Sundance 2011: Best of the Fest

I guess my attempts at keeping up with the Sundance Film Festival have been something of a failure, but this has been a very busy week, and nobody is in the same place at the same time. It's rather difficult to get much done, but I've already gotten around to the bulk of really quality films like Martha Marcy May Marlene, Win Win, Like Crazy, Rebirth, and Pariah. So if the rest of the films feel like we're simply going through the rounds, then it's because we are. I display some kind of confidence that a great deal of the films on the first list could be nominated for next year's Academy Awards, because some of my favorite films of 2010 came from Sundance. I absolutely loved Winter's Bone and The Kids Are All Right, and the further we go into this year, the more my original Best of 2010 list continues to shift. It serves as a bit of a lesson not to announce my list so quickly.

Moving on to the here and the now, let me start off with the only film of the festival that I did have the opportunity to see, and that was the YouTube sponsored documentary Life in a Day. This is certainly something that's never been tried before, and that's an intriguing notion in and of itself. What struck me, and probably struck most people who watched it, was how it didn't feel too much like a bunch of people dorking around with their cameras, as well as how it never had any narrative string to it. It was a digital preservation of that one day, and not only the positive aspects of it, but the negative and occasionally disgusting aspects. It includes some of the most beautiful images this year, but also one of the most disturbing things ever caught on camera. A man opens up the egg of a mostly developed baby chick that died, sprinkles some salt on it, and puts it in his mouth. The fact that there's actually somebody who did that shocks me, and that's one of the images I couldn't get out of my head. It's not meant to be a critical masterpiece, but it's a lovely piece of work nonetheless.

Moving on to what was probably the most talked about premiere going into the festival, Kevin Smith's religious horror film Red State had quite a bit of controversy surrounding it. However, when you make a film where the antagonistic force is a radical priest who is harsh even by Nazi standards, you're surely going to butt heads with the Vatican. When have they ever turned down an opportunity to destroy the ambitious creativity of modern filmmakers? It goes without saying that people went to see the film anyway, mostly out of curiosity, and the response was as mixed as possible. I would never go ahead and call Kevin Smith a great filmmaker, but the man certainly has balls, and that's perhaps the most that people are saying of his latest film. It's brave, but not the work of an accomplished artist. I may still check it out when it comes around, but I'll be waiting a rather long wait for that to happen, seeing as Smith is planning to distribute Red State all by himself. On the long list of kindhearted, but ultimately stupid ideas, Smith is matched by none.

Transitioning from dark to dark, one of the early hits of the festival was Brendan Gleeson showcase The Guard. I've always gotten enjoyment from Gleeson's supporting performances, so him taking the lead role in a crime drama immediately interests me. When a generally unlikable character is put in the center of a story, you need the perfect actor for the audience not to completely despise him. It worked for George Clooney in Up in the Air. It didn't work for Ben Stiller in Greenberg. Hopefully, it works for Gleeson in The Guard. Another dark treasure that caught my eye was The Details, starring Elizabeth Banks and Tobey Maguire as a married couple. I feel shy from mentioning any reviews because they reveal far too much of the story, and though it is fantastically dark, it sounds like something I'd have rather experienced for myself. All I can say is that the response has been generally favorable, and it strikes me as a companion to American Beauty, at least from the premise of it.

One of the films at the festival that struck me as potentially being this year's The Social Network was Margin Call, set on the eve of the 2008 stock market drop. It supposedly tackles the collapse of a company, and does it with some of the greatest actors out there. Jeremy Irons, Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany, and the wonderful Zachary Quinto are all in the film, and even though it's been made clear by reviews that this isn't a popcorn flick, that cast has me eagerly awaiting this film, no matter the quality. That's the sort of cast that so rarely comes around, and while I have my doubts that it will deliver the same emotional drama as David Fincher's recent success, it does have a certain critical weight to it.

The last film I'll talk about, and this is a very potent contender for Best Picture next year, is Vera Farmiga's directorial debut, Higher Ground. If there was any film I expected to disappoint at the festival, it was this one. It's not because I doubt the actress' wealth as an actress, but because it's rare that they can hold as much attention behind the camera as in front of it. Reviews have been fantastic, painting this religiously conscious film in a far more favorite light than Kevin Smith's more sinister look at fundamentalists. It hasn't gotten a distributor yet, but I eagerly await the moment it does. Higher Ground could earn Farmiga her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and maybe people will stop making jokes about her name being hard to pronounce. Her name is Vera Farmiga. It's as simple a name as Clint Eastwood.

So, to wrap everything up, here are the top ten films of the festival that I am most anticipating, not including Life in a Day.


10. Win Win
9. Pariah
8. Rebirth
7. Margin Call
6. Higher Ground
5. Like Crazy
4. The Details
3. The Guard
2. Tyrannosaur
1. Martha Marcy May Marlene




Images (In Order): Vera Farmiga in Higher Ground; Red State; Kevin Spacey in Margin Call; Martha Marcy May Marlene