Everyone knows the name Ted Bundy, but I’m not sure that everyone knows as much as they think they do about him. I certainly didn’t going into Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, the Sundance premiere from director Joe Berlinger, an Oscar nominee back in 2011 for the documentary Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory. The key curiousity here is the casting of Zac Efron, onetime star of High School Musical, as the notorious killer...
The Sundance Film Festival runs January 24th through February 3rd next year. Let's look at the five of the key program lineups in brief. Which films are you most excited about. TFE might be going this year, we're not yet sure.
U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Alfred Woodard stars in "Clemency"
16 World Premieres will be competing for the Sundance crown (won last year by The Miseducation of Cameron Post). The new crop is all writer/directors (except where noted) and Sundance has been very careful about diversity, noting in their press release that the US dramatic competition section is 53% female directors, 41% directors of color and 18% LGBTQ directors. But they had a ton to choose from which helps with diversity. There was a record number of submissions for the 2019 festival with 4,018 features hoping to be selected, 1767 if those made from within the US...
news • Coming Soon first image Zac Efron as Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked • TMZ Meryl Streep files for trademark claim on the use of her name. Wonder what prompted this? • WSJ Is the Star Wars franchise slipping in popularity? (This seems like a lot of panic for nothing since the movies are regularly grossing a billion)
• Variety Bernadette Peters off to a great sales start taking over for Bette Midler in Hello Dolly! on Broadway • Tracking Board Juliette Lewis joins the cast of the next Sam Taylor-Johnson movie A Million Little Pieces • The Wrap Oprah responds to her action figure from A Wrinkle in Time • Tribeca Film Matthew Eng, who co-writes our "Months of Meryl" column, interviewed the queen herself! Check out his chat with Streep about her work on The Post. • AV Club Sam Raimi likely to direct the Kingkiller Chronicles which already has Lin-Manuel Miranda attached for the music
opinion • Film Mixtape Our own Chris Feil's top 15 films of the year: Lady Bird, Raw, Personal Shopper, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and more... • Advocate Sir Ian McKellen on the 30th anniversary of his coming out • Fandor "What if Pixar made Phantom Thread?" <-- SPOILERS in that article, major ones, so be warned. I'm not sure what to make of this piece. I love the concept and the header image and the cartoon being described but it's basically like 2 separate articles shoved up against each other since they keep leaving the imaginary film for multi-paragraph detours into the real one. • Cinematic Corner Sati picks her 35 best shots of the year
exit video
Nicole eats "micro-livestock" aka bugs for Vanity Fair's secret talent theater. Jason made me lol with his response to this video:
Nicole Kidman dislodged her jaw and swallowed Lars Von Trier whole one time on the set of Dogville so bugs ain't shit"
Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 9:30AM 
