Movies I Hope to Get to See

Culling these from Paste Magazine's articles on upcoming films at Sundance and elsewhere, I'm wanting to document the ones that sound interesting to me. I usually dump this sort of thing in my Netflix queue, but I'm far enough ahead of the curve on these that they're not listed in Netflix.

Pete Smalls Is Dead:

At Slamdance - from Paste's article:

The Category: Slamdance, Narrative Feature
The Premise: KC (Peter Dinklage), a former screenwriter turned downtrodden East Coast Laundromat owner, finds himself back in Los Angeles when his dog Buddha is kidnapped by loan sharks. KC reaches out to his friend Jack (Mark Boone Junior), who promises to front the $10,000 “dog” ransom if KC comes to L.A. to attend the funeral of their late friend Pete Smalls (Tim Roth), a famous Hollywood director.



The Key Players: Director Alexandre Rockwell; Peter Dinklage, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Rosie Perez

The Draw: That amazing cast. Buscemi and Roth together for the first time since Reservoir Dogs. The ridiculous blonde wig Buscemi wears. And the ludicrous premise. Delightful.

Page One: A Year At the New York Times - from Paste's article:

The Category: Sundance, U.S. Documentary Competition
The Premise: With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, newspapers going bankrupt and outlets focusing on content they claim audiences (or is it advertisers?) want, Page One chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy if in-depth investigative reporting becomes extinct. At the media desk, a dialectical play-within-a-play transpires as writers like salty David Carr track print journalism’s metamorphosis even as their own paper struggles to stay vital and solvent. Meanwhile, rigorous journalism—including vibrant cross-cubicle debate and collaboration, tenacious jockeying for on-record quotes, and skillful page-one pitching—is alive and well.

The Key Players: Director Andrew Rossi

The Draw: Oh, how can we count the ways this movie could be entertaining? It might be a hard-hitting expose of the unsightly sausage-factory works that goes into producing the world’s most influential newspaper. Or it might be a fast-paced thrill ride through the thousand-and-one split-second decisions that must be made to put out a high-quality daily. Or it could be a hilariously un-self-aware paean to the diligent saints that so many journalists see themselves to be. Or… or… or…

The Green Wave

The Category: Sundance, World Cinema Documentary Competition
The Premise: In early 2009, a new generation of Iranians hoped for change through the upcoming presidential elections. Fueled by youthful exuberance and media technology, a groundswell—the so-called Green Wave—emerged to challenge the status quo, and caused a seismic shift in the political climate. A new brand of revolution seemed to be at hand. All polls predicted challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would be the country’s next president; however, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the victor, prompting a backlash of unparalleled violence and oppression and a massive surge of human-rights violations that continues today. In this powerful and urgent documentary, filmmaker Ali Samadi Ahadi integrates animation with live-action footage, testimonials, and posts from courageous Iranian bloggers, who dared to tell the world about the anatomy of the movement and its devastating consequences. The Green Wave is a remarkable portrait of modern political rebellion, an exposé of government-sanctioned violence, and a vision of peace and hope that continued resistance may galvanize a new Iran.
The Key Players: Director Ali Samadi Ahadi
The Draw: Reminiscent of the beautiful Waltz With Bashir, but with the added twist of integrating actual tweets and other social media into the narrative. It could be the rethinking of the current wave of the digital age that The Social Network promised to be. And it could have far more impact on the world.

THE GREEN WAVE teaser (ENGLISH) from Jan Krueger on Vimeo.