Helen Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Cinematical's coverage of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival is already well underway, as we'll be highlighting a number of films (via images, clips, trailers and posters) for the next month leading up to the festival. This way it gives you at home a chance to become more familiar with the films, to pick and choose your favorites, and then let us know which ones you'd like to see covered here on the site. So, please, feel free to leave comments and help shape our coverage.

Today we have something real cool for you. Cinematical reader DJ S. pieced together this list of available trailers for a whole bunch of Sundance films. Check out the playlist below, then head after the jump for more info on each film. (And yes, we've covered a couple of these before, so please excuse the repeats.) The Sundance Film Festival runs from January 15 through January 25, 2009 in Park City, Utah. For more of Cinematical's Sundance coverage (including a complete list of films screening), go here.

Browsing through the Sundance schedule is like walking through a supermarket when you're hungry -- there's so much brand new unopened content that you can't help but want to devour it all. One film that caught my eye was Mystery Team, screening in the Midnight section at this year's (but technically next year) Sundance fest. Here's the synopsis: "A group of kid detectives called The Mystery Team struggle to solve a double murder to prove they can be real detectives before they graduate from high school." I'm such a sucker for dorky high school comedies, and so this flick immediately leaped onto my radar. Cinematical reader DJ S. turned us on to a trailer that's floating around for Mystery Team -- and let me just say that something about it (silly humor, awkward glances, nicely timed foul-mouthedness) cracked me the hell up. Check it out below.

Warning: The following trailer contains foul language.



Check out the trailer for Helen, starring Ashley Judd, after the jump.

Yesterday we shared with you the competition slate for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, which, depending on the paper you read, was full of the dark and disturbing or the sad and melodramatic. Good to know we'll be smiling in the cold mountains of Utah come January. Today, the Sundance Institute has announced their non-competition films; this includes the Premieres section, which is usually full of studio flicks -- stuff that's set to debut in theaters the following month or so, and films that feature big stars; the big guns. Then we have the Spectrum section (with 16 dramatic films and seven docs), the Midnight section (eight films), and the Frontier section (six films).

Among the ones that stand out to me at first glance are:

• I Love You Philip Morris (Premiere), with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor playing prison lovers.
• Adventureland - The director of Superbad follows that flick up with a comedy set in a theme park.
• The Informers (Premiere), based on the popular Bret Easton Ellis novel, and starring Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Winona Ryder and Mickey Rourke.
• Moon (Premiere), which is that freaky space flick starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey.
• Manure (Premiere), starring Billy Bob Thornton as a manure salesman.
• Spread, starring Ashton Kitcher as a guy who seduces older women. (Wonder if he's right for that role?)
• Helen ( Spectrum), starring Ashley Judd as a psychiatrist who fights her own depression.
• The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle (Spectrum) -- I just love that title.
• Spring Breakdown (Midnight), starring Rachel Dratch, Amy Poehler, Parker Posey, Will Arnett, Rachel Hamilton.

As we do every year, Cinematical will be on the ground in Park City, Utah bringing you reviews, interviews and enough Sundance flavor to send a brisk mountain chill through your soul. Check out the full non-competition slate (with descriptions) after the jump.

In what feels like the blink of an eye, we're wrapping up October, although I could've sworn it was just yesterday that we left summer. Anyhow, Variety has posted a number of small casting nibbles for three actresses, so read on:

• Canadian actress Lauren Lee Smith, who shocked audiences (including me) with some rather racy scenes with Eric Balfour's member in Lie to with Me, has been cast in the Ashley Judd-starring indie film, Helen. The film focuses on "a music professor and mother who suffers from a deep, debilitating depression. Her family tries to help her, but no one can relate to her pain other than a young female student who knows depression all too well." Since Variety says that Smith is the co-lead, I imagine she'll play the young student. In the meantime, she has a few projects coming our way soon, including Pathology with co-star and uberhero Milo Ventimiglia.
• Ashley Benson, who you might remember from 13 Going on 30, or from her work as Abby Deveraux on Days of Our Lives, or have spotted from her upcoming lead role in Bring It On: In It to Win It (yes, there's another!), has nabbed a role in Bart Got a Room. The comedy is about a nerdy high school senior named Bart (Steven Kaplan) who is looking for a prom date. Alia Shawkat (Maeby from Arrested Development) has already been cast as his friend, and now Benson is going to play a girl named Alice. Will she be the object of the geek's affection? Will Alia's character be jealous and in love? Will Bart try to give Alice diamond earrings? Only time will tell.
• Finally, there's a new role for Maggie Siff, who currently plays a lawyer in the just-out Michael Clayton. She's nabbed the part of Teresa Stowe in Paul McGuigan's upcoming science fiction feature Push, which centers on a bunch of people with telekinetic/clairvoyant abilities who are trying to hide from the US government overseas. Mel Gibson's production company got involved with the project last year, and then the cast started to come together in August, including names like Djimon Hounsou and Dakota Fanning. Production should be gearing up soon.

Having finished the immigration drama Crossing Over, which will come out this December in time for the last-minute Oscar push, Ashley Judd is getting ready to get depressed for her next film. Variety has reported that the actress is going to star in a drama called Helen, which will head into production next month, and is being made by Egoli Tossell Film and Insight Film Studios. Sandra Nettelbeck, who wrote and directed Mostly Martha and Sergeant Pepper, will wear both hats again for this production. The film is about "a music professor and mother who suffers from a deep, debilitating depression. Her family tries to help her, but no one can relate to her pain other than a young female student who knows depression all too well." So, Judd is bummed, but there's no word on who will help her through her struggle.

It's surprising -- as big as Ashley Judd's name is, she's definitely not one of those actresses with oodles of credits to her name. After starting her cinematic career with the terribly (yet pretty enjoyable) Kuffs, you know, that Christian Slater cop movie, she's averaged a few a year, which has slowed down lately. After a busy 2002, she's starred in Twisted and De-Lovely in 2004, Come Early Morning last year, and now Bug and Crossing Over this year. Now if we could only hear more about her Dame Alyce Kyteler adaptation...

After almost ten years hunting down aliens and working up one heck of a pile of tension on X-Files, Gillian Anderson dropped off the radar. Now that she's had a stint as Widow Wadman in A Cock and Bull Story, and played Sarah Merrit in The Last King of Scotland, it looks like she's back on track. The actress has signed on to star in Helen, which will be the first English-language feature by Sandra Nettelbeck, and a change from her usual, lighter fare. She's the writer and director of Mostly Martha, which is getting adapted into an English feature, No Reservations, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart.

Helen is about a woman, I presume of the same name, who is a talented professor -- not one who is working during the Depression. Rather, she plays one who suffers from it -- clinically. According to one of the producers, Egoli Tossell's Jens Meurer: "It's the story of a successful woman who has it all but whose life falls apart as a result of this disease. It's also about her overcoming the illness against all the odds." Methinks she can pull it off. Unfortunately, that's all we have for the moment about that flick. However, the production company also has a slew of other great movies in the works. There's The Master of Farnow, an English feature based on the 1906 German novella Schwuele Tagem. It is an "erotic tale of love and deceit among wealthy families" that will be headed by The Lives of Others star, Sebastian Koch. There's also The Last Station, the Tolstoy biopic starring Anthony Hopkins and Meryl Streep, as well as Peter and Catherine, which will star Chloe Sevigny.