Sundance Film Fest: 8 Music-Related Films of Note

After scanning through descriptions of a couple hundred films in the lineup for next year’s Sundance Film Festival today, I found that Beastie Boy Adam “MCA” Yauch’s Fight For Your Right Revisited isn’t the only new flick relevant to my (and hopefully your) interests. As it turns out, the National, Calexico, Will Oldham, the Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner, and the Roots have new work hitting the screen, as well.

Our rundown of 8 of said upcoming films, complete with teaser trailers, photos, and other details currently known, is below:

The National Pen Theme to Paul Giamatti-Starring Win Win

The Playlist reports that the guys behind one of my favorite records of the year, High Violet, are working on “a new song to serve as the theme” for director Thomas McCarthy’s film, Win Win, about an attorney “who volunteers as a high school wrestling coach, takes on the guardianship of an elderly client in a desperate attempt to keep his practice afloat.”

Fight for Your Right Revisited

As we mentioned last week, the Beastie Boys’ iconic 1986 video for “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” is getting a short sequel, directed by MCA himself and starring an exciting cast that includes Elijah Wood, Danny McBride, Seth Rogen, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and Jack Black.

Check out a still here or above.

Will Oldham Stars In Short Film, Pioneer

Will Oldham, aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy, aka one of my favorite living songwriters, will star in Pioneer, director David Lowery’s new short film, which co-stars Myles Brooks. Details are scarce at the moment, but Lowery (who directed last month’s School of Seven Bells video for “I L U”) has provided this still photo and some leftover footage as a teaser trailer below.

Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner Writes 5 Songs for Submarine

Richard Ayoade, the director of multiple Arctic Monkeys music videos in addition to their Live At The Apollo DVD, has adapted Joe Dunthorne novel Submarine into a feature-length film featuring new songs by Alex Turner and an original score by Andrew Hewitt. Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford was enlisted to mix the tracks, but there are currently no plans to release the soundtrack. Check out an interview with Ayoade spliced with clips from the film below:

Calexico Score John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard

Tucson, Arizona’s Calexico have composed music for this Brendan “Mad-Eye Moody” Gleeson and Don Cheadle-starring film about “a salty village cop in Ireland, [with] a subversive sense of humor, a caustic wit, and an uncanny knack for keeping people at arm’s length.”

Directed by John Michael McDonagh (Ned Kelly).

The Roots Contribute Music to The Black Power Mixtape

?uestlove and the Roots are credited for providing music for Göran Hugo Olsson’s new documentary The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975, which features recently unearthed 16mm footage from the aforementioned era, as well as interview footage with Stokely Carmichael, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Emile de Antonio, Angela Davis, Harry Belafonte, Kathleen Cleaver, Robin Kelley, Abiodun Oyewole, Sonia Sanchez, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, ?uestlove, and more. Check out a teaser below (via Shadow And Act):

James Taylor and Carole King Documentary: Troubadours

Synopsis: “A musical journey tracing the lives and careers of James Taylor and Carole King, pillars of the California singer/songwriter scene, which converged in and around LA’s Troubadour Club in the late 1960s and early 1970s.”

Michael Rapaport Directs Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest

Last month, the trailer for actor/director Michael Rapaport’s unauthorized documentary on legendary rap group A Tribe Called Quest leaked to (and was promptly removed from) the Web. How unauthorized, you ask? Here’s Q-Tip on Twitter: “The filmmaker should respect the band to the point of honoring the few requests that was made abt the piece. The filmmaker shld respect the band enough to honor our request regarding the film.”