BurmaVj Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Deals. Michel Gondry's doc The Thorn in the Heart may not have generated much positive buzz when it premiered at Cannes last week, but it impressed the folks at Oscilloscope Laboratories. They acquired North American rights to the film and are planning a theatrical release, according to indieWIRE. Thorn examines the life of Gondry's aunt, a schoolteacher for more than 30 years in rural France. David Hudson at IFC's The Daily gathered links to the coverage, in which one critic calls Thorn a "glorified home movie" and another predicts that "normal people will simply walk out of it," while others defend it as "a lovely, minor-key ode" and "mildly diverting."

Box Office. Stephen Elliott's Easy Virtue led the way, earning a very tidy $110,443, according to Box Office Mojo, which averages out to $11,044 per screen. Jessica Biel gives her best performance so far as an American race car driver who marries a young British man (Ben Barnes) after a whirlwind romance, and then must deal with his stuffy mother (Kristin Scott Thomas), curiously distanced father (Colin Firth), and flighty sisters. It's a romantic comedy with dramatic depth, light on its feet yet unafraid to stand still and contemplate fate and mortality.

Expanding into 52 theaters in its second week of release, Rian Johnson's con man comedy The Brothers Bloom rode a wave of appreciative reviews to a per-screen average of $7,394, just a little ahead of Olivier Assayas' critically-acclaimed family drama Summer Hours, starring Juliette Binoche. (We've embedded the lively trailer for the latter title below.) The highly-praised doc Burma VJ opened on one theater with a modest take of $5,554 -- not bad on a crowded weekend.

After the jump: The festival beat goes on in Seattle and at Silverdocs.

Coiled tension -- a mixture of anticipation, hope, fear, and dread -- was the vibe emanating from Park City, Utah, on Thursday, at least as I interpreted it from my cozy apartment far from the madding crowd (1,375 miles away, to be semi-exact). Here's our 60-second roundup of Thursday happenings. Ready, set, go!

Deals. Exactly one was announced today. Burma VJ, which first gained notice at IFDA in November, sold US TV rights to HBO, according to indieWIRE, though it won't air until next year. The documentary by Anders Østergaard depicts the demonstrations involving Buddhist monks against the military dictatorship in Myanmar. Theatrical and DVD release partnerships are still being sought.

SAG and Sundance. Both the Los Angeles Times and New York Times published articles about the possibility that studio-affiliated distributors might refrain from acquiring films at Sundance that were shot under a SAG waiver. Anne Thompson at Variety posted a press release from SAG in response. Nikki Finke bashed the LAT and NYT for bashing the Hollywood guilds over the issue, and Patrick Goldstein of the LAT bashed her for her bashing. So there.

Reviews. Only one movie screened today, the opening night gala presentation of Mary and Max, a claymation extravanga featuring the voices of Toni Collette, Philip Semour Hoffman, and Eric Bana. Our Editor-in-Chief Erik Davis (loved / hated / felt indifferent) about it; find out by reading his complete review here.

Blog Talk. It wouldn't be Sundance without complaints: Jeff Wells complains about the worst fold-out bed of all time; David Carr (AKA The New York Times' The Bagger) complains -- notes rather than complains, to be fair -- that he slept 11 hours straight; and Ray Pride complains about complainers.

You can follow all of our coverage at our Sundance hub at Moviefone.