After bulking up and slimming down for recent roles, Jake Gyllenhaal gives his best performance since ‘Brokeback Mountain’ as a man who refuses to mourn his wife’s death.

 

In order to make sense of his life, a white-collar widower decides he has to tear it all down in “Demolition,” dismantling appliances, smashing furniture and even going so far as to bulldoze his own house in search of a catharsis that never comes. It all could have gone horribly awry, were it not for the top-of-their-game contributions of leading man Jake Gyllenhaal (continuing in recent-streak crazy mode) and director Jean-Marc Vallee (back in early-career “C.R.A.Z.Y.” mode), whose unexpected creative choices across the line salvage a sledgehammer-obvious screenplay that will stop at nothing to provoke a reaction. Though dated to open after the Oscar dust has settled with an April 8 release, Fox Searchlight might rethink that strategy if reactions to this alternately tough and ingratiating Toronto opener are strong enough.

Featuring the most baldly manipulative first and last five minutes of any movie this year, “Demolition” opens with Wall Street slimeball Davis Mitchell (Gyllenhaal) and his wife, Julia (Heather Lind), bickering in traffic when a car blindsides them mid-thought, jarring both the Mitchells and the audience — an increasingly prevalent and virtually inexcusable tactic whereby any dialogue set in a moving vehicle and shot head-on becomes a chance for directors to catch us off-guard. That very same emotional shock ploy was used twice at Cannes, in “The Sea of Trees” and “Chronic,” and it’s high time we gave this stunt a name, so Variety hereby proposes calling it “a Demolition,” as in, “The couple were driving along, talking about fixing the refrigerator when the director pulled ‘a Demolition,’ and the next thing we know, we’re in the hospital and the wife is dead.”

Theoretically speaking, an opening like that should put audiences on edge for the rest of the movie, leaving us constantly jumpy about what might come next, and sure enough, though Bryan Sipe’s screenplay is shameless when it comes to beating its metaphors, one could hardly accuse it of being predictable. That’s instantly clear in the way Davis processes his wife’s accident — or rather, how Vallee approaches the critical, tone-setting scenes that immediately follow. Treating Julia like a ghost (the way he did Laura Dern’s dead mom in last year’s “Wild”), the helmer uses jump cuts and poignant dips-to-black to convey the numbness the character feels in place of grieving.

While his father-in-law-cum-boss, Phil (Chris Cooper), stays home wracked with guilt, Davis goes back to work almost immediately. He clearly needs someone to talk to, but rather than turning to anyone familiar, he composes a long, brutally candid letter to the company responsible for stocking the candy-withholding vending machines in the ER under the pretext of asking a refund. At first, this epistolary therapy seems like little more than a device to get Gyllenhaal’s character talking: The film has a fair amount of exposition to unload, and this is a relatively novel and quirky way to do it. Besides, Davis is obviously suppressing his own reaction to the accident and needs an excuse to get in touch with his feelings.

But these letters play a more substantial role than that, seeing as how Sipe actually follows through on his weird creative choice and invents a woman on the other end of Davis’ letters: Champion Vending Machines customer service rep Karen Moreno (Naomi Watts), who is so moved by the correspondence that she decides to call Davis at 2 a.m. to offer a sympathetic ear — which is all he ever really needed. Karen is drawn in because she’s never met anyone as honest as Davis, and Davis is happy because he finally has someone who will listen, although befriending Karen comes with the added challenge of dealing with her rebellious long-haired son, Chris (Judah Lewis), who really loves classic rock.

As it happens, so does Vallee, who notoriously deferred his director fees on “C.R.A.Z.Y.” in order to secure the David Bowie and Rolling Stones songs he wanted on that soundtrack, and who pumps up the volume here every chance he gets, blasting everything from Mr. Big’s “Free” to Heart’s “Crazy on You” to help throttle Davis out of his funk — quite literally at one point, as Gyllenhaal dances along to his newly upgraded playlist through the streets of Manhattan. Chris’ character could be a reincarnation of (or at least soul brother to) the gay, music-driven protagonist of the beloved coming-(out)-of-age pic that put Vallee on the map, and “Demolition” benefits from a comparably cheeky, dramedy-defying approach to material that might have played as either flat or overly precious in another director’s hands.

That doesn’t necessarily excuse the fact that Sipe’s script seems to be working overtime to jerk tears. Just because Davis doesn’t feel anything for his wife’s loss doesn’t mean we won’t, either, and it’s hard to watch the red-eyed Cooper without welling up ourselves, especially considering how stoical the actor is in nearly everything else. Ultimately, “Demolition” falls into that category of movie about people who just need to feel something — an increasingly common zeitgeist-channeling genre led by films such as “American Beauty,” in which relatively privileged suburban white people need something to penetrate the numb discontent of their lives.

Coincidentally, Cooper played a catalyzing force in both films. Here, his character tells his seemingly unfeeling son-in-law, “If you want to fix something, you have to take it apart and put it back together” — advice that Davis opts to take literally, first with his toolbox and later by quitting his cushy nepotistic job and joining a wrecking crew. Here, it’s stepping on a rusty nail at a (de)construction site, in lieu of a windswept plastic bag, that serves as our protagonist’s wake-up call to all that life has to offer, but the message is the same. But Sipe smugly refuses to stop there, throwing a gay bashing, a surprise pregnancy and an eye-rolling and totally out-of-character 11th-hour act of charity into the mix  — not to mention an astonishingly reckless scene in which he hands Chris a handgun and invites the kid to shoot him.

Somehow, amid this erratic roller-coaster of behavior, Gyllenhaal grounds Davis’ wildly unraveling psyche, finding both humor and heart in a man who admits to having spent the past 10 to 12 years incapable of feeling. Considering how far the dedicated actor will go to transform himself into someone new, famously bulking up (as in “Jarhead” and “Southpaw”) or slimming down (a la “Nightcrawler”) as the role requires, it’s doubly impressive to see him build a character without the crutch of a total physical reinvention — which is to say, that he can show up as the Jake Gyllenhaal fans know and love, and yet still disappear completely behind his own facade.

The actor reveals a near-sociopathic deadness to Davis in the early stretch, an almost Patrick Bateman-level lack of empathy when faced with the genuine grief of those around him (which also happens to be where Sipe’s quippy script works best, landing laughs at seemingly inappropriate moments), though the character gradually opens up in Karen and Chris’ company. If Davis’ “thing,” according to those around him, is an unfiltered and frequently tactless compulsion to speak the truth, then the Morenos serve as the mirrors who remind him of who he truly is, and Watts is wonderful in a rare supporting part that allows her to reflect her co-star’s soul without having to use sex in the process.

The object here is clearly to rip Davis apart and rebuild him from the pieces, and that’s a job neither he nor Gyllenhaal can pull off alone. It takes Karen’s empathy, Phil’s understanding, Chris’ wild taste in music and the ever-surprising Vallee’s mastery of tone to construct such a well-rounded character, and though “Demolition” very nearly blows it with two badly executed last scenes, the result is the best Gyllenhaal performance since “Brokeback Mountain” and a partially heartless character who manages to work his way into ours.

Source: VARIETY

Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallee’s Demolition, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts and Chris Cooper, will open the 40th edition of the Toronto Film Festival. The fest announced its first titles today at a news conference presided over by TIFF director and chief executive Piers Handling and artistic director Cameron Bailey. The 40th edition of the festival kicks runs September 10-20 and will include a host of special events marking the four decades of the festival.

Demolition follows an investment banker who, struggling to understand his emotional disconnect after the tragic death of his wife, begins to tear apart his life in an effort to see where he went wrong and is ultimately rescued by a woman he meets in a chance encounter.

Of the 15 Galas and 34 Special Presentations announced, this initial lineup includes films from directors such as Ridley Scott, Michael Moore, Deepa Mehta, Lenny Abrahamson, Brian Helgeland, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, Jason Bateman, Cary Fukunaga, Catherine Corsini, Stephen Frears, Tom Hooper, Hany Abu-Assad, Meghna Gulzar, Terence Davies, Jonás Cuarón, Julie Delpy, Rebecca Miller and Johnnie To.

Making a return after an absence of six years is Moore, whose Where To Invade Next is sure to provoke with its geopolitical satire. Other world premieres include Scott’s The Martian, Frears’ Lance Armstrong drama The Program and Kate Winslet-starrer The Dressmaker.

TIFF seems to have relaxed rules about North American premieres only receiving the plum opening weekend slots, although it appears the best venues will be prioritized for world and North American premieres.

“We are celebrating our 40th anniversary in 2015 and this first round of films offers a taste of the incredible lineup at this year’s festival,” said Handling. “Made by both established and emerging filmmakers from around the world, these films offer a global snapshot of our times.”

“This year we are thrilled to share a diverse array of filmmakers from Australia, India, France, China, the United Kingdom and the U.S.,” said Bailey. “We look forward to sharing these fantastic films with Toronto audiences — the most engaged and enthusiastic in the world.”

DEMOLITION – OPENING NIGHT FILM

Jean-Marc Vallée, USA (World Premiere)

In Demolition, a successful investment banker, Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal), struggles after losing his wife in a tragic car crash. Despite pressure from his father-in-law (Chris Cooper) to pull it together, Davis continues to unravel. What starts as a complaint letter to a vending machine company turns into a series of letters revealing startling personal admissions. Davis’ letters catch the attention of customer service rep Karen (Naomi Watts) and, amidst emotional and financial burdens of her own, the two strangers form an unlikely connection. With the help of Karen and her son (Judah Lewis), Davis starts to rebuild, beginning with the demolition of the life he once knew.

Source: DEADLINE | HOLLYWOOD

The violence of the inter-American drug trade has served as the backdrop for any number of films for more than three decades, but few have been as powerful and superbly made as Sicario. Drenched in many shades of ambiguity as it dramatizes a complex U.S.-led effort to take out a major Mexican drug lord south of the border, Denis Villeneuve’s intensely physical new work is no less disturbing than his previous features Prisoners and Incendies and should be able to generate midlevel business akin to the former due to its relatable lawman (and law-woman) elements. After world premiering it in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Lionsgate will hold back the domestic commercial release until Sept. 18.

An opening note explains that “sicario” is cartel slang for hitman, derived from a term dating to ancient Jerusalem describing hunters of Romans. Loosely used, it’s a word that could apply to almost every character in this tense tale, which is not difficult to follow even if it does demand that close attention be paid. The script by first-time screenwriter Taylor Sheridan, who played Deputy Hale on television’s Sons of Anarchy until the character was killed off at the beginning of the third season, quickly establishes an environment in which everyone is capable of killing or being killed, as well as a roster of characters for whom the labels “good guy” and “bad guy” are so relative as to essentially become irrelevant.

Effectively operating as the audience’s surrogate is Kate Macy (Emily Blunt), a first-rate FBI agent specializing in kidnapping cases, who, with a SWAT team, discovers a “house of horrors” in which dozens of rotting corpses wrapped in plastic are hidden behind the walls. The house is owned by the Diaz family, a Sonora cartel operating on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border. Kate kills one bad dude herself during the operation, which is considered so successful that she’s paged to join a secret American task force whose mission is to lop off the Diaz clan’s head.

Working in league with the Mexicans while knowing full well how compromised many of their security forces are, the Yank team welcomes its first female member (her black partner, played by Daniel Kaluuya, isn’t selected although he still goes along for part of the ride). But its on-the-ground leader, Matt (Josh Brolin), amuses himself by explaining as little as possible to Kate about what’s going on as they fly off in a private jet.

In a terrifically orchestrated set piece, the Americans cross in a huge caravan from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez, navigate through dicey neighborhoods in which naked mutilated bodies hang upside-down from an overpass, extricate their prey from prison, then get stuck in horrendous traffic near the border crossing as menacing tattooed guys with guns materialize from a nearby car.

Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins worked brilliantly together on Prisoners while employing a very dark palette of blacks, grays and deep greens. Their collaboration here is equally great in a story and setting defined by parched desert tones, cheap and impermanent buildings, and vast, pale blue skies. A preponderance of scenes involves information haves and have-nots, or situations where charatcers’ motives are unclear. The blocking, framing and use of lenses accentuate these disparities in ways that expertly heighten the tension and sense of uncertainty. There are also terrific aerial shots that show the border, including portions of the American-built fence, with great vividness.

The character who’s most often, and intentionally, kept in the dark about what’s going on is Kate. Far from being a naive greenhorn, she’s already somewhat embittered (she’s divorced with no kids) and has trouble sorting out the chain of command, much less what’s expected of her. One of the big wheels in the heavily militarized operation is the world-weary Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), a native Colombian said to have formerly been a prosecutor in Mexico, who warns her that, “Nothing will make sense to your American ears. By the end, you will understand.”

Sicario offers Blunt’s character nothing in the way of military challenges that can quite rival what the actress took on last year in Edge of Tomorrow. Instead, she provides a sharply penetrating reading of a smart, resilient young woman whose desire to help out is no match for the deceptions and frustrating barriers placed in her way. Seeing how much she has to contribute — to the missions at hand, to the country, to a personal relationship — it’s sad bordering on tragic to think that she could end up as just another potential victim of an unending war that, in one way or another, poisons everyone it touches. Blunt’s performance is first-rate.

There is plenty of heavy-duty action here, probably enough to sate audiences with genre appetites. But this is not a film in which a few heavily armed gringos can just strut into Mexico and take care of the problem with a few blasts of their big guns. The macho guys and the armaments are here, all right, but Sicario very clearly makes its point about how deeply the roots of corruption are embedded in the soil of Mexico and the American Southwest. And, via Alejandro, it underlines how the problem has moved north, from Colombia up to Central America, Sonora and the American border.

In the end, Kate’s desire to build a prosecutable case is trumped by jurisdictional issues, realities on the ground and personal vendettas, which are abiding. Good and legal intentions are as nothing in this world. “This is the future, Kate,” Matt advises her, and even when she briefly seeks a little personal R&R with a macho guy in a bar (Jon Bernthal), things are not what they seem. How can an honest woman win? How can the U.S. retain a semblance of virtue in such a struggle? How can Mexico and countries further south diminish this curse? How can the contamination of drugs and blood money be reversed? Such are the questions the film acutely raises and that no one can properly answer.

Unlike Blunt’s more dimensional Kate, the male characters are so prevented from showing their true selves by the professional roles they have taken on that they must remain a bit opaque. But from a behavioral point of view, the cast is outstanding. Excellent as the real-life drug lord in the as-yet unreleased Escobar: Paradise Lost, Del Toro underplays to strong effect here as a mysterious man clearly vying to live as many lives as a cat. Brolin is most engaging as the operations chief who bounces between laid-back somnolence and gung-ho exuberance at the flick of a switch, while Victor Garber properly plays the American boss man with intriguing opaqueness.

Shot in New Mexico, the production has been superbly decked out in every department. But special note must be made of the brilliantly idiosyncratic and disturbing score by Icelandic composer Johann Johannson, which cranks up the unease of key scenes with an electronic bass wallow that then descends to seemingly impossible depths of apocalyptic dread.

Source: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“Sicario” (Denis Villeneuve, U.S.). The Canadian director is no stranger to Cannes, which screened his films “Cosmos” (1996, Directors’ Fortnight), “August 32nd on Earth” (1998, Un Certain Regard) and “Polytechnique” (2009, Directors’ Fortnight). Since then, Villeneuve has become one of the most sought-after talents in Hollywood, and he cracks the competition for the first time with this crime drama starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin and Jon Bernthal, and set against the backdrop of the Mexican drug trade. (Sales: Lionsgate Intl.)

Star-studded English-language dramas from Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, Denis Villeneuve, Justin Kurzel, Paolo Sorrentino and Matteo Garrone will vie for the Palme d’Or alongside new films by Valerie Donzelli, Jacques Audiard, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Jia Zhangke at the 68th annual Cannes Film Festival, which unveiled its official selection lineup on Thursday.

While there are only two U.S. directors in competition — Haynes with “Carol,” a 1950s lesbian love story starring Cate Blanchett, and Van Sant with his suicide drama “The Sea of Trees,” pairing Matthew McConaughey and Ken Watanabe — this year’s Palme race looks to feature more high-profile Hollywood talent than any in recent memory. Canada’s Villeneuve (“Prisoners,” “Enemy”) will bring his Mexican drug-cartel drama “Sicario,” with Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin, while Australia’s Kurzel (“The Snowtown Murders”) secured a Palme berth for “Macbeth,” his Shakespeare adaptation toplining Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.

In a further sign of the ever-increasing globalization of film culture, two highly regarded European directors will make their Cannes competition debuts with English-lingo efforts: Greek helmer Yorgos Lanthimos (“Dogtooth”) with “The Lobster,” an out-there sci-fier starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, and Norwegian director Joachim Trier with “Louder Than Bombs,” a family drama with Isabelle Huppert, Gabriel Byrne and Jesse Eisenberg. Two Italian heavyweights are also bringing English-language fare: Paolo Sorrentino with “Youth” (pictured below), toplining Michael Caine and featuring Weisz, Jane Fonda, Paul Dano and Harvey Keitel, and Garrone with “The Tale of Tales,” a lavish, effects-driven fantasy starring Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel and John C. Reilly.

As expected, American studio/specialty fare will be similarly well represented out of competition, with world-premiere screenings of Woody Allen’s “Irrational Man,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone; George Miller’s previously announced actioner “Mad Max: Fury Road,” with Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron; and Pixar’s latest toon extravaganza “Inside Out.” The latter will be joined out of competition by another animated feature, Mark Osborne’s French-produced, English-language adaptation of “The Little Prince,” featuring voice work by Riley Osborne, Jeff Bridges, Del Toro and Cotillard.

Meanwhile, of the eight first features announced in the official selection, few will likely stir more interest than director Natalie Portman’s “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” an Israel-shot adaptation of Amos Oz’s bestselling autobiography that will receive a Special Screenings berth.

Asia will enjoy its strongest competition presence in some time with “Our Little Sister,” a Japanese comicstrip adaptation from Hirokazu Kore-eda; “Mountains May Depart,” a three-part drama from mainland Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke; and “The Assassin,” a long-gestating martial-arts epic from Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-hsien. Cannes 2015 also looks to be a robust edition for Italian filmmakers, with Palme bridesmaids Garrone and Sorrentino duking it out with Palme laureate Nanni Moretti, back with his semi-autobiographical drama “My Mother.” And perhaps the most unexpected competition entry is “Son of Saul,” a Holocaust drama from first-time Hungarian helmer Laszlo Nemes, and the sole debut feature in contention for the Palme.

All these tantalizing prospects aside, Thursday morning’s press conference in Paris left a number of question marks, starting with the fact that only 17 films were announced for competition and 14 in Un Certain Regard, a program that runs parallel to the competition. Cannes delegate general Thierry Fremaux (appearing alongside newly installed president Pierre Lescure) assured those in attendance that more pictures would be added to the lineup in the coming days. It remains to be seen whether that means making room for any British and/or Latin American filmmakers, who are currently unrepresented in competition.

As it stands, while the proceedings will kick off with Emmanuelle Bercot’s previously announced “Standing Tall,” starring Catherine Deneuve, the festival has yet to announce either a closing-night film or an opening film for Un Certain Regard. Acknowledging that there were many films that didn’t make the cut despite having been well liked by the screening committee, Fremaux added, “It’s a good selection. It’s new, it’s fresh … Our selection will lay out some assumptions, some hypotheses, and the mission is to put new names on the world cinema map.”

Fremaux also addressed the large number of English-lingo movies from non-native English speakers, noting that he and his committee had refused many films that used the language in an absurd or non-intuitive fashion.

“We’re trying to make this point understood by certain American producers who really think English is the world’s language,” Fremaux said. “We just can’t have Latin American, Asian or Middle Eastern characters speak in English as if it were their own language.”

Lescure noted that the Sorrentino and Garrone films were worthy exceptions: “The coherence of the choice of language stems from artistic considerations rather than economic ones.”

Of the many films that went unmentioned in Thursday’s announcement (including Terence Davies’ “Sunset Song,” Miguel Gomes’ “Arabian Nights” and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Love in Khon Kaen”), two of the most conspicuous and surprising no-shows were Arnaud Desplechin’s “Nos arcadies” and Gaspar Noe’s “Love.” The absence of these two Cannes mainstays can be chalked up in part to an even-stronger-than-usual year for French cinema, which will be represented in competition by Jacques Audiard’s immigrant drama “Erran”; Maiwenn’s “Mon roi,” a love story starring Bercot and Vincent Cassel; Valerie Donzelli’s incest-themed drama “Marguerite and Julien”; and Stephane Brize’s “A Simple Man,” with Vincent Lindon.

Other French-speaking entries that were unannounced on Thursday include Xavier Giannoli’s “Marguerite,” Guillaume Nicloux’s “Valley of Love,” Jaco van Dormael’s “The Brand New Testament” and Joachim Lafosse’s “The White Knights,” though it’s expected that most if not all these titles may yet find berths in the official selection or in the Directors’ Fortnight, which will announce its lineup on April 21. (The Critics’ Week sidebar will be announced on April 20.)

Donzelli and Maiwenn are the only two female directors competing for the Palme d’Or, a number in line with last year’s; slotting Bercot’s “Standing Tall” in competition would have brought the total to three. Still, the festival would seem to be making some attempt to address past criticisms of its underrepresentation of women — not only by opening with its first female-directed movie in the nearly 30 years since Diane Kurys’ “A Man in Love” (1987), but also by partnering with French luxury goods company Kering to present Women in Motion, a series of talks and panels highlighting women’s achievements in cinema.

As usual, Un Certain Regard, a sidebar devoted to work by emerging talents as well as established auteurs, will provide a significant platform for national cinemas not represented in competition. These include India (Neeraj Ghaywan’s “Fly Away Solo,” Gurvinder Singh’s “The Fourth Direction”), Romania (Corneliu Porumboiu’s “The Treasure,” Radu Muntean’s “One Floor Below”), Iran (Ida Panahandeh’s “Nahid”), Iceland (Grimar Hakonarson’s “Rams”) and South Korea (Shin Su-won’s “Madonna,” Oh Seung-euk’s “The Shameless”).

Another Korean film, Hong Won-chan’s serial-killer thriller “Office,” will receive a Midnight Screenings slot, as will “Amy,” Asif Kapadia’s documentary portrait of the late singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse.

At the press conference, Fremaux made a point of noting that the festival would “wage a campaign to slow down the contemporary practice of (taking) selfies on the red carpet.” While Fremaux said he didn’t want to be coercive or prohibitive, he felt that said practice was “extremely ridiculous and grotesque.”

The Cannes Film Festival runs May 13-24.

Source: VARIETY

“’71” (U.K.) (Director: Yann Demange, Screenwriter: Gregory Burke) — “‘71″ takes place over a single night in the life of a young British soldier accidentally abandoned by his unit following a riot on the streets of Belfast in 1971. Unable to tell friend from foe, he must survive the night alone and find his way to safety. Cast: Jack O’Connell, Paul Anderson, Richard Dormer, Sean Harris, Barry Keoghan, Martin McCann.

Kevin Bacon, Keanu Reeves and Eli Roth are among the bigger names aiming to generate buzz and raise gooseflesh in the Park City at Midnight sidebar at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, the lineup of which was announced today alongside those of the festival’s Spotlight and New Frontier sections.

Fresh off his turn in “John Wick,” Reeves stars in the Roth-directed “Knock Knock,” a psychological horror film about a married man who is paid a fateful visit one weekend by two beautiful girls. The thriller, which marks Roth’s first trip to Sundance, will screen in Park City at Midnight, along with Jon Watts’ “Cop Car,” starring Bacon as a corrupt police officer chasing the kids who took his vehicle for a joyride; Corin Hardy’s “The Hallow,” a shocker set in a mysterious Irish forest; and “Hellions,” Bruce McDonald’s thriller about a teenager terrorized by trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

Rodney Ascher, who scored a New Frontier hit in 2012 with “Room 237,” his documentary about Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” will appear in the Midnight slate with “The Nightmare,” a docu-horror film about sleep paralysis. Rounding out the section are “Reversal,” J.M. Cravioto’s thriller about a young woman trying to escape her captor; “Turbo Kid,” a post-apocalyptic action-comedy from the directing trio of Anouk Whissell, Francois Simard and Yoann-Karl Whissell; and David Robert Mitchell’s festival hit “It Follows,” about a circle of teenagers pursued by a sexually transferable curse.

Last year, Park City at Midnight bowed Australian director Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook,” a horror picture that has since become a Stateside critics’ darling; audiences will be looking for a similarly sensational breakout in January.

The best-of-fests Spotlight section will feature a handful of acclaimed titles from Cannes (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s “The Tribe,” Damian Szifron’s “Wild Tales,” Kornel Mundruczo’s “White God” and Celine Sciamma’s “Girlhood”); plus Yann Demange’s “’71,” Ramin Bahrani’s “99 Homes” and Mia Hansen-Love’s “Eden.” The experimental New Frontier slate will present six features, including the latest from Canadian auteur Guy Maddin, “The Forbidden Room,” co-directed with Evan Johnson.

Sundance will announce its Premieres and Documentary Premieres titles on Monday.

Source: VARIETY

Unlocking the Truth Is a Band That Rocks Beyond Its Years.

Unlocking the Truth, a trio of black middle-schoolers from Brooklyn who received extensive coverage from the news media recently after signing a lucrative record deal, is a boy band, but only in the most literal sense of the term.

It might be more accurate to call the group an anti-boy band. These boys aren’t products of a star-making machine like Disney’s, nor do they draw streams of squealing girls. Instead of pop confections, they make blunt rock music that recalls early-era Metallica, inspired by the sounds they’ve picked up from watching Japanese anime and WWE wrestling videos.

They are very clear about their musical intentions. “We do heavy metal,” the band’s 13-year-old guitarist, Malcolm Brickhouse, said one recent afternoon on a playground bench at P.S. 282 in Park Slope, sporting a new shock of red in his Afro, flanked by his band mates, the 12-year-old drummer Jarad Dawkins and the 13-year-old bassist Alec Atkins. “We don’t have kid audiences.”

Mr. Atkins added: “We want to bring it back to the way it was in the ’80s. We don’t want to switch up our style and do pop or rap.” Already, they have opened for hard-rock acts like Queens of the Stone Age and Scar the Martyr, as well as appeared at Coachella and on the Vans Warped Tour. And they share a booking agency with legacy bands like Guns N’ Roses and Motorhead, for whom they opened in April.

Jolene Cherry, chief executive and founder of the Cherry Party, a newly formed Sony joint venture that signed the group, declined to discuss the terms of the deal. But according to published reports, it includes a $60,000 advance for the first album, with the figure rising for each successive one, totaling $1.78 million for as many as six albums, provided sales reach a prescribed number of records. The boys have a book contract with Penguin. And there are plans to film a documentary à la “One Direction: This Is Us.”

Mr. Brickhouse and Mr. Dawkins, who met in church as toddlers, have been playing music in the Brickhouses’ Flatbush basement since elementary school, largely learning their instruments on their own. (Mr. Atkins, who lives in Crown Heights, joined the group a couple of years ago).

Two of the boys’ mothers, who were supervising their sons at P.S. 282’s playground, said their interest in metal was initially cause for concern. “I thought, if they would play anything, it would be R&B and pop,” said Tabatha Dawkins, who works in finance. “And when I heard their music, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to get him back to church.’”

Mimicking a heavy metal growl, Mr. Brickhouse’s mother, Annette Jackson, a secretary and the band’s co-manager, added, “I was like, ‘Just don’t play that kill-your-mama music.’ ” When her son asked his mother recently about getting a tattoo, she offered him a pack of Sharpie markers and suggested that he draw it on himself.

If they are affected by their newfound celebrity, they don’t show as much, and their boyish energy was not out of place on P.S. 282’s lively playground. They like to paw at one another, like a pack of restless kittens. At one point, Mr. Atkins asked if he could karate-chop the ice off Mr. Brickhouse’s orange snow cone. (How metal. Mr. Brickhouse said no.) At school, “I’m just a regular kid,” said Mr. Dawkins, the sage and straight-faced member of the group.

The boys like to quote Naruto, the Japanese manga series, and gleefully interrupt one another. “Powerful mystic frogs!” yelled Mr. Brickhouse, the band member with an evident mischievous streak, during a discussion of metal music. Mr. Atkins said proudly, “Malcolm doesn’t like to accept it, but we’re nerds.”

When they perform, however, the boys appear focused and serious. They began playing live two years ago at the Apollo Theater’s amateur night, and soon started busking around New York City. While they were performing in Washington Square Park one day in 2012, Steve Jordan, a multi-instrumentalist who has played with Eric Clapton and John Mayer, stopped to chat, and eventually helped the band record a demo. A video of the boys playing in Times Square went viral last year, catching the attention of online media outlets.

Last fall, Alan Sacks, a longtime producer of Disney films (and the ’70s sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter”) was looking for a new project after the Jonas Brothers, with whom he had worked, disbanded. He read an article online about Unlocking the Truth and thought, “It would be great to make a television series or a movie about them — maybe fictionalized,” he said. But when he met the boys in Brooklyn, he saw a different type of potential and signed on as co-manager with Mr. Brickhouse’s parents.

In November, Ms. Cherry sent a scout to watch the band perform during halftime at a Brooklyn Nets game and offered it a deal shortly thereafter. She had worked with hard-rock acts like Korn and System of a Down, but never before with artists as young as Unlocking the Truth, she said.

“I was not looking to get into business with children,” she said. “But they were so charismatic, so wise.”

She acknowledged that marketing a metal band today is more difficult than it was in the ’90s, when the genre had more presence in the mainstream. “Obviously, metal sales are not what they were, and that genre is a reach,” she said. “But you never know what can happen.” Unlocking the Truth could be a good bet, despite being something of a novelty in a genre where young black men are a rarity.

“That’s the fear: You don’t want it to be perceived as a novelty,” said John Karkazis (better known as Johnny K), a producer working with the band on its debut EP. “The novelty is that they’re so young, and so good. But sooner or later, they’ll be 18 or 19 with a couple records under their belt, and they won’t be a novelty.”

The boys, however, are already thinking ahead. Mr. Dawkins said he’s learning the skills to become a sound engineer; he has even requested that his mother buy insurance for his hands. And, “I’m going to invest in stocks,” he said, sounding sly.

The others, meanwhile, said they’re both interested in learning how to produce for other bands. “Do you know how much money producers get?” Mr. Brickhouse asked, seemingly rhetorically. Mr. Atkins added that he’d like to become a talent scout. “I see a bunch of great artists on YouTube every day, and they don’t really get a chance like we did.”

Working with Mr. Karkazis, the boys recently recorded their debut single, at Mission Sound Recording Studio in Brooklyn. They have plans for a fall release of their EP, which will incorporate more vocals than their older, instrumental-based songs.

That might require a bit of patience; their voices are still dropping. At one moment during the conversation at P.S. 282, Mr. Atkins’s cracked a bit, and he turned excitedly to Mr. Dawkins: “My voice is changing!”

Source: THE NEW YORK TIMES