'The Great Gatsby' Trailer Gets the Party Started
Next Factor Q&A: Sundance Breakout Gina Rodriguez
Getty Images
The Sundance Film Festival has been known to make stars out of unknowns. Need evidence? Just have a look at Vanity Fair’s current Hollywood edition, which features five Sundance breakouts: Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Olsen, Adepero Oduye, Felicity Jones and Brit Marling. You can now add the Chicago-born star of "Filly Brown," Gina Rodriguez, to that list.
Rodriguez gave one of the festival's most memorable performances as Filly Brown, a struggling emcee trying to make a name for herself while supporting her mother, who's in prison. The NYU Tisch School of the Arts graduate has an impressive slate of projects on her résumé, including a supporting turn in the teen dance comedy "Go for It!," but "Filly Brown" marks her first lead role and proves that Rodriguez is the real deal. That, and she can spit a mean flow. Get More »
'Beasts of the Wild' Takes Grand Jury Prize At Sundance
Cinereach
This year's Sundance Film Festival officially comes to a close today, but the annual celebration of independent film unofficially ended on a high note yesterday as the drama "Beasts of the Southern Wild" was awarded the Grand Jury Prize.
"This project was such a runt, this sort of messy-hair, dirty, wild child, and we just have been taken care of and just eased along until we were ready to stand up on our own," director Benh Zeitlin told CBS. "It's just great that it happened here. This is the right place for the world to meet the film." Get More »
WARNING: 'V/H/S' May Cause Fainting Spells
Sundance
Horror films really can be hazardous to your health.
An audience member attending a midnight screening of "V/H/S" at the Sundance Film Festival was treated by EMTs after he fainted during a particularly gruesome scene, according to Deadline.
"V/H/S" is a horror anthology film about a group of criminals hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house to acquire a rare VHS tape and end up discovering a seemingly endless number of terrifying videos. Get More »
Is Emma Roberts The New Ke$ha?
Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog
All the stars are out at this year's Sundance Film Festival, but it turns out that Emma Roberts isn't content being the next big thing in movies — she's also ready to become the next big thing in pop music as well. And her inspiration, according to her wild new chat with MTV? Ke$ha.
Okay, so the music gig is actually for her new movie "Celeste and Jesse Forever," but Roberts still couldn't be happier over the chance to let it all hang out. "I get to play a pop star, which is so fun. Why not?"
So where does Ke$ha fit in to what Roberts describes as a "wildly entertaining and inappropriate" musical experience? Check out this exclusive interview from MTV — and get ready to rock.
Tracy Morgan Hospitalized After Sundance Collapse
Getty Images
Tracy Morgan has been hospitalized after collapsing during an event at the Sundance Film Festival yesterday.
According to TMZ, the "30 Rock" comedian and "Death at a Funeral" star was being honored at the Creative Coalition Spotlight Awards in Park City, Utah last night when he apparently became disoriented; after being escorted out of the event, he fell unconscious and was rushed by ambulance to the Park City Medical Center. Get More »
The 9 Best Films of Sundance 2011
BorderLine Films
After 10 days of movie marathons, studio acquisitions and the unearthing of up-and-coming talent, a frigid Sundance 2011 has come to an end. The tears we've shed upon departure are still frozen to our faces.
There were over 100 films that played at this year's festival, and we've picked the best of the best of the bunch, most of which will see the light of day sometime in 2011. Read on and take notes - these are the movies you need to see. Get More »
Hot at Sundance: YouTube Bred 'Life in a Day' Defies Reason By Being Awesome
YouTube
A collective groan (emoticon) was heard from across the Internet when Ridley Scott ("Blade Runner," "Robin Hood") and Kevin MacDonald ("Last King of Scotland," the upcoming "The Eagle") joined forces with YouTube to create an outsourced documentary titled "Life in a Day" The idea was for members of the video sites to record their goings-on for an entire day and submit them to the filmmakers to edit into a feature film that would premiere at Sundance.
A "YouTube documentary" brings flashes of adorable kittens, Funniest Home Video-style slapstick and X-rated prank submissions to mind. Could anything of worth be produced by a site that delivers 55 search results for "monkey drinking urine?"
Answer: yes. Get More »
Filed Under: Sundance
Hot at Sundance: 'Pariah' Does Teen Drama the Right Way
MBK Entertainment
You've seen it before: the broken family, the conflicted daughter, the wavering love interest, the slighted best friend. The coming-of-age drama has been done a thousand times, each iteration pushing the archetypical story closer to spoof. How many times can I watch a mother, father and daughter bicker over a moral issue only to come out closer by the end of the spout?!
Thankfully, there is hope. Director Dee Rees' first-time feature "Pariah" is a breath of fresh air for the genre. The film abandons the typical "urban" feel - it's vividly photographed and hopeful in its message. Centering on Alike, an African-American teenager struggling to keep her lesbian lifestyle hidden from her parents, "Pariah" paints its familiar characters - the overbearing religious mother, the aggressive cop father, the friend pushed aside in favor of new romance - with a spectrum of colors, giving each of them something interesting to do. Get More »
Filed Under: Sundance
Warning: Don't Read This if You're Easily Offended
Moderncine
Director Lucky McKee has a simple request for you: Don't see his movie.
The unusual request follows a very unusual evening at Sundance, where McKee premiered his latest horror effort, "The Woman." The film, which is about a woman who is abused and eventually turns the tables on her abuser, was pretty much on nobody's radar until it was actually screened Sunday evening.
And then the s**t totally hit the fan. But will the instant controversy and buzzworthy viral video end up working in the film's favor? Get More »
TimesTalks To Hit Sundance Film Festival
Getty Images
New York is coming to Park City.
TimesTalks, the New York Times' collection of podcasts, webcasts and perhaps a few other kinds of -casts we don't even know about yet, will be hitting the Sundance Film Festival for the first time this year.
TimesTalks will be speaking with Vera Farmiga, who's at Sundance promoting her directorial debut, "Higher Ground," in which she also stars as a woman struggling to find meaning and direction in her life within the constraints of her community's fundamentalist church. Get More »
