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Don't mess with a man's best friend! I'm borrowing that phrase from our own Eric D. Snider, who used it to describe the plot of Red, a thriller starring the great Brian Cox as a man on a mission to avenge the death of his beloved dog at the hands of a bunch of teenage punks.
As Eric noted, Magnolia Pictures picked up distribution rights for the movie and planned a late summer release. Well, it must be later than we thought, because Dread Central now tells us that Red will be unleashed to theaters in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, August 8, followed by a "slow rollout" to more theaters nationwide.
"An emotionally gripping if slightly overwrought drama," is how Eric described Red in his review from Sundance, where the film premiered. Later he called it "a solid B-minus effort, and Cox's performance makes it eminently watchable." In addition to Cox, the cast includes Tom Sizemore as a bad father, Kim Dickens as a TV reporter, and Robert Englund and Amanda Plummer as white trash parents of one of the juvenile delinquent kids responsible for the death of the titular dog.
I've loved Brian Cox in many roles (Braveheart to Manhunter to 25th Hour to X2: X-Men United to Zodiac), so I have to believe he's a major plus for audiences looking for something a little different in August. How about you? Do you have any interest in seeing the Cox-avenging Red?
Time to play catch up with a couple of indie distribution deals that were completed during the past few days. 
It's hard to believe it was just last month that the film industry was trudging through hill, dale and snow to watch movies at the Sundance Film Festival, but in this fast-paced world, it does feel like a million years ago. One of the buzz titles at the fest was Christine Jeffs' 
Bloggers are up in arms that Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Sundance buzz title 
The crowds at Sundance may be thinning out, but the deals are continuing. In their second acquisition of the week, Sony Pictures Classics nabbed North American rights to 
Straight dramatic features have not been feeling the love from distributors at Sundance so far, with most of the deal action concentrated on documentaries (American Teen, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired), comedies (Hamlet 2) or comedy/dramas (Choke, Henry Poole is Here). But leave it to Sony Pictures Classics to step up to the plate and acquire the rights to a well-received drama about impoverished single mothers. 
Described in the Sundance 
The Sundance deals flew fast, furious and early on Tuesday, but it took a bit longer for one in-demand title to close.
For many people, Sundance can be defined as edgy, difficult, dysfunctional, and dramatic. But for distributors looking for films they can sell in a tight marketplace for specialty fare, Sundance evidently now means "lighter, funnier."
The logjam may have been broken at Sundance. Just as I finished writing something about the slow selling conditions over the usually busy first weekend, 
We've been keeping a close eye on our usual sources for news on Sundance deals ... and it's been s-l-o-w. Everyone seems to think that, after an unusually quiet weekend, the deals will start breaking any minute, with the reasons for the slowdown ranging from sellers asking for too much money, to buyers being unusually cautious about overpaying, the icy cold conditions freezing everyone's brain and power to negotiate, etc.
Sundance festival organizers have taken great pains to get people interested in the foreign-language films that are programmed, especially in the last few years. In theory, it's a good strategy, but in reality, it remains an uphill battle, with at least 90-95% of the mainstream media intensely focused on the American films.
When you think of Sundance wheeling and dealing, you probably think of the bigger players on the indie circuit: the studio specialty divisions, the veteran boutique distributors, or the fledging mid-level newcomers driven by recent investments. But a cable sports channel? ESPN jumped into the game on Saturday by acquiring soccer doc 
He grew up in terrible conditions; he directed great movies; his wife was murdered; he fled the country; he made some more good movies. 
After toiling for years in the studio system as a digital design associate (Batman & Robin), visual effects art director (Practical Magic), assistant art director (The Man Who Wasn't There) and, probably, a host of other jobs not yet recorded at IMDb, 
