Wednesday, January 09, 2008

IFC's Top ten at Sundance

IFC's Top 10 Most-Anticipated PerformancesPresented by ACURA

Sam Rockwell - "Choke"

Sam Rockwell gave great performances in two films at last year's festival — "Joshua" and "Snow Angels" — and we can't imagine he's going to be any less memorable playing a sex-addicted con-man in this adaptation of a novel from Chuck Palahniuk, the writer behind "Fight Club."

Amy Adams - "Sunshine Cleaning"

The premise of this one -- a young mother and her flaky sister start a biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up service -- sound awfully quirky-cute, but the Oscar-nominated Amy Adams has proven she can brighten just about any film.

Colin Farrell - "In Bruges"

How often to you get to see Colin Farrell do comedy or speak in his actual accent? In Martin McDonagh's opening night film, he plays a hitman with a heart who ends up hiding out in a picturesque Belgian town after a job goes wrong.

Seu Jorge - "The Escapist"

The Brazilian pop star who played Knockout Ned in "City of God" and sang Bowie covers in Portuguese in "The Life Aquatic" returns to the screen in this film about a jail breakout that also stars Brian Cox and Joseph Fiennes.

Kelly Macdonald - "The Merry Gentleman"

In "No Country For Old Men," Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald impressed, and not just because of she flawlessly passed herself off as Texan. Here she plays a woman fleeing an abusive relationship and befriending a depressed hit man (apparently a theme of this year's festival).

Peter Sarsgaard - "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh"

Who wouldn't want to see sensitive indie darling Peter Sarsgaard playing a biker with a big personality? Plus, this film is an adaptation of a novel from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon, so the dialog is all but guaranteed to be above par.

Winona Ryder - "The Last Word"

The last few years have been tough on Winona Ryder, but she was game as a woman who had an affair with a ventriloquist's dummy in last year's "The Ten," so we're looking forward to seeing her opposite another off-the-radar actor, Wes Bentley, in this rom-com about a professional writer of suicide notes.

Summer Bishil - "Towelhead"

"Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball's directorial debut was one of the most talked-about and controversial films at the Toronto Film Festival. Suffice to say, 19-year-old star Summer Bishil, in her first big-screen role, is also set to get plenty of attention.

Ken Jacobs - "Momma's Man"

Famed experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs plays "Dad" while his wife Flo plays "Mom" in this second film from their son Azazel Jacobs (whose debut was the acclaimed "The GoodTimesKid"). Is your family this hip?

Naomi Watts - "Funny Games"

Naomi Watts plays the suffering poster child for director Michael Haneke's remake of his own extremely disturbing 1997 film, in which two polite young men torture a family for no particular reason.

http://blog.ifctv.com/sundance2008/top10.html

2 comments:

Frank Anthony Polito said...
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Frank Anthony Polito said...
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