Screen Daily reports that Roadside Attractions has picked up RJ Cutler’s VOGUE documentary The September Issue, for a planned September release. Here’s our review of the film from Sundance. We’ve added that news, plus info on the sales of Push, Cold Souls and more to our deals chart.

I’ve been tagged by Indiepix’s Danielle DiGiacomo to participate in this Sundance favorites blog meme. I’ve, in turn, tagged eight over bloggers. Find out if you’re one of the lucky octuplet after the jump.

Rules:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with listing their Sundance favorites, separated into 8 categories.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their 8 favorites and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose 8 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.

Here goes:
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My Bloody Valentine 3D isn’t worth watching in one dimension, let alone three. But it does serve to spark some good conversation. What other gimmicks have boosted the box office of sub-par films? What does good contemporary horror look like? Neil Marshall’s The Descent offers a refreshing palette cleanser. Also, what do horror and porn have in common, besides cheap nudity?

Karina checks in from Park City with some hits and misses from this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Moon, Hump Day, and The September Issue were worth writing home about, while Paper Hearts and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men will quietly fall into obscurity (we hope).

Listen to FilmCouch and win free stuff! Send us an e-mail telling us the most absurd piece of merchandise you’ve seen branded with an image of Che Guevara, and you can win a program from the Che roadshow signed by Steven Soderbergh, a copy of Che’s Diaries, and the soundtrack to the film. Send e-mails to filmcouch (at) spout (dot) com.

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)

0:00 - Intro

3:22 - Psychoanalyzing a listener based on his favorite films

8:15 - My Bloody Valentine 3D, gimmicks throughout movie history

16:22 - Humanizing horror vs. porn with blood

31:12 - Sundance

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• 50 Cent announced a new production company, Cheetah Vision, which currently has eight scripts in development, including the company’s inaugural movie, The Dance, starring Nicolas Cage. 50 Cent will also see his directorial debut, Before I Self Destruct, released this year for free as a supplement to his latest album.
• Despite the fact that the presidential inauguration typically occurs during Sundance, this year the festival took a more noticeable pause to watch Barack Obama sworn in yesterday. Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satterberg on the event: “I think we just didn’t care about it [before]. But this is different.”
• Steven Soderbergh hosted a “secret screening” of his latest, The Girlfriend Experience. Check out Karina’s review here.
• As Sony Classics and Lionsgate make their first festival buys, Summit is reportedly interested in I Love You Phillip Morris. Meanwhile, at Slamdance, North American rights to The Ante have gone to Panorama Entertainment. Other Sundance titles likely to sell soon, according to Anne Thompson: Shana Feste’sThe Greatest; Bobcat Goldthwait’s World’s Greatest Dad;  the Ashton Kutcher-produced Spread; and the Anna Wintour doc The September Issue.
• Thompson also looks at the movie-related internet companies at this year’s fest. And on a similar subject, LouisGray.com asks,”Could Sundance do for Qik what SXSW did for Twitter?”
• According to E!, the whole “subdued” thing hasn’t actually affected the swag.
• Regarding the minor trend in Sci-Fi films this year, Moon star Sam Rockwell says, “I think in-camera effects are coming back full-throttle. I think people are getting a little sick of the glossiness of CGI and want to see old-school effects like they used to.” Hallelujah to that.
• Another trend this year: romantic comedy. Or, is it more like romantic “dramedy”?

Initially, The September Issue comes off as something like the Teen Vogue segments of The Hills (though her royal highness Anna Wintour is swapped in for cut-rate LA imitation Lisa Love, the MTV reality show’s masterful manner of spinning diegetic commentary out of eye rolls taken out of context is left intact), genetically blended into an alternate universe version of The Office. Except in this office, the workers actually work, and in fact are terrified not to because their boss is Michael Scott’s polar opposite: impatient, undemonstrative, and absolutely incapable of taking no for an answer.

As a portrait of Wintour the person, RJ Cutler’s documentary does little to dig under the surface of Wintour’s iconic, impassive under bangs image. But as a meditation on art vs commerce, emotion vs rationality, and the role of fantasy merchants in the recently-burst economic bubble, The September Issue is both cerebral and accessible. If it’s not as provocative as it could be, it’s definitely entertaining.

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Clint Eastwood’s new cranky-old-man epic, Gran Torino, sped past the competition to prove its raw masculine authority at the box office. Over the past twenty years, Eastwood has perfected his own sub-genre: the grizzled old timer who comes back for one last hurrah. This latest iteration adds a surprising dose of compassion.

Karina shares which movies she’s most excited to see at Sundance this year. The list includes, Moon, The Clone Returns Home, Hump Day, O’er the Land, The September Issue, The Informers, and World’s Greatest Dad.

Listen to FilmCouch and win free stuff! We’ve got two contests going on. Send us an e-mail telling us the most absurd piece of merchandise you’ve seen branded with an image of Che Guevara, and you can win a program from the Che roadshow signed by Steven Soderbergh, a copy of Che’s Diaries, and the soundtrack to the film. Also, send us your favorite movie about Hollywood, and you can win a copy of the new film The Deal, starring William H. Macy. Send e-mails to filmcouch (at) spout (dot) com.

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)

0:00 - Intro

1:31 - contests

5:58 - listener feedback

11:55 - Gran Torino

29:57 - Sundance preview

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