The Circuit

Leaving the competitions mostly to the first-timers, Sundance filled its Premiere, Spectrum, and Midnight sections with more experience.  Closing night film is Neil Young's "CSNY DÉJÀ VU," which looks at Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's message from Veitnam to today.  It'll join the other music docs this year - Patti Smith is in competition, and Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington's doc "U2 3D" is, well, U2 presented in 3-D.  Pellington also has the drama “Henry Poole is Here,” starring Luke Wilson as a terminal man who drops into depression and alcoholism in the last weeks of his life, and the neighbors who help him.

Premieres see no surprise with Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind" and Tom Kalin's "Savage Grace."  Alan Ball's "Nothing is Private" is now called "Towelhead" (the title of the book it's based on).  It joins another Toronto preem, Tom McCarthy's "The Visitor." 

Robert’s daughter, Amy Redford, has “The Guitar” (written by “Frogs for Snakes” Amos Poe) as well as a starring role in the competition film, “Sunshine Cleaning” (produced by the same “Little Miss Sunshine” producers). 

Many long-time Sundance vets say the Spectrum section is becoming the most interesting.  Here the descriptions open up, feeling (a little) less constrained by American indie angst and malaise.  And for the first time, there is a doc spotlight in the Spectrum.  Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and interviewer Elvis Mitchell bring "The Black List" - a portrait of twenty current black leaders. 

"Dogtown and Z-Boys" filmmaker Stacy Peralta new "Made in America" will be a hotly anticipated - a doc on the Crips and Bloods and the conditions that made them.  Morgan Spurlock is back with his new first-person investigation "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?"

On the drama spectrum side, Mumblecore is repped by the Duplass brothers ("The Puffy Chair") with their new film "Baghead," which Jay Duplass told us "explores the relationship dynamics... of a group of desperate actor friends. And a bag. And a head."

And it's good to see the Zellner brothers with a feature - "Goliath."  David and his brother Nathan (pictured) have been making films in Austin for years. For the last few their work had finally found spots in the Sundance shorts section. 

Randall Miller finally cracked a film about the famous 1976 Judgment of Paris where California wines beat their matching French versions for the first time, called “Bottle Shock” starring Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman. 

The great actor Brian Cox returns to star in Lucky McKee and Trygve Dieson’s adaptation of the novel “Red.”  Cox plays a reclusive man whose dog is shot by teenagers.  He goes up against Tom Sizemore for accountability.

New Frontier highlights look to be experimental filmmaker James Benning's view of Robert Smitherson's huge sculpture, the Spiral Jetty called "Casting at a Glance."  Also "Fear(s) of the Dark" by six graphic artists who animate their worst anxieties.

Midnight sees the return of Ari Gold ("Helicopter") with "Adventures of Power" about the greatest air-drummer.  Larry Bishop's motorcycle revenge tale "Hell Ride" starring Dennis Hopper and Michael Madsen, presented by Quentin Tarantino. 

And Bruce LaBruce is back with "Otto (Up With People)" (pictured) which has the best one-line description of the program:  "A lonely gay zombie searches for love and meaning in contemporary Berlin."

True to form, when we tried to access LaBruce's homepage, Reed Elsevier Corporate stopped the page from loading because it's "not in compliance with the Company's Acceptable Use Policy." 

Apparently, Reed's long-standing policy against gay zombies still stands.  Where is the tolerance?  Gay and transgendered zombies should be allowed to eat brains like straight zombies. 

Check out Todd McCarthy's article and the full lineup here.