For decades now, the pipeline from Park City to a place called summer has been the condiut to channel smart, funny, challenging (all of the above) fare into arthouses and to give moviegoers a little variety. Here are a few highlights from Sundance (and other fests) coming to a theater near you.
Michael Fassbender acts as a guide (with an agenda) to Kodi Smit-McPhee’s young Scotsman who ventures into the Old American West in search of his sweetheart. John MacLean’s Western won the Sundance world-cinema prize. (May 22)
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s winning adaptation of Jesse Andrews’ coming-of-age novel about a teen who is forced by his mom to spend time with a sick classmate has some of the sweet melancholy of “The Fault In Our Stars” but a lot more of John Hughes’ sly wit. (June 19)
Rick Famuyiwa’s coming-of-age comedy about a geeky boy from the ‘hood who — along with his just-as-nerdy posse of friends — winds up in over his head with dope dealers, gang members and assorted others got some serious audience love at Sundance. (June 19)
“The Wolfpack.” Not really raised by wolves, just ultra-controlling parents, the brothers Angulo of New York City and their sis learned of the world almost entirely through their parents and via the movies they watched on TV. Crystal Mosell’s debut doc won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance in January. (June 19)
“ Brit director Marc Silver’s documentary recounts the killing of 17-year-old Jordan Davis at a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station by Michael Dunn. Silver’s thoughtful, artful film about gun violence, race, parental grief and Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws aids us in a quest to understand what makes us riven but also might make us stronger as a nation. (July 3)
“ Denver’s Daniel Junge has quite the summer ahead. His and co-director Kief Davidson’s zippy saga of the little plastic brick from Denmark that premiered at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival is the first of two features headed into theaters this season. (July 31)
Brando in his own brilliant, loopy, moving words. Stevan Riley’s documentary about the star is a remarkable collage of home movies, archival clips and lots of audiotape of the man himself. (Aug. 7)
“Being Evel.” The second of Daniel Junge’s summer docs recounts the exploits of one devilishly handsome daredevil by the name of Robert Craig Knievel. Johnny Knoxville, the doc’s producer and a talking head, came under his spell. (Aug. 31)
