"Available in an eye-popping new 50th Anniversary blu-ray edition, the film remains a surpassingly well designed and executed example of the Great American Musical. Through a synthesis of styles, the film echoes the great cultural melting pot of urban America post WWII, and uses an array of rousing set pieces to hint at the era’s growing unrest and generational division. Under the feel-good, entertaining veneer of Steven Sondheim’s witty lyrics and Jerome Robbins’ acrobatic choreography is a genuine whiff of the sour xenophobia that plagues the nation to this day."
July is a pretty big month for movie productions worth keeping tabs on - this month's IONCINEMA.com's "Tracking Shot" features a mix of indie and studio project, with helmer Chris Gorak (Right at Your Door) making the jump for low budget to huge budget with Summit Ent. distributing and Timur Bekmambetov producing an alien invasion project.
If you ever wanted to find an irritable bunch of people working in Hollywood, you wouldn't have to go much further than the names in the screenwriter's directory. First Run Features have picked up the rights to Peter Hanson’s talking heads docu about the horror stories of those of who lived to tell the tale: contemporary screenwriters who got stung in their careers as scribes and consider themselves lucky, managed to see one of their works turn into a final product and retain some shards of its former self.
Prior to announcing the make-up of their film schedule (stay tuned for mid-week announcements), the Sundance folks announced the selection of artists and scientists whose work will be presented in the New Frontier section.