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Madeleine Olnek’s movies may be an acquired taste, but the woman knows how to write a catchy premise. Her three feature films — all madcap comedies with absurdist leanings — include lesbian aliens looking for love, lesbian hustlers picking up women outside Talbot’s — and now, lesbian Emily Dickinson traipsing across her Amherst lawn after a tryst with her sister-in-law, her petticoats flung about her head. That’s the premise of “Wild Nights With Emily,” and to say that they just don’t make movies like this anymore would be grossly inaccurate: It’s hard to imagine anyone making this movie other than Olnek.

Using Dickinson’s letters and poems (with the permission from Harvard University Press), “Wild Nights With Emily” paints a much sunnier portrait of the poet than that of the reclusive spinster terrified of publication. Instead, the film imagines a lively woman forced to hide a lifelong love...

The world’s oldest profession proves stressful and arduous in The Foxy Merkins, director Madeleine Olnek’s follow-up to her zany “fish out of water” black-and-white debut Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same. By having much of her work featured at the Sundance Film Festival throughout the past 10 years, Olnek has developed a prominent voice in the queer filmmaking community, and The Foxy Merkins finds her once again working with some familiar faces (Dennis Davis, Alex Karpovsky, Lisa Haas and Jackie Monahan) and locations. The film is a buddy comedy for an underserved audience, observing the misadventures of Margaret (Haas) and Jo (Monahan), two New York-based lesbian hustlers often found hopelessly hooking […]...

The world’s oldest profession proves stressful and arduous in The Foxy Merkins, director Madeleine Olnek’s follow-up to her zany “fish out of water” black-and-white debut Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same. By having much of her work featured at the Sundance Film Festival throughout the past 10 years, Olnek has developed a prominent voice in the queer filmmaking community, and The Foxy Merkins finds her once again working with some familiar faces (Dennis Davis, Alex Karpovsky, Lisa Haas and Jackie Monahan) and locations. The film is a buddy comedy for an underserved audience, observing the misadventures of Margaret (Haas) and Jo (Monahan), two New York-based lesbian hustlers often found hopelessly hooking […]...

The Foxy Merkins would have made an idiosyncratic and amusing short film; at 80 minutes, it's a one-joke comedy that quickly overstays its welcome. Madeleine Olnek's low-fi indie opens with an attempt by overweight, inexperienced, sloppily dressed lesbian hooker Margaret (Lisa Haas) to seal a deal with a customer — a task that ends hilariously when Margaret, hearing nearby sirens, abruptly flees the scene. Margaret is soon taken under the wing of Jo (Jackie Monahan), a more experienced streetwalker who teaches her where to sleep (in a Port Authority bathroom), where to hide her tequila (in the bathroom's stall), and how to attract patrons, which she's soon doing with increasing frequency, if not much in the way of profit. The film's funniest gag involves t...

American Gigola: Olnek’s Hilarious Sophomore Film Reinvents the Masculine Realm of Hustler Bonding

Few filmmakers are able to successfully create a distinctly unique universe of off-kilter comedy both consistent in tone and unwavering quality, especially if it also happens to be cobbled together from a mixture of limited resources. But you can add director Madeleine Olnek to a shortlist of such names with her sophomore film, The Foxy Merkins, an inspired ode to male-hustler buddy films from the vintage 1970s, transposed to modern day and removed from the arena of the heteronormative. Perhaps scrappy and episodic, which only adds to its infectious charm, this is an unfailingly funny film, proving Olnek to be a refreshing voice to behold in an era of repetitive storytelling and mediocre beats within the realm of independent film.

In what appears to be a bid to reconnect with her mother, Margaret (Lisa Haas) takes off to New York City,...

If you still have an affinity for books, there can be few more choice summer reads than Edmund White's 2005 autobiography, My Lives. Divided into nonlinear sections devoted to his relationships with his parents, his hustlers, and his female entanglements, there's also a chapter entitled "My Europe." Herein White notes how while in the Paris of the 1980s, he became aware that petite green beans are tastier than their larger cousins. He also recounts how the social theorist Michel Foucault, a pal of his, noted that while "'gay philosophy' and 'gay paintings' were meaningless notions...writing gay fiction was legitimate since it enabled us to imagine how gay men should live together."

Foucault apparently "felt that relationships between gay men were tenuous, undefined, still to be invented, and that gay fiction was the place where a vision of association could be worked out in concrete detail."

The same could be said of Lgbt cinema,...

“Oh, it’s a merkin salesman!” “What’s a merkin?” “It’s a toupée for your vagina.” Writer/director Madeleine Olnek has a gift for titles. The Foxy Merkins is her newest, a moniker just as ridiculous but more succinct than that of her last film, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same. It’s a buddy comedy about lesbian hookers in New York, starring Lisa Haas and Jackie Monahan, who also co-wrote the film. The synopsis invokes “bargain-hunting housewives” and “double-dealing conservative women” among their clients, both of which promise a certain degree of hilarity. Jo (Monahan) is the more experienced of the two, and resolutely identifies as heterosexual. Margaret (Haas) is the newbie, down on her luck and looking for cash. If this sounds a bit like Midnight Cowboy, that’s because it’s likely a satire, at least in part. Space Alien, which also starred both Monahan and Haas, was...

In 2011, Madeleine Olnek’s debut feature, "Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, premiered at Sundance to positive (if ultimately limited) reception. Made on a shoestring budget, (think space ships made out of tin foil), the warm and witty spoof on sci-fi B-movies firmly established the writer-director’s singular comedic sensibility. In her follow-up, “The Foxy Merkins,” Olnek turns the male hustler genre on its head to imagine what a lesbian prostitution ring in might look like. Re-casting the previous movie's charmingly deadpan duo Lisa Haas and Jackie Monahan, on paper, "The Foxy Merkins" has all the right ingredients to please Olnek's niche audience. Unfortunately, after a truly hilarious and fresh first act, the film can no longer sustain its premise as superfluous subplots and extraneous episodes slow the overall momentum almost to a halt. Lisa Haas plays Margaret, a down-and-out gay woman who's not quite cutting it on the streets.

In 2011, Madeleine Olnek's debut feature, "Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same," premiered at Sundance to positive (if ultimately limited) reception. Made on a shoestring budget (think space ships made out of tin foil), the warm and witty spoof on sci-fi B-movies firmly established the writer-director's singular comedic sensibility. In her follow-up, "The Foxy Merkins," Olnek turns the male hustler genre on its head to imagine what a lesbian prostitution ring in might look like. Re-casting "Space Alien's" charmingly deadpan duo Lisa Haas and Jackie Monahan, on paper, "The Foxy Merkins" has all the right ingredients to please Olnek's niche audience. Unfortunately, after what is truly a hilarious and fresh first act, the film can no longer sustain its premise as superfluous subplots and extraneous episodes slow the overall momentum almost to a halt. Lisa Haas plays Margaret, a down-and-out gay woman who's not quite cutting it on the streets.

“Are you a women’s studies major?” And thus begins a beautiful friendship – sort of. The sweetly neurotic Margaret (Lisa Haas) has just moved to New York City (for reasons never fully explained, like much of the narrative action in The Foxy Merkins) and, without a job or a home, has flirted with prostitution as a possible career path. Margaret’s apparent aim is to hook (literally) closeted housewives, preppy upper crust ladies, country club bunnies, and the like, but she’s woefully inept at landing her prey, and she’s in dire need of both a friend and a little direction. Jo (Jackie Monahan) is a gal with a little bit of experience when it comes to hustling (life) and hustling (street). The duo become fast friends outside a downtown Manhattan diner, with Jo winning both Margaret and the audience over with that crisply tossed-off women’s studies remark, a...

While the guys are doing their best to bring you news and reviews from Sundance 2013, even they can't see everything. In an effort to help broaden the film festival's coverage, today's Indie Spotlight will take a look at a humorous adventure comedy centering on two lesbian hookers. Dubbed The Foxy Merkins, director Madeleine Olnek's buddy comedy starring Jackie Monahan and Lisa Haas, from Olnek's Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, pays homage to iconic male hustler films. The picture is currently scheduled for screenings at Sundance, but the production still needs your help securing distribution. Hit the jump for more on the film and to see how you can donate. Check out The Foxy Merkins' Kickstarter page here for a list of incentives and more information on the production. Here's an introductory video from Olnek that shares a few glimpses of the film: Synopsis: Margaret is a down-on-her-luck,...

It’s that time again. The biggest American film festival is upon us, and this year the Ioncinema crew will be descending on Park City with eight feet on the ground and eight eyes on Park City’s various and plentiful screens. Eric Lavallee, Nicholas Bell, Caitlin Coder and I will be covering just about every inch of this year’s festival here at Ioncinema.com, as well as on that ever increasingly vibrant instanews network – Twitter. Be sure to follow @ioncinema and, as stated above, my personal handle @Rectangular_Eye, as we’ll be tweeting throughout the festival with breaking news, reviews, and sightings, all the while trying to keep up with the massive amount of content sure to be coming from this year’s Sundance filmmakers themselves, most of which have their own Twitter accounts and are listed at length below (minus the world & short programs). Whether you...

The last of our Twitterverse series, these are the films pushing the boundaries of independent cinema while keeping a pulse on cyber happenings. It seems most of Drunktown’s (@drunktown_movie) population is, if nothing else, keeping up with the times. Follow away! Full Twitterverse run-down to follow.

Next

Appropriate Behavior – @AppropriateFilm

Writer/Director/Actress Desiree Akhavan – @DesiMakesMovies

Composer Josephine Wiggs – @josephinewiggs

Actress Halley Feiffer – @HalleyFeiffer

Drunktown’s Finest – @drunktown_movie

Writer/Director Sydney Freeland – @sydneyfreeland

Producer Mateo Frazier – @nuevosoul

Actress Carmen Moore – @Carmen_Moore

Actress Morningstar Wilson – @starshinegypsy

Actor Kiowa Gordon – @CircaKiGordon

Actress Shauna Baker – @ShaunaBaker

Actress Elizabeth Francis – @efrances03

The Foxy Merkins – @FoxyMerkins

Writer/Actress Jackie Monahan – @jackiemonahan

Writer/Actress Lisa Haas – @lisahaas

Actor Alex Karpovsky – @alexkarpovsky

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night – @AGirlWalksHome

Writer/Director Ana Lily Amirpour – @Lilyinapad

Producer Sina Sayyah – @sinasayyah

Co-producer Sheri Davani – @Sheri_The_AD

Cinematographer Lyle Vincent – @lylevincent

Actor Arash Marandi...

Here's your daily dose of an indie film in progress; at the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a movie you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments. "The Foxy Merkins" Tweetable Logline: The filmmakers behind the indie hit Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same are making a new comedy about lesbian hookers! Elevator Pitch: "The Foxy Merkins" is Madeleine Olnek’s second feature (her first feature length film was the Sundance cult hit Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same). The film follows two lesbian hookers who wind their way through a world of bargain-hunting housewives and double-dealing conservative women – a subversive buddy comedy that is simultaneously an homage to and riff on iconic male hustler films. Production Team:Director: Madeleine Olnek Starring: Lisa Haas, Jackie Monahan, Susan Ziegler, Alex Karpovsky, Sally Sockwell Writers: Lisa Haas, Jackie Monahan & Madeleine Olnek Editor: Curtis.

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival is right around the corner, and the Sundance Institute has released the full line-up for the competition films that will be premiering!

This year there were 12,218 total submissions, and 117 films were accepted from 37 countries around the world. It looks like there's a lot of good selection of films this year.

The Sundance Film Festival 2014 runs from January 16th to the 26th, and the GeekTyrant team will be there to cover as many movies as we possibly can.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

The 16 films in this section are world premieres and, unless otherwise noted, are from the U.S.

“Camp X-Ray” — Directed and written by Peter Sattler. A young female guard at Guantanamo Bay forms an unlikely friendship with one of the detainees. Cast: Kristen Stewart, Payman Maadi, Lane Garrison, J.J. Soria, John Carroll Lynch.

“Cold in July” — Directed by Jim Mickle, written by Nick Damici.

Sundance Film Festival continues to be one of the most popular, and arguably one of the most important, events on the industry calendar, launching as it does some of the most prominent independent films at the start of each year.

This year will be no different, with Sundance announcing last night the initial line-up of films screening in competition, led by Song One, starring Anne Hathaway; Camp X-Ray, starring Kristen Stewart; Infinitely Polar Bear, with Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana; Joe Swanberg’s Happy Christmas, starring Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham, and Swanberg himself; The Skeleton Twins, with Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson, and Ty Burrell; Life After Beth, with Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, and John C. Reilly; Listen Up Philip, with Jason Schwartzman and Elisabeth Moss; Whiplash, starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons; and many, many more.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

Presenting the world premieres of 16 narrative feature films,...

God’S Pocket

Sundance Institute announced today the films selected for the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and the out-of-competition section of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, January 16-26 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

Robert Redford, President & Founder of Sundance Institute said, “That the Festival has evolved and grown as it has over the past 30 years is a credit to both our audiences and our artists, who continue to find ways to take risks and open our minds to the power of story. This year’s films and artists promise to do the same.”

For the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected, representing 37 countries and 54 first-time filmmakers, including 34 in competition. These films were selected from 12,218 submissions (72 more than for 2013), including 4,057 feature-length films and 8,161 short films. Of the feature film submissions, 2,014 were from the U.S. and 2,043 were international. 97 feature films at...

Rolling out it’s fifth edition and growing beyond just Park City (Los Angeles hosted a summer event this year) the Next section has grown in size, has found plenty of distrib buyer interest and has a strong voice of its own. Becoming a home for low budget indie we like: smaller budgets sometimes bring out impressive creative outputs, in 2011 we had Sound of My Voice, Restless City and Bellflower. 2012 saw Compliance, I’m Not a Hipster and Sleepwalk With Me, while last year we were impressed by the likes of It Felt Like Love and Blue Caprice. This year we have eleven, instead of ten selections – the plus one bump might have to do with Madeleine Olnek’s The Foxy Merkins – she got to show off her film this summer in the Next Weekend L.A event (we mentioned above). In the coming-of-agers working with a different vibe and...

The U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competition lineups for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival were announced today and just below I have featured pictures from the 16 films that will be competing in the U.S. Dramatic competition and they feature a lot of names you're going to recognize. The titles begin with Camp X-Ray, which stars Kristen Stewart as a guard in Guantanamo Bay, where she forms an unlikely friendship with one of the detainees. Jim Mickle made an impact earlier this year with We Are What We Are and he returns with Michael C. Hall with Cold in July. Fishing Without Nets looks to tell a story similar to that of Captain Phillips, only this time from the Somali side of things; God's Pocket is "Mad Men" star John Slattery's writing and directorial debut and he's lined up an impressive cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins,...

Festival top brass announced on December 4 the Us and world cinema dramatic and documentary competition entries as well as 11 Next titles for the upcoming 30th edition of the Sundance Film Festival, set to run in Utah from January 16-26 2014.

The Us dramatic strand features work from independent auteurs Joe Swanberg and Jim Mickle as well as the feature directorial debut of Mad Men star John Slattery, Anne Hathaway in Song One and Rinko Kikuchi in Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter.

Several titles including Kat Cander’s Hellion and Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash – a Day One Film – previously screened at Sundance as shorts.

Festival director John Cooper and director of programming Trevor Groth said genre was no longer the sole preserve of the Park City At Midnight section and had percolated into the broader selection. Cooper added that genre was often a good device for film-makers to hook audiences on a story.

World cinema...

11 American films offer bold new approaches to storytelling and foreshadow the future of American cinema.Appropriate Behavior / U.S.A., United Kingdom (Director and screenwriter: Desiree Akhavan) — Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, a politically correct bisexual, and a hip, young Brooklynite, but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities. Being without a cliché to hold on to can be a lonely experience. Cast: Desiree Akhavan, Rebecca Henderson, Halley Feiffer, Scott Adsit, Anh Duong, Arian Moayed. World Premiere Drunktown's Finest / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Sydney Freeland) — Three young Native Americans—a rebellious father-to-be, a devout Christian woman, and a promiscuous transsexual—come of age on an Indian reservation. Cast: Jeremiah Bitsui, Carmen Moore, Morningstar Angeline, Kiowa Gordon, Shauna Baker, Elizabeth Francis. World Premiere The Foxy Merkins / U.S.A. (Director: Madeleine Olnek, Screenwriters: Lisa Haas,...

I’m pretty sure that four years back when Trevor Groth and John Cooper (Sundance programming tandem who overhauled, switched over and re-defined the Spotlight section) knew just how significant the Next section (“less is greater than”) would become in the American independent-filmmaking sphere. Tomorrow, the Sundance Institute debuts its first ever Next Weekend program in Los Angeles and over the course of one weekend, denizens of La will get to experience a slew of films from the 2013 program, including much talked about titles like Hannah Fidell’s A Teacher (pictured above), Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love and Alexandre Moor’s Blue Caprice. More intriguingly, a pair of titles not included in the original fest lineup, like Madeleine Olnek’s The Foxy Merkins and Chadd Harbold’s How to Be a Man make an appearance in the mini-festival event, which we assume were not ready in time to make the initial selection,...

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same

Stars: Lisa Haas, Susan Ziegler, Jackie Monahan, Cynthia Kaplan, Dennis Davis, Alex Karpovsky, Rae C. Wright, Clay Drinko, Julian Brand | Written and Directed by Madeleine Olnek

Ever wondered what would happen if a bald-headed alien landed in Manhattan and struck up a romance with a neurotic store clerk in order to avert planetary disaster? No? What if they were lesbians? There you go.

Madeleine Olnek’s debut feature Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same may not exactly roll off the tongue or sound the kind of thing you might be into, but it’s just charmingly shabby enough to work. This ’50s B-movie spoof follows the adventures of three ridiculously named intergalactic sisters who are on a quest to save their home planet from being destroyed by ‘big feelings’ that are, er, threatening the ozone layer…or something…by having their hearts broken and...

In a galaxy far, far away the planet Zots is in great danger. Amorous citizens of Zot are emanating intense beams of love, which rise through the atmosphere, causing the ozone layer to melt. These "big feelings" are threatening to destroy the planet, and something must be done — quickly!

An emergency government program is created to send especially emotional Zotsians to the planet Earth, a nasty little planet where hearts are broken by cold-hearted and selfish daters on a regular basis. The goal of the program is to make participants so dead inside that they are no longer able to love anymore, thereby rendering them safe for the environment.

Three Zotsian women are served on the lady loving ladies of Earth via a spaceship that literally looks like a cafeteria takeout box, but most of the Earthlings don't bite. This could be that the Zotsians were sent to the most ruthless dating pool on Earth,...

Let's hope Dustin catches this one.

With a bit of an Earth Girls Are Easy (Whatever happened to Geena Davis?) vibe, Madeleine Olnek's feature debut Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same looks like it will be filled with delicious, campy cheese. The film is premiering at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and tells the story of Jane (Lisa Haas), a shy, greeting card store worker who falls in love with lesbian alien, Zoinx (Susan Ziegler) -- not realizing that Zoinx (Der, totally an alien name.) is not of her own planet. The ladies are followed and observed by a couple of Men in Black type government agents (Dennis Davis, Alex Karpovsky) and presumably, hilarity ensues. The film promises to "...embrace the intrinsic hilarity of lesbian life and Diy filmmaking to tell a story about love that transcends galaxies."

Here's the Ed Wood-ish trailer which doesn't show much content but...

We've been sent the poster for All Flowers in Time, the new film from Tarnation director Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation). The film, which is playing at this year's Sundance Film Festival, stars Caouette and Chloë Sevigny (Big Love). Here's the bizarre synopsis: “I am not from this place” declares a French cowboy. An old toothless man asks, “Do you know why you’re here?”. These shape shifting personalities infect young children with an evil signal in the form of a Dutch TV show. The red eyed girls and boys believe they can now become other people and monsters much to their delight. Hit the jump to check out the creepy poster. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20th – 30th. Click on the poster to see it embiggened. And here are links to the first images from other films playing at Sundance: Another Earth (starring William Mapother, Brit Marling, and Jordan Baker...

This morning, we have new images from Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same and Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel. Both films will be playing at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival as part of the Park City at Midnight program. Codependent is about a greeting card store employee who falls for a lesbian space alien while Corman's World is a documentary about legendary low-budget movie director Roger Corman. Hit the jump to check out the images along with a brief synopsis for each film. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 – 30th. Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (We know that the pixel aspect ratio is slightly off on these images and we'll try to update these images with higher-quality version as soon as possible). U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Madeleine Olnek) — A shy greeting card store employee unknowingly falls for a lesbian space alien while two government agents closely track their romance.

Sundance's lineup of films selected to screen at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival (January 20-30 in Park City, Utah) are not sucky this year as they include two awesome docs about women in media, one lesbian space alien adventure directed by Madeliene Olnek, a dark western by Kelly Reichardt, and two thrillers by chicks (I can say 'chicks' because of third wave feminism, apparently) plus some of our favorite male genre directors defy gender stereotypes and film convention with their brave new films.

Sundance, the super-over-hyped and most pretentious of all film festivals in the United States, occasionally has a moment of clarity and recognizes the value of some of the brand new movies made by intelligent, funny, and interesting women. As we previously ranted about Miss Representation, we're excited about the USA premiere of !Women Art Revolution by Lynn Hershman Leeson, One part of a transmedia project that includes the...

After announcing the 58 films in four categories that would be eligible for awards at Sundance, the film fest has now announced the next 57 movies to be screened this coming January. These 57 films are of course out of competition and will be included in Premieres, Next, Spotlight, New Frontiers and Midnight categories. Most are big name projects from already established filmmakers and some have already made their way around film festival in 2010. The list includes Kevin Smith’s Red State, Tom McCarthy’s Win Win, Morgan Spurlock’s documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Submarine, I Saw the Devil (which had plenty of buzz at Tiff) and my most anticipated film of 2011, Hobo With a Shotgun.

Here is the full list:

Premieres

To showcase the diversity of contemporary independent cinema, the Sundance Film Festival Premieres section offers the latest work from American and international directors as well as world premieres of highly anticipated films.

Festival Adds New Native Showcase

As Previously Announced, Slacker to Screen From the Collection

Park City, Ut – Sundance Institute announced today the lineup of films selected to screen in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival out-of-competition sections Next (<=>), Spotlight, New Frontier, Park City at Midnight, as well as a new Native Showcase. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs January 20-30 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. The complete list of films is available at http://www.sundance.org/festival/.

Trevor Groth, Director of Programming said, “The Sundance Film Festival is uniquely a festival of discovery and we are once again privileged to showcase the work of talented new artists, including a special section devoted to Native filmmakers. But it’s also exciting to see returning directors honing their skills and emerging with dazzling new films. And the Next section highlights visionary work that shows aesthetic creativity is not limited by budget.

As you no doubt noticed, Uncle Creepy has been busily bringing you early news and photos from several of the recently announced films that will be playing at Sundance 2011, both in competition and out. But he hasn't quite covered everything yet so here's a list of all the even slightly genre-related offerings that are a part of the upcoming Sundance film festival (running January 20-30).

In Competition:

On the Ice (Director and screenwriter: Andrew Okpeaha MacLean) - On the snow-covered Arctic tundra, two teenagers try to get away with murder. Cast: Josiah Patkotak, Frank Qutuq Irelan, Teddy Kyle Smith, Adamina Kerr, Sierra Jade Sampson. (More thriller than horror, we still thought it worth mentioning).

Take Shelter (Director and screenwriter: Jeff Nichols) - A working-class husband and father questions whether his terrifying dreams of an apocalyptic storm signal something real to come or the onset of an inherited mental illness he's feared his whole life.

Yes, you read that right, they are out of competition but into lesbians courtesy of the midnight lineup.

What do we have to look forward to waiting two years for? Let's see..

Hobo With a Shotgun

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (you had me at lesbian)

Attenberg (I'm loving the coming Greek weird wave)

And many many more films, some of which we'll probably never get to see. Damn.

Full list after the break.

Next ()

Eight American films selected for their innovative and original work in low- and no-budget filmmaking. Each is a world premiere.

Bellflower / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Evan Glodell) - A ballad for every person who has ever loved and lost - with enough violence, weapons, action and sex to tell a love story with apocalyptic stakes. Cast: Evan Glodell, Jessie Wiseman, Tyler Dawson, Rebekah Brandes.

The Lie / U.S.A. (Director: Joshua Leonard; Screenwriters: Jeff Feuerzeig,...

Following yesterday's announcement of the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions, the Sundance Film Festival has unveiled the second part of their lineup, which includes the more starry-eyed Premieres section, the best-of-fests Spotlight section, the sure-to-be-culty Park City at Midnight section, the low-budget Next section, and the more experimental New Frontier section (an extension of New Frontier Program, the collection of video art installations which has already been noted here for playing James Franco's dramatic multimedia examination of "Three's Company.")

In addition to the return of filmmakers like "Chuck & Buck"'s Miguel Arteta, "Clockwatchers" director Jill Sprecher, Kevin Smith and "The Station Agent"'s Thomas McCarthy to Park City, the festival will also welcome less frequent or first-time Sundance attendees such as Hollywood types Al Pacino ("Son of No One") and Tobey Maguire ("The Details") and mumblecore alums Joe Swanberg ("Uncle Kent," which announced it's been...

Michael Tully (Septien), Todd Rohal (The Catechism Cataclysm) and Lucky McKee (The Woman featuring Amazonian beauty Pollyanna McIntosh) are seven of the eight filmmakers who'll be premiering their latest films in a Park City at Midnight Section. On paper, this year's eight selected titles is perhaps the best since I've been going to the fest and shows that should be quick sell outs are Hobo with A Shotgun, Corman’s World: Exploits Of A Hollywood Rebel and the international preem for Troll Hunter will remind some of The Blair With Project from several years back. Here are the lucky eight. The Catechism Cataclysm /U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Todd Rohal) After becoming disinterested with the church, a priest tracks down his old classmate, a former metalhead whom he idolized in high school. When the two embark on a canoeing trip together, all hell breaks loose. Cast: Steve Little, Robert Longstreet,...

The Sundance Film Festival announced the in competition film line-up for the film festival running January 20th through January 30th 2011 in Park City, Utah.

Today the festival has announced the line-up for the non-competition films and there is one hell of a line-up! There are a ton of great films that will be premiering at the festival, and if you're going you have a lot of great films to choose from!

Each film has an incredible cast and a great story. These films include Cedar Rapids, about a man traveling to an insurance conference, featuring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly and Sigourney Weaver; Kevin Smith's Red State, about a group of misfits encounter extreme fundamentalism in Middle America; The Details, about domestic tensions spawned by raccoons with Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney, Ray Liotta, Dennis Haysbert; I Melt With You, starring Thomas Jane, Jeremy Piven, Rob Lowe, Christian McKay,...

Yesterday, we reported the films playing in-competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Today, Sundance has announced the films playing in the out-of-competition lineups for “Next(<=>)”, Spotlight, Native Showcase, and Park City at Midnight. Among the films playing are Hobo with a Shotgun, the critically-acclaimed Submarine, Lucky McKee’s new horror film The Woman, and Meek’s Cutoff starring Michelle Williams and Paul Dano. Each lineup has its own mission statement that relates to the films selected. The festival will also be showing Richard Linklater’s Slacker at part of its “From the Collection” lineup.

Hit the jump to check out the new films announced. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 – 30th.

Here’s the press release and lineups:

2011 Sundance Film Festival Announces Films In Next (<=>), Spotlight, New Frontier And Park City At Midnight

Festival Adds New Native Showcase

As Previously Announced, Slacker to Screen From the Collection

Native Showcase...

Well, yesterday, we saw the full list of films in-competition; today, we get to see those titles that have been selected for Sundance 2011′s out-of-competition lineup.

And as I said with yesterday’s post, I’ll be going over the complete list, highlighting titles that need to be, taking into consideration this blog’s specific interests. The only title that immediately stands out is Brit John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which MsWOO positively reviewed, after seeing it at the London Film Festival in October. Read her review Here.

But look for future posts profiling any other titles I deem worthy. I’ve applied for press credentials to attend next year’s festival. I won’t know until the 23rd of this month, whether I’ve been granted press access or not. If I am, I will attend the festival; and if I’m not, well, I probably won’t.

Well, if the Competition titles at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival don't generate any early year Oscar buzz, I think it's safe to say the Out of Competition titles will. Several films that have already been seen and positively reviewed can be found in the fest's Spotlight Line-Up along with a batch of anticipated hopefuls in the Premiere Section.

Beginning with the festival's premieres, Miguel Arteta (Youth in Revolt) is bringing Cedar Rapids to Park City where it will debut before it hits theaters only a couple weeks later on February 11. "Big Love" co-producers, Jill and Karen Sprecher are bringing an impressive cast for their crime drama The Convincer. Jacob Aaron Estes's The Details, which was shot only a few miles from my house in the Queen Anne district of Seattle, arrives with Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney and Tobey Maguire in tow.

Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies) will debut I Melt with You,...

Wednesday, the 2011 Sundance Film Festival announced the 58 films in four categories [1] that would be eligible for awards. Today, they've announced the next slice of their line up - 57 out of competition films in the Premieres, Next, Spotlight, New Frontiers and Midnight categories. This is generally where you get many of the bigger name projects and this year is no exception. We already knew [2] that Kevin Smith's Red State would be on the list, but there's also Tom McCarthy's new film Win Win, Morgan Spurlock's documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, the highly buzzed-about Submarine, Fantastic Fest darling I Saw the Devil as well as Hobo With a Shotgun and a whole bunch more including films with Al Pacino, Tobey Maguire, Jeremy Piven, Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Paul Rudd and others. As we said yesterday, the announcement of the movies playing the 2011 Sundance Film Festival is like looking into our film futures.

Yesterday we revealed the in-competition line-up for this years Sundance Film Festival. Today the programmers have announced the second wave, the out-of-competition line-up. It includes six categories and you can check them all out below. We already knew Kevin Smith‘s Red State would be screening, as he announced on his podcast last night. The rest of this out-of-competition line-up is pretty unbelievable.

We get Cedar Rapids (from Youth In Revolt‘s Miguel Arteta), Mark Pellington‘s I Melt With You, My Idiot Brother starring Paul Rudd, Tom McCarthy‘s Win Win, as well as Dito Montiel‘s third feature The Son of No One. We also have new documentaries by Morgan Spurlock and Eugene Jarecki. Some of my favorite Tiff films are also making an appearance, including Submarine (pictured above) and Meek’s Cutoff. Check it out below.

Premieres

To showcase the diversity of contemporary independent cinema, the Sundance...

Sundance is always a little queer inclusive, but 2011 is poised to be even more gay than usual. This morning, I told you that Pariah would be part of the festival competition. Today, programmers announcedwill see the premieres of My Idiot Brother, starring Zooey Deschanel and Rashida Jones as girlfriends; Becoming Chaz, a documentary following Chaz Bono's transition; and Kaboom, Greg Arraki's sci-fi thriller featuring a main lesbian character, Stella, played by Haley Bennett. (It won the Queer Palms Award at Cannes two years ago, but this is its Us premiere.)

Kaboom

Another film of interest is Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same from Madeleine Olnek (Hold Up, Countertransference). Here's the premise: A shy greeting card store employee unknowingly falls for a lesbian space alien while two government agents closely track their romance. The cast includes Lisa Haas, Susan Ziegler, Jackie Monahan and Cynthia Kaplan.

And !Women Art Revolution will also...