has not gotten purchased which in my eyes is a travesty. Everyone that I talked to about this movie absolutely loved it at Sundance, and I really cannot believe no one has stepped up to the plate yet.

Even with people being scared of the movie not making a splash at the box office, this movie will be HUGE on dvd, cult classic status. Not to mention the fact that Derrick Comedy has a very large Internet following and if this movie is marketed properly, it could definitely reach ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ big very easily.

You can read My Review here. /Film Review, Film School Rejects Review, FirstShowing.net Review, Geek Tyrant Review, Cinematical Review, LatinoReview.com Review.

All of those guys matter, and all of those guys loved the movie. Think about all of the combined page views and visits they all/we all get and then figure that if we are pounding down our readers throats to go see the movie it will probably happen. Whoever gets this movie will wind up with a cash cow, lets just hope they cash in properly.

Sundance is officially over and now it is time for me to breakdown the 10 best movies that I saw during the festival. Prepare yourself, this is going to be a good one:

1) ‘Worlds Greatest Dad’

Bobcat brought this movie to Sundance, and it was the sleeper hit of the festival. Robin Williams in probably he most controversial role. Great but super dark.

Read the Review

2) ‘We Live in Public’

Ondi Timoner has truly created one of the greatest documentaries of our time. Josh Harris is responsible for everything that you currently see or do on the web. Not to mention this film won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Read the Review.

3) ’500 Days of Summer’

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel together in an indie romantic comedy? Yes Please.

Read the review.

4) ‘Black Dynamite’

I have been propping this movie for months, of course it made the list! Plus it was one hell of a ride.

Read the review.

5) ‘Mystery Team’

This movie surprised me, definitely one of my favorites. A movie about a group of high school mystery detectives that get brought on to help solve a double murder in their small town. Derrick Comedy Group Rules!

Read the review.

6) ‘Humpday’

Mumble core movie of Sundance, and EVERYONE loved this. 2 best friends decide to make an “artsy” amateur porn for Hump Fest about 2 straight guys having sex with each other.

Read the review.

7) ‘Bronson’

Tom Hardy plays the UK’s infamous prisoner “Charlie Bronson”. This movie is absolutely amazing.

Read the review.

8) ‘The Winning Season’

Sam Rockwell brings the house down as an alcoholic ex basketball coach who is brought on to revive the girls varsity basketball team

Read the review.

9) ‘Peter and Vandy’

A great and witty love story from Jay DiPietro and I think this might have been the best love story of Sundance 2009.

Read the review.

10) ‘Adventureland’

This movie had the biggest hype going in, and although it didn’t live up to ALL the hype it was still a super heartwarming movie.

Read the review.

There you have it boys and girls, my top 10 favorite movies at Sundance 2009. I cant wait to do it again next year!

Day 10 of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival which also means that it is the final day, and I have to go home tomorrow but that doesn’t mean we weren’t going to burn the town down.

In the morning I hit a screening of ‘Worlds Greatest Dad‘ which is written/directed by Bobcat Goldthwait and is an absolutely phenomenal movie starring Robin Williams. After the movie Bobcat did a Q&A that brought the house down and I got to meet him afterwords.

From there I went and grabbed some food with Neil, Alex and Pete down on main street. We hit the Sundance store and picked up some swag, and then went home to get changed for the closing night party.

At the party, we all tried to figure out how to get more than our 3 free drinks and hang out with the most celebrities. One of them was Joseph Gordon-Levitt:

Then ran into the ‘Black Dynamite’ guys:

The Sundance Party was off the chain except the fact that Devin and Alex got into it, and Pete was there to record the whole thing. Here is a picture you can see me taking during the fight:

and then we ran into Bobcat again. From there we hit main street and ran into the Mystery Team cast again:

After it was all said and done, I had to head back to the condo to catch a shuttle and go back home. Sundance was great, and this is me signing off.

The awards have been announced for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and they are pretty surprising. I am super stoked that ‘We Live in Public’ won big, as well as ‘Push’. Here are the entire awards list thanks to FirstShowing.net and Alex Billington.

Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic:
Push, directed by Lee Daniels

Grand Jury Prize, Documentary:
We Live in Public, directed by Ondi Timoner

World Cinema Jury Prize, Dramatic:
The Maid, directed by Sebastian Silva

World Cinema Jury Prize, Documentary:
Rough Aunties, directed by Kim Longinotto

World Cinema Special Jury Prize, Documentary:
Tibet in Song, directed by Ngawang Choephel

World Cinema Special Jury Prize, Dramatic:
Catalina Saavedra for The Maid

Special Jury Prize for Embodying Collaborative Spirit:
Humpday, directed by Lynn Shelton

Special Jury Prize for Acting, Dramatic:
Mo’Nique for Push

Special Jury Prize, Documentary:
Good Hair, directed by Jeff Stilson

Excellence in Cinematographcy, Dramatic:
Adriano Goldman for Sin Nombre

Excellence in Cinematography, Documentary:
Bob Richman for The September Issue

Waldo Scott Screenwriting Award:
Nicholas Jasenovec and Charlyne Yi for Paper Heart

Excellence in Directing, Dramatic:
Cary Joji Fukunaga for Sin Nombre

Excellence in Directing, Documentary:
Natalia Almada for El General

Excellence in Editing, Documentary:
Karen Schmeer for Sergio

The Alfred P. Sloan prize for a feature film with science as a theme, or featuring a scientist, engineer, or mathematician main character, was awarded to Adam, directed by Max Mayer. As the winner of the Alfred P. Sloan prize, the film receives a $20,000 award.

AUDIENCE AWARDS:

Audience Award, Dramatic:
Push, directed by Lee Daniels

Audience Award, Documentary:
The Cove, directed by Louise Psihoyos

World Cinema Audience Award, Dramatic:
An Education, directed by Lone Scherfig

World Cinema Audience Award, Documentary:
Afghan Star, directed by Havana Marking

After hearing some great things about ‘Adam’ I decided to strike out and see it. It was a super packed house and everyone had the same idea.

The movie itself had a great story, a guy with Asperger Syndrome loses his dad and is determined to live life on his own. A school teacher/writer movies into an empty apartment on the 3rd floor and he is immediately smitten with her. After hanging out a few times she starts to think about what it would be like to have a relationship with someone that has Asperger’s. Their love blossoms from there and they strike out in a relationship.

After realizing that Adam isn’t able to understand simple things like saying ‘I Love You’, and knowing how she feels about things. Her father, played by Peter Gallagher, doesn’t help things out at all by not approving of him and telling her that she doesn’t need to be with him.

Even with a good plot, the execution of the movie falls flat. It is both slow, and boring. I almost fell asleep in the movie several times and just didn’t do anything for me. After telling a lot of other people about this they seemed to feel similar, I really just cant bring myself to like this movie.

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Originally, I wasn’t going to see this one at Sundance, I figured with Robin Williams it would see a wide release. After hearing about it being one of the sleeper hits at Sundance, I changed my mind and decided to see it on my final day here. After I read up on it and realized that Bobcat did this movie it was a must see on my list.

First let me tell you that as Bobcast said in his ‘Q&A’, this is a comedy made for adults. It is not marketed, or meant to be seen by teens. This movie is really dark, and has some pretty twisted humor but that shouldn’t stop you from seeing it because this is probably the best movie at Sundance this year. I honestly feel like I could quit seeing movies at this point because I just finished the best movie of the 2009 Sundance.

The story follows Lance Clayton (Robin Williams) who is an English teacher at his son’s school. Lance is attempting to revitalize things in his life, all the while trying to understand his 15 year old son Kyle (Daryl Sabara). Kyle is lashing out at everything in life, including his dad and having trouble fitting in. Lance is having an affair with another teacher at school and is insecure because she wants to keep it secret.

There is a MAJOR twist in the movie and things start to also change to Lance, but not in the way that he initially thought. I cant go too much into the plot without ruining the movie for you but what Bobcat has created here needs to be seen, better yet it MUST be seen. The story is passionate, emotional and even a little depressing.

When this movie gets bought, mark its release date on your calendar and if it doesn’t get bought it is a damn travesty. Robin Williams delivers is best performance in years and the entire cast pulls this movie off flawlessly. I recorded the Q&A and I will upload it later…

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

2nd to last day here at Sundance and like a ghost town shell of what it was a week ago. Most of the press has gone home, a lot of the visitors have left and all that are left are the hardcore movie goers who have to see everything in their power. The good news is that my reception is back to normal, you cant complain about that.

Today I hit an early screening of ‘We Live in Public‘ which was an absolutely amazing documentary.

After that I hung around HQ, grabbed some breakfast from Squatters, and then watched ‘Peter and Vandy‘ with Neil from Film School Rejects. It was a really great flick, one that is at the top of my favorites list. After that I watched a later screening of ‘Adam’ which was decent, but kind of boring.

I wanted to stay awake and watch the midnight screening of ‘Dead Snow’ but at 10 I was so exhausted, not even a full throttle could revive me. I went back to the condo to sleep only to realize the Bob Stencil guys has gone home and now had the room to myself. It was weird to not have an entire production studio setup in the room, and sort of lonely. Sometimes Bob Stencil would cuddle up with me at night Lonely.

Here is a picture I took after ‘Adam’ last night…

Day 8 is in the books and the wear and tear is starting to be felt everywhere. The locals are becoming progressively more hostile, and its evident that the ones who aren’t at the screenings, really don’t like Sundance as it drags on.

Today I watched ‘Unmade Beds‘, ‘The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle‘, and attempted to watch ‘Spring Breakdown’. What do I mean when I say attempted? Well that means that I walked out because the movie was so freaking horrible. The other two movies were enjoyable, but I couldn’t bring myself to sit through a really bad movie just to rip the hell out of it so I walked out.

Park City is getting quite due to a lot of press and visitors heading back, but its still pretty busy on the buses and the non press screenings are pretty packed. Here are some photos I took today…

This lady was rocking a jacket straight out of the 80′s. Kanye West style:

Park City at night is stunning:

Well, that is all I can muster up for now… thanks and tune in tomorrow for day number 9!

‘Peter and Vandy’ was on my list of must see movies at Sundance, and I am happy to report that it DID live up to the hype that I created for it.

This movie reminded me a lot of another flick here at Sundance ’500 Days of Summer’, but I might have enjoyed this one more than that. It isn’t nearly as flashy as the above mentioned movie, however what it lacks in flash it makes up for in the extraordinary story telling that Jay DiPietro was able to translate to the big screen.

On the surface the movie is your typical love story, boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love. The thing that I enjoyed most about the whole thing is that the story isn’t told from beginning to end, it jumps around. It shows you what you think might be the ending at first, then evolves it in pieces. Jay DiPietro doesn’t treat the viewer like an idiot and spell out the entire thing for you, he trusts that you are smart enough to put it all together yourself and this is where ‘Peter and Vandy’ will trump ’500 Days of Summer’.

Peter (Jason Ritter) is a “nice guy” that stumbles upon a girl named Vandy (Jess Weixler) while eating his lunch one day on a bench in New York. After blowing it his first conversation with her, he makes another go at it a few days later and they strike out on a fresh romance.

I have heard some pretty negative things about this movie and honestly they must all be idiots because this movie is fantastic. Jay DiPietro created something he can really be proud of, and I just hope that it gets the chance to be shown in the mainstream.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Everyone who does anything with video on the Internet should see this movie, and I really don’t know why more press didn’t see it at Sundance. This is a documentary/biopic of Josh Harris, who is the pioneer of the Internet and video over the Internet. WIthout this guy, I would not be able to be doing what I am currently doing. If you think about it, everything he did back in 1996-1999 paved the way for “blogs” as you know them.

First off let me say that this guy, I hadn’t heard of him either and I fancy myself to be pretty knowledgeable when it comes to things about the Internet. This guy is responsible for Chat Rooms, I know they aren’t as cool now but when I first got AOL back in 1999 that is all I did was chat. Not to mention this guy is responsible for TV on the web, he created a whole television network and broadcast it over the Internet and did it for free.

This documentary follows what he was able to accomplish, what he predicted would be the future of online media and how he was able to do everything that he did.

The main parts of this documentary focus around 2 parts of his “experiments”. The first being called “Quietly We Live in Public”, which he setup a HUGE underground “hotel” to serve as the first voyeur site on the Internet. The entire house was rigged with camera’s, video conferencing and you got to watch as these people lived, ate, slept, had sex, showered… anything you would do at home, they did it as well but they did it in public and it was all broadcast on the Internet completely uncensored. It didn’t last long, and at the end of the 30 days it was shut down by police who thought it was some sort of doomsday cult that was going to organize a mass suicide.

After that went down the tube, he started weliveinpublic.com which was a multi million dollar project that he did with his girlfriend and they broadcast every moment of their life online. People would log on, watch and chat with them all the while it was destroying everything they had.

Ondi Timoner has created a true masterpiece and it is something that needs to be seen by anyone who is involved with, or creates things that go on the web. Its like a professional basketball player watching old film of players like Wilt Chamberlain, or Michael Jordan. She had a personal relationship with him, as she was one of the people that lived in his first experiment and you can really tell how much this project means to her, it comes through in the doc.

Josh Harris created the game, and we are all just playing in his world.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Everyone is talking about how crazy this movie was so I definitely had to check it out for myself. What I found was an experiment in cinema story telling, and the story keeps you holding on because you cant believe what you are seeing.

The story follows Dory (Marshall Allman) who is struggling to find his way in life, quits his day job and gets a job as a janitor with a night cleaning company. The cleaning company is run by a strange group of people that love what they do. One of the buildings they clean specializes in market research and are currently working on studies for cookies. The cookies contain an experimental chemical that is supposed to emulate the warm feeling for fresh baked cookies.

During the experiment it starts to have a strange reaction in all of the male subjects. They start to experience abdominal pains, cramping and sickness. After a while they finally realize that they could be carrying something in their stomach’s.

The movie stars one of my favorite indie comedy guys Vince Vieluf, and he is absolutely brilliant in this movie. The guy seems like a goof off, and I think he plays the high strung slacker guy better than anyone else in the business.

David Russo the writer/director of the film did a tremendous job writing and showing his vision for the story. This is the first film I have seen of his and I have to say that I am pretty impressed with his work. Not sure this one will hit everyone in the mainstream, but if you get a chance to see it make certain that you do.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

I was at the Egyptian Theater today and saw the poster for ‘Mystery Team’, which if you haven’t seen it already then you obviously have bad taste. Sorry for the low-res-ness. I took it with my iPhone.

Today was a pretty slow day, I made it up on time to see ‘The Winning Season‘ at Eccles which makes the 2nd great Sam Rockwell movie I have seen here at Sundance. After that it was off to interview Nicolas Winding Refn, the director/writer of ‘Bronson‘. I hadn’t seen ‘Bronson‘ at that point so we decided to sit down and talk after I watched the afternoon screening of it. The movie was brilliant, and the interview was just as good.

After that I went up to headquarters to request some tickets and ran into the cast of ‘Mystery Team‘ who said they loved the review I wrote about the movie. I asked them to do an intro for the site and they obliged:

While I was at headquarters I found this new tea that is freaking amazing. Its called Sundance Organic Life:

Afterwords I headed over to the Yarrow to write up some reviews and get some stuff posted. Got all of that stuff done, was too tired to hit a screening of ‘We Live in Public’ so I just headed back to the condo to get some sleep.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from ‘Unmade Beds’ based on the synopsis and other things I had heard. What I got was a UK art-house flick about a couple of 20 something drifters who made it from bed to bed while trekking through Europe. Axl keeps count of all of the beds he has slept in since he left home on his journey. He was up to 20 until he landed himself in a communal home/bar and gets to live with them for free. The main goal of his journey to find his dad and see why he abandoned him.

The other story is follows is from a girl named Vera who seems to have recently gotten her heart broken. She goes around taking pictures of all of the beds she sleeps in with a Polaroid camera. She meets a guy at random and starts a low key love affair with him.

The stories finally come together towards the end of the movie with both Axl and Vera have a chance encounter and she leaves him something that he can remember.

The movie was very art house and was visually stunning, but the story is strung together and at points things seem to make very little sense. All in all its a great film that deserves to be seen just understand that the story is a little slow, just keep watching.

This is the first short I have reviewed at Sundance, but this one definitely deserves a review. It played in front of ‘Spring Breakdown’, and it was absolutely brilliant!

The characters in the movie are all like cabbage patch dolls or something similar. The main character is blind and lives in the woods. A local lumber jack helps cut her some wood and to reward him they do some very dirty deeds. The great thing is that you are watching giant dolls has sex, and do all of the dirty deeds.

This is one of the best shorts I have seen so far here at Sundance, and it definitely needs to be seen!

There was all sorts of buzz going around about Steven Soderbergh showing his newest masterpiece ‘The Girlfriend Experience’ and I was a little hesitant to believe this was even a possibility. I went ahead and submitted a request to get tickets for the event thinking that at the very least I would get to see some clips and hear one of the greatest directors working right now talk about the flick.

When we got there it was as packed as I have seen anything here at Sundance. We got in our seats and Soderbergh came out and started talking about why everyone thought he would be showing the movie. Then he says “the only reason I know of that people think I am showing the movie… is because I really am showing it tonight”, and the crowd erupted. He mentioned that the movie is still in the works and it was a pretty rough cut, but we would get an idea of where he is going with it.

The movie didn’t seem rough at all, it looked very complete. I walked out of the theater thinking that this movie was brilliant, and I am not sure how he can improve on it anymore than he already has.

Essentially the story follows a high priced hooker played by porn star Sasha Grey, who provides he clients with what they call “the girlfriend experience”. Essentially it means that instead of just sex, they go out on dates, talk about things, kiss, and do all things that you and your girlfriend would do… except in the morning you have to pay her… a lot.

The main gist of the story is that she is trying to build her business up, and figuring out ways to do this all the while sustaining a real relationship with her boyfriend.

I am probably not even supposed to be talking about this movie so I wont go into any more plot than that but let me tell you, this could be my favorite Soderbergh work. It is magnificently brilliant and I cannot wait to see what the finished movie will look like.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

If you read our site on an type of regular basis you know that I have been obsessed with this movie since we first posted the trailer. Well I found out that it would be premiering at Sundance and immediately starting reeling at the chance to see it.

I ran into the Scott Sanders, and Adrian Younge and we talked about the movie, then hung out with them during the ‘Mystery Team’ screening and they invited our crew to the after party the next night. I didn’t get a chance to see the movie that night but I certainly made it a priority to hit the after party.

I finally got a chance to sit down and see the movie on Tuesday (which I wanted to see this movie on my birthday so it worked out perfectly). What I was in for I don’t think I was nearly ready enough.

If you don’t already know ‘Black Dynamite’ is blaxploitation movie done in a throwback 70′s grindhouse cinema style. The movie looks like it was done in 1974, lost somewhere along the way and now its finally being released.

‘Black Dynamite’ is badder than Bruce Lee, and gets more ladies with his stache than Chuck Norris. This guy is the epitome of a badass, in fact he invited the word badass… it didn’t even exist till I saw the movie on Tuesday.

The story follows ‘Black Dynamite’ as he tries to avenge the death of his brother, all the while getting the “smack” off the streets and out of the orphanage. To do this he recruits a gang of some badass jive turkeys and together they take a stand against “the man”, and bring peace back to the community. He also manages to father a few children, and get down with more than a few ladies, you dig?

This movie features some of the greatest, over the top fight scenes to ever be recorded, along with a soundtrack that leaves you to get funky fresh in your seat. This is a top notch movie that shouldn’t be ignored, so lets hope that Sony gets it right and puts this out for EVERYONE to see.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Day 6 was much better as I got a full nights rest and felt pretty good waking up early to catch ‘Adventureland‘, which was really good but not as good as I thought it would be. After that was had to hustle to get down to the Yarrow for an 11:15 screen of ‘The Informers‘, which was quite terrible. Amber Heard is naked, which is a movie geek dream come true but it is not enough to save this film.

From here I went and grabbed some lunch with Neil and Pete at The Racket Club, and the service was horrid. Watched a bunch of President Obama driving around in his fly limo and then off to the yarrow for some work. Got a few things done and went over to Eccles to see a special, super early sneak peak at ‘The Girlfriend Experience’ which is the new Steven Soderbergh flick starring Sasha Grey as a high price hooker who provides her clients with..you guessed it a girlfriend experience. The movie was great and I cannot wait to see the finished product. Oh, wait… I wasn’t supposed to say any of that stuff so strike it from your memory!

From there I went back to the Yarrow, posted Jonathan Levine’s Sundance stuff he sent me and waited around for a late night screening of my most anticipated movie of Sundance ‘Black Dynamite’. This movie was even more badass than I thought it would be and that is saying ALOT. Even though today was my birthday I was stupid tired and headed back to the condo for some much needed rest.