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Under discussion:

Up the Yangtze  (2007)

CSNY Déjà Vu  (2008)

The Black List  (2008)

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

Under discussion:

The Tao of Steve  (2000)

Tadpole  (2002)

Napoleon Dynamite  (2004)

Grace Is Gone  (2007)

Joshua  (2007)

Everybody’s talking about how the WGA strike may affect this year’s Sundance marketplace (Variety and Scott Foundas among them), but studios looking to make up for a lack of in-house product with appealing-looking indies may want to think twice before opening the checkbook. It’s easy for buyers to forget that Hollywood still knows nothing about what moviegoers really want, and it’s very easy to waste a whole lot of money bidding on a film that isn’t going to be worth it’s purchase price. This week, the Onion’s A.V. Club features a list of Sundance flops — those movies that were a big deal at the festival yet failed at the box office. It’s probably meant to just be a fun look back at the errs of the marketplace, but really it functions as a warning to this year’s buyers. What they think is the next Napoleon Dynamite could really be the next Tao of Steve (which happens to have sparked a hilarious discussion in the comments section — possibly featuring Donal Logue himself). The Hollywood Reporter and David Carr in the New York Times add to the list by pointing out some of last year’s deals gone bad, specifically those for Joshua and Grace is Gone.

It’s not a matter of whether or not these films were good (I think Tadpole is great, actually) or whether not they could be enjoyed by regular folk (most of them were audience favorites at Sundance, and those audiences included regular folks). I don’t even think it’s a matter of whether or not the distributors knew how to market those films, though in some cases it didn’t even seem like they were trying. Instead it’s a matter of how different the context is at Sundance than it is in the real theatrical market. If you’ve ever been to a public screening at Sundance, you know how excited those regular folk audiences are for anything. You can tell by their praise-filled “questions” during the Q&As. You can tell by the fact that many of them aren’t seeing a lot of films — at least relatively, considering the number of films playing at the fest — and so don’t have good frames of reference.

(more…)

Under discussion:

Evil  (2003)

Phoebe in Wonderland  (2008)

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This is the kind of movie I look for when attending a film festival. And not just because the protagonist looks like I did at his age. No, the true reason is that this little Swedish film will likely never play in your local theater. It may not even make it to DVD in this country. Unless it wins the World Cinema - Dramatic prize at Sundance, you may never hear of it again. So, forget about waiting in that long line for that higher profile, star-studded indie you and everyone else is looking forward to. You’re sure to have the opportunity to see it sometime in the future. As for Ping-pongkingen (The King of Ping Pong), it could be now or never.

Fortunately this is one of the few Sundance entries that I’ve been able to find a trailer for. And doesn’t it help? Who would have given this movie a second thought without seeing that preview? I’m shocked that more festival films aren’t marketing themselves as well. Without the trailer, The King of Ping Pong just sounds like another Scandinavian movie about brothers, though co-scripted by Hans Gunnarsson, who also had a hand in Mikael Hafstrom’s Oscar-nominated Ondskan (Evil), which I liked a lot. With the trailer, we see that the film features a lovable fat kid (and yes, this probably appeals more to me that he looks like a little Christopher Campbell, and that his brother looks like my own brother at that age), who says funny things about ping pong being the last egalitarian sport and about life being a damned merry-go-round (compare his deadpan delivery to the unrealistic performance and unlikely dialogue from Elle Fanning in this other Sundance 2008 film — clip here — for which more people are likely to buy tickets). How could you resist finding out what’s going on in all those quirky-looking scenes?

The King of Ping Pong is screening at the Egyptian Theatre on Friday night at 9pm. Then it screens Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon at the Holiday Village Cinema III, then Tuesday evening in Ogden and next Friday evening in SLC.