Skylight Films

​We felt a bit out of our depth heading into UM's screening of Granito: How to Nail a Dictator at the Bill Cosford Cinema last night. The documentary is a follow-up to When the Mountains Tremble, a doc that courageous young director Pamela Yates produced in the early '80s, exposing the violent genocide waged by the Guatemalan government on hundreds of thousands of its indigenous people.

Why did we feel so insecure? Well, because A) we never saw the first film and B) we don't know anything about Guatemala. At all.

Luckily, the layers of the story unfolded slowly, letting the tireless efforts made by humanitarians and survivors of the violence in Guatemala shine for all viewers -- educated or not. By film's end, we felt confident that we had something to contribute to the talk-back with Yates and producer Paco De Onis. That is, until an audience member named Dunia raised her hand to share her personal connection to the story: She was responsible for babysitting one of the film's key players, Alejandra Garcia, on the day her father "got disappeared" by the police in Guatemala. Dunia broke into tears, and we hesitated before speaking. How the hell do you follow that?

But on a less selfish note, Dunia's story brought into sharp focus exactly how personal this story of oppression and loss is for some Guatemalans.
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​The Step Up movies all have essentially the same plot: Boy meets girl. They dance. They fall in love. They live, and dance, happily ever after.

But there's something a little different about Step Up 4: It all takes place in Miami.

From the looks of the trailer, released this week, the film was actually shot in Miami, including along Ocean Drive, at a Brickell-looking rooftop pool, and on shipping containers at the Port of Miami. The cheeseball story hasn't changed, but it does warm our hearts to see our city looking like a paradise on the big screen. (The sexy dancers don't hurt, either.)

Check out the trailer after the jump.
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A scene from About Face

​Remember the TV game show where contestants pick between unmarked doors? The Sundance Film Festival can feel that way. Despite the program notes and pre-festival buzz, you can't easily predict what you'll find.

Attending the 2012 edition last week, I uncovered these highlights:
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TKTK

​A young woman in the act of adultery is dragged out of the local hotel by her disgusted family members. A gap-toothed ex-wife who's owed a hefty sum of alimony rubs her hands in glee as she talks about her scheme to land her deadbeat baby daddy behind bars. And a bunch of drunkards uncap beer bottles with their teeth and run out to a dirt road to harass oncoming traffic.

It sounds more like the makings of an episode of Jerry Springer than a surf movie, but Splinters, opening at O Cinema today, is, in fact, a documentary about the rise of the sacred sport in Vanimo, an isolated village on the north coast of Papua New Guinea.

The Endless Summer, this is not. Splinters goes beyond mere celebration of a sport that's already adored by so many around the world. It gives a panoramic view of circumscribed life in Vanimo. It exposes the reality of violent and sexist practices of its culture, and shows the obstacles -- often in the form of jealous and vindictive competitors -- that stand to block the only opportunity for escape available to its locals: nabbing a spot on Papua New Guinea's national surf team.
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pina-film.de

​News is scurrying across the world about this morning's 2012 Oscar nominations.

That means it's crunch time.

Your inner cinephile has been slacking and you haven't seen as many of the lesser-known films as per your usual yearly standards.

Catch these flicks at our local independent cinemas, but hurry -- some are ceasing showings as early as this Thursday.
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sabotagetimes.com

Hugo leads this year's Oscar nominations

​...almost exactly as we predicted, as it turns out.

Announced just this morning, The Academy has recognized the best films of the past year with its award nominations, and the surprises are few. Martin Scorcese's Hugo is the big winner, with 11 nominations in everything from Best Picture to Sound Mixing. Close on its tail is The Artist, with 10.

There is one film we didn't expect to make quite as big a splash, though: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which nabbed an unexpected Best Picture nod as well as a Suppporting Actor nom for Max von Sydow.
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A scene from Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke

​We can't say we're surprised. If you've seen even part of Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke, the home-grown film starring Miami's most famous rapper-turned-columnist, then you know it's impossible to look away. And judging from the response it's getting at the Sundance Film Festival, the film has that effect beyond the Miami-Dade borders, too.

We've been tracking all the news related to Uncle Luke's Sundance debut. Read on to find out what everybody's saying.
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Davidlohr Bueso, Flickr

​In these very serious and not at all snarky Oscar nominations predictions, I wanted to begin by criticizing AMPAS for being conservative, self-serving and too politically correct, singling out members that double as nominees. I also wanted to discuss how demanding it is to watch an absurdly long and lackluster televised Oscars ceremony, and how E! has made bastardly portmanteaus like "amazeballs" synonymous with actresses who dress like aquatic birds. I even figured if I discussed wanting to discuss it, I'd be all meta and hip, unlike the Academy, who, well, is not.

But I'm a film buff, and although my YouTube attention span can only handle the last hour or so of the broadcast, I'll still tune in and catch awkward celebrity presenters give away more Oscars than Swedish adoption agencies. And like every movie junkie this side of Tinseltown, I fancy myself an expert worthy of forecasting nominees based on a number of scholarly sources -- namely, Rotten Tomatoes, /Film, and my Facebook news feed.

In addition, since the new Oscar balloting system is more puzzling than federal income tax rate schedules, I finalized my picks by consulting Hialeah santeros, shaking magic eight balls and pinning-the-tail-on-the-shortlists in categories where Nielsen actually quantifies viewers - or Animated Feature up through Best Movie to be exact. I'll keep my fingers crossed until tomorrow to see if the results below hold up.
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A Jewish Girl in Shanghai screens at Intercoastal 8 Cinema Jan. 29.

​When we asked Ellen Wedner, director of the Miami Jewish Film Festival, how this year's fest will compare with its predecessors, she put it bluntly: "Having movies will be the same." Wedner was joking, of course, but this year's festival does have a remarkably different look to it, compared to years past, with plenty of events in its lineup that audiences will be seeing for the first time.

From choral performances of Yiddish music to an animated film from China, the MJFF continues to expand its scope. Wedner said her goal is to "make [the festival] appealing to the Jewish community, but to make it universal as well."
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​The Sundance Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, and if you're sitting in your office reading this right now, it probably means you won't be in attendance. And that's a bummer, because you'll miss out on rubbing elbows with celebrities and seeing some of the world's most buzz-worthy films.

But there's one thing you don't have to miss out on: the swag. As you know, Jillian Mayer's short film, The Life and Times of Uncle Luke, will be screened at Sundance. And as you know, Jacuzzi Boys' Gabriel Alcala designed a Luther Campbell-inspired whoopee cushion for the swag bags at the screening. But they're not all at Sundance. Three of them are sitting in our office, ready to be claimed by lucky Cultist readers. Click through to find out how to get yours.
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