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I cannot recommend The Other Dream Team highly enough. It is one of the more multi-faceted documentaries I’ve seen in recent memory, weaving together the formation of the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic basketball team, the personal histories of its players, and the sport’s legacy as the country fought for its independence from Russia. The Grateful Dead factor into the events, making the story even more unique; giving it Hoop Dreams appeal is the presence of Jonas Valanciunas, Lithuania native and recent first round NBA draft pick.

The work is also reminiscent of “30 for 30″, and director Marius Markevicius has a couple vets from that ESPN series on his crew. As of this writing, it’s been reported that six studios are chasing distribution rights, while others are — wait for it — vying for the option to remake the documentary into a feature. Hopefully, like Young@Heart, the documentary will find success and the remake will never make it past the development stage.

Hit List: January 27-29, 2012

Heather Campbell — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:00:31 +0000

Hit List is a handful of items that we find noteworthy, shared with you daily on our homepage. Enjoy!

Screenwriter James McBride’s Essay on Hollywood: Being a Maid from 40Acres.com

Terry Gilliam Presents The Wholly Family at the Guardian from Guardian.co.uk

Database Cinema: An Instant Movie Mashup Generator from TheAtlantic.com

Bid on a Signed Clone Wars Poster for a Good Cause from StarWars.com

Film Career Flowchart from FilmSourcing.com (Suggested by nwfilmforum)

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Sundance Capsules: Shadow Dancer & Room 237

arno — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:05:40 +0000

James Marsh is a heralded documentary filmmaker with Wisconsin Death Trip, Man on Wire, and Project Nim to his credit. He’s also an apt dramatist with the underrated The King and Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980, the best film of that trilogy. His new Belfast-set IRA thriller Shadow Dancer is effective, especially since Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy just proved that slow-burning story mechanics are better than chases, explosions, and shouted exposition. Andrea Riseborough stars as Collette McVeigh, a single mother and active member of the IRA who turns informant for MI5 after an aborted bombing attempt in the London subway system. She falls into the noble hands of Clive Owen‘s mid-level agent, who lays out her ultimatum. Despite bouts of unoriginal dialogue and overt symbolism (Riseborough wears a red trench in almost every scene after she turns mole), traces of familiarity end there. Even Owen’s superior, Gillian Anderson, misinterprets his effort to protect Collette as he goes a bit rogue once he realizes a second, more entrenched informant is in the mix. There are two nice twists at the end, one of them ambiguous.

Room 237 is billed as a “subjective documentary” on hidden meanings in the film version of The Shining. It’s definitely a crowd pleaser for people who think the world will end this year, or those who have played Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz. Interviewees offer up a series of insights that blur the line between credibility and fanaticism, but director Rodney Ascher, who also edited his work, knows how to respect his cast while entertaining his audience. The notion that Stanley Kubrick created the film as a way of dealing with his feelings about the Holocaust and American imperialism are viable, while some people take what can only be continuity errors to another level of our obsessive search for meaning. More than anything, the documentary is a testament to Ascher’s editing skills, as he recontextualizes footage from Kubrick’s oeuvre with a deft hand. I’m unsure if his work will be picked up for theatrical release, but I think a long shelf life awaits.

Hit List: January 26, 2012

Heather Campbell — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:00:25 +0000

Hit List is a handful of items that we find noteworthy, shared with you daily on our homepage. Enjoy!

The Fighter: Bingham Ray from FilmLinc.com

The War Against 35mm from Little White Lies (Suggested by soitmonfrere)

The 2012 Oscar Injustices from EmpireOnline.com

Patton Oswalt and Albert Brooks Throw Oscar Snub Twitter Party from AVClub.com

New Planet of the Apes Poster Designs from Mondo and Alamo Drafthouse from io9.com

Have an item you’d like to see featured on Hit List? Submit it here.