2015 Sundance Film Festival Kicks Off: What Happened, Miss Simone?, The Overnight, True Story...

A tangible excitement has taken over the streets of Park City one more time, as the 2015 edition of the Sundance Film Festival, which kicked off on Thursday, is well underway. Last year’s festival is still fresh in minds, largely due to its rich crop of critically-acclaimed titles such as Whiplash (2014 opening night film), Boyhood, Life Itself, Love is Strange, The Babadook, Obvious Child and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night proving to have legs beyond the mountains, and with the first two even scoring a number of Academy Awards nominations in major categories. This year’s festival has certainly a lot to live up to and during the festival’s Day 1 press conference, festival director John Cooper (joined by Robert Redford and Sundance Institute’s Executive Director Keri Putnam) promised nothing less in saying that the audiences would feel a wild ride.

As he often does, Robert Redford celebrated the notion of “change” –how it affects the world and the society we live in- during the conversation moderated by Salt Lake Tribune film critic Sean Means, setting the stage for the days ahead. The trio focused on interconnected topics around episodic storytelling in response to the blurring lines between TV and Film (reminding everyone that their lab model has expanded to offer help to filmmakers and storytellers in building episodic content), documentaries, distribution models and diversity issues in film industry. 

Tackling a question related to distribution (especially of the currently distribution-less Sundance title A Walk In The Woods starring Redford himself), Redford said he’s had some experiences with his own films that had either no or poor distribution, perhaps subtly referring to his remarks around All Is Lost in last year’s press conference that Roadside Attractions has handled the film unsatisfactorily (which was on the same day as Academy Awards nominations when he didn’t get a Best Actor nod.) “What’s the mindset of a distributor? What moves and galvanizes them? I don’t know. It’s weird,” said Redford. Touching upon alternate alleys of distribution while not alienating the traditional models, Putnam talked about “The Artist Services Program” carried out by the Sundance Institute year around to help artists both creatively tell their stories, and tactically and strategically connect with audiences. “It is about providing opportunities to filmmakers who want to be more entrepreneurial about releasing their films after the festival or at any point,” said Putnam. “We have a new partner we’re very excited about this year: Quiver Digital. They built a dashboard where all filmmakers using this tool can see how their film is doing. It’s really great transparency of data.”

Speaking of a visible festival trend this year, Cooper mentioned documentary filmmakers thinking about the cinematic experience from a use of story and character standpoint. “It’s not just about getting the information out there but also about how to engage an audience.” Answering a question from the crowd about why there seems to be a disconnect between Hollywood and the independent world in Sundance when it comes to the diversity of players, Putnam said; “If we had the answer to that question, we would be publicizing it pretty widely. We have done our own research with USC. The pipeline of young talent interested in telling stories is there but somewhere along the way, they fall out of the equation. When money comes in, it changes. One of the biggest obstacles towards changing it is there wasn’t even awareness this was a problem.” Then Cooper added, “I will just say that Ava DuVernay won the best directing award here with Middle of Nowhere,” delicately driving attention to her snub at the Oscars as a Best Director nominee and highlighting an attitude that sets Sundance apart from mainstream Hollywood.

The opening night films of the festival didn’t offer up the next Whiplash perhaps, but Liz Garbus’ Nina Simone documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? (screening as part of festival’s Doc Premieres slate) was a showstopper, and in many ways, brought home the points made at the press conference around documentaries and diversity. With the use of an extensive, stunning wealth of archival footage and a number of talking heads interviews, Garbus evidently chose to tell the well-known and widely unknown parts of the icon’s life story in a steady, straightforward manner and let the wonderful music and rich archival material speak for themselves. And what a deeply affecting result she has achieved in building Nina Simone first and foremost as an inimitably talented artist, but also as a fragile human being whose talents and eventual artistry were hindered by systemic racism of the time, despite her stardom and influential role at the Civil Rights movement. Nina Simone was originally trained to become a classical pianist, but she could never realize her true dream after getting rejected by the music school she applied to; a decision made due to her race. With her film, Garbus gracefully explores the truth about an international talent who never felt she was given a chance to rise up to her true calling in life. What Happened, Miss Simone? was especially powerful when the story reached to the heat of the Civil Rights movement, pointedly blasting Simone’s emotionally gripping “Mississippi Goddam” as well as footage of the Selma march and its aftermath; in a way, bridging the conversations the film industry has been having the past couple of weeks around Selma’s absence at the Oscars, with Sundance. Selma director Ava DuVernay was also at the screening. So was John Legend –an Oscar nominee this year for Best Original Song (“Glory” from Selma)- who sang a number of Nina Simone songs on the piano at the end of the screening; making a memorable night at Sundance even more special with “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.”

Before making it to the next opening night film in my schedule, I accepted Anne Thompson’s kind invitation to stop by Indiewire’s infamous annual chili party at their condo and somehow managed to grab a bowl of delicious chili and a glass of wine, before running back to the Eccles Theater in time for Bryan Buckley’s US Competition title The Bronze – a film that only deserves a gold medal for featuring the raunchiest, funniest and the most borderline ridiculous sex scene in recent memory (hint: it’s a sex scene between competing gymnasts, so use your imagination.) However, the film itself was largely a flop, despite conjuring many uncomfortable laughs from the audience, unsure of what to do with poorly written material, delivered by its hilarious lead Melissa Rauch with distinguished comic timing. In The Bronze, Rauch plays a once-upon-a-time bronze medalist gymnast who’s now wasting her days in her dad’s basement watching videos of her expired glory, consuming thousands of calories a day (yet, still managing to stay inexplicably skinny) and swearing like a sailor to whomever and whatever crosses her path. I give it credit for its female-driven story where we get to watch women obsessing about things that have nothing to do with men and are given the luxury of being and acting gross, but The Bronze unfortunately uses up this credit of goodwill too quickly by becoming an often unfunny comedy, about 20 minutes too long.

Festival’s second day –which is its first full day with screenings starting as early as 8:30am- offered many hotly anticipated titles across a variety of programs. I gave my best shot to get into the Press & Industry screening of Robert Eggers’ US Dramatic Competition title The Witch, but unfortunately got shut out of it despite showing up 45 minutes early, and decided to see Mark Cousins’ 6 Desires: DH Lawrence and Sardinia instead (showing in Documentary Spotlight) which was the next viable option. Constructed as a letter to Lawrence to the accompaniment of footage of Sardinia as well as cinematic clips as references, I am sorry to say this project would have been better off if it stayed solely as a written essay. Offering no visual interest or imagery that is remotely cinematic (it takes a lot for one to make Sardinia look ugly), this little experiment was a puzzling choice for Spotlight, not to mention for a slot at the press screenings, where the theaters are already small and crowded.

Next, I watched Nikole Bekwith’s Saoirse Ronan-starrer Stockholm, Pennsylvania, a harrowing abduction story founded on a pretty unsound metaphor around love. The film, like Ronan’s character who returns in her early 20s after living in the captivity of her abductor for over 15 years, asks the question whether love evokes and fuels a sense of ownership and entitlement over one and other. Ronan, and Cynthia Nixon (who plays her mother) deliver fine performances, but the film only resonates to a limited degree.

The US Dramatic Competition title The Overnight (directed by Patrick Brice), if my prophecy holds, might become a sleeper hit of sorts of this year’s festival. The crowd at the Eccles certainly signaled it. Produced by Adam Scott and the Duplass Brothers (who are synonymous with Sundance at this point) and starring Scott, Jason Schwartzman, "Orange Is The New Black"’s Taylor Schilling and Judith Godreche, The Overnight is a sharply written comedy that dares to be a hipster-ized, 21st Century “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, with intellectualism replaced with sexual humor. Watch out for plenty of full-frontal shots of Schwartzman and Scott (who ruined the fun by revealing "They are both prosthetics!" at the premiere's Q&A at the Eccles.)

My last stop on Friday was Jonah Hill, James Franco and Felicity Jones-starrer True Story, one of this year’s bigger offerings which distributor Fox Searchlight along with Plan B producers brought to Park City. The screening was attended by the director Rupert Goold, James Franco and to everyone’s surprise, Brad Pitt as one of the film’s Executive Producers at Plan B. True Story tells, um, a true story adapted from Michael Finkel’s book with same title. As a now jobless but once on-the-rise journalist (played by Jonah Hill), Finkel is confronted by the disturbing news that a potential killer of his wife and three young children (played by Franco) has used his identity when he was captured in Mexico. Interviewing the suspect in building an exclusive story with hopes of a comeback, Finkel unveils dark secrets amid a cat and mouse game where truth takes many shapes. Confidently directed and shot, True Story only falls short when it comes to a miscast James Franco (an artist whose versatility I generally admire), who frequently shows he’s ‘acting’ as opposed to ‘being’. Plus, an under-utilized Felicity Jones –who plays Finkel’s wife- makes one wish for more scenes with her. Still a respectable, competent feature debut that makes me look forward to theater-hailer Goold’s next feature. 

Friday ended with a quick stop at True Story’s after-party at Main Street, but in an effort to save my energy for Saturday morning’s 9am screening of The End Of The Tour, I called it an early night in anticipation of the days ahead.

The classic 'Merry Widow' operetta: Even merrier on HD screens

by Doris Toumarkine

Fathom Events provided a merry evening indeed in theatres on Wednesday with its sparkling encore presentation of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of the beloved Franz Lehár operetta The Merry Widow, originally broadcast to cinemas as part of its hugely successful Live in HD series on January 17th.

It was palpable in the house (New York’s Regal at Union Square) that audiences — a true cross-section of quality-seeking patrons that also included a small smattering of the greying gang of culture-vultures — were delighted with the sold-out show.

The program ran almost three hours. Packed into its audience-appropriate pre-show and intermission (the screen during intermission, as mercifully happens in this Met HD series, conveniently delivered a countdown of when the program would return) were interviews, a little fundraising, some promos for upcoming opera events, and plugs for backers like the Neubauer Foundation and Bloomberg. All ancillary to the “merry” main event but highly watchable.

The Merry Widow performance was nothing short of spectacular. Legendary turn-of-the-century Austro-Hungarian composer Lehár ((1870-1948) wrote the operetta in 1905. Much of the feel-good, very merry plot (unfolding as a mix of dialogue and song in English and accompanied by English subtitles!) explodes with romantic intrigue, romantic game-playing and the irresistible allure of storied Paris club Chez Maxim and its flirtatious, almost scandalous chorus girls, in 1905. It’s sort of a turn-of-the-century look at a slightly retro Euro-trash bunch back in their homeland.

The delightful if schmaltzy story largely revolves around a diplomatic plot, hatched by Pontevedria’s Ambassador to France Baron Zeta (Sir Thomas Allen) to marry off that small Balkan country’s wealthy widow (the great soprano Renée Fleming as Hanna) to Count Danilo Danilovitsch (Nathan Gunn), a Pontevedrian First Secretary to the embassy in Paris. Most importantly, he’s a Pontevedrian citizen; the country, you see, is about to go bankrupt and Zeta needs Danilo because the country needs her dough.

Creating only some of the obstacles are the facts that Hanna and Danilo were once lovers and he’s a party animal with an addiction to Maxim’s and its storied dancers. Furthermore, Zeta’s younger wife is the somewhat louche and loose Valencienne (Kelli O’Hara) who has adulterous designs on Count Camille de Rosillon (Alek Shrader), French attaché to the Pontevedian embassy.

So much pomp and romantic entanglements unravel in three grand Paris locations: a diplomatic party at the Pontevendira Embassy in Paris, Hanna’s elegant Paris house which hosts a celebration of Pontevedrian dance and folk costumes, and Maxim’s itself where the grissettes (the sexy club dancers) hold nothing back, especially in the way of costumes.

The Merry Widow's elaborate sets and rich Lehár score (the Met’s orchestra was conducted by the famed Andrew Davis) delight. And the Metropolitan Opera, one of the world’s most glorious opera venues, and the Met audience are also given their dazzling close-ups. High bling throughout.

HD cameras flow gracefully around the stage during the performance, sneak up on the audience and even stagehands, and also capture backstage interviews with the stars. Truly helpful in immersing audiences in the operetta itself — a mix of dialogue and the arias — were the many close-ups of the star performers. Also bringing the program alive were the English subtitles, even though the operetta was entirely performed in English.

But like some of the operetta characters (especially the seemingly incurable bon vivant Danilo), the presentation itself leaves room for a little tweaking. One true fan of the series in the audience (she catches the Fathom HD opera series at both New York and Long Island theatres) expressed disappointment that the Regal provided no program whatsoever. Hey, even a one-sheet printed on two sides (cheap, cheap to produce) could have given cinema-goers much helpful information about the major players involved (stars, Lehár, the story, songs, etc.) and some background on Merry Widow director Susan Stroman, a seasoned Tony Award-winning Broadway director making her Metropolitan debut here. And how about a few words about the wonderfully witty English translation from the German and the spectacular sets and those gorgeous costumes worn by so vast a cast?

The all-around lavish look of what was onscreen suggested another tweak that will inevitably come by way of the next great wave of projection illumination that will pop all that color and beauty to the max. Such a screen bursting with talent and bling will deliver the Fathom Event shows that art and fun-loving audiences and all those on the creative and technical side deserve.

Fathom Events brought The Merry Widow as “Live” and “Encore” to more than 650 U.S. theatres. Prices vary within the 20s (seniors and others are discounted), but the clearly very “merry” sell-out crowd that exited The Merry Widow at Regal’s Encore show suggested a huge level of satisfaction. This “encore” was a pre-recorded taping of the live broadcast that Fathom delivered to cinema audiences via satellite on their digital broadcast network. The Merry Widow is further proof that big events have an even bigger future on the big screen. And Fathom owners Regal, AMC and Cinemark know that. So — let’s get illuminated!

(Photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

'American Sniper' (And Its Creepy Doll Baby) Are Going to Beat the Heck Out of the Box Office This Weekend

American Sniper

Last weekend American Sniper broke records at the box office, earning $89.5 million (from Friday-Sunday, not including Martin Luther King Day) and blowing poorly reviewed competition The Wedding Ringer and Blackhat out of the water. This weekend is looking to be a repeat, with Clint Eastwood's brilliant, patriotic, propagandistic or downright racist (depends on whom you're talking to) Iraq war movie poised to soundly defeat new wide releases The Boy Next Door, Strange Magic and Mortdecai. 

American Sniper is expanding to 3,705 theatres, the widest release ever for an R-rated movie--that, combined with Oscar buzz and the movie's watercooler factor (thinkpieces upon thinkpieces upon thinkpieces about everything from its accuracy to its politics to that creepy fake baby), should bring it a second-weekend gross in the $50 million range. 

The Boy Next Door

The Jennifer Lopez erotic thriller The Boy Next Door will likely come in second place--reviews have been atrocious (14% on Rotten Tomatoes), but I personally found it enjoyable in an it's-so-bad-it's-good sort of way. The eponymous Boy charms Jennifer Lopez by giving her a first-edition copy of The Iliad. Let me repeat that: A first-edition copy of an ancient Greek epic poem. No, it's not on parchment. This movie was written by drunk squirrels.

Disney's Strange Magic, the brainchild of George Lucas, looks to be more like a The Phantom Menace than a The Empire Strikes Back. It may even be a (dare I say it) Howard the Duck. Reviewers are panning everything from its look to its apparently nonsensical plot to its musical choices (a Lady Gaga song puts in an appearance). Disney, likely sensing they have a stinker on their hands, has distanced themselves from the film's marketing. It's probably going to end up under $10 million, despite the fact that it's playing in over 3,000 theatres. 

Mortdecai

But nothing--nothing--compares to the mess that is Johnny Depp's Mortdecai, which is rocking an 8% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It will likely be the latest in a long string of Depp-starring flops, including Transcendence, The Lone Ranger and Dark Shadows.

The Oscar-nominated Whiplash is finally expanding to wide release after drumming up over $6.5 million in just under four months of limited. Expect it to earn another cool mil from people who have yet to see J.K. Simmons doing what J.K. Simmons does best: Being the greatest gosh-darn character actor there ever was.

Among the films hitting limited release in New York and/or LA are Cake, starring non-Oscar-nominee (despite the studios' best efforts) Jennifer Aniston as a woman who suffers from chronic pain; Mommy, the critically acclaimed fifth feature by 25-year-old Xavier Dolan (feel old yet?); Kevin MacDonald's Black Sea, which will have submarine enthusiasts lining up at the doors; and a pair of S&M-themed erotic movies, Drafthouse Films' R100 and IFC Films' The Duke of Burgundy. Both will likely be exponentially better than the infamous 50 Shades of Grey, hitting theatres on Valentine's Day weekend.

'Guardians of the Galaxy' Made Over $100 Million More than Every 2015 Best Picture Oscar Nominee Combined

I know that Oscar nominees tend to be more niche and art house-y than huge summer tentpoles, but this is a bit much. This year's slate of Best Picture nominees is the lowest-grossing since the field was opened up to include a potential ten nominees in 2010. All combined, this year's eight recognized films (American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Selma and Whiplash) have earned a combine total of $203.1 million so far. Compare that to 2014's highest-grossing film, Guardians of the Galaxy, which has earned $333.1 million domestically. (And counting. Yes, Guardians, which came out in August, is still in 125 theatres across the country. God bless that talking raccoon.)

To be fair, American Sniper only expands to wide release this weekend, Selma and The Imitation Game are still trucking along in the top ten, and Boyhood, Birdman, Whiplash and The Theory of Everything have yet to leave theaters. Still, that $203.1 million is less than half the previous record, when the 2011 Best Picture nominees had earned $519 million by the time nominations came out. (That was the year the winner was a black-and-white silent French film, by the by. The Artist was a crowdpleaser, but it wasn't exactly a crowdpleaser with mainstream appeal.)

Does this mean the Oscars are out of touch with the general American audience their awards show is aimed at? (Don't tell me the Oscars are for highbrow cinephiles--they're not.) Maybe. I'm not saying the Academy should have nominated Guardians for Best Picture--or, God forbid, fifth-highest grossing film Transformers: Age of Extinction, though Paramount did try for it--but maybe a descent from the high horse when it comes to genre films, which the Academy displays a marked bias against, is in order.

Letting in films that wouldn't otherwise make the cut, like 2010 Best Picture nominee District 9, is the reason the field was expanded in the first place. Maybe remember that, instead of nominating endless biopics about white dudes.

(hat tip to Box Office Mojo)

'American Sniper' Takes Aim at American Moviegoers' Wallets

Riding high on a record-breaking limited run (it's the only live-action movie to hit a $140,000-plus per theatre average on multiple consecutive weekends) and six Oscar nominations (though, to paraphrase Mean Girls, none for director Clint Eastwood, byyyeeee!), American Sniper is poised to take out a trio of brand new movies when it expands from four screens to wide release this weekend.

Certainly, none of its competition has anywhere near American Sniper's buzz. First, there's The Wedding Ringer, costarring omnipresent actor Kevin Hart, whose 2014 comedy Ride Along currently holds the record for biggest January opening weekend with $41.5 million (though it's entirely possible that American Sniper could best it).

For the children, there's Paddington, which has been getting surprisingly (for this writer) good reviews considering the first look the Internet got at it generated a slew of comments about how creepily uncanny valley that bear is. Also, Nicole Kidman plays a sexy taxidermist. Tell me that you're not a little bit surprised at this movie's 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and its pair of BAFTA nominations, for Best British Film and Best Screenplay. Add in the holiday weekend and the relative lack of other film options for young children (the only holdovers in theatres are Annie and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, both of which will likely soon sink out of the top ten), and this Peruvian bear's adventures should do pretty well, at least by January standards.

Not getting such good reviews is Michael Mann's Blackhat, about a hacker (played by People's Sexiest Man Alive Chris Hemsworth) who must stop total world annihilation (dun dun DUNNNNN). It'll be lucky to get ten million dollars stateside, though given the overseas setting for much of its action and its international cast, it should do better in foreign markets (see: Transformers: Age of Extinction).

Foxcatcher expands from limited release this weekend, from 237 to 759 theatres. Its quintet of Oscar nominations should help it get to the $1 million mark. Among limited releases screening in New York and/or LA, we have the Bollywood Beauty and the Beast-esque I; Still Alice, which netted Julianne Moore an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a professor with early-onset Alzheimer's; Appropriate Behavior, from writer/director/actress Desiree Akhavan, being touted as "the next Lena Dunham"; and Human Capital, Italy's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar (though it wasn't nominated).

Surprises and Snubs From the 2015 Oscar Nominations

The 2015 Oscar nominations came out this morning, and as usual, there are a number of head-scratchers. You can head to The Hollywood Reporter for the complete list--long story short, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game and Boyhood cleaned up, and J.K. Simmons continues his all-but-inevitable path to Oscar victory with a Supporting Actor nomination for Whiplash.

For for now, let's concentrate on the oddities. The lack of Selma nominations is a big surprise--it got Best Picture and Best Song, but nothing for director Ava DuVernay, star David Oyelowo or writer Paul Webb. In fact, in a move that highlights Hollywood's diversity problem, the Academy selected an acting nomination pool that is 100% white for the first time since 1998.

Clint Eastwood also failed to get a directing nom, though American Sniper is included in the Best Picture field. For Bennett Miller and Foxcatcher, it's the opposite.

Another one that has certain people (myself included) screaming at the rafters is The Lego Movie's absence in the Best Animated Feature category, though it did snag a Best Song nom for "Everything is Awesome." Disney's Big Hero 6 and DreamWorks' Golden Globe-winner How to Train Your Dragon 2 were predictably nominated, with indies The Boxtrolls, The Tale of Princess Kayuga (by legendary animation outfit Studio Ghibli) and surprise nom Song of the Sea (read our interview with director Tomm Moore here) filling out the category.

Noted awards season Machiavelli Harvey Weinstein is probably yelling at coworkers, assistants and random passers-by because French actress  Marion Cotillard pulled out a surprise nom not for The Immigrant, which The Weinstein Company launched a last-minute awards campaign for after it started getting some attention from year-end critics awards, but the Dardennes brothers' Two Days, One Night.

Laura Dern surprisingly scored a nom for her solid--if not necessarily flashy in the way the Academy normally likes--work in Wild, while Robert Duvall picked up his sixth career nomination for The Judge. And the reigning queen of Oscar nominations, Meryl Streep, has another to add to her collection thanks to her turn as the Witch in Disney's Into the Woods (which only got two other noms, for Costume Design and Production Design). Her grand total is 19 nominations, three of which are wins. After being snubbed by the Golden Globes, Bradley Cooper was recognized for American Sniper.

Hopefuls Jennifer Anison (Cake), Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler), Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year) and Amy Adams, who just won an Golden Globe for her starring role in Tim Burton's Big Eyes (a grand total of zero nominations), were not so lucky.

Potentially controversial among the technical types will be Interstellar's nominations (two of five) for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. As a reminder, this is the sound mixing and editing that resulted in many people not being able to hear key lines of dialogue--intentionally so, according to director Christopher Nolan.

Roger Ebert documentary Life Itself didn't score a Best Documentary nomination. David Fincher's Gone Girl didn't get anything for Adapted Screenplay or Score, though Rosamund Pike was rightfully included in the Best Supporting Actress field. And perhaps most egregiously--nothing for Will Smith's stunning surprise cameo in Winter's Tale*. What were you thinking, Academy?

You can catch the Oscars when they air on ABC at 7pm EST on Sunday, February 22nd.

*please note that I am 100% joking.

David Cross' 'Hits' Will Be the First Film Released Pay-What-You-Want on BitTorrent and in Theatres

Matt Walsh stars in Hits.

Louis C.K. had great success back in 2011 offering a new comedy special online at a pay-what-you-want rate. It's now a matter of course, especially for indies, to pair a theatrical release with VOD. Now comedian David Cross is combining both those concepts for a first-of-its-kind release plan.

 On February 13, Cross' directorial debut Hits, about the offbeat inhabitants of an upstate New York town, will be the first film to be released directly to fans via BitTorrent Bundle. BitTorrent, a form of peer-to-peer file-sharing, is eternally the subject of controversy due to its large role in film piracy. (Basically, people use BitTorrent technology to upload and download pirated movies, music, video games... everything digital, more or less.) BitTorrent goes legit with BitTorrent bundles, which will let fans pay what they want for Hits.

Distributor Honora Productions also plans to release Hits to theatres, with fans again given the opportunity to pay what they want. Funds for this endeavor will come from a Kickstarter campaign; the more money Cross gets, the more cities his film can go to. "We want you to decide how much tickets cost and you pay artists directly, not distributors or studios," Cross writes. "This is an experiment, a first of its kind to see if we can make it more sustainable for both fans and filmmakers."

Hits is also getting a more traditional release, with more traditional prices, involving theatres in New York and LA and usual suspects iTunes, Google Play and Vimeo.

“With the release of HITS, we’re giving audiences what they want, when they want it, in the form they want it in and at a price that they choose,” says Honora founder Giles Andrew. “As far as we know, this experiment is the first of its kind and was borne out of an unwavering belief in the film and our hopes for it to reach the widest possible audience.”

Of course, for the experiment to be successful, it will help if the film's good. Take a look at the trailer and see if it's something you might be interested in: