Yes, it's been a while since I've done one of these.  Life is busy and these take a lot of research, y'know?  But this week is full of great movies on cable, so I couldn't resist making a few recommendations.  After all, if I can't share this stuff with Screengrab readers, who can I share it with? 

Let's start with tonight!  On Monday, April 13 at 10 pm eastern/9 pm central, TCM has The Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir's great movie about war and class and prejudice and sorrow and about a million other things. This is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I suspect it's the same for many of you.

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Beginning later this week, I’ll be bringing you the most comprehensive Sundance coverage possible by a person who isn’t actually going to be there. (Hey, it’s cold up there! Sure, I could have tried to fool you with this eight-year-old photo, but I don’t play like that.) But hey, I don’t have to be in Park City to comb through the Sundance website and engage in some uninformed speculation about films that may be of interest to you and me. Tomorrow we’ll look at narrative features, but today let’s look at five nonfiction films I’d try to see if, y’know, I wasn’t a thousand miles away.

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The Sundance Institute has announced the lineup of films slated for its U.S. Dramatic Competition, Documentary Competition and World Cinema (both Dramatic and Documentary) Competitions. Says Sundance Director Geoffrey Gilmore, “This year's films are not narrowly defined. Instead we have a blurring of genres, a crossing of boundaries: geographic, generational, socio-economic and the like. The result is both an exhilarating and emotive Festival in which traditional mythologies are suspended, discoveries are made, and creative storytelling is embraced.” Well, I didn’t expect him to say “We’ve got a bunch of derivative crap this year.” Nonetheless, I have scoured the list and found a few intriguing entries:

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LIVING IN OBLIVION (1995)



Despite one of the cheesiest posters in cinema history (which, come to think of it, may itself be some kind of meta parody of the habitual cheesiness of zero-budget indiewood marketing campaigns), writer/director Tom DiCillo’s Living in Oblivion more than earns its place on this list through its flawless depiction of the cast and crew of every single dentist-financed independent film of the ‘90s, from the taciturn sound guy in the hipster glasses (“Speeeed”) and the creepy, addled production assistant to the catty make-up girl and, yes, the ubiquitous dream sequence dwarf (played with simmering, hilarious contempt by Peter Dinklage in a breakthrough performance). The project, allegedly inspired by DiCillo’s enervating experience directing Brad Pitt in the indie misfire Johnny Suede, is a hilarious cautionary tale starring Steve Buscemi as a harried director afraid to admit his passion project might just be a colossal waste of time and money, James Le Gros as an insanely arrogant would-be movie star and Catherine Keener as an insecure actress whose slow disintegration over the course of multiple takes of an emotional scene is like a graduate course in on-camera acting.

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