'Press Play With Madeleine Brand': 'Crip Camp,' 'Uncorked,' 'Vivarium' and 'The Hunt'

Well, this was unusual. For this week's Press Play, Katie Walsh and I spoke with Madeleine remotely to discuss the weekend's new releases -- and The Hunt. Enjoy our social-distancing cinematic insights down below.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: 'The Hunt,' 'Bloodshot,' 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always' and 'Moulin Rouge'

The podcast must go on. This week, we both review The Hunt, and then I solo on the new Vin Diesel vehicle and Eliza Hittman's acclaimed Sundance drama. Finally, we flash back to 2001 for Moulin Rouge. We'll keep doing new episodes each week -- we talk about that a little, too.

'The Hunt' Review

I've been a Craig Zobel defender for a while, but I couldn't get with The Hunt, which is a pretty drab political satire disguised as an exploitation film. My Screen International review is here.

Why I'm Mad Universal Pulled the Plug on 'The Hunt'

Grateful to the folks at Rolling Stone for asking me to sound off on the Hunt controversy. I had a lot to say.

'Z for Zachariah' and Craig Zobel's Lab-Experiment Cinema

Craig Zobel is one of America's most intriguing indie filmmakers, the man behind Great World of Sound and the superb Compliance. He returns with Z for Zachariah, which I saw for the first time at Sundance. I watched it again now that it's opening on Friday, and I continue to find this post-apocalyptic drama deeply unsettling in its own quiet way. Why? Because Zobel, as per norm, is conducting a little experiment with the characters -- and with us in the audience. I get into that over at Deadspin.

The Best Movies of the Decade (so far): My Ballot

You may remember the other day I mentioned that The Dissolve had asked me and other critics to contribute ballots to their poll of the best films of the decade (2010-2014). (You can see the master list, with write-ups, of Nos. 50-26 here. Nos. 25-1 are right here.)

For those interested, I decided to publish my ballot below.

Doing some quick number-crunching, I see that 10 of my Top 20 films ended up in the overall Dissolve Top 50. If some of my picks surprise you, well, they surprised me, too -- but I decided to go by instinct and not overthink my choices. If nothing else, this will help give me a guide for "Best of the Decade" lists in about four years, which will be here quicker than you think.

1. Inside Llewyn Davis
2. The Turin Horse
3. The Master
4. Boyhood
5. City of Life and Death
6. Lourdes
7. Shutter Island
8. Elena (the Andrei Zvyagintsev film)
9. It's Such a Beautiful Day
10. The Social Network
11. The Clock
12. Compliance
13. Let the Fire Burn
14. Blue Is the Warmest Color
15. Shame
16. Leviathan (the Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel film)
17. Upstream Color
18. Take Shelter
19. Room 237
20. Before Midnight

Sundance 2015: Ranking the Best and Worst of the Festival

I could have just as easily put together a list of the movies I wished I could have seen at this year's Sundance Film Festival: The End of the Tour, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, Going Clear, Diary of a Teenage Girl, The Forbidden Room, Tangerine, Experimenter, I Am Michael, The Stanford Prison Experiment, The Overnight....OK, you get the idea. (Plus, I have Don Hertzfeldt's acclaimed short World of Tomorrow waiting for me on my laptop. I cannot wait.) So consider the below ranking a snapshot of one person's experience in Park City. Five different critics could give you five different overviews.

I can't say I saw any slam-dunk stunners this year, as opposed to 2014 when I flipped for Boyhood and The Raid 2. You'll note my top two picks from the 2015 edition are actually films that premiered elsewhere but were included in Sundance's Spotlight section. I suspect a couple of the movies I didn't see on the list above might have competed for one of the top spots.

Looking at my rankings, I realize I'm less enthused about Brooklyn than many of my colleagues are. On the opposite side, I'm guessing I'm higher on The Nightmare than most. What's funny is that many of the best films at Sundance this year have an element of horror to them, whether it's the 17th century creepiness of The Witch, the school of the damned in The Tribe, the post-apocalyptic setting of Z for Zachariah, or the real-world terrors in the documentaries The Nightmare and Welcome to Leith. As for Eden, I bonded with two new friends at the festival because they responded to Mia Hansen-Løve's film as strongly as I did. It's not a horror movie, but it's a deeply felt character study that I haven't stopped thinking about since seeing it in Toronto last year.

On to the rankings. Links lead to individual reviews (some may be behind paywalls)...

26. Strangerland
25. A Walk in the Woods
24. Ten Thousand Saints
23. The Bronze
22. Stockholm, Pennsylvania
21. Brooklyn
20. What Happened, Miss Simone?
19. True Story
18. Results
17. The D Train
16. Homesick
15. Partisan
14. 99 Homes
13. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
12. Last Days in the Desert
11. Mistress America
10. Dope
9. Wild Tales 
8. Mississippi Grind
7. Digging for Fire
6. Z for Zachariah
5. Welcome to Leith
4. The Nightmare
3. The Witch
2. Eden
1. The Tribe

Sundance 2015: 'Z for Zachariah' Review

My most anticipated film of this year's Sundance, Z for Zachariah isn't as violently divisive as director Craig Zobel's last movie, Compliance, was. Still, I once again think I like it more than my colleagues do. A look at the end of the world populated by three mismatched individuals (played superbly by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie and Chris Pine), this low-key drama is very effective as a study of human behavior, a specialty of Zobel's. You can read my review over at Screen International.

'Compliance': Let the Debate Begin

I've been raving about Compliance since Sundance. At last, the film is finally opening in theaters, and I expect a wide range of opinions on this divisive, terrific movie. For Deadspin, Will and I debated the movie's merits. (He doesn't like the film so much.) You can read our conversation here.

Back Stage: The Best Movie Weekend of the Year?

Now that I have your attention with my needlessly hyperbolic headline, I do think there are plenty of worthwhile film options available to you this weekend: everything from the unnerving Compliance to the warmhearted Robot & Frank to the winningly macabre ParaNorman to the intriguing Side by Side. This week's Screen Grab column for Back Stage lays out all the new releases.

Sundance 2012: Ranking the Best and Worst of the Festival

And so we come to the end of another Sundance film festival. All in all, I saw 32 films, including a couple I checked out at Toronto last year that also played in Park City. Here's my ranking of what I saw, from worst to best...

Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
Red Lights
Lay the Favorite
Goats
Wish You Were Here
LUV
Wrong
Chasing Ice
For a Good Time, Call...
Mosquita y Mari
Celeste and Jesse Forever
The End of Love
I Am Not a Hipster
Black Rock
For Ellen
The Invisible War
The Surrogate
The Imposter
Smashed
The House I Live In
Beasts of the Southern Wild
The Words
Gypsy Davy
Sleepwalk With Me
Wuthering Heights
Simon Killer
Your Sister's Sister
Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
Safety Not Guaranteed
Room 237
28 Hotel Rooms
Compliance

You may notice that Beasts of the Southern Wild isn't as high on my list as it is on many other folks'. I think it's a good film, if a bit overpraised. You also may notice I missed several films that won prizes as last night's awards event. What can I say: There's only so much time, and you can't screen everything. But you can be sure I'll be doing some catchup over the next several months.

Sundance 2012: 'Compliance' review

I had been impressed with Craig Zobel's first film, Great World of Sound, but nothing prepared me for what he would do next. That would be Compliance, which debuted Saturday at Sundance and caused quite a stir in the audience. I can understand the volcanic, angry response, but I think it's completely misguided. I reviewed the film for Screen International, and I worked hard to avoid the word "masterpiece," although I think the movie gets pretty darn close to earning that designation.