Josh Radnor has spent much of his time on television including most recently in How I Met Your Mother , but the actor also has two Sundance features he’s directed, written and also starred in, including his latest, Liberal Arts , which premiered at the festival in January. The feature stars Radnor along with Elizabeth Olsen , Zac Efron , Allison Janney and Richard Jenkins. The trailer sets up the main premise of film. Disenchanted and newly single student counselor Jesse Fisher (Radnor) falls for younger college student, Zibby (Olsen). But perhaps not quite as racy as it sounds, Jesse apparently travels to visit his favorite professor at his alma mater where he meets the feisty Zibby, so apparently no student-counselor conflict here exactly. As the story moves forward, the classical music-loving sophomore revives his long-dormant feelings of possibility and connection. One character not making an appearance, however, in this trailer is Zac Efron. IFC Films acquired Liberal Arts at the Sundnce Film Festival and will release the feature September 14th in the U.S. Radnor’s directorial debut happythankyoumoreplease debuted at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. View the trailer via YouTube .
It may be a relatively quiet Sundance year – even Pixar’s Lee Unkrich, in town for the festival, Tweeted his dismay at the “mixed bag” of movies – but films are selling. Granted, they’re mostly the ones with name actors and mostly okay-to-decent reviews (with a few exceptions), but buyers continue to be getting busy in the snow. The latest batch of pick-ups (Olsens and robots and scares, oh my!) after the jump. Liberal Arts (IFC Films) – Josh Radnor’s follow up to happythankyoumoreplease , another Sundance pick, features Radnor as a thirty-something man who returns to his college campus and is intrigued by both his former professor (Alison Janney) and a young coed (Elizabeth Olsen). IFC picked up Liberal Arts and plans on releasing it later in 2011. Robot and Frank (Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions/Samuel Goldwyn Films) – It’s Frank Langella and a robot. What more do you need to know? Oh, fine: Directed by Jake Schreier and co-starring Susan Sarandon, Peter Sarsgaard, and Liv Tyler, this charmer won over critics during Sundance. V/H/S (Magnolia) – The horror anthology opened to such a raucous, receptive Midnight debut that it’s no wonder a specialist like Magnolia snapped up the surefire genre pleaser. Did reports of a seizure at this week’s screening help? The Pact (IFC) – This deal’s a bit of a surprise, given the negative-to-lukewarm reviews Nicholas McCarthy’s feature debut (adapted from his own Sundance short of the same name) received this week. Yet another spooky tale, about a young lady investigating bumps and scares in her dead mother’s house, it went to IFC for a reported ” high-six-figure deal ” as the distrib hopes it catches fire in limited release/VOD. Previously: Arbitrage (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions) – Nicholas Jarecki’s dramatic feature-filmmaking debut stars Richard Gere as a billionaire hedge-fund fraud seeking to cash in before he’s exposed. Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling and Tim Roth co-star. Look for the studio duo to duplicate the multi-platform success they enjoyed in 2011 with Margin Call , another financial-world potboiler picked up in Park City. The Surrogate (Fox Searchlight) – Sundance favorite John Hawkes turns in an brave performance as real life poet Mark O’Brien, who yearns to lose his virginity with a sex therapist (Helen Hunt) despite being paralyzed from the head down. Fox Searchlight paid a reported $6 million for the pic, which may face tricky ratings deliberations due to Hunt’s full frontal nudity. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight) – The smallest narrative to get a deal thus far at Sundance comes off of strong buzz and acclaim for the tale of a young girl and her ailing father who live in a fantastical alternate version of the American South. Red Lights (Millenium Films) Negative reviews hurt the profile of this Rodrigo Cortes ( Buried ) thriller, despite featuring Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, and last year’s Sundance darling Elizabeth Olsen. For a Good Time, Call… (Focus Features) – The feature debut of shorts director Jamie Travis pairs Lauren Anne Miller and Ari Graynor as frenemies who start a phone sex line together, one of a gaggle of raunchy female-driven comedies in this year’s line-up. Celeste and Jesse Forever (Sony Pictures Classics) – With Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg leading a cast of familiar players, this was bound to attract buyer attention galore. Sony Pictures Classics snatched it up for a reported $2 million, adding C&J to their previous Sundance acquisitions Searching for Sugar Man and The Raid . Searching for Sugar Man (Sony Classics) – The documentary about 1960s musician Rodriguez played well to critics and was snatched up by SPC for a reported six figures. The Queen of Versailles (Magnolia Pictures) – Another well-received doc, Lauren Greenfield’s examination of Florida real estate mogul David Siegel was picked up by Magnolia on Friday. Black Rock (LD Distribution) – Katie Aselton’s thriller about three female friends (Aselton, Lake Bell, Kate Bosworth) surviving a weekend getaway gone wrong was the first Midnight selection to seal a deal, partnering with newbie venture LD Distribution. The Words (CBS Films) – Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, and Jeremy Irons lead a cast of recognizable stars in this literary drama about a writer (Cooper) who claims credit on someone else’s manuscript and is confronted by its real author, so it’s easy to see why buyers were interested. CBS Films reportedly made the most expensive buy of the fest so far, laying down $2 million for the film. Whether or not that move was smart remains to be seen, as this first review over at The Playlist is less than encouraging. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter . Get more of Movieline’s Sundance 2012 coverage here .
Park City was eerily peaceful early this morning with nobody around and last night’s dusting of snow on the ground. Soon enough – by this afternoon, or this evening, or certainly tonight – that will all change as filmmakers, press and industry folks roll in and the dreaded promoters (“leveragers,” Sundance founder Robert Redford called them in his inaugural address today) pimp out this snowy mountain town like a toddler in a tiara. Appropriately, Redford pointed to the current hardships for filmmakers, and the world at large. “Times are hard and grim,” he acknowledged, later offering optimism. “Independent film is healthy. That doesn’t mean it’s easy.” As the Sundance Film Festival grew beyond its humble origins, so too did the hype in and around town. Navigating the festival is an exercise in navigating hype. Pick up a hot tip on a buzz film while shuttling around town; pick up free crap you know you’ll never need from swag marketers hungry for exposure. Either way it’s a circus, and the energy is palpable: No one wants to miss anything, but there’s always something (or many somethings) that you necessarily must. Redford addressing Sundance’s hype problem is nothing new – he’s been battling Sundance’s other rep for years , and with mixed feelings about the exposure swag houses and celebrity sightings and exclusive parties bring. “Success has two sides to it,” he admitted during the opening day press conference. “For example, hype… I’m not going to condone that, and I’m not going to criticize it, because some of that is good for the filmmakers as long as they can keep their head about it.” But really, can you blame those struggling first-time indie filmmakers for stopping off for free snow boots and sunglasses when they haven’t seen, and maybe never will see, a dime for their passion projects? On the other hand, even established filmmakers need hype. Spike Lee and Stephen Frears are both here this year with new films seeking distribution (Lee’s Red Hook Summer and Frears’ Lay the Favorite ). Oscar-winning fest veteran James Marsh ( Man on Wire , Project Nim ) is back, this time with the narrative feature Shadow Dancer , a drama-thriller starring Andrea Riseborough and Clive Owen. They’ll be jockeying for that coveted intangible – buzz – throughout the next ten days, up against a vast variety of films equally desperate, if not more, for the spotlight. So here’s a selection of what’s caught my eye at the outset: The host of films from returning recent Sundance darlings, including Elizabeth Olsen in Liberal Arts , her Martha Marcy May Marlene crew with Simon Killer , Brit Marling in Arbitrage , and John Hawkes in The Surrogate ; the influx of hip-hop related offerings, like the girl MC narrative Filly Brown , Ice-T’s rap documentary Something from Nothing , the short Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke – a twist on La Jetee starring Uncle Luke of 2 Live Crew, of course – and LUV , starring rapper-turned-actor Common; docs like Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War and the Peter Jackson-supported West of Memphis ; and genre offerings including the horror anthology V/H/S , Compliance , co-starring Innkeepers standout Pat Healy, Katie Aselton’s Black Rock , and Gareth Evans’ excellent Indonesian martial arts pic The Raid (which I’ve already seen and would gladly see again and can’t recommend highly enough). Check back daily as I file Sundance diaries from here in Park City, where I aim to track the trends and the buzz and yes, the hype. Follow and tweet questions to me at @Movieline and @jenyamato , and help me search for the answers to the biggest questions of Sundance 2012. Like, who’s got a +1 to the Drake show? Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter . Get all of Movieline’s Sundance coverage here . [Photo credit: Getty Images]
Look, let me preface this by saying that 1) I went to an East Coast liberal arts college 2) I really dislike films where they just say “oui” and “non” back and forth and 3) it pretty naturally follows that Whit Stillman is my favorite director. If you haven’t seen his work, and you enjoy watching WASPy, literate young people sit around in evening clothes and make witty conversation with each other,… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : TheGloss Discovery Date : 02/09/2011 21:55 Number of articles : 2
