John’s Top 10 Picks for Sundance Film Festival 2020
Article By John Pugh
Source: (Sundance)
Everyone knows one of the best ways to start off a new year is by watching a slew of films over a 10-day period…it’s basic science. From Jan. 23rd-Feb 2nd, the Sundance 2020 Film Festival will prove that science right! I’ve been going to Sundance for as long as I can remember and each year offers something exciting by way of fresh new voices in the creative world of storytelling. In 2019, some of my favorite films of the festival were THE FAREWELL, HONEY BOY and BROTHERHOOD (this gem was part of the Shorts Programs and would go on to play the Desertscape International Film Festival before being nominated for a Best Live Action Short Oscar.)
This year, the Sundance Film Festival boasts an impressive “118 feature-length films, representing 27 countries and 44 first-time feature filmmakers.” There was also “a record high 15,100 submissions including 3,853 feature-length films.” Pretty incredible numbers, especially when taking into consideration that the whole submission process is under 4 months.
On January 23rd, I’ll make the pilgrimage to Park City, UT alongside my colleague (and Cinemast Editor-In-Chief) Adam Mast and take part in what is sure to be an exhausting but exhilarating 10-day film festival run And don’t you worry! We’ll be sure to fill our readers in on as many noteworthy titles and events as possible.
While you await our extensive coverage, allow me to share a list of the 10 films I’m most excited to see at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival:
MINARI
A24’s MINARI sounds like one of the great contenders for this year’s best of fest. I am usually optimistic with most A24 films and their choice of filmmakers–especially the Safdie Brother’s GOOD TIME and the recent Oscar snubbed, UNCUT GEMS. Then, there is also Ari Aster‘s HEREDITARY and the all-too-recent Oscar snubbed, MIDSOMMAR. With that said, I like Steven Yeun as an actor and feel he has come so far from his early days on AMC’s The Walking Dead. Just see 2018’s BURNING to know what I’m talking about.
Sundance Synopsis:
It’s the 1980s, and David, a seven-year-old Korean American boy, is faced with new surroundings and a different way of life when his father, Jacob, moves their family from the West Coast to rural Arkansas. His mother, Monica, is aghast that they live in a mobile home in the middle of nowhere, and naughty little David and his sister are bored and aimless. When his equally mischievous grandmother arrives from Korea to live with them, her unfamiliar ways arouse David’s curiosity. Meanwhile, Jacob, hell-bent on creating a farm on untapped soil, throws their finances, his marriage, and the stability of the family into jeopardy.
Inspired by his own upbringing, writer-director Lee Isaac Chung creates a gorgeous, delicate American Dream story by infusing it with Korean melodrama and the playful charm of a Yasujiro Ozu film, as the Yi family embraces their highs and endures their lows. Each character is drawn with loving authenticity and depth, while Steven Yeun shines as Jacob, a man determined to achieve his dreams at all costs.
SHOWTIMES Check them HERE
CATEGORY U.S. Dramatic Competition
DIRECTOR Lee Isaac Chung
SCREENWRITER Lee Isaac Chung
PRODUCERS Dede Gardner / Jeremy Kleiner / Christina Oh
CAST Steven Yeun / Yeri Han / Youn Yuh Jung / Will Patton / Alan Kim / Noel Kate Cho
COUNTRY U.S.A.
RUN TIME 115 min
LANGUAGE English and Korean
SUBTITLES Yes with English subtitles
COMPANY A24
WENDY
I am incredibly excited about Benh Zeitlin‘s WENDY–his follow up to his Oscar-nominated BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD–that also took home the US Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2012. WENDY is a retelling of the classic Peter Pan story from Wendy’s perspective. The film look wonderfully whimsical and very dramatic. This may be my most anticipated film of the festival.
Sundance Synopsis:
Wendy and her brothers come from a warm working family. Raised amongst dinner plates and diner patrons, the children have an itch for the adventurous and slightly mischievous. After long nights watching trains rattle by their bedroom window, the kids are whisked away by a mysterious boy named Peter. A long journey taken on faith lands them on Peter’s island. There they discover a wild new world, one without grown-ups and suspended in time. Reveling in their youthfulness and sprawling freedom satisfies the kids at first, but nostalgia for their lives left behind seeps in. When threats to their eternal childhood develop, Wendy is tasked with saving herself, her brothers, and the other island children with the most powerful tool she has: love for her family.
This adaptation of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is a reimagining of the classic tale in a scrappy, breathtaking new setting. Benh Zeitlin returns to directing for the first time since Beasts of the Southern Wild, which won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
SHOWTIMES Check them HERE
CATEGORY Premieres
DIRECTOR Benh Zeitlin
SCREENWRITER Benh Zeitlin / Eliza Zeitlin
PRODUCERS Becky Glupczynski / Dan Janvey / Paul Meze / Josh Penn
CAST Devin France / Yashua Mack / Gage Naquin / Gavin Naquin / Ahmad Cage / Krzysztof Meyn
COUNTRY U.S.A.
RUN TIME 112 min
COMPANY Fox Searchlight
DOWNHILL
Confession time. I have never seen FORCE MAJEURE and I am willing to bet the original will be better than this remake. Then why is this in my top picks of the festival, you ask? Well, because I want to believe they will do justice with this remake and that despite the underwhelming trailer there’s hope that this one rises above and gets close to the greatness of the original that I have heard so much about.
Sundance Synopsis:
Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Pete (Will Ferrell), and their sons are on a balcony during an idyllic family ski vacation in the Alps when an avalanche suddenly strikes. While they all emerge physically unharmed, Pete’s actions during the avalanche reveal a side of him that leaves his family in a state of shock. The aftermath of this moment permeates the remainder of the trip, and the harder Pete tries to avoid the truth and gloss things over, the more Billie and her sons are forced to re-evaluate their lives and, more specifically, how they feel about Pete—as a husband, father, and man.
Inspired by the 2014 film Force Majeure by Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund, Downhill is fiercely observational of modern masculinity and human frailty. Co-directors and writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash make Billie the heart of this relationship drama, and Louis-Dreyfus delivers a brilliant performance that captivates and delights in every searing, cringe-inducing scene. As wickedly funny as it is mercilessly truthful, Downhill is the story of a natural catastrophe that prompts a metaphorical landslide within a family.
SHOWTIMES Check them HERE
CATEGORY Premieres
DIRECTOR Nat Faxon / Jim Rash
SCREENWRITER Jesse Armstrong / Nat Faxon / Jim Rash
PRODUCERS Anthony Bergman / Julia Louis-Dreyfus / Stephanie Azpiazu
CAST Julia Louis-Dreyfus / Will Ferrell / Zach Woods / Zoe Chao / Miranda Otto
COUNTRY U.S.A.
RUN TIME 85 min
COMPANY Fox Searchlight
PALM SPRINGS
Seeing the comedian trio; Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer attached to PALM SPRINGS had me intrigued. The funny minds behind the Lonely Island, SNL Digital Shorts and films like; HOT ROD and POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING. There’s also something exciting about the rest of the cast including Cristin Milioti (How I Met Your Mother) and J.K. Simmons (WHIPLASH) to say the least I think this one has potential for some great laughs.
Sundance Synopsis:
Stuck in Palm Springs for her younger sister Tala’s destination wedding, family black sheep and reluctant maid of honor Sarah meets carefree Nyles, the date of a vapid bridesmaid. After Nyles bails Sarah out of giving a wedding toast, she quickly realizes that he is actually not a sentimental fool at all and feels drawn to his offbeat nihilism. After their impromptu tryst is thwarted by a surreal, unexpected interruption, Sarah joins Nyles in embracing the idea that nothing really matters, and they begin wreaking spirited havoc on the wedding celebration.
Director Max Barbakow’s ambitious and playful dramatic feature debut, Palm Springs is a lighthearted romp peppered with thoughtful realizations about the nature of love and loneliness. Cristin Milioti gives a winsome and soulful performance as Sarah, matching Andy Samberg’s impressive comedic chops as the jaded Nyles step for step. A terrific ensemble cast, including Peter Gallagher and Academy Award winner J.K. Simmons alongside rising stars Camila Mendes and Meredith Hagner, deliver memorable supporting turns as the colorful guests at the seemingly endless wedding.
SHOWTIMES Check them HERE
CATEGORY Premieres
DIRECTOR Mark Barbakow
SCREENWRITER Andy Siara
PRODUCERS Andy Samberg / Becky Sloviter / Akiva Schaffer / Jorma Taccone / Dylan Sellers / Chris Parker
CAST Andy Samberg / Cristin Milioti / J.K. Simmons / Meredith Hagner / Camila Mendes / Peter Gallagher
COUNTRY U.S.A.
RUN TIME 90 min
COMPANY ID PR
TESLA
TESLA is the winner of the Sundance 2020 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and sure to be a hot ticket at this year’s festival. I enjoyed writer/director Michael Almereyda‘s intimate sci-fi drama MARJORIE PRIME from a few years back. The film stars Ethan Hawke and Kyle MacLachlan as Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison battle for their scientific inventions.
Sundance Synopsis:
Brilliant, brooding inventor Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) fights an uphill battle to bring his revolutionary electrical system to fruition. Increasingly displeased by the greed of fellow inventor Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan), Tesla forges his own virtuous but arduous path toward creating the innovative alternate-current motor. His European nature is at odds with budding American industrialism, and the landscape of intellectual property is treacherous—and Tesla slowly becomes jailed in his overactive mind. His associate Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson) analyzes and presents his story as it unfolds, offering a distinctly modern voice in this scientific period drama.
Sundance Film Festival veteran Ethan Hawke returns in this informative and engaging historical piece directed by Michael Almereyda (A Hero of Our Time, Marjorie Prime). With Tesla’s controversies, legal battles, entrepreneurial clashes, and romantic interests, Almereyda weaves together a portrait of a man struggling against the interests of his time. The profundity of his electrical mind is unearthed through this rediscovery of the development of electricity in the United States, ultimately posing existential questions about invention, industry, greed, love, and lightning.
SHOWTIMES Check them HERE
CATEGORY Premieres
DIRECTOR Michael Almereyda
SCREENWRITER Michael Almereyda
PRODUCERS Uri Singer / Christa Campbell / Isen Robbins / Lati Grobman / Michael Almereyda / Per Melita
CAST Ethan Hawke / Kyle MacLachlan / Eve Hewson / Jim Gaffigan / Hannah Gross / Josh Hamilton
COUNTRY U.S.A.
RUN TIME 102 min
COMPANY Passage Pictures
FALLING
I love Viggo Mortensen so it’s a must I see his directorial debut, FALLING. Mortensen Writes, Directs, Produces, and even does his own music in the film.
Sundance Synopsis:
John (Viggo Mortensen) lives with his partner, Eric (Terry Chen), and their daughter, Monica (Gabby Velis), in California, far from the traditional rural life he left behind years ago. His father, Willis (Lance Henriksen), a headstrong man from a bygone era, lives alone on the isolated farm where John grew up. Willis’s mind is declining, so John brings him west, hoping he and his sister, Sarah (Laura Linney), can help their father find a home closer to them. Their best intentions ultimately run up against Willis’s angry refusal to change his way of life in any way.
In his directorial debut, Mortensen explores the fractures and contrasts of a contemporary family. Willis’s abrasive nature, by turns caustic and funny, is aggravated by memory loss, bringing past and present into conflict. As father and son finally confront events that have torn them apart, including their differing recollections of John’s mother, Gwen (Hannah Gross), we embark on a journey from darkness to light, from rage and resentment to acceptance and hard-won grace.
SHOWTIMES Check them HERE
CATEGORY Premieres
DIRECTOR Viggo Mortensen
SCREENWRITER Viggo Mortensen
PRODUCERS Viggo Mortensen / Daniel Bekerman / Chris Curling
CAST Lance Henriksen / Viggo Mortensen / Terry Chen / Sverrir Gudnason / Hannah Gross / Laura Linney
COUNTRY Canada/United Kingdom/Denmark
RUN TIME 112 min
LANGUAGE English and Spanish
SUBTITLES Yes with English subtitles
THE LAST THING HE WANTED
Dee Rees, who no stranger to the Sundance Film Festival returns with THE LAST THING HE WANTED. Look at that cast! The film sounds thrilling and character-driven and with Rees behind the director’s chair, I am sure this will be a great film.
Sundance Synopsis:
Journalist and single mother Elena McMahon (Anne Hathaway) has rigorously investigated Contra activity in Central America for years. Frustrated when her coverage is censored, relief comes in an unexpected package: her acerbic father (Willem Dafoe) falls ill and leaves her a series of unfinished and unsavory arms deals in that very region. Now a pawn in a risky and unfamiliar game, surrounded by live ammunition in more ways than one, and alongside a U.S. state official (Ben Affleck) with whom she has a checkered past, Elena needs to parse her own story to survive. With her disenchanting life awaiting her back home, she is forced to consider what she really wants.
Director Dee Rees (Pariah, Mudbound) is a Sundance Institute Vanguard Award winner and a lab fellow several times over, and she returns to the Sundance Film Festival with this adaptation of Joan Didion’s novel by the same name. Seasoned performances by Hathaway, Affleck, and Dafoe match the sobriety of the subject matter and convey the questionable intentions, inscrutable connections, and bitter fates of these complex characters.
SHOWTIMES Check them HERE
CATEGORY Premieres
DIRECTOR Dee Rees
SCREENWRITER Marco Villalobos / Dee Rees
PRODUCERS Cassian Elwes / Dee Rees
CAST Anne Hathaway / Ben Affleck / Willem Dafoe / Rosie Perez
COUNTRY U.S.A.
RUN TIME 115 min
COMPANY Netflix
POSSESSOR
David Cronenberg‘s son, Brandon debuts his feature film that by the movie still alone gives me the creeps. I’m thinking this may be one of the more disturbing films I catch this year at the fest.
Sundance Synopsis:
Tasya Vos is a corporate agent who uses brain-implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies, driving them to commit assassinations for the benefit of the company. While she has a special gift for the work, her experiences on these jobs have caused a dramatic change in her, and in her own life she struggles to suppress violent memories and urges. As her mental strain intensifies, she begins to lose control, and soon she finds herself trapped in the mind of a man whose identity threatens to obliterate her own.
Writer/director Brandon Cronenberg’s splendid mindfuck cinema pushes this pulpy thriller—his second feature film—to startling new heights. Cronenberg scripts an efficient mystery that is colored rich and grotesque in the depths of his imagination. While Possessor dazzles with impeccable design and ambitious world building, the film remains grounded by the haunting lead performances of Andrea Riseborough, Christopher Abbott, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. If you are willing to accept the assignment, this violent shocker will be impossible to shake.
SHOWTIMES Check them HERE
CATEGORY World Cinema Dramatic Competition
DIRECTOR Brandon Cronenberg
SCREENWRITER Brandon Cronenberg
PRODUCERS Niv Finchman / Andy Starke / Kevin Krikst / Fraser Ash
CAST Andrea Riseborough / Christopher Abbott / Rossif Sutherland / Tuppence Middleton / Sean Bean / Jennifer Jason Leigh
COUNTRY Canada/United Kingdom
RUN TIME 104 min
COMPANY Arclight Films
HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY
The Ren & Stimpy Show is my jam. Growing up on this hilarious irreverent cartoon made my days in 90’s. So HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY – THE REN & STIMPY STORY is high on my list of must-see films.
Sundance Synopsis:
In the early 1990s, the animated show Ren & Stimpy broke cable ratings records and was a touchstone for a generation of fans and artists. Creator John Kricfalusi was celebrated as a visionary, but even though his personality suffused the show, dozens of artists and network executives were just as responsible for the show’s meteoric rise. As Kricfalusi’s worst impulses were let loose at the workplace and new allegations about even more disturbing behavior have surfaced, his reputation now threatens to taint the show forever.
With clips recognizable to any Ren & Stimpy fan and interviews with Kricfalusi and his fellow creators whose work has been both elevated and denigrated by their connection to him, this film is a complex look at a show that influenced the history of television, animation, and comedy. More than a celebration, Happy Happy Joy Joy – The Ren & Stimpy Story forces us to consider the role of media creators and how we reckon with the reality of who they are versus what we see on the screen.
SHOWTIMES Check them HERE
CATEGORY Documentary Premieres
DIRECTOR Ron Cicero / Kimo Easterwood
SCREENWRITERS Ron Cicero / Kimo Easterwood
PRODUCER Ron Cicero
CAST John Kricfalusi / Robyn Byrd / Vanessa Coffey / Chris Reccardi / Richard Pursel/ Bobby Lee
COUNTRY U.S.A.
RUN TIME 107 min
COMPANY INVADER
SHORTS PROGRAMS
The Shorts Program has already been a favorite of mine. I love the short bursts of storytelling out a mixture of narratives, animated and documentary short programs. See last year’s BROTHERHOOD and this year’s Oscar nominee. Unfortunately, the shorts blocks have been mostly pushed out to the Redstone cinema, which makes it a bit out of the way. It’s difficult to get all the shorts programs in the 10-day run unless it becomes a full priority of must-see blocks. No matter what I will end up seeing at least a few of these programs along the way of the fest.
SHOWTIMES Check them Animation Spotlight, Documentary Shorts Program 1, Documentary Shorts Program 2, Midnight Shorts Program, Shorts Program 1, Shorts Program 2, Shorts Program 3, Shorts Program 4, Shorts Program 5
So stay tuned on Cinemast.net and our social media platforms as we bring you coverage throughout the full 10-days.
