It's been 24 hours since Jason Collins came out in his Sports Illustrated cover story, and one of the most gratifying aspects to Collins' story in my mind is how quickly it is passing into the realm of the mundane. That is not to say it's not important or heartening...

Most people, when they hear the name Viggo Mortensen, instantly think Lord of the Rings. To the vast majority of popcorn-munching moviegoers, Viggo might as well be Danish for "Aragorn." His performance as J.R.R. Tolkien's legendary (and legendarily rugged) fantasy king was so iconic, Viggo could easily have carved himself...

As Sundance heads into its mythic second weekend -- of which many have heard but few dare endure -- all trappings of mainstream movie civilization fall away: plot resolution, reliable narrators, temporal continuity. Those who stay enter the Indie Heart of Darkness. The bustling, doe-eyed crowds of Hollywood hangers-on are...

As your time in Park City stretches on, you enter a sort of delirium tremens of cinematic fatigue where all the films you've seen -- the good, the bad, the bat s#!t crazy -- start blending into one gigantic bowl of indie chow mein. It doesn't help that all the...

It happens every Sundance. It starts small -- say, your weekend roommate remarks casually on the ride up to Park City, "Loved the script, curious how the movie turned out." Then you hear the title again from a colleague or new drinking buddy you've made over open-bar beers. "Yeah, I...

The movie gods smiled on us coastal transplants Saturday as a clear, sun-kissed day kept the temperatures a respectable shiver away from abominable. It actually made it bearable to catch up with friends outside while you waited to get into a film. And really, that's the signature phenomena Sundance offers...

Well, you can't catch a flight from L.A. to Park City today that's not overflowing with Uggs, designer sunglasses, and iPad-minis clad in Kate Spade covers: Sundance 2013 has arrived! This weekend "Young Hollywood" temporarily relocates from L.A. (easing my morning commute just a bit) to Robert Redford's famous mountain...

Normally, at this point in awards season when the Oscar nominations (link here!) are announced, I feel like a low-level Al-Qaeda flunkee staring down Jessica Chastain in a no-nonsense pantsuit: beaten, cowed, humiliated, willing to trade my ideals, beliefs and loyal brothers for just a whiff of fresh...

The final treat of the L.A. Film Festival was getting a chance to talk to the incomparable comedian David Cross, one of the stars of Todd Berger's terrorist-attack dark comedy It's a Disaster, as well as Dr. Tobias Funke on Arrested Development. As I mentioned previously, It's a Disaster takes...

With the open bar at the filmmaker's lounge closing its taps, and the jury announcing its winners, the Los Angles Film Festival has at last sadly come to a close.

Not surprisingly, Sundance favorite hippie love-child Beasts of the Southern Wild took the audience award for best narrative feature....

A while back I wrote a rather hopeful blog post for Vanity Fair about the DSLR revolution -- basically, the fact that everywhere you look in L.A. these days you see scruffy-bearded, pork-pie hat hipsters running and gunning Godard-style with a boom mic, a Canon 5D and a...

The Los Angeles Film Festival kicked off last night with the U.S. premiere of Woody Allen's 42nd film, the latest cinematic postcard sent back Stateside from his late period tour of great European Capitals, To Rome With Love. The maestro himself was in attendance downtown, a rare treat for our...

Break out the linen shirts and slightly-too-sweet sangria: lazy summer is here. Right after Memorial Day all that drive, hustle and bustle seem to evaporate into thin air; which can be nice, except that with Mad Men and Game of Thrones over, interesting entertainment options are about as rare as...

Ah, Cannes. Behold: the cerulean sparkle of the Cote d'Azur, the endless waft of chain-smoked Gitanes over the Croisette, and the wheeling-dealing on private yachts filled with the flotsam and jetsam of European film. At least, that's how I imagine it from the corner booth of my local coffee shop...

As if the fleets of limos and drunken starlets in sequined minis stumbling down Sunset Boulevard's less seedy corridors weren't enough, the traffic jams at the closed off corners around The Not-The-Kodak-Anymore Theater have confirmed it -- it's Oscar weekend. All around town fragile egos are ringing like crystal bells...

Honestly, with the snubbing of Albert Brooks and Tilda Swinton for two of 2011's most exciting films -- Drive and We Need To Talk About Kevin -- it's hard to get excited about the Oscars this year. The overwhelmingly unadventurous slew of nominations for Spielberg's War Horse and Scorsese's Hugo...

Sunday was a painfully beautiful day for a hung-over walk in Park City. Set in a bed of flawless blue, the sun refracted joyfully off slopes washed white by fresh snowfall and volunteers in neon safety vests, shoveling out paths for fest goers. Thankfully, the quality of the scotch I'd...

Well, it wouldn't be Sundance if you didn't miss a movie or two, or three. The price of partying is that you oversleep your alarm clock with reckless abandon and miss those early morning Eccles screenings of hot fest films, such as Saturday's Celeste and Jesse Forever with Andy Samberg...

I admit, my completely unplanned Sundance excursion gave me pause: would the catchy notion of letting the universe dictate my snowy path through Park City be just that, a catchy notion? Driving to the airport, I realized I didn't even have a deck of cards to play solitaire with alone...

It's midnight and I'm doing my laundry with just enough time to pack a battered carry-on and catch an REM cycle before jetting out of Los Angeles on a crack-of-dawn flight to Park City. 12 hours ago --scratch that, 6 hours ago -- I had no idea whether or not...