An Education

One of the best parts of this year's Oscars ceremony was . . . the very end! As the credits rolled, we got a brief look at many of the new movies coming to a theater near us in the coming months. A good handful of the first-look clips are from movies I'm personally excited to see, including: Hilary Swank in costume for her upcoming biopic Amelia; Robert Downey Jr. and gang in Sherlock Holmes; an adaptation of one of my favorite reads in recent memory, Julie and Julia; one of this year's Sundance favorites, An Education; and even the remake of Fame.

These sneak peeks were mixed in with highly anticipated movies that already have trailers, like Terminator Salvation and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and unfortunately there's music dubbed over the entire thing so we don't actually get to hear anything. Still, it's pretty fun to finally get a look at movies I've been reading and writing about all year.

I grabbed the clip for you to watch again or check out for the first time. Just read more

The buzz about Sundance has been largely positive this year and it sounds like the entries were, on a whole, some of the best the festival has rounded up in a long time. On Saturday the festival's closing Awards Ceremony was held and the winners were announced. Some of last year's outstanding Sundance entries just made it onto the list of Oscar nominations, including Frozen River (which won the Grand Jury Prize last year) and Man on Wire (which won the top Sundance prize in the international documentary category). So this year's Sundance wins just might be next year's Oscar nominees, too.

Here's a rundown of some notable awards:

• The big winner this year is Lee Daniels's Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, winning both the Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic category.
• The movie boasts several breakout performances including a young newcomer Gabby Sidibe and the comedian Mo'Nique who won the Special Jury Prize for Acting. This movie tackles some extremely heavy material — including incest and pregnancy by one's own father — but many reviewers say that as difficult as it is to watch it's worth the viewing. It still does not have a distributor.
• We Live in Public won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize and "portrays the story of the Internet's revolutionary impact on human interaction as told through the eyes of maverick web pioneer, Josh Harris, and his transgressive art project that shocked New York." I've heard this described as sort of an underground, technological Jonestown. Creepy.

For more news about this year's Sundance awards, read more

While I won't be heading down to the 2009 Sundance Film Festival this year, I will be sorting through the humongous pile of festival entries to share with you some of the films I think look most promising. From quirky documentaries to talented young filmmaker debuts to a potential runaway hit, Sundance is filled with entertainment possibilities. Here are today's selections:

An Education
Actress Carey Mulligan is getting a lot of attention at Sundance this year, as she's promoting not one but two films that both are receiving good buzz. I've already mentioned one of those films, The Greatest, but the other film seems truly destined for big things: An Education. The cast includes Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, and Emma Thompson and the screenplay comes from About a Boy scribe Nick Hornby. The movie, about a girl coming of age in 1960s London, has already been picked up by Sony Pictures Classics and critics are raving.

A gallery of photos from this hot flick and a rundown of another big Sundance film follow after the jump. Just read more