If CODA's recent awards success has taught us anything, it's that the Audience Award at Sundance is something of a bellwether for nabbing hardware further down the line. (Minari also took home the accolade and subsequent gongs at the Baftas and Oscars.) Add to audience anointment the serious promotion and campaign spending power of Apple TV+, which CODA picked up when it was bought by the streaming giant at the fest, and it's not unrealistic to have high expectations for the contender power of gentle indie bildungsroman Cha Cha Real Smooth.
I don't think you ever go in with the intention of winning something, or selling it to a certain home, or selling it for a certain amount of money, says writer, director, producer and star Cooper Raiff when we catch up with him at South By Southwest in March.
I just wanted it to be a great movie that my friends and family were going to love, and that I was going to love, and that hopefully other people were going to love as well.
FINDING THEMSELVES
Audiences at SXSW certainly loved the tale of an aimless college grad Andrew (Raiff) whose kindness and puppy-dog enthusiasm see him fall into a job as a bar/bat mitzvah party-starter (the guy who gets a room of self-conscious sullen kids dancing). At one of his events he meets Domino (Dakota Johnson), an older woman who's engaged to a proper grown-up (Raúl Castillo) and mother to daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt), who is autistic. Might there be a possible romance between two people negotiating their way through different stages of life? Add to the mix Andrew's propensity to self-sabotage as well as his love for his mum (Leslie Mann), who has bipolar disorder, and younger siblings, and Cha Cha is a portrait of life when it isn't... well, smooth.
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Denne historien er fra May 2022-utgaven av Total Film.
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RETURN TO OZ
WICKED Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande defy gravity as the Broadway smash reaches cinemas.
GRIN AND BEAR IT
SMILE 2 Trauma-horror sequel sees the curse latch onto a pop superstar...
BAD ROMANCE
TIMESTALKER Alice Lowe falls in love with the wrong man time and time again...
CLOWNING GORY
TERRIFIER 3 Creator Damien Leone says Art the Clown is coming home for Christmas...
SELF EXPRESSION
LAYLA A non-binary, British-Palestinian drag queen navigates their expression of identity.
GENA ROWLANDS
I like difficult roles,' said Gena Rowlands. No kidding. A stage, TV and film actor whose career spanned more than six decades, Rowlands will be most remembered for the series of coruscating dramas she made with her first husband, actor-turned-director John Cassavetes, between 1968 and 1984.
'NOW NOTHING IS ABOUT LOOKS OR ABOUT BEING A LEADING LADY.AND IT'S VERY LIBERATING' EMILY WATSON
Since breaking hearts in Breaking the Waves, Emily Watson has delivered countless screen masterclasses, from Gosford Park and Punch-Drunk Love to Apple Tree Yard. Now, the English star goes toe-to-toe with Cilllan Murohy in Irish drama Smeal/ Things like hese and fronts 1V prequel Dune: Prophecy. Is it her second coming? It's elementary, my dear Watson...
BLODD PRESSURE
BASED ON STEPHEN KING'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOK AND WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY IT SCRIBE GARY DAUBERMAN, VAMPIRE MOVIE SALEM'S LOT FACED AN UNHOLY FIGHT TO GET TO OUR SCREENS. TOTAL FILM HUNTS DOWN DAUBERMAN AND STARS LEWIS PULLMAN AND MAKENZIE LEIGH TO LEARN ALL THAT WAS AT STAKE...
Lucky Man
He broke out in Beatles jukebox musical Yesterday and has a varied slate of juicy projects on the horizon, including a very different take on a superhero franchise. But, as the everhumble Himesh Patel tells Total Film, he puts a lot of it down to luck...
A BUE ABOVE
WORLD-BUILDER EXTRAORDINAIRE RIDLEY SCOTT IS ALSO THE MASTER OF THE DIRECTOR'S CUT, RESTORING HIS MISHANDLED GEMS INTO MASTERPIECES. WITH THE EXPANSIVE DIRECTOR'S CUT OF NAPOLEON NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM, TOTAL FILM SPEAKS TO THE GREAT SCOTT ABOUT BLOWING UP BONAPARTE HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH EDITING AND WHY BIGGER IS (USUALLY) BETTER.