Victims reclaimed their own narratives at Sundance 2019

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If the premise of Pippa Bianco’s Share feels depressingly familiar – girl wakes up with no memory of the previous night, until video surfaces of her own assault – the film is notable for what it doesn’t do.

It doesn’t show us the full videos Mandy (Rhianne Barreto) received. Nor the hateful comments and texts she started getting afterward. It offers few concrete clues or details about what might have been done to her. It’s not especially interested in the boys who were there that night, or what their motivations might have been.

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5 things to know from this year’s Sundance Film Festival

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It is both the best thing and the worst thing about Sundance that it’s hard to know, in any given year, exactly what to expect. Big-name stars show off unexpected depths; unknown talents get big seemingly overnight; oddball trends start to take shape.

It’s only when you look back that the patterns and lessons emerge. And while it’s worth acknowledging that Sundance is so big, no two attendees will have exactly the same experience, there were a few themes that kept coming up again and again during my time there. 

Here are five conversations I couldn’t stop having – along with a comprehensive list of all our reviews from the fest. Read more…

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‘Knock Down the House’ looks beyond Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to capture a movement

“In the beginning, the fundamental question is, ‘Why you? Why do you think you can do this?'” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez notes in Knock Down the House. There are, as the documentary has already pointed out, a million reasons why she’s not the obvious c…

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‘Honey Boy’ invites you to watch Shia LaBeouf exorcise his demons

At this point, Shia LaBeouf’s as famous for playing Shia LaBeouf as he is for any of his other roles. He’s constantly performing as himself in public, whether that means wearing a paper bag to the red carpet or inviting the public to watch him watch …

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Pete Davidson grows up — a little bit — in ‘Big Time Adolescence’

One of the reasons Pete Davidson’s tumultuous 2018 was so surprising is that, well, we’re not used to Pete Davidson being surprising. Even on Saturday Night Live, a show that delights in pushing its actors into ever-stranger scenarios, he tends to pl…

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WWE dramedy ‘Fighting With My Family’ is a rowdy charmer

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Maybe it is true that all happy families are alike, deep down. But the Knights — the wrestling clan at the center of Fighting With My Family – are at least idiosyncratic and endearing enough to make themselves worth watching, even if their tale feels like one we’ve seen many times before.

Based on a 2012 documentary, Fighting With My Family traces the rise of wrestling superstar Paige, from her beginnings on the British indie circuit with her brother and parents (all of whom are also pro wrestlers) to her WWE debut. 

At its core, Fighting With My Family is a quirky-family dramedy combined with an underdog-sports-star biopic. The plot moves along a predictable path; you can probably guess from the first minutes exactly where this film is headed even if you’ve never heard of Paige. But it’s the cinematic equivalent of comfort food, something familiar and unfussy that’ll nevertheless leave you satisfied. Read more…

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Harvey Weinstein doc ‘Untouchable’ draws its power from his victim’s stories

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Harvey Weinstein and Sundance have a history.

The producer had long been a fixture, picking up future hits and hobnobbing with talent. It was also, we learned in 2017, where he perpetrated some terrible crimes. In 2018, Weinstein sat out the festival for the first time since the ’80s.

In 2019, Weinstein had a presence at the fest yet again – but not as a power player on the ground. This year, he is the subject of Untouchable, Ursula Macfarlane’s 98-minute documentary about the abuses he’s waged on others over the past four decades.

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Zac Efron’s Ted Bundy movie ‘Extremely Wicked’ is shockingly pointless

If Ted Bundy’s real secret weapon was his charm, which helped him reassure people who should’ve been suspicious of him and win over people who should’ve hated him, count Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile as just another to fall under his spe…

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