Screening Gotham: Sundance, Here They Come

Some of today's movie news of note from around New York:

--The Sundance Institute yesterday sent word of its 2007 Screenwriters Lab participants, among whom you'll spot New Yorkers Braden King (attending with Australian partner Dani Valent and their screenplay Here), David Riker (The Girl), Patricia Benoit (Haiti Cherie) and -- wait for it -- John Leguizamo (right), that long-suffering independent who is adapting his one-man show Sexaholic with the working title Jesse Sanchez: An Imperfect Life. The lab precedes the Sundance Film Festival by one week, running Jan. 12-17.

--Manohla Dargis tees off on Steven Soderbergh. And how: “The Good German feels like the product of a filmmaker far more interested in his own handicraft -- in the logistics of moving the camera among the characters with a dip and a glide -- than in the audience for whom he’s ostensibly creating that work." Is it oversimplifying for me to ask: But she liked Inland Empire?

--Also at The NYT Web site: David Carr's video from the Good Shepherd premiere is one nude-wrestling set piece away from being the funniest movie of the year.

--John Anderson has a golden moment today in Variety, anchoring a quartet of critics discussing their best and worst Oscar impressions of the last 20 years: "I really hated Crash; it was pretty much the "yeah, no shit" movie of all time." Yeah, no shit everyone's a racist, or yeah, no shit the Oscars are irrelevant outside the "for your consideration" ad trade? Either? Or? Both?

--Headline of the Day, from Nikki Finke: Africa is the New Canada For Filmmaking. Alas, neither are America, where the jokes make themselves.

Posted at December 15, 2006 10:52 AM