Sugar Tagged Articles at Cinematical

State of Play
A Russell Crowe-starring thriller that entangles 3 deaths, Washington politics, old-school journalism, and new wave blogging, State of Play is by far your best mainstream choice this week. In his review, Jeffrey M. Anderson said: "it's probably the best newspaper/journalism movie in years," and "State of Play moves well, with grace and intelligence as well as a measure of scrappiness and a sense of working by the seat of one's pants." Buy it. Also on Blu-ray.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

Tennessee
A movie co-starring Mariah Carrey might not seem like a noteworthy piece of cinema, but it's more than meets the eye. The film focuses on woman and her brothers who set out to find their estranged father in hopes that he will help save their leukemia-suffering sibling. In his review, Joel Keller said: "Tennessee isn't action-packed, but it has a story that should keep you engaged from start to finish." Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

Unwigged & Unplugged Live Concert DVD
This isn't exactly a film, but seeing that Unwigged and Unplugged was the costume-free tour of Spinal Tap, mixing the band's hits with the musical numbers from A Mighty Wind, it's definitely worth mentioning here. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer sound great with nothing more than their voices and guitars, and add a lot of anecdotes in for good measure. Buy it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

Also out: Impact, Methodic, Bring it On: Fight to the Finish

As last year, I want to use this space to highlight some terrific films that came down the pike in the first six months of the year -- and merrily continued down the pike without anyone giving much of a damn. This happens to a host of deserving movies every year; given how much of a miracle it is when an indie actually takes off, there's no avoiding it. But these seven are eminently worth your time; at the very least, I promise they're interesting. Give them a shot.

1. Two Lovers (James Gray) -- Actually my favorite film of the year, this melancholy character study is carried out with such painstaking attention to detail that it becomes akin to one of Henry Selick's stop-motion miracles -- watching it inspires a sort of awe. This is James Gray's follow-up to We Own the Night, and Gray has announced himself as one of our most important newcomers, a master at creating living, breathing, populated, real universes for his characters to inhabit. [Now on DVD.]

2. Julia (Erick Zonca) - This movie barely saw theaters at all -- I saw it in a one-week run courtesy of our local Film Society -- but it might have been a decent investment for an actual distributor. Though it has someone profoundly unpleasant at its center -- the perpetually drunk and nasty title character, played by the incredible Tilda Swinton -- it eventually turns into a remarkably tense little thriller, complete with a classic kidnapping scenario and a chance for the rotten protagonist's redemption. [On DVD August 18th.]

By Kim Voynar (originally published during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival)

Following up their critically acclaimed film Half Nelson, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have their newest film, Sugar, at Sundance this year. Boden and Fleck have quite the knack for tackling subjects most people wouldn't think of making a film about (a crack-addicted middle-school teacher in Half Nelson, a young baseball star from the Dominican Republic in Sugar) and making insightful, compelling films about them. This time around, Boden and Fleck take us to the fictional Kansas City Knight's baseball academy in the Dominican Republic, where we meet Miguel "Sugar" Santos (Algenis Perez Soto), a hotshot young pitcher who was signed to train for the league at the tender age of 16.

The pressure on the kids at the baseball academy is tremendous. While it offers the few who do make it to the top a chance to succeed professionally and financially beyond their wildest dreams, those who don't make the cut are chewed up and spit out by the organization with all the emotional involvement of a stockbroker buying and selling one stock versus another.

Welcome back to the Indie Spotlight, in which we list the new limited-release films being released today. Keep an eye out for when they come to your local art house or Netflix queue.

• Alien Trespass (pictured), opening on about 40 screens nationwide, is a loving, non-parody homage to the cheesy invaders-from-space B-movies of the 1950s. For me, the style wears thin too quickly; the fact that the '50s films were corny out of necessity while this one is doing it on purpose makes it feel insincere. Indeed, it has a low 31% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

• Bart Got a Room is a comedy about a nerdy Jewish teenager trying to find a date for the prom. Cinematical's Erik Davis loved it at Tribeca last year, and the 71% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes backs him up.

• C Me Dance combines the world of evangelical Christianity with the world of dancing. Sold! It's opening on about 150 screens nationwide. No reviews are up yet, but I would suspect it's a preaching-to-the-choir sort of thing, aimed at people who are already evangelical Christians.

• Sugar comes from the Half Nelson team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck and is finally hitting theaters after premiering at Sundance last year. It's about a young Dominican Republic baseball player who is recruited by scouts and brought to the U.S. to train for the majors. Cinematical's Kim Voynar liked it quite a bit, calling it a coming-of-age story more than a baseball movie, and as beautiful as "a painting brought to life" -- and hey, check out that 88% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes!

Cinematical has received this exclusive poster for Sugar, which marks Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's long-awaited follow up to their hit indie Half Nelson. This time both Fleck and Boden share writing and directing duties on a film that follows a Dominican baseball star who's recruited to play minor league ball in the United States. Back when Sugar premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Kim called it "insightful and compelling," saying "the baseball scenes are incredibly shot; in fact, the entire film is just gorgeous, like a painting brought to life." I've been itching to see Sugar ever since it was announced; like Half Nelson, I expect a gritty reality that doesn't show up on screen as often as it should. Boden and Fleck have a knack for scraping just below the surface, discovering topics that are either ignored or simply not executed correctly.

Click on the image below to view the entire poster, then head after the jump to check out the trailer. For more on the film, head over to its official website. Sugar arrives in theaters (in NY and LA) on April 3rd.

Land of the Lost
This comedic remake of the classic Saturday Morning show takes some license with the material, but it's got Will Ferrell and it's got Sleestak. Where can I buy my ticket? Ferrell plays scientist Rick Marshall, who's written a book on time warps (which is particularly odd since IMDB says his character is a Forest Ranger). Despite a Today Show interview that goes hilariously wrong, Marshall apparently proves his theories by traveling across time and space with two colleagues to a world of dinosaurs, ape people and lizard men. Check out the trailer below.





The Damned United
Michael Sheen of Frost/Nixon plays Brian Clough, who for forty-four days coached the Leeds United soccer team (or football team as they call it on that side of the pond). Based on true events, Clough was apparently a controversial figure. I got the impression the trailer was assuming I already knew who he was, so perhaps a different approach would be appropriate for the non U.K. markets.

Deadline
Brittany Murphy stars as a writer who moves into an old house so she can work in peace, but the ghost of a young woman murdered in the house (Thora Birch) is getting in the way of her deadline. This looks like generic ghost plot number 4 and there's something about Murphy here I find off-putting. Not sure if it's her "I don't want to be bothered by the outside world" attitude or her out of control hair. Despite the premise this looks like a less than spirited effort.

Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's Sugar, the follow-up to their critically acclaimed Half Nelson, has finally been picked up for distribution. Variety's Mike Jones reports the film has been acquired for theatrical distribution by Sony Pictures Classics, which seems like a good fit for the film. HBO Films, which financed the film, retains television rights.

Sugar, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, felt at the time like a tough sell after Half Nelson; it still does. The film, which is subtitled, tells the tale of a young baseball star from the Dominican Republic who crashes after getting moved up to the big leagues. It's really very much a coming-of-age kind of tale about this young boy who grew up poor but talented, always believing baseball to be his one ticket out.

With Ryan Gosling in the lead role, Half Nelson wowed audiences and even nabbed the actor an Oscar nomination. Now screenwriters Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden are finishing up their second feature film, Sugar, which Erik Davis wrote about back in March. Now The Hollywood Reporter has posted that HBO Films has signed onto the sweet team to finance and distribute the film, which will celebrate its world premiere next month at the snowy Sundance Film Festival in Joseph Smith country. HBO is currently trying to figure out if they want to debut the film in the network, or in theaters through Picturehouse. (This will be determined by reaction at Sundance.)

While the straight-to-television release might sound surprising, I imagine that's because there's no big name like Gosling starring in it. With Fleck and Boden sharing the directorial chair, Sugar is a "fish-out-of-water" story about a man named Miguel Sugar Santos, "a Dominican baseball prospect who is sent to play in a small Midwestern town after being scouted in his home country." Santos is being played by newbie actor Algenis Perez Soto, and he's joined by names such as Richard Bull (Nels Oleson on Little House on the Prairie) and Michael Gaston (Jericho).

While we might not get a chance to slump into those theater chairs with our popcorn and watch Sugar, we'll see the duo's work again on the big screen soon enough. As Erik posted in May, the team is adapting Special Topics in Calamity Physics for Miramax, and It's Kind of a Funny Story for Paramount.

The creative team behind the indie smash hit Half Nelson (the one where Ryan Gosling plays a crack-addicted history teacher) have decided to go back to school ... again; this time, according to Variety, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden will adapt Marisha Pessl's novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics, with Fleck attached to direct and Boden on to exec produce. Pic marks the third project the duo have taken on since first making a splash with Nelson last year; prior to their work on Calamity Physics, Fleck and Boden will co-direct Sugar (based on a script penned by Fleck) in which a Dominican baseball prospect attempts to fight his way to the majors through the U.S. minor league system. Apart from that, they will also adapt and direct another high school-esque dramedy; Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story for Paramount.

Calamity Physics tells of a high school senior who, after spending each of her first three years in a different town with her highly eccentric on-the-go father, finally looks forward to settling down for a full senior year in a North Carolina high school. Eventually she befriends a group of fellow students (and geniuses) referred to as the Bluebloods, and from there it appears a teacher is killed and, before we know it, we're right smack in the middle of a murder-mystery. So much for that normal senior year, huh? Miramax Films and producer Scott Rudin will shovel this one out. Not sure which project they'll take on after Sugar, but having loved Half Nelson, I can't wait to see what these two have in store for us down the line.

Last season, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden had a career year -- the kind most young filmmakers dream about when they're first starting out. Thanks, in part, to a superb Oscar-nominated performance by Ryan Gosling, their Half Nelson went from tiny indie film to major awards contender in the span of only a few months. Now, Fleck and Boden are looking for another break-out performance -- this time, they're heading to the Dominican Republic to find a star. The two will write and direct Sugar, to be produced by Journeyman Pictures and Hunting Lane Films (the two shingles behind Nelson), with HBO Films possibly interested in coming onboard as well.

Pic will delve into the world of minor league baseball, shown through the eyes of a young Dominican prospect snatched from his home country and brought to the United States to play ball. Though the film will be based on a fictional character named Miguel "Sugar" Santos, there's no doubt Fleck and Boden will look to expose the often shady world of baseball scouting by taking an innocent kid and dropping him in a cutthroat, competitive environment. With production set to begin later this summer, Fleck and producers are currently searching for their cast (which could include nonpros) and scouting locations in the Midwest and Dominican. Aside from Sugar, Fleck and Boden have also signed on to write and direct It's Kind of a Funny Story for Paramount.

Not many films take us inside the world of minor league baseball, especially from the vantage point of a foreigner asked to compete with and against a group of guys who have been training their entire lives to land a spot on one of these teams. Fleck chose a very claustrophobic style for Half Nelson, partly because the majority of scenes took place indoors -- thus, I'll be curious to see if he spreads things out a bit now, utilizing the open-aired environment of a baseball diamond as his canvas. Needless to say, I cannot wait for this one.