ILoveYouPhillipMorris Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The key players from the indie film world will be gathered together in Cannes for the next 10 days. Look for our daily roundups of news each night, titled "Cannes in 60 Seconds." But first, what's been happening during the past week?

Deals. Oliver Hirschbiegel's drama Five Minutes of Heaven, starring Liam Neeson, has been acquired by IFC Films, according to indieWIRE. IFC will release the film, which "explores aspects of Northern Ireland's 'Troubles,'" simultaneously in theaters and VOD in August. Michael Meredith's drama The Open Road has been picked up by Anchor Bay, again per indieWIRE. Justin (Motherlover) Timberlake stars as a man who tries to effect a reconciliation between his dying mother (Mary Steenburgen) and his estranged father (Jeff Bridges). Release plans have not yet been announced. I Love You Phillip Morris, a gay con man prison romance, has secured distribution via the fledgling Consolidated Pictures Group, says Variety. The picture stars Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. A release is planned for next Valentine's Day.

Box Office. While mainstream audiences trekked into theaters, indie film lovers divided up their love, resulting in less than stellar results for new releases. We've embedded the trailer below for Outrage, Kirby Dick's new doc, which inspired hypocrisy by NPR; it made $6,518 per-screen at five locations. Little Ashes, with gay love scenes by Twilight's Robert Pattinson, averaged $6,116 per-screen at 12 theaters. Julia, featuring Tilda Swinton's extraordinary performance, took in $4,175 per-screen at three cinemas. Jim Jarmusch's excellent, exquisite The Limits of Control expanded into eight more theaters and grossed $4,153 per screen, a drop of just 18.2%. [Box Office Mojo.]

After the jump: Festival heads talk about the future; AFI Fest in Los Angeles will be (almost entirely) free.

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.

Friday the 13th
This is the new full length trailer for the reimagining of the classic horror franchise. Sexually active young adults being stalked by a big dude in a goalie mask. Aside from a Jason who is much faster than the lumbering killing machine in countless sequels I don't see anything new here. This hits theaters on Friday February 13.

Terminator Salvation
OK, this is really just a preview of the preview which is kind of lame. Entertainment Tonight is going to have the official first look at the full Terminator: Salvation trailer next tuesday, but this clip from the 12/4 shows some intriguing bits. Terminator 3 pretty much killed my interest in the series, but between this and the teaser trailer they've definitely got my attention. Salvation begins on May 22.

Donkey Punch
Despite a title that implies some bizarre form of animal cruelty (and the actual meaning of the term is even more disturbing) this is a horror suspense yarn about a good time gone very wrong. Three girls out partying in Spain meet some guys and go back to their yacht. One of the girls ends up dead after some rough sex games and the plot is off and running. The trailer makes me think of Wolf Creek, another young-people's-vacation-turns-to-horror movie. Look for this in theaters on January 23 in limited release.

What do you do when your thriller of a movie based on one little insidious number, that isn't 13, falls flat? You have to become a gay inmate and lather yourself in some romantically dark comedy. Jim Carrey, fresh off The Number 23, has signed on to star in I Love You Phillip Morris. According to Variety, this is one in a heap of movies that Carrey is currently scheduling to wrap up before the SAG contract expires in a year. The Spotless Mind star will star as a conman who makes a number of prison escapes for the love of a cellmate.

The story is actually based on a true crime book by Steve McVicker, a Houston Chronicle crime reporter. As Variety describes it, Carrey is Steven Russell, a married dad who finds himself jailed in Texas. Unfortunately, he falls head over heels with his cellmate, who is inconveniently released before he is. This motivates Carrey's character to escape from the prison four times in pursuit of his love. But the story's quirks make things more interesting. It seems that the real Russell escaped each time on Friday the thirteenth (oh, Carrey and his superstition!), outwitting his captors each time. Once, he waved a walkie-talkie at a guard and walked right out. Another, he made a pair of scrubs with a green pen and water to walk out. With pranks like these, it seems right up Jim's alley to me.

The adaptation is coming from the guys behind Cats & Dogs, Bad Santa and The Bad News Bears -- John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. If this is anything like their Santa work, which it seems to be, this whole crazy love story should work well. Morris will also mark the pair's directorial debut, which should make things a bit more interesting. It was pitched in Cannes as a Catch Me if You Can meets Brokeback Mountain, and Luc Besson's Europacorp is about to close a financing deal for under $20 million. That's not much, but what do you really need for a prison romance?