Shortly after Sundance 2009, Paul wrote a post explaining why he walked out of one of the festival’s biggest buzz-suckers, the romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer. “I figured I’d never write, “It was so-so” for a review, so I left,” he wrote. Acknowledging that he couldn’t “write a “review” of a movie I didn’t fully watch,” he instead decided to “write a review of my decision to walk out a half hour into it,” using a particularly glowing blurb about the film as a bounceboard. Pouncing on a much friendlier comparison to Garden State, Paul wrote 500 off as a weak copy of Zach Braff’s break-out: “It’s kind of like if Garden State had been turned into a TV series, recast, cancelled, then bought by USA network and restarted.”
I did see (500) Days of Summer all the way through (the parentheses were added to the title after Sundance, presumably in a nod to one of the film’s visual tics), so I can review it, but I can’t say Paul’s instinct based on the first thirty minutes was off the mark. The film begins with an on screen disclaimer, an “author’s note” declaring that what we’re about to see is not based on real people or events (punchline: someone named “Jenny Beckman” is nonetheless a “bitch”); shortly after the picture begins to roll in earnest, a deep-voiced gentleman narrator informs us that “This is not a love story.” The aggressive out-of-the-gate broadcasting of all that (500) Days of Summer is not foreshadows what it actually is: a film full of signs with nothing to signify, a mashup of a decade’s worth of Sundance cliche, a confirmation of the obsolescence of the notion that “independent film” could seek to subvert business as usual.

…Read more

So with the film officially getting released finally, it was now time for a strategic marketing scheme. Slumdog Millionaire was first shown at the Telluride Film Festival in late August, and then at the Toronto Film Fest a week later. At both places, the film received unanimous praise and even received the People’s Choice Award at the latter.

…

Not everybody loves Slumdog. Much like your favorite band that got too big, many indie film sites have abandoned the picture and moved on to other movies. An mild indie backlash was probably inevitable [sic].

Above: quotes from a post at The Playlist breaking down Slumdog Millionaire’s bumpy road from target of pre-production bidding war, to its loss of initial distributor Warner Independent, to virtual Best Picture sure thing. This is a useful endeavor. It would be more useful if it were a little more accurate.

…Read more

Typically at SpoutBlog, we rarely state the obvious when it comes to a mediocre movie, trying to instead direct our gaze toward a gem that deserves some advocacy. Unless, of course, there’s a danger that said movie is going to overshadow the much earned good buzz around a great film. Such is the case with 500 Days of Summer starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. It’s a movie I walked out of at Sundance 2009, not because it sucked, but because it was lukewarm. I figured I’d never write, “It was so-so” for a review, so I left. But in the past week it has, surprisingly, garnered ovations that threaten to eclipse so many excellent films coming out of that festival.

Case in point, it’s number one in Coming Soon’s Best of the Fest:

Clearly the biggest crowd-pleaser at this year’s festival was this romantic comedy from first-time director Marc Webb and screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael Webber, which covers a year and a half in the relationship between Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Bishl (Zooey Deschanel), the latter a flighty woman who breaks the former’s heart. While some of the ground covered is stuff we’ve seen before, the film is told in an innovative and clever narrative style, jumping around in time from the height of their developing love affair to the months that follow their break-up. Gordon-Levitt creates an infinitely likeable character that both guys and women can relate to, much like John Cusack in his heyday…. What could easily be seen as a “…Say Anything” for the younger generation, the film’s Sundance premiere received a standing ovation from the audience, and one can expect that when it opens in July, it will be another Searchlight hit in the vein of Garden State and Once.

Of course, I can’t write a “review” of a movie I didn’t fully watch. I can, however, write a review of my decision to walk out a half hour into it. In fact, I’ll use the above blurb to record what was going through my mind in the half hour before I left.

…Read more

• The Hollywood Reporter has already summed up this year’s festival despite there still being a few more days left. The trade calls both the fest and its films “surprising, quality-filled and not as depressing as some expected.”
• Despite this year bringing quality, though, it didn’t necessarily bring buyers. The L.A. Times has a look at how this year was a buyer’s market, particularly noticeable in the low purchase prices and alternative distribution models. And many of the titles picked up, including The Winning Season, Adam and Black Dynamite, were apparently bought for their “broad” audience appeal over their quality.
• AJ Schnack at All these wonderful things writes on the terrible lack of documentary acquisitions so far this festival.
• Marc Webb, whose feature debut, 500 Days of Summer, premiered at this year’s fest, has already made a deal for his second film. He’ll direct The Spectacular Now, another coming-of-age drama also to be scripted by his 500 Days writers, for Fox Searchlight.
• indieWIRE has the 2009 shorts winners. Jury Prizes went to Short Term 12 and Lies while Honorable Mentions include The attack of the robots from Nebula-5, Protect You + Me, Western Spaghetti, Jerrycan, Love You More, I Live in the Woods, Omelette and Treevenge.
• Most of the coverage of Sundance yesterday consisted of report and commentary on the “Dude vs. Film Critic” non-fight. Karina’s mostly first-hand account can be found here.

Following Monday’s drama involving Fox Searchlight’s bid for An Education, Sony Pictures Classics was able to bring the price down and pick up North American and select Latin American rights to the coming-of-age drama for a reported $3-4 million. It’s the distributor’s first acquisition during this year’s festival, having already bought some titles pre-fest. Also making its first buy of the year, Lionsgate acquired US and UK rights to James C. Strouse’s basketball comedy The Winning Season.

Check out our Sundance Deals chart for the full scoop on these two deals and the rest of the acquisitions as of this morning.

• A few films were sold in the past 24 hours, but Lone Sherfig’s An Education was not one of them. Reportedly, Fox Searchlight offered around $1 million for the Nick Hornby-scripted coming-of-age drama, yet the film’s co-reps CAA and Endeavor are asking closer to $10 million. As if any title could seriously expect that high an amount during the “subdued” Sundance of ‘09.
• Oh, by the way, here’s another possible reason for slow sales this year that we missed yesterday: too many co-repped films make for confusing negotiations.
• IFC Films held a press conference yesterday to reveal that, for the first time, the distributor will release a film to VOD day-and-date with its world premiere at this Spring’s SXSW. The film will be Joe Swanberg’s Alexander the Last, and it’s one of a bunch of new titles, including the latest from both Phillipe Garrel and Denys Arcand, slated for IFC’s Festival Direct VOD channel. Steven Soderbergh says that these days filmmakers’ have to “let go of the fantasy” of receiving conventional theatrical releases for their work.
• Also from the IFC press conference: Karina asks about whether on demand data will ever be released a la box office figures; Swanberg tells festival directors that its up to them whether or not VOD kills festival runs; Soderbergh calls BluRay “the worst launch of a new format in the history of formats.”
• And in other IFC VOD news, the NY Times got it wrong last week when it reported that IFC’s hoped-for 250,000 VOD viewers for Soderbergh’s Che would be the equivalent of an $18 million box office take. The figure, corrected during a Sundance panel discussion, would be more like $1.8 million.

Fox Searchlight, the distributor that tends to get the most bang for its Sundance buck, has picked up worldwide rights to Max Mayer’s romantic film Adam with intent for a 2009 theatrical release. Other big deals of the past 24 hours include Sony Classics’ acquisition of North American rights to the blaxploitation tribute Black Dynamite and Magnolia’s pickup of worldwide rights to Lynn Shelton’s comedy Humpday, which will get a VOD release a month prior to its debut in theaters this summer.

Check out our Sundance Deals chart for the full scoop on these three deals and the rest of the acquisitions as of this morning.

Getting ready for the Sundance Film Festival can be very exciting. As we await the event’s Thursday opening, we can’t stop wondering what will be the next big thing. Will this year’s hit be the highly-anticipated Michael Cera project Paper Hearts, or will it be something that we as of yet know nothing about?

It’s easy to forget, however, that oftentimes the next big thing is also the next lamest thing. Sundance sensations, those films that are much-buzzed-about, that sell for a lot of money, that go on to be marketed like crazy and ultimately receive Oscar recognition, tend to lend themselves most easily to backlashes. Usually such derision is deserved, as in the case of the following ten films, each of which made a big splash at Sundance despite being bad.
…Read more

Here’s our running tally of each of the distribution deals announced just before, throughout the course of, and just after the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. We will update this post whenever new information comes in, so bookmark it and keep checking back for the newest latest.

Back when Billy the Kid hit theaters last December, I wrote an essay calling Jennifer Venditti’s non-fiction feature  “The Anti-Juno.” The films begged to be compared at the time, not just because they were both, as I wrote, “films about the inner lives and social stumbling blocks of precocious, ‘outsider’ teenagers,” but because they were actually opening in New York on the same day. Juno came riding in with the best indie cred that Fox Searchlight could buy, so it’s a no-brainer that the eventual Oscar winner would outshine the truly indie Billy on a short timeline. But on a long tail, Billy has a huge advantage, if only because, as Cullen Gallagher put it today at /Hammer to Nail, “Jennifer Venditti has managed the incredible feat of both finding and conveying cinematically a character who is absolutely singular and unique, and at the same time exists as an “everyman” who sums up our collective adolescence.” Honest to blog.

Billy, which I named as one of my favorite films of 2007, comes out on DVD today, in a special package including a commentary track by director Venditti with Ryan Gosling, and a liner notes essay by Miranda July. If you go to the film’s official website and click on the DVD flag on the bottom right, you can actually get 25 percent off your purchase.

Unlike other major papers, which mostly went with a cover shot of a resplendently emotional Marion Cotillard, the ever-classy New York Post puts “former stripper” Diablo Cody on the cover of their Oscar morning-after edition, letting her outdated job description stand in for her name. And with THAT, the rags-to-riches transformation from strip club Cinderella to Oscar winner, as well as the little indie-choo-choo-that-could fiction that made it happen, (the Post story actually uses the phrase “the little indie that could”, and refers to the win itself, which was the second-biggest lock of the night behind Javier Bardem, as a “shocker”) is complete.

Oh, and did we mention that the Post, like Fox Searchlight, the teeny-tiny independent company that made and released Juno, is owned by Rupert Murdoch? Vertically integrated corporate strategy is a beautiful thing.

Via Tim Shey.

UPDATE: I apologize for suggesting that Cody only wore one earring to the Oscars. I was clearly wrong.

Bad Lit passes on the news that Diego Pillco, the construction worker who admitted to killing actress and Waitress writer/director Adrienne Shelly, has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars for the crime.

I still get sick to my stomache when I think about this story. I wrote a story for FILMMAKER Magazine last year about the Waitress team’s push to both capitalize on and redirect attention away from the murder when selling the film, first at Sundance and then to the mainstream art house audience. Waitress may not be the highest work of art, but it’s undoubtedly a personal, writer/director driven film, and I was particularly interested in the idea that the actors and producers who survived Shelly were tasked with uneviable responsibility of protecting her vision in her absence.

…Read more

Fox Searchlight has sent a cease and desist notice to CC2K, a fanboy-friendly pop culture site, demanding that they take down a review of recent WGA winner Diablo Cody’s script for the upcoming teen horror flick, Jennifer’s Body. A message from the site’s editors where the review used to be notes that the C & D was “very polite,” but the net result is, all the same, “no snarky review of Diablo Cody’s new script for you!”

Kate Coe is tracking some of the surrounding chatter at FishbowlLA, including a snarky comment from a Hollywood Elsewhere reader implying that the C & D’s are part of a wider conspiracy on the part of Fox Searchlight to “prevent anything or anyone from getting in the way of this processed fairytale.” We’re all for pointing fingers at Searchlight’s processing department, but what seems even more interesting are signs that, in this case, there might be a double standard. This can’t be a pure issue of copyright, because it seems that Searchlight has ordered the removal of one script review, whilst letting another’s site’s script review stand.
…Read more

Fox Searchlight sent out a press release this morning “announcing” that Juno has crossed the $100 million mark domestically, and with it, they laid bare their entire strategy for giving this film a platform release and selling is as a “crossover success story” before the film was ever released. Juno was opened like an indie in order to make this press release possible. If it they had just opened it like other films that appeal to the same demographic and fit into the same vague genre––Superbad, for example––and it still took twice as long to hit $100 million, even though its star quotient is much higher and its marketing campaign was arguably more aggressive, then that wouldn’t have been news. But make it look like it’s beating the odds, like it’s making history by playing on more screens than The Banger Sisters and making more money than Sideways (as if ANYONE remembers the last time a movie about/for 45 year-olds made more money than a movie about/for 16 year-olds)––now that’s a story!

In short: I think a draft of this press release was written in September, and details and dates were changed after the Oscar nominations. That is all.