• Stu at Defamer takes a look at this year’s Oscar nominees that debuted at last year’s Sundance and predicts that An Education will receive Academy Awards recognition one year from now.
• One of this year’s Sundance films has already been nominated for an Oscar: the animated short This Way Up.
• And one of this year’s Oscar nominees almost wasn’t a Sundance selection: AJ Schnack samples from an IDA interview with Geoffrey Gilmore in which Man on Wire is said to have nearly been rejected.
• The Envelope points out three Oscar nominees who are at Sundace this week: Josh Brolin, Melissa Leo and Michael Shannon, the latter of whom stars in The Missing Person.
• Four directors/projects have been named winners of this year’s Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards.
• Anne Thompson’s summary of this year’s fest notices it was a “time of transition for both Sundance and the industry,” while also quoting manager Michael Sugar, who believes it was a return to the past: “This year’s fest started to recapture the intended spirit. It seemed back to being about the filmmakers.” Also at Variety, Todd McCarthy’s summary notes that An Education and Sin Nombre were the two emblematic films of the fest, and both fit in with the start of the Obama age.
• Manohla Dargis’ NY Times summary concentrates heavily on the presence of Sundance hero Steven Soderbergh, whose latest film she didn’t care for.

I missed it when it aired over the weekend, but apparently there was a short film on Saturday Night Live this past Saturday starring guest host Paul Rudd, Bill Hader and an out-of-Obama-costume Fred Armisen, directed by none other than Noah Baumbach. Via Whatevs, I’ve embedded it above. It’s a cute bit of bromance–they’re all sleeping with the same girl, because they all really love each other! It’s no Mr. Jealousy (ah, Chris Eigeman and Peter Bogdanovich, together at last), but at the very least, it’s considerably more subtle than anything I’ve seen on SNL in awhile.

The one face that has been prevalent all over Fantastic Fest for the past week, even more so than Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League, has been Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo. His movie Timecrimes premiered to U.S. audiences here last year, and was snapped up by Magnolia; there’s now an Americanized version in the works. He’s been at pretty much every single screening, every event, and in every condition: tired, wired, drunk, sober, sleepy, awake.

He doesn’t have a feature film at the festival this year, but he did come with about 90 minutes worth of his short films, and those played as a single screening full of Nacho’s wacky blend of British and Spanish humor. Check out the full interview with him below, where you can also watch several of his shorts.

…Read more

FILMMAKER Magazine is doing a sort of “where are they now?” with past with former honorees of their “25 New Faces of Independent Film” list (see this year’s installment here). This catch-up with Ronald Bronstein has some interesting bits of news about how the Frownland director/Butterknife star has been spending his time.

First, though Frownland is still without U.S. distribution, it has been added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. “I took this as a good indicator that it was time to stop pushing the forlorned thing, assume it’ll have some kind of life ahead of it, and move onto my next project with more active fervor,” Bronstein says. That project is currently in rehearsals, with plans to shoot this winter.

Meanwhile, Bronstein says he plans to continue his “semi-reluctant plunge into acting” with a lead role in the next feature by Josh and Bennie Safdie. To celebrate that bit of good news, I’ve embedded the Jerry Lewis-inspired Safdie short Jerry Ruis, Shall We Do This? above, which we gave an award to when I was on the short film jury at CineVegas last month.

Can he do this? Is this legal? How does he do it? What interview questions does he ask? What does he tell publicists he’s going to do? Will any of them ever let him do it again?

All of those questions, and surely more, are sparked by Jamie Stuart’s latest video, In Spring. Described as a tribute to Bunuel and Dali, it’s a highly stylized document of Stuart’s visit to the New York offices of embattled distributor THINKFilm to interview Werner Herzog about his latest film, Encounters at the End of the World. Except Herzog is playing “Gunter Merkwurdigeliebe, THINKfilm Chairman, CEO and President.” Except I don’t think he knows that. After the interview, Stuart’s voiceover inform us, his “crew took part in snorting lines of Grade A Bolivian cocaine with the executives,” an experience which led them to conclude that “the film industry is as solid and secure as ever.” Well, after all that, who wouldn’t?

Watch it here.

I don’t get to see a lot of shorts programs at festivals. So, when I went to the Independent Film Festival of Boston, I indulged in their delicious menu of shorts. One of the audience favorites was a surprising little piece from Australia. A zombie flick that–unlike most zombie movies–truly transcended its genre. In honor of our Presidential Zombie Photoshop Contest going on until May 25th, I ask you undead to dim the lights, put on your headphones and place your fingernails between your teeth.

I present to you, who have not had the pleasure yet, I Love Sarah Jane. (Watch the full screen version on YouTube.)

Winner of the SXSW Wholphin Award (and rapturously reviewed for us at the festival by David Lowery), there’s not a single short film on the circuit more eagerly anticipated (by me, at least) than Glory at Sea. As director Benh Zeitlin is still recovering from injuries sustained en route to the film’s SXSW premiere, Sea’s next screening has been postponed until May. But in the meantime, via Twitch, we can watch the trailer. See above.

YouTube handed out awards this week, voted on by users of the site, to the best videos of the past year in twelve categories. I watched the short film winner, My Name is Lisa, when it was a finalist in that Juno promotional contest a couple of months back, where it took third place. I thought it was pretty terrible––unbearably mawkish, in fact. But what do I know? It apparently managed to draw tears from at least one person who makes a living telling us why culture is stupid, and that’s no small feat. Watch it for yourself above, and see the rest of the winners here.

Aaron Katz’s third SXSW premiere in as many years, Let’s Get Down to Brass Tacks continues the filmmaker’s tradition of catching our attention with genius titles––somehow simultaneously catchy, evocative and a little tongue-in-cheek. Brilliant branding aside, the debut of Brass Tacks‘ debut flew somewhat under the radar this year; the twelve-minute short was tacked in front of screenings of the Emerging Visions entry Bootleg, Wisconsin, and many Katz fans seemed unaware that the film was even in the festival.

This is maybe for the best, because Brass Tacks is the kind of thing that needs to be seen without the influence of puffed-up expectations. Definitely slight but surprisingly satisfying, it’s a twelve minute short, staring the director, set in a Days Inn in Mystic, Connecticutt. Katz films himself eating, watching TV, taking a bath, taking a phone call, going to sleep, and waking up. Is that it? Yes, but of course, it isn’t. In long takes that pay special attention to colorless homogeneity of his “set,” Katz delivers a self-contained portrait of the eerie calm endemic to just hanging out, alone, in the type of business traveler room that’s really not meant to be hung out in.

A phrase I found myself saying a lot at SXSW this year: “I liked it. It’s not gonna change the world, but it’s good.” This definitely applies to Let’s Get Down to Brass Tacks, but unlike some of the other films I saw at SXSW, I think that description matches its aspirations. It’s not a grand statement, but as a sketch of a moment, a place, a feeling, it’s virtually perfect.

Portfolio points to this short film starring Robert Evans, designed to promote a line of luxury sunglasses inspired by the legendary producer.  Mind Games, styled as a trailer for a film noir, briefly summarizes the Evans character’s infatuation with a cool blonde described by Fred Schreurs as “a raging, memoir-typing harridan on the order, one guesses, of some of Evans’ seven ex-wives.” I read it as a straight Ali MacGraw thing––”Whatever was in her eyes, it sure wasn’t love,” Evans says, in the hindsight of a betrayal, and then, in his trademarked rhetorical-inquisitive manner, admits to having been cuckolded: “Was I smart? No, I was dumb, with a capital ‘d’.” But any read is probably more than this guilty, late afternoon pleasure deserves––it is, after all, an ad for sunglasses that you and I cannot afford.

Brandon Harris sent me a note about his stylish short film, Happiness is No Fun, which purports to be “a short blaxploitation tinged remake of Godard’s seminal Breathless.” It’s not as jokey or spoofy as that logline might lead you to believe–which might lead to some initial disappointments. On the whole, I thought it’s refusal to go to the genre+genre=joke route was refreshing, if at times it gets a little didactic and speechy in its insertion of racial politics. Watch it above, and check out Brandon’s blog here.