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Under discussion:

Be Kind Rewind  (2008)

Part Two of the Sundance 2008 slate just arrived. As with yesterday’s announcement, I’ve pasted the meat of the press release after the jump in a sec; first, here’s what I percieve as highlights right off the bat:

• Be Kind Rewind: I kind of expected Michel Gondry’s latest to show up here, just because January 25 would have been a *really* weird release date otherwise. Plus, Gondry’s The Science of Sleep was one of the fest’s big sales in 2006, although it’s actual US release didn’t get as much attention as I would have liked to have seen.
• Baghead: Jay and Mark Duplass’ long-awaited follow-up to The Puffy Chair, co-starring Hannah Takes the Stairs‘ Greta Gerwig.
• Goliath: Is the David Zellner who wrote and directed this the same David Zellner who makes short films with his brother, including the much-beloved Aftermath at Meadowlark Lane, which played before Low and Behold at Sundance last year? IMDb offers no help, so shout if you know the answer.
• Momma’s Man: Directed by Ken Jacob’s son Azazel, starring his dad as “Dad.”
• Funny Games: Michael Haneke’s English-language remake of his own 1997 film. It’s a Midnight selection, which could be good or bad.
• Blind Date: The second of three planned films based on the work of slain Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (the first was Steve Buscemi’s Interview). Stanley Tucci directs himself and Patricia Clarkson.
• Towelhead: This was called Nothing is Private when it premiered at Toronto to hugely divisive reviews. Directed and written by Alan Ball, it became known colloquially as The One Where Aaron Eckhart Has Sex With the 13-Year-Old Arab Girl. It has the questionable honor of uniting Roger Friedman and The Reeler in mutual hate.
• August: A period piece about the first dot-com boom (!), featuring a cameo from my former boss as himself.
• The Black List: A documentary abotu Black America, written by and starring sometime film critic Elvis Mitchell.
• Made in America: A” first-person look at the notorious Crips and Bloods,” via Dogtown and Z Boys‘ Stacy Peralta.
• The Merry Gentleman: Michael Keaton (yes, “I’m Batman” Michael Keaton) directs himself and Kelly McDonald in this drama about a woman who “stumbles into a curious relationship with a depressed hitman.”
• Savage Grace: Tom Kalin’s telling of the Barbara Daly Baekeland murder case, starring Julianne Moore. A Cannes 2007 leftover.

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Under discussion:

Strange Culture  (2007)

With 49 days to go until the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival, expect to see some space here devoted to previews of some of the films I’m particularly interested in. The first thing that really caught my eye upon skimming the schedule was Derek, a film about Derek Jarman directed by Isaac Julien. Executive produced by actress/Jarman muse Tilda Swinton and produced by film historian Colin MacCabe, the World Documentary Competition entry purports to “combine document with fiction, and experiment with narrative” to fashion “a timely reappraisal and celebration of the work of one of Britain???s most important artist filmmakers.” There’s a bit of an expanded synopsis on Julien’s web site. After Sundance, the film will be part of an exhibit devoted to Jarman curated by Julien, at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

I’m generally fan of what I know of Jarman’s work, but I’m mostly interested in this because lately I’ve been kind of a sucker for non-fiction films that take huge liberties with documentary form. In a recent interview with BOMB magazine, Julien actually spoke of Derek not as a documentary, but as “a strange kind of biopic about [Jarman’s] life.” All in all, it’s classification in the doc competition seems a little strange, but it maybe another sign of Sundance 2008’s swing towards a more adventurous programming attitude. Strange Culture, another non-fiction film involving Swinton that incorporated narrative elements, premiered at Sundance last year in the marginalized Frontier sidebar, which I thought was unfortunate–it was hands down the best documentary I saw at the festival last year, but got little attention out of competition.

Jarman, who died of AIDS in 1994, is fairly well represented today on YouTube. More after the jump.

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Under discussion:

There Will Be Blood  (2007)

Almost a month after streams of the There Will Be Blood score were posted on a Paramount Vantage page, and then promptly disappeared, The Playlist has a preview of two tracks composed by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood for the film. I’ve embedded the MP3 player above. Also, a new trailer for the film is getting everyone all excited.