According to the Phoenix Film Festival, James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now has been added to the lineup and will open the fest which will run from April 4th-11th and celebrate its 13th year of bringing a fine selection of new and award-winning films to Arizona.
TSN is the opening night film and and director James Ponsoldt will be on hand as well to introduce and offer a Q&A.
You can find out more about the film by visiting the official site.
As the title reads, tickets are now available to purchase to see director James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now at the Atlanta Film Festival. The film will close the festival on March 23 with a screening time of 7:00 pm. Be sure to buy your tickets today! You can do so by clicking here.
It’s been announced that James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now will be released on August 2, 2013:
Upstart distributor A24 has set an August 2 limited release for the James Ponsoldt-directed The Spectacular Now. The Spectacular Now was scripted by (500) Days of Summer scribes Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber and stars Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Elizabeth Winstead in a drama about a mismatched young high school students. It was bought at Sundance in January.
In an interview with Screen Crush, star of The Spectacular Now Miles Teller, told the site that TSN will have an August release date. Here’s what he said:
You finished wrapping up ‘The Spectacular Now’ a while ago, and I haven’t seen it, but a couple of my colleagues have and they were very impressed with your performance. So congratulations on that.
Thank you.
I’ve been reading that it’s going to SXSW.
Yeah, I think it’s playing March 11 at SXSW.
What’s the current plan to bring this film to the masses more?
Yeah, it was picked up by A24. A24 is a distribution company, they’re doing ‘Bling Ring,’ Sofia Coppola’s movie. They’re also doing ‘Spring Breakers.’ I think the goal for this is August 2 it’ll start out in select cities and then platform.
I think ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower,’ and the fact that movie did so well and really found a big audience, I think that kind of opened the door probably a little bit for this.
Tickets aren’t available yet, but according to the SXSW website, Spectacular Now will be playing March 11 at 9:30 pm at the Topfer Theatre. Meanwhile, the film will be closing the Atlanta Film Festival on March 23.
It’s been announced by the Atlanta Film Festival that James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now will close out the festival in March.
This week, the Atlanta Film Festival made opening and closing film announcements for the March 15-24 fest, with tickets expected to go on sale soon. Four other fest bookings already are on sale.
“The Spectacular Now,” directed by Athens native James Ponsoldt (”Smashed”), will close the fest on March 23, also at the Plaza. (March 24 is dedicated to encore showings.) It stars Miles Teller (”Rabbit Hole”) as a charmer with a drinking issue who catches bookish Shailene Woodley (”The Decesendants”) on the rebound. After a Sundance showing, Entertainment Weekly called it a “soulful and authentic” teen movie “about the experience of being caught on the cusp and truly not knowing which way you’ll land.”
Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but you could always check back on the official site.
Good news! James Ponsoldt’s newly buzzed about film, The Spectacular Now, which received lots of love at January Sundance Film Festival last month, will now be heading to the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas. The festival runs from March 8-16. So far, the first screening date for the film is listed as March 11 at 9:30pm-11:15pm.
More info will be posted soon so keep checking back and congrats to the cast & crew for being selected to join the festival!
Vibe Magazine caught up with the cast of The Spectacular Now during their Sundance premiere and talked about how the film is similar to teen movies from the 80s.
Also, EW named TSN a “lovely and original teen movie”:
The Spectacular Now was adapted from a novel by Tim Tharp, and that’s part of what accounts for its rich and exploratory psychological texture, but it’s also not afraid of being an all-out teen movie. There are hookups and dates, beer and sex, caustic discussions of divorce, a romantic triangle, and a senior prom. That said, The Spectacular Now is one of the rare truly soulful and authentic teen movies, like last year’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower or the classic one from 24 years ago that this one most reminded me of: Say Anything. Like them, it’s a movie about the experience of being caught on the cusp and truly not knowing which way you’ll land.
The Spectacular Now, like Flight or Steve Buscemi’s Trees Lounge, is the story of a very functional drinker, but it’s no case study. The movie has a deep, touching nostalgia for the romance of teenage life, and that, in a way, is Sutter’s whole problem: He doesn’t want to let go of that. It would mean doing what every drinker, clinging to his adult baby bottle, doesn’t want to do: grow up.
Vanity Fair West coast editor Krista Smith recently caught up with Mary Elizabeth at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival to talk to Mary about her new films The Spectacular Now and A.C.O.D. Click here to watch the interview.
Also, a couple more reviews about The Spectacular Now have been released. First one is via Slashfilm:
The Spectacular Now is everything I hope a Sundance movie to be. It has heart, many laughs, story twists that will jolt you from your seat, and most importantly, the film speaks to a deep truth. It is an honest coming of age film about growing up and facing the great unknown that comes after high school, something we can all remember and relate to. But it tells that story without the forced nostalgia of other Hollywood films.
The entire supporting cast is great in the few scenes they appear, including Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bob Odenkirk and Kyle Chandler. /Film Rating: 8.5 out of 10
The scars and blemishes on the faces of the high-school lovers in “The Spectacular Now” are beautifully emblematic of director James Ponsoldt’s bid to bring the American teen movie back to some semblance of reality, a bid that pays off spectacularly indeed. Skillfully adapted from Tim Tharp’s novel, evocatively lensed in the working-class neighborhoods of Athens, Ga., and tenderly acted by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, this bittersweet ode to the moment of childhood’s end builds quietly to a pitch-perfect finale. Warts-and-all authenticity can be a tough sell, but Ponsoldt’s bracing youth pic seems bound to graduate with honors.
Woodley thoroughly fulfills the promise of her smaller role as the teenage daughter in “The Descendants,” locating the precise point at which Aimee’s infatuation with Sutter turns to self-protection. Equally impressive is Teller, who makes his character’s adolescent bravado appear intoxicating and then more than a little scary. The film’s supporting players are uniformly superb.
Geek Tyrant also loved the film:
Continue reading New Vanity Fair Interview; More Spectacular Now Reviews
After getting amazing reviews following its debut Friday night at the Sundance Film Festival, new film distributor A24 has nabbed the film and The Spectacular Now will be playing nationwide in theaters this summer! A release date has yet to be announced, but meanwhile, here’s the official announcement:
A24 announced the acquisition of North American rights to Sundance favorite THE SPECTACULAR NOW. The James Ponsoldt directed film, from a script by Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, has become one of the darlings of the Sundance Film Festival and features breakout performances by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley. Film also features wonderful turns by Brie Larson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kyle Chandler and Andre Royo. Film premiered on Friday night at Sundance in US Dramatic Competition. A24 will release the film this summer.
“We fell in love with this film the minute that we watched it and we know the rest of the country will embrace this timeless love story. James has directed a wonderful film that depicts young love with complete authenticity and has two young stars giving incredible performances with Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley.” says A24.
Producer Andrew Lauren says, “I am so thrilled that the film has found a home with a company that has such passion for it. It’s been an amazing Sundance and we are so gratified by the incredibly warm response here.”
Variety meanwhile reviewed the film and said it is “a bittersweet ode to the moment of childhood’s end [that] builds quietly to a pitch-perfect finale.”
A24 beat out the Weinstein Co. for the rights.
So cool! Talk about a quick deal. Congrats to everyone!
As the headline reads, the first reviews for James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now have already come online, and they’re all positive. While they mostly focus on Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller’s performances, they’re great nonetheless. Hopefully it won’t be long until it’s picked up by a studio. I’ll keep you guys posted but in the meantime, here are some reviews. As always, click on the links to read them in full. First one is from FirstShowing:
Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now is a deeply layered, indie romantic comedy, coming-of-age alcoholism story all wrapped up in one. It’s sweet, it’s endearing, it’s charming, it’s emotional, it’s moving, it’s honest, it’s brilliant, it’s thoughtful. It’s about so much more than what it shows on the surface, and is just as complex as the characters are, evolving as it progress just as they do. It never resorts to cliches, it never takes the easy way out, and it has a momentum that keeps pushing the story forward at a smooth rate, never too fast or too slow. While I still love Smashed, Ponsoldt shows that he matures as a filmmaker each film, which is why I can’t wait to follow his career from here. But for now, it’s all about being in the “Spectacular Now.”
“Live in the moment” is a nice platitude and a crappy life philosophy. Vivacity is all well and good. We should appreciate the present, but we can’t live only for the present. We have to think about tomorrow because we’re probably going to be there. In his wonderful new film The Spectacular Now, director James Ponsoldt explore the live-for-the-moment mentality with an authentic and earnest look at high school emotions, anxiety about the future, and first love. Led by extraordinary performances from stars Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, The Spectacular Now is a thoroughly charming and surprisingly powerful coming-of-age story about the fear of looking ahead and the seductive safety of living in the present.
By investing in his characters and giving the actors room to flesh out their characters, Ponsoldt stops his movie from being a cautionary tale. Obviously, “living like there’s no tomorrow” isn’t a good life strategy, but it’s an understandable escape. It’s undoubtedly entertaining to watch Sutter flee from his responsibilities and neglect plans for life beyond high school. But The Spectacular Now never lets its protagonist off the hook. The movie doesn’t lecture and it doesn’t scold; it simply lets the present play out to an uncertain and ultimately more rewarding future.