Festival Coverage
Slamdance Film Review: Jug Face
This story takes place in the rural woods of the Deep South, and it may just be the most dark and bloody films about pottery ever made. A tight-knit community of moonshine-making hillbillies devote themselves to an evil pit in the ground, which they keep happy by occasionally sacrificing one of their people. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Houston
The idea of following the occupational responsibilities of an alcoholic German headhunter whose marriage is on the rocks is about as appealing as it sounds. When Clemens Trunschka (Ulrich Tukur) is given the task to locate and make contact with an American CEO for a large German organization, the task takes our leading man to the Lone Star state where his life continues to sink deeper into despair with every passing moment. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Magic Magic
Everybody around Alicia (Juno Temple) is acting weird. Nobody is making any sense and there is an undercurrent of maliciousness behind everyone’s smiles. Alicia, an American girl travelling in Chile, is driving with her cousin Sarah (Emily Browning) and Sarah’s friends to a cabin in remote southern Chile. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Hell Baby
From the creators of Reno 911! comes a wickedly funny horror-comedy that explores horror film conventions in such an over-the-top and self-aware way that I’ll never be able to take a haunted house, exorcism or demonic baby films seriously again. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Animation Spotlight
In the 12 years I have been coming to Sundance, I have never seen the Animation Spotlight program contain such risqué subject matter, which is fully embraced by this film critic. It’s nice to enjoy some lewd material with a sold-out theater of guests. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Fruitvale
Directed by a 26-year-old, first-time feature filmmaker, Fruitvale is a near-perfect, emotionally driven drama with a strong-hitting political agenda. … read more
Sundance Film Review: MANHUNT
Before you jump to the conclusion that “MANHUNT” is only the documentary version of “Zero Dark Thirty” (and you’d be partially correct), Greg Barker’s accounting of the hunt for Osama bin Laden takes a further step back into history and recalls the actions of “The Sisterhood”, a group of C.I.A. analysts who were responsible for uncovering the existence of the terrorist network al-Qaeda. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: The Institute
Following the storyline of a massive reality game created by Jeff Hull, The Institute searches for the boundry that separates what is real and what is fiction.
Slamdance Film Review: My Name is Faith
Following a young girl named Faith—who suffers from Reactive Attachment Disorder— and her family, the Junkers, through two camps designed to help families with children who have various attachment disorders, My Name is Faith documents the difficulty of dealing with these very real issues—both as a child and as a family.
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Sundance Film Review: Upstream Color
It’s going to take me a few more viewings of this film to full grasp what the hell is going on and what it all means, but let’s try this: Larvae infect a plant, kids harvest and process the blue dust on the infected plant and they make a drink out of it which gives them mental, physical and spiritual connection. … read more