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Julianne Moore, Annette Bening in Sundance Sensation

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moore Julianne Moore, Annette Bening in Sundance SensationSundance 2010 has been waiting for a breakout hit, and one that didn’t have a distributor. It finally happened at 8:30 on Monday night at the Library Center theater, which was packed for a “Special Surprise” screening of Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are All Right.”

As festival director John Cooper said before the film started, “If anything happens to the people in this room, there goes the independent film world.”

Indeed, everyone was there, and now everyone is fighting over who will release Cholodenko’s brilliant “alternative” family comedy starring Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, and Mark Ruffalo. Like Nicole Holofcener’sPlease Give,” Cholodenko’s film is her best yet, a fully formed, three act knockout that crosses all its t’s, dots all its i’s, and gives a multi-dimensional rendering to its characters. Fox Searchlight, Focus, Weinstein Company, SPC, you name it, they all want it.

“The Kids Are All Right” is about a long-term lesbian couple (Moore and Bening), their kids (top notch newcomers Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson), and the anonymous sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo) who stirs up a lot of trouble in their lives. These five actors are so good together in this film I guarantee you they will win Best Ensemble awards in 2011.

Why the film works is easy: the charactes are totally accesible and sympathetic. Even as they make mistakes, they’re very human. And the story is very contemporary: this is what the modern family is like in 2010. What seems unconventional is actually old fashioned in every respect. And it’s also a very sexy movie, with Moore and Ruffalo’s romps keeping “The Kids” in R rated territory.

Now the question is, will “The Kids Are All Right” force the mostly tepid buyers here into action? The film cost about $4 million to produce. In the old days ‘ like 2006, 2007 ‘ a bidding war would ensue and record sales might be recorded. But it’s a different world now. We’ll see what happens.

Dakota Fanning, 15, Gets Very Sexy in ‘The Runaways’

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59394266After a mostly depressing day of dramas, Sundance 2010 got a much needed jolt Sunday night.

The Eccles auditorium was overflowing and every seat was taken for “The Runaways,” a juiced up biopic about rocker Joan Jett and her original group of all-female players, The Runaways circa 1975.

Kristen Stewart, of “Twilight” fame and also another good Sundance film,”Welcome to the Rileys,” plays Jett circa 1975. Dakota Fanning, who is still just 15, takes the role of Cherie Currie, Joan Jett’s founding partner in The Runaways. The movie does feature what seems to be a heavily suggested love scene between the two which should be pretty controversial when “The Runaways” is released by Apparition Films.

There’s a lot going on in “The Runaways,” too: Tatum O’Neal plays Cherie’s mom (Dakota’s mom). And Lisa Marie Presley’s 20-year-old daughter, Riley, plays Dakota’s sister. Yes, Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s granddaughter! Do you feel old now?

“The Runaways” marks the auspicious feature film debut of music video director Floria Sigismondi. The film was scored by Sigismondi’s talented musician husband, Lillian Berlin (yes, he’s a man, a very nice young man). Michael Shannon is also featured as The Runaway’s infamous awful manager, Kim Fowley.

What can I tell you about Dakota Fanning? Two years ago, when she was 13, her character in the terrible “Hound Dog” was raped on screen. Now she’s a rocker having lesbian sex, smoking, drinking, snorting coke off the floor, wearing very hot lingerie because Currie was the precursor of Madonna. There may be some who are shocked by all this.

The fact is, she is more poised and together at 15 than most adults. She wears pearls. At the Q&A after the film, Dakota was so together that she actually took the mike from the as usual freaked-out seeming Kristen Stewart and answered questions.

At the afterparty, sponsored by Microsoft Bing, Dakota did have kind of a meathead personal bodyguard. But she’s only 15. When we spoke, she was courteous and lively as ever. She’s her generation’s Jodie Foster, that’s for sure. Meantime, Stewart ‘ who’s turning 20 in April ‘ is an utter basket case by comparison. She’s a talented actress, but her public presentation suggests a possible hyperventilation at any moment. Someone should work on this with her, and soon.

Meanwhile, Fanning and Stewart are also in the coming “Twilight” movie. They were in the last one together, too. But when Apparition releases “The Runaways” this spring, expect both of them to have legions and legions of new fans.

“The Runaways” works on a lot of levels, and will no doubt be a big hit with little effort. My only quibble is that the films cuts too fast from the demise of The Runaways to Joan Jett’s overnight hit with “I Love Rock and Roll.” The film ends on a minor note rather than with a big flourish. How did Jett come to record her signature hit, and why isn’t that song, in concert, a rockin’ finale? But these are little things. “The Runaways” provided just the energy that’s been missing here in Park City. We needed it.

Ryan Gosling: Mom Tunes Out Sex Scenes

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gosling Ryan Gosling: Mom Tunes Out Sex ScenesRyan Gosling has a very good way of distracting his mom when she’s watching one of his racy movies.

At Sunday’s Sundance premiere of “Blue Valentine,” in which Ryan gets frisky with Michelle Williams several times, Gosling brought his mom, Donna,’as his date. They sat together through the very heavy, beautifully wrought romantic drama about a couple’s courtship and dissolution. But what happened when the clothes came off on screen?

“I gave her an iPod to wear,” Ryan told me at the afterparty. “Every time there was something I thought she shouldn’t watch, I pressed play.” Mom laughed at the story. Ryan is a good kid. She didn’t want to see that stuff either.Still, she’s proud of him. Glowing. He’s already had an Oscar nomination and won an Indie Spirit Award, for “Half Nelson” and had lots of praise for his performance in ‘”Lars and the Real Girl.” He’s absolutely astounding in “Blue Valentine,” proving that he’s able to carry a major drama. He’s literally in every scene, in a movie that cuts back and forth in time.

Michelle Williams is also very good in “Blue Valentine,” matching Gosling scene for scene. It’s a tough movie. First director Derek Cianfrance filmed the couple from their courtship to wedding. Then they took three weeks off before filming their tense, slow break-up.

At one point, filming moved to New York’s Manhattan Bridge. Gosling and Williams were told to improvise a scene as the cameras rolled. “She had a secret, and David told me I had to get it out of her. I didn’t even know what it was. But we couldn’t leave the bridge until it came out,” Ryan told me.

Williams wouldn’t tell him. “We filmed for four hours,” she told me. To finally get it out of her, Gosling started climbing up the side over the top of the barrier. It’s real, there’s no stunt double. His mom turned a few colors as he told me this story last night. “Jamie Patricof, our producer, was like, ‘Oh my god,’” said Gosling. It was only when he had one leg over the side that Williams blurted out the secret.

“It was one take!” Gosling said.

Williams laughed. “I almost sent him over.”

Now distributors will have to decide if a heavy, real-life drama is right for them. One thing’s for certain, whichever company picks up “Blue Valentine,” it will get major awards attention next fall. It’s that good. (It’s also long, a Sundance tradition — hopefully Cianfrance will cut 10 minutes for the final print.)

And what was on the iPod? “Grizzly Bear,” Ryan said, the same Brooklyn indie rock group used for this movie’s soundtrack’and for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s “Jack’Goes Boating.”

“We thought’we’d’keep the same’vibe as the movie.”

James Gandolfini Rubs Out Tony Soprano Again

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122813 welcome to the rileys 610x378 James Gandolfini Rubs Out Tony Soprano AgainSundance 2010 Saturday in the snow: yes, it keeps snowing. There are fewer good parties this year and one Sundance insider admits that this year “the festival was done on a shoestring.”

Things are definitely a little different thanks to the economy, but maybe that’s good. It’s a pared-down Sundance, which main sponsors Entertainment Weekly, HP, Honda and the Sundance Channel are thanked at every screening.

At the same time, an anonymous donor has given maybe the ugliest modern sculptures of all time to the Eccles School for its new lobby and the parking lot. Eccles is also boasting a new roof, ceiling and massive skylight. Only a few regulars have noticed all this, and there’s a lot of chuckling.

But Sundance is about movies. On Saturday afternoon, we got to see James Gandolfini continue his whacking of Tony Soprano in a fine new drama called “Welcome to the Rileys” (see THR film critic Kirk Honeycutt’s review). Gandolfini and Melissa Leo turn in superb performances as a couple who’ve lost their 15-year-old daughter. Kristen Stewart, she of “Twilight” fame, is also very good as a teen prostitute whom the couple befriends. Stewart was not’terribly articulate at the’Q&A following the’screening, but at least she’s not worried’about bits of dropped blood. The film is directed by Jake Scott, son of Ridley, nephew of Tony, and’he shows that he’s inherited the family gene.

There were other debuts today, too. Fox Searchlight showed “Cyrus,” a comedy starring Marisa Tomei, John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill that could be its 2010 one-off hit in the manner of “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Juno.” To say “Cyrus” is offbeat is an understatement. It’s sort of a twist on “Oedipus” with Hill the unlikely son of Tomei. It works, believe or not. And Reilly is sensational.

116836 jack goes boating 3441 James Gandolfini Rubs Out Tony Soprano AgainThe big question mark of the day wasn’t answered until late in the evening, when Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman showed his “Jack Goes Boating.” Hoffman’starred in’this play off Broadway last year. Now he shows a real flair for directing, putting himself into the movie along with the amazing Amy Ryan, Daphne Rubin Vega, and John Ortiz. This was the big news of the day, as Michael Moore, Adrien Brody and Chris Cooper (who’s great in the Ben Affleck-Tommy Lee Jones film “The Company Men“) came to pay respects. Overture has “Jack”‘; hopefully they’ll give it a nice fall release with an awards push.

At the “Jack Goes Boating” Q&A someone asked Amy Ryan about her character. “Maybe she’s just a weirdo,” Amy observed of her odd character. It’s a line that could describe most characters in Sundance movies–we learn a lot about weirdos. But as Ryan told me later: “It describes all of us, doesn’t it?”

George Clooney is the Weary Kind

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59326607Just realized this: the musician who co-wrote “The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”–which has won the Critics Choice and Golden Globe for Best Song–is named Ryan Bingham.

It’s a little confusing because George Clooney’s character’s name from “Up in the Air” is…Ryan Bingham.’ That must be an Oscar first, as Clooney’s main rival for Best Actor is Jeff Bridges, who sings the song in “Crazy Heart.”

At least Clooney has a name in “Up in the Air.” In “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” he’s just “Mr. Fox.” He has no first name. His wife’s name is Felicity (played by Meryl Streep).

And ironically Clooney must be the Weary Kind at this point, what with putting on Friday’s telethon!

The real Ryan Bingham missed getting his Golden Globe on Sunday. He was at the bar, talking to a friend. Co-writer T Bone Burnett accepted solo. If he does that again, either Maury Yeston or Paul McCartney is going to jump up and grab the Oscar!

Brangelina Split? The Tabs Wish For It

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A Brangelina split? It would be a tabloid nirvana. The News of the World, which pays for stories and concocts them with ease, has Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie signing papers with a Hollywood divorce lawyer even though they’re not married. The splitting of six children and $400 million are the main subjects. Of course, then Brad will return to Jennifer Aniston and Angelina will add six more kids to the brood.

The tempting headlines for every week of 2010 are upon us.

Unfortunately it doesn’t ring true. Anything’s possible, but just on Friday night a very good friend of the couple’s who’s here in Sundance was chatting with me off the record about them. She talked about how much in love they are, and how affectionate they are with each other when the cameras aren’t on them. This actress is a smart cookie, so if Pitt and Jolie are really splitsville, she’ll be just as surprised as anyone.

Word to the wise: a couple of years ago the tabs launched a divorce attack on Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. It went on and on, endlessly. They are still together, noticeably happy, and a family with twins. But at the time it sparked circulation for a group of magazines that really should be used for pet-cage lining. Buyer, beware.

Best Sundance Film So Far Already Taken

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122765 please give 341 Best Sundance Film So Far Already TakenThe best film from Sundance this year so far? Nicole Holofcener’s “Please Give.” Unfortunately for headlines, it’s already taken by Sony Pictures Classics.

“Please Give,” if SPC handles it right, is bigger than it looks. A beautifully wrought serio-comedy, it stars Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt as a New York couple with too much money and a few problems even they don’t completely understand. Sarah Steele, of “Spanglish” fame, is lovely as their daughter. Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet play an unsual pair of sisters who are intertwined in the couple’s lives through an unusual circumstance: Keener and Platt have bought their 91-year-old grandmother’s apartment–adjacent to theirs– and are waiting for her to die.

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The grandmother is played with expert comic timing by veteran’Ann Morgan Guilbert, who is only 82 and is blissfully remembered as Millie Helper, Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke’s neighbor in New Rochelle on the “Dick Van Dyke’Show.” She’s also played both Fran Drescher and Jerry Seinfeld’s grandmothers on TV.

Also featured is the great theatre and movie actress Lois Smith as a patient of Hall’s and the grandmother of her prospective boyfriend (Thomas Ian Nicholas.)

Holofcener has had three films at Sundance previously, the most recent was “Friends with Money” in 2006. None of them worked this well or were so completely formed. “Please Give” is really like a great, classic Woody Allen a la “Alice” or “Manhattan.” All the pieces fit together, and the characters are so well defined that each functions to deliver a satisfying outcome. Keener and Platt are ridiculously good.

The other interesting premieres from Friday included Joseph Gordon Levitt and Rainn Wilson in “Hesher,” a lively punk comedy about a semi-psychopath drifter who terrorizes yet helps a grieving family. The film is a hard swallow for older types, but should play with much success to a young (18-40) audience. The great Piper Laurie, who turned 78 yesterday, is a welcome surprise as Wilson’s mom. The real star of the’film is a’12-year-old named Devin Brochu, who seems indestructible as lots of bad things happen to him. Natalie Portman has a nice turn as a cashier who gets involved with this odd bunch.

And Josh Radnor from “How I Met Your Mother” has directed and written his first feature, called “HappyThankYouMorePlease.” He’s in every frame of the comedy, and you can tell he was completely earnest about it. The best performance comes from Malin Ackerman as his friend who’s suffering from alopecia. Not all of of “happy” makes sense, but it’s a genial story that shows Radnor has a lot of promise. The second characters, played by Zoe Kazan and Pablo Schreiber, actually turn out to be the most engaging.

More later on the parties and the show–there’s lots of each–and the slushing around Park City…

Jennifer Hudson: “I’m Just Glad I Didn’t Forget the Words”

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You can watch all the music performances from last night’s telethon, Hope for Haiti Now, at MTV.com.

My personal favorites: Sting’s “Driven to Tears” featuring Chris Botti; Stevie Wonder’s “A Time to Love” combined with Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (a nice tribute to Stevie’s long time Grammy “rival” Simon), Bruce Springsteen’s “We Shall Overcome,” and’Alicia Keys‘ opening number.’ Wyclef Jean, just back from Haiti, provided just the right gravity with “Rivers of Babylon” and “Yele.”

Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of Paul McCartney’s “Let it Be” was simply stunning. She told me later, “I’m just glad I didn’t forget the words!” It hardly the case. She looked gorgeous, and her voice soared. She is poised to be’a superstar of’the new decade.

Most of the numbers were spot on. There were some interesting choices,’however: ‘Madonna’s reedy’”Like a Prayer” with a huge gospel choir, and Justin Timberlake’s “Hallelujah,” which required accompaniment with someone named Matt Morris on vocals and keyboards. Talk about “live aid.”

Beyonce’s rendition of “Halo” with Chris Martin was a great showcase for her to prove she’s more than just hip hop. Shakira singing Chrissie Hynde’s Pretenders hit, “I’ll Stand By You” was just weird enough to work. Chrissie must have been very amused.

And the big collaboration featuring Bono, The Edge, Rihanna, and Jay Z:on’inspired and catchy. And cool. It was brave of them to’debut it on live on international TV.

In the end, George Clooney did something rather remarkable. We announced the idea of this telethon on January 14th. Clooney had only Sting at that point. In eight days, he created a world. All kudos to him. Now let’s hope the money, food and supplies get to the Haitian people.

Redford Skips Politics At Sundance Opening

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robert redford Redford Skips Politics At Sundance OpeningRobert Redford was everywhere last night for the opening of the Sundance Film Festival. He made the 6 p.m. screening of “Howl,” the 8:30 screening of four short films including one by Spike Jonze, and then presumably introduced the documentary, “Respeto” at 9 p.m.

Redford never disappoints, but this is the first year in many that he didn’t use any of his podiums to make a political statement. It was actually disappointing considering what’s going on right now in this country and the world. Instead, Redford talked about the renewed vigor of the Sundance Film Festival. This year’s buzz word here is “Rebel” and it’s clear that the Sundance chiefs have decided to return to their indie roots. You can feel the change in the air, as well as the snow.

Redford did reminisce about his younger days, recalling that he and some pals, looking for jazz in San Francisco in the late 50s, early 60s, stumbled by accident into City Lights bookstore. There they met Lawrence Ferlinghetti and encountered for the first time the Beat Movement. It’s hard to imagine Robert Redford with bongo and beret!

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As for Sundance: there’s definitely a feeling that it’s been de-commercialized this year. There are fewer corporate sponsors, and less of the celebrity for celeb’s sake stuff going on. Main Street in Park City has not been overrun by New York nightclubs putting in pop up appearances. And over at the Stanfield Art Gallery, they’re incorporating the ASCAP Music Cafe with art work sales. It’s going to be a classy Sundance, after all!

James Franco Defended by Mad Man Jon Hamm

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122437 howl 422x218 James Franco Defended by Mad Man Jon HammIn “Howl,” the Sundance opening night feature this year, James Franco’s Allen Ginsberg is defended in court by Jon Hamm of “Mad Men.”

Each of the actors is superb, as is the rest of the cast including Bob Balaban, David Straithairn, Treat Williams, Mary Louise Parker, Jon Prescott, and Alessandro Nivola.

Directors Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein started out making a documentary. But eventually the story of poet Ginsberg’s publication of the epic and great 1955 poem “Howl” took on a life of its own. All the characters of the time were fleshed out, and the story ‘ of Ginsberg being tried for obscenity ‘ was developed from court transcripts.

The result is a small but gem-like film that should have a nice life in art houses before being showcased on HBO or the like. For one thing, Franco could not be better. He is spot on brilliant as Ginsberg. Franco’s so good in fact that after listening to him for 90 minutes, you’re surprised it’s not him singing at the end of the film but Ginsberg himself. It’s a performance that will come back in awards season next fall.

Epstein and Friedman are doc makers, so “Howl” unfortunately never rises to the level of say, Bennett Miller’s “Capote.” It’s a single minded exploration, and that’s fine. They’ve cast it so well that the minor characters around Ginsberg stand out. Hamm is very Gregory Peck defending Ginsberg. He’s just minutes away from breaking out of “Man Men” as a movie star. Bob Balaban is quietly sensational as the judge who presided over the trial.

Meantime, Franco has a lot on his plate. He has a short film here in competition, and is hoping to take a couple of shorts to Cannes. In May he will film the final episode of his “General Hospital” stint at Jeffrey Deitch’s art gallery in New York before it shuts down. He’s also somehow still going to graduate school. There’s nothing like keeping busy!