‘Thelma’ Review: June Squibb Is On The Hunt For A Scammer [Sundance]

Twenty years ago, Ondi Timoner’s rock doc “Dig!” the wildly entertaining, sensationalistic portrait of the dysfunctional indie rock bands the Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols and their strange love/hate relationship and rivalry, was a smash hit, at least critically, winning the Sundance Prize Grandy Jury Prize for Best Documentary and squarely landing the filmmaker on the map.

By now, it should be evident that each passing year brings with it advancements in technology, landing anywhere on an imaginary graph containing the likes of the latest smartphone to a car that can brew a mean cup of coffee. One area that’s been hovering over the whole of humanity for far longer than a need for a house that dictates a grocery list is that of the afterlife; pondering what happens after each and every one of us shuffle off this mortal coil remains, quite possibly, an everlastingly unanswerable question, but for those left behind in the wake of a loved one’s passing, a more pressing matter would be the manner in which one deals with said loss, and how best to move on.

Sundance Film Festival’s lineups can often be dark affairs with edgy shocks, narcotics and strident political talking points. But one of the most soul-satisfying movies to premiere at the 2024 edition features no drug dealers, whistleblowers or bloodbaths. It’s about a sweet 93-year-old grandma who collects marbles and rides a mobility scooter.And, OK, yes she also holds a man at gunpoint.Running time: 97 minutes.

Filmmakers have parsed the zombie genre from seemingly every angle possible. George A.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer The 2024 Sundance Film Festival Awards are underway in Park City, Utah, where a new crop of indies will do battle across multiple categories, including the coveted U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize.

Filmmaker Asmae El Moudir, making her feature directorial drama, starts her non-fiction film “The Mother Of All Lies” as a modest family chronicle—an elevated home video of sorts. It is soon clear, though, that she has much more on her mind because the actual subject of her inquiry is the collective amnesia around a seminal event that changed Morocco forever, the 1981 Casablanca bread riots.

Some movies are Irish. “Kneecap” is Ireland.

“We Are the World” was a once-in-a-generation meeting of musical giants when it was recorded Jan. 28, 1985 — and released two months later on March 7 — to benefit African famine relief.Anyone who was anyone in music at that moment — a who’s who of legends, including everyone from Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Bob Dylan to Billy Joel, Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen — showed up to support the cause.Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones and ’80s hitmaker Michael Omartian, the single sold a whopping 20 million copies.

A formally rigorous and free-associative dive into a decade’s worth of political fighting in the Congo, from roughly 1955 to 1965, Johan Grimonprez’s “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” is a fascinating and sprawling historical overview. Eschewing the usual mix of contextual talking heads, the Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist instead adopts its narrative approach from the jazz that flows freely throughout the film and helps frame the political struggles of the Congo.

It starts innocuously enough. “Krazy House,” the English-language debut of Dutch filmmakers Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil, launches with a ‘90s family sitcom parody that ribs their cheese and cringe.

As one examines the abundance of cultures worldwide, to see the marginal way women continue to be treated on a global scale remains infuriating to take in during the era of #MeToo and the fact that seemingly little progress has been made even as our society makes its way into 2024. Though gains can undeniably be acknowledged on the political front and numerous other fields, it’s still apparent that an ocean exists in the way of real change, with “Black Box Diaries” a stunning example of the heavily outdated customs in which parts of our minuscule planet find themselves stuck and the women who suffer as a direct result.

“Ben Is Back” with Julia Roberts and “Beautiful Boy” starring Timothée Chalamet. A few years back at Sundance I saw the premiere of the awful “Four Good Days” starring Mila Kunis and Glenn Close.

HBO in November 2022 announced a third season for , which will bring a new installment of the Mike White-created anthology series to screens.

An exploration of the generational trauma surrounding the “stolen generations” of Aboriginal children by the Australian government, Jon Bell’s feature debut “The Moogai” fits all the criteria of what we would, perhaps pejoratively, describe as “elevated horror.” A fraught term, and one that would need more than the length of this review to dive into, it nevertheless seems apt for a film that so blatantly makes its subtext into text.

A raw examination of labor organization at its most powerful, pure, and fragile, “Union” is a look at union drama uncut and without any guardrails. Verité to a fault, directors Stephen Maing and Brett Story present the documentary with a detached remove that isn’t matched by the framing of the central conflict, and yet morsels of true inspiration still manage to tumble forth.

Coachella, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Summerfest, Pitchfork Music, etc. They all owe an enormous debt to Lollapalooza, the groundbreaking music festival that helped change the touring and music industry just as alternative music peaked in the early 90s.

Kobi Libii’s work on the sadly short-lived Comedy Central show “The Opposition with Jordan Klepper” always tended toward the confrontational. By donning the guise of right-wing media provocateurs, he highlighted the absurd internal contradictions of ideological hardliners.

There’s commitment to the bit, and then there’s David and Nathan Zellner. The brothers’ latest film “Sasquatch Sunset,” billed to Sundance audiences as only “a year in the life of a singular family,” makes good on the filmmaking duo’s long desire to make a film about the legend of Bigfoot.

Swiss film producers and financiers Karl Spoerri and Viviana Vezzani have been Sundance regulars for more than 15 years, but this edition is special.

“The Greatest Night In Pop” is so entertaining and eminently watchable, and it’s as simple as that. Directed by Bao Nguyen, the acclaimed filmmaker of the Bruce Lee doc “Be Water,” the already-engaging subject matter doesn’t hurt: nearly 50 of the top American music artists in the world all in one room, recording a soon-to-be global hit single.