Every year, the Sundance Film Festival premieres dozens of great independent films, many that often have to struggle to find an audience in theaters. When James Strouse’s Grace is Gone, starring John Cusack, won the coveted Audience Award in 2007, it was thought Strouse would be a filmmaker to watch. For whatever reason, the movie failed to make a mark when The Weinstein Company released it later that year. Undaunted, Strouse returned to Sundance in January 2009 with his follow-up The Winning Season, a very different movie that involves sports and even a bit of humor.

It stars perennial Sundance man Sam Rockwell as Bill, a divorced alcoholic working as a busboy in a restaurant until his friend, played by Rob Corddry, asks him to coach his high school’s girls’ basketball team, because he thinks Bill could turn them around. Before you can say “Bad News Bears,” Bill is putting the team, made up of Emma Roberts’ Abbie, Shareeka (Half Nelson) Epps’ Lisa, as well as Rooney Mara, Emily Rios and Meaghan Witri, through rigorous paces to try to make them the best team in the league. Along the way, he helps the girls with their problems and they do the same for him.

Last year at the Sundance Film Festival, ComingSoon.net sat down with James Strouse, Sam Rockwell, Rob Corddry, Emma Roberts and Shareeka Epps for a rousing interview. It was easily one of the oddest combination of actors we’ve ever interviewed at the same time, but we did the best we could as Corddry had everyone cracking up so much it was hard to maintain any sort of decorum.

ComingSoon.net: I guess we’ll start with you, James, since as with most movies, this started with you. “Grace is Gone” was a big hit at Sundance a few years back. Why did you want to do a basketball movie and a comedy and go in such a different direction with this one?
James Strouse: I just wanted to go in a completely different – not that it’s completely different direction. I think this film has a nice balance of both comedy and drama but I really wanted to do something funny. It was great to take the drama and go through that, but the whole time, I was thinking, “Man, I want to do something a little more comedic, more like a comedy/drama.”

CS: But why did you want to set it in the world of basketball, since that’s a whole new set of challenges?
Strouse: (”Grace is Gone”) was just three people and that story was really simple, just three characters for the whole time, and I wanted to do something with more characters, more plots and subplots, and more action. That was a very restrained people, and the whole time I was like, “I would like to move the camera more, that would be fun I think.”

CS: Emma, you had done a bunch of studio movies and this is more independent for you, so what was it about this that made you want to do it?
Emma Roberts: I thought the script was really cool, and it was a movie that had basketball in it, but it’s not like a basketball movie. It’s about so much more than that. I met Jim and I really liked him, I thought he was a cool guy, and Sam was attached to do it, and I’ve known Sam for a very, very long time, and I definitely wanted to work with him. It just seemed like it would be a really great project.

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Emma was spotted leaving her apartment on Sunday (August 29th). Then spotted leaving a studio in LA on Monday (August 30th). Check out the candids below!

Here is another new look for the site! We hope that you love it as much as we do! We know the other one wasn’t up for long but decided to do another change since its been a rainy weekend. The photos used are from her Instyle UK shoot so they aren’t the newest but we haven’t used them and its an awesome shoot. Tell us in the comments your opinions on the new theme!

Emma was spotted out and about in LA and leaving Fred Segal yesterday (August 25th). Check out the candids below!

There are many reasons to be excited about the indie high school basketball movie, “The Winning Season,” and most of them are the eclectic cast members. You have Sam Rockwell as the dishwasher turned girl’s varsity basketball coach, Emma Roberts as the leader of the underdog team, and Rob Corddry as the high school administrator who brings the two of them together.

But on top of that, there’s soon-to-be A-lister Rooney Mara and “Half Nelson’s” Shareeka Epps fleshing out the six-player basketball team, in addition to “Gossip Girl’s” Connor Paolo as the boy Emma’s character is crushing on. Fortunately for you, we have an exclusive clip bringing all of them together.

We never get tired of high school comedies, including good-hearted but surprisingly gritty indies starring Sam-freaking-Rockwell. Though he is absent from this clip, it’s clear from the chemistry between the girls that he won’t have to carry this film, and neither will Emma Roberts.

Shareeka first impressed us with “Half Nelson,” and though she looks way too young to be on this team (she’s actually 21 in real life!), we know from the trailer and this clip that she’s the team’s spitfire. But instead of completely stealing the scene when she tricks Emma’s character into talking to Connor’s, she and the other girls all work off each other to really give an ensemble performance.

As for the edginess that we promised, it didn’t rear its head in this clip but we got a good look at it last week when a Rooney Mara-centric clip debuted online, probably hoping to ride on the press that she got when it was announced she was leading David Fincher’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” Between those two clips, it should be evident enough that this is more than your average high school comedy.

Are you planning on catching “The Winning Season” when it hits theaters September 3? Are you glad that no one cast member is stealing the show completely?
Source: mtv.com

We have now added an HQ version of the final poster for It’s Kind of a Funny Story, which has now been changed to an October 8th(limited) release. Both It’s Kind of a Funny Story and What’s Wrong With Virgina will premeire at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival running from September 9-19.