Animal Kingdom is a dazzling debut film from Australian filmmaker David Michôd that spawns across the seedy Melbourne underworld of criminals and the police that chase them. It is a strikingly assured film from a first time director in that it is both ambitious and challenging to audiences without ever becoming tiring. The plot is loosely based on a series of real life events involving the murder of two police offers, better known as the Walsh Street shootings that occurred in Melbourne in 1988. Starring a cast of all star Aussie actors including Guy Pearce, Jacki Weaver and a terrifying performance from Ben Mendelsohn that echoes after the screen fades to back, while also pushing newcomer James Frecheville into the spotlight among the veteran ensemble. Read the full story

As June is the month of the Sundance Directors Lab, the writers of The Film Stage saw this as being an appropriate moment to reflect back upon the early days of all things Sundance. Read the full story

The first trailer for  Apparition‘s newly acquired The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart in the lead as real-life rock star Joan Jett, with supporting work by Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie, playing the title band’s rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist respectively. The movie is directed by Floria Sigismondi and will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival next month. You can watch the teaser below or at MTV: Read the full story

Sundance has announced it’s 112 films that are entering in U.S. and World Cinema Documentary and Dramatic film competitions. The films represent “38 countries by 43 first-time filmmakers, including 24 in competition. These films were selected from 3,724 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,920 U.S. and 1,804 international feature-length films. 79 films at the Festival will be world premieres.” The festival takes place between Jan 21st and 31st at Park City Utah. Some interesting films to note are Mark Ruffalo‘s directorial debut, a new documentary by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud) and films starring Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Natalie Portman, James Franco, John Hamm, Melissa Leo, Laura Linney, Orlando Bloom, and more.  Check out the full list below. Read the full story

A few weeks back I was lucky enough to participate in a webcam (which is apparent by the scattered structure) interview with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel for their upcoming film 500 Days of Summer. The films debuted at the Sundance film festival this year and was met with stellar reviews, 500 Days Of Summer opens on July 17th.

Tell us what it was like to work on independent films such as this.

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Uh-huh.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: I mean, I would say it was like probably 60% improvised…

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Yeah.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: …would you say?

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a really good script so–

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: It was a great script, great script.

Read the rest of the interview >>