Tag: top-stories

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Ondi Timoner’s Mapplethorpe

Well versed in the music scene, arts and technology, this docu-helmer won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize for Dig! (2004) and followed that up with...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy

Assuredly becoming a hot ticket director with the launch of 2010's Beyond the Black Rainbow - a debut film we called "a nightmarish world...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Craig William Macneill’s Lizzie

Originally this had helmer Pieter Van Hees set to direct, but this would become Craig William Macneill's sophomore film instead. Filming on Lizzie took place in...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Nia DaCosta’s Little Woods

Possibly belonging to a Frozen River and Sin Nombre type of harrowing universe where there are no real alternatives, Nia DaCosta's directorial debut will...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Nicole Holofcener’s The Land of Steady Habits

She has been a fixture as a creative advisor, panelist and helmer who up until Toronto preemed Enough Said (2013) saw every single one...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Jonathan & Josh Baker’s Kin

Prediction: James Franco will be at Sundance. The question is which of the two dozen projects in post-production is most likely to show up?...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Bill Oliver’s Jonathan

A film graduate (M.F.A. in Directing from the American Film Institute) who to this point, has had more experience working as a playwright, Bill Oliver...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Nijla Mu’min’s Jinn

In a figurative sense, Nijla Mu'min is coming out from the Middle of Nowhere (she was a Production Assistant on Ava DuVernay’s break out Sundance...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Jonathan Helpert’s IO

Originally set up with thesps Elle Fanning, Diego Luna and Clay Jeter in the director's chair, IO, the Sundance Institute’s Writers Lab and the...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Reed Morano’s I Think We’re Alone Now

Now that Reed Morano won the Emmy for best director in a drama series for The Handmaid's Tale (read her remarkable process in winning...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Andrew Fleming’s Ideal Home

If Andrew Fleming's next film shores up in Park City, it'll be an almost unrecognizable American independent film landscape from the Sundance of then...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Jeremy Saulnier’s Hold the Dark

A filmmaker we've been keeping tabs on since the late naughts when his Slamdance/SXSW preemed 2007's Murder Party dropped, Jeremy Saulnier played a significant creative role with...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Mélanie Laurent’s Galveston

Currently in a creative overdrive with a count of five feature films in just under a half dozen years, Mélanie Laurent began production on...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: A.J. Edwards’ Friday’s Child

A Terrence Malick school of cinema apprentice, there are certain parallels that can be drawn between the ethos, pathos or filmmaker conditioning of A.J. Edwards....

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Olivia Newman’s First Match

Every edition of the Sundance Film Festival we find at least one of them. One of the festival's superpowers is short film programming, and...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Miguel Arteta’s Duck Butter

Mostly working within the comedy film curriculum, two decades, and now eight feature films in, an habitual of the fest since presenting Star Maps...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot

With the gigantic cluster fuck that is the sinking ship distributor The Weinstein Company, we seriously doubt that Garth Davis' Mary Magdalene will receive...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Michael Tully’s Don’t Leave Home

Austinite Michael Tully packed his bags this past spring, moving from the lobster rouge backdrop of Ocean City, Maryland to the Celtic green meadows...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: David & Nathan Zellner’s Damsel

We incorrectly labeled this guesstimate as dropping in 2017 and to be frank, we're a bit surprised that it didn't shore up at the...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Joshua Marston’s Come Sunday

A place that can be avoided by obedience to God and his commandments, the Mormons don't see what all the fuss is about like...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Ethan Hawke’s Blaze

Yet to be invited to the Sundance ball with his trio of films as a director Chelsea Walls (2001), The Hottest State (2006) and Seymour:...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Khalik Allah’s Black Mother

Packing a fervent wallop only with his still photography (check out his just published hard cover Souls Against the Concrete) we were initially introduced Khalik Allah via the Filmmaker...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Janus Metz & Sine Plambech’s Between Two Worlds

It certainly appears that we might one day be relating Janus Metz's film output in the similar realm as Jonathan Demme, Michael Winterbottom, Asif...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Joshua Leonard’s Behold My Heart

If Joshua Leonard's third film gets inserted in the '18 edition, it'll be the project that had the luxury of having the longest post...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Felix van Groeningen’s Beautiful Boy

We know him for his Directors' Fortnight preemed The Misfortunates (2009) (and the publicity stunt on the Croisette as well), and international audiences discovered...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Jesper Ganslandt’s Beast Of Burden

For those who simply can't get enough of, or bypassed what a Cessna misadventure might look like with covert operations and covert opportunities seen...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Per Fly’s Backstabbing for Beginners

The A24 folks landed the rights to this Scandi-North American production and globe-trotting English language debut from Per Fly at the onset of the summer,...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Sam Levinson’s Assassination Nation

It's been a long seven years between features for Sam Levinson. Having started his film career with one of the best films from 2011...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Gareth Evans’ Apostle

A bromance between the festival and this Welsh started back when The Raid: Redemption received it U.S. premiere during the 2012 edition. Sundance has...

Zoology | Blu-ray Review

Russian director Ivan I. Tverdovsky became an automatic name in the cult films register with his 2016 sophomore film Zoology, an allegory about a...

Aquarius | Blu-ray Review

The political controversy which took place following the premiere of Kleber Mendonca Filho’s superb sophomore film had a rather unfortunate hobbling effect on its...

Wind River | Blu-ray Review

Arriving just in time to have the soured name of its US distributor The Weinstein Company shaved off prior to its awards season screenings...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Jim Hosking’s An Evening with Beverly Luff

Heavy on the gag....reflex, Jim Hosking's feature break out debut (a 2016 Sundance Park City at Midnight selection) was what could categorically be called...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Eva Vives’ All About Nina

Every year there are the last minute additions getting in under the wire, this might be the case for Eva Vives' directorial debut. Receiving...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Sarah Daggar-Nickson’s A Vigilante

Unless it's within the horror genre, revenge type films signed by female filmmakers are few and far between. For every Kill Bill, there are...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Kenny Riches’ A Name Without a Place

It's not just the Borscht folks who are reinvigorating the American independent scene in the Sunshine State, or more specifically, Miami. Cut to Kenny...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Silas Howard’s A Kid Like Jake

A busy bee as of late directing notable television gigs such as Hudson Valley Ballers and Transparent, Silas Howard premiered his debut film at...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Yen Tan’s 1985

The aesthetic foot print of this Malaysian born, Austin-based helmer can be visually catalogued year in and year out on film fest circuit. Part...

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: An Introduction

Tomorrow we begin our crystal ball overview of the 75 titles that we believe to be the odds on favorites for a possible 2018...

The Conversation: Top 10 American Indie Filmmakers Missing in Action (Class of ’17)

Following up our last week’s offering of ten international directors who have been missing in action for the past five years or more, we...

A Bride for Rip Van Winkle | Review

(Not So) Bright Future: Iwai’s Returns with Troubling Portrait of Modern Love At the beginning of Japanese director Shunji Iwai’s latest film, A Bride for...

Video: Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – 2017 TIFF Post Screening Q&A

Landing the coveted People's Choice Award, which in some circles is believed to be a god luck blessing towards an eventual Oscar win, Fox...

Top 3 Critics’ Picks: Dee Rees, Chris Smith & Luca Guadagnino this November

IONCINEMA.com’s Top 3 Critics’ Picks offers a curated approach to the usual quandary: what would you recommend I see in theaters this month? We’re...

The Conversation: Top 10 World Cinema Filmmakers Missing in Action (Class of ’17)

As we get ready to wrap up the cinematic offerings of 2017, it’s time to revisit those auteurs we haven’t heard from for a...

Lady Bird | Review

Call Her by Her Name: Gerwig Shifts Shrewdly in Director’s Seat Actress Greta Gerwig, alum of the American film movement known as Mumblecore and ingenious...

Last Flag Flying | Review

Looking Back Instead of Forward: A New Kind of Coming-of-Age Tale for Linklater Rare is the filmmaker who can entertain with little more than old-fashioned...

Interview: Ruben Östlund (The Square)

This weekend, Magnolia Pictures release Swedish auteur Ruben Östlund's latest film, The Square. Winner of this year's Palme d'Or at the 70th Cannes Film...

Novitiate | Review

And Then There Were Nun: Betts’ Novel Approach to the Nunnery Director Maggie Betts revisits a fascinating transitional period in the Catholic church with her...

Criterion Collection: Barry Lyndon (1975) | Blu-ray Review

Within the omnipresent and overpowering narration guiding Barry Lyndon, a passage on the title character’s wife describes her as “not very much more important...

Aurora Borealis | 2017 Warsaw Film Festival Review

Daughters of the Dawn: Meszaros Examines Painful Period with Reconciliation Drama Hungary’s cinematic canon can’t be discussed without a deliberation on the importance of Marta...

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2026 Cannes Film Festival – Checklist of Our Reviews

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