Yesterday, I was outside, taking the pooch for a walk. It was cold, but not shatteringly so. I was wearing my mid-grade coat, no scarf, light gloves, and regular sneakers, and suddenly it struck me why I was paying such attention to my winter wardrobe: Normally, this time of year, I'm up in Park City, at high altitude, wearing long underwear, my heaviest parka, and a pair of waterproof boots that have held up since I first started attending the Sundance Film Festival a number of years back. So far this winter season, I haven't had cause to bust out the heavy stuff, and without traveling to Utah, there is an excellent chance I won't even have to go to the back part of my closet to get them.
So, yeah, we're still getting used to the whole "virtual" film festival thing, suffice it to say. Whereas, I know many people who like the idea of not having to go up into the Utah mountains, and fight the crowds and the temperatures, hoofing all over the valley to one theater or another this year, I will decidedly miss the physical particulars that make that festival so distinctive, such a part of its vibe.
In any event, as we trudge forward this year from the sanctity of our own couch, at least we can console ourselves with the possibility of thrilling cinema: we might not get the full Sundance effect, alas, but we can still have a chance to witness something extraordinary. Here are some of the flicks we're most looking forward to, during this odd season.
"A Glitch in the Matrix": Rodney Ascher's last Sundance film, "The Nightmare," concerned sleep paralysis, and was the rare sort of doc that pretty much worked like a horror film, haunting me since I saw it back in 2015. His latest is about simulation theory, the idea that our sense of reality is a creation, and not actually happening as we experience it. As long as no one is wearing a fedora (don't ask), we should be OK.
"Censor": A woman who works as an editor, removing what she deems as excessively gory imagery from films before they're released, is haunted by her own past, and the apparent death of her sister, in Prano Bailey-Bond's feature debut. Part of Sundance's oft-lauded "Midnight" program, we can expect many excised decapitations and blood-squirting fountains amid the psychic carnage.
"Cryptozoo": Dash Shaw was known primarily as a graphic novelist before his first lauded animated feature, "My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea," was released in 2016. His new work of animated wonder concerns "cryptids," magic creatures thought to be mythical, and the fiercely protective woman who builds a zoo in order to protect them from the outside world.
"Eight for Silver": Set in the late 19th century, Sean Ellis' film takes the idea of the werewolf, a madly savage creature drawn to bloodlust and flesh rendering, and uses it as a tool for justice when a brutish land baron executes a small Roma clan. Said to be moody and atmospheric, we have hope this period horror piece hits somewhere like "The Witch," another Sundance entry from 2015, that remains a high-water mark for the genre.
"In the Earth": This isn't a year for many well-known directors at the festival -- a testament, in part, to Sundance's bid for greater representation -- but this film from Ben Wheatley is an exception. During a future plague (!), a scientist and his guide desperately try to reach a research center set deep in the Arboreal Forest, but run into violent obstacles along the way, until a mysterious man, having adapted to living in the woods, offers to "help." Primarily known as a genre-ist, Wheatley's latest sounds as if it bends and breaks out of any distinct pigeon-holing.
"John and the Hole": We continue in the theme of the unsettling with Pascual Sisto's tale about a teenage boy, who finds an old, dilapidated bunker in the woods, and for reasons as yet unclear, drugs his wealthy family and keeps them as prisoners down in it, allowing him to live exactly as he pleases back at the family house. It's the kind of thing that could be dark satire, or straight disturbing drama, or perhaps a little of both. Whatever it turns out to be, color us interested.
"Judas and the Black Messiah": A late entry into the list of features for this year, Shaka King's film is a kind of bio-pic for Black Panther-Party co-founder Fred Hampton, targeted by the FBI in the '60s as an insurrectionist, and betrayed by one of his closest allies, who was, in reality, an informant for the Feds. It stars Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield as the man forced to betray him -- a pair of dynamic performers who add a little sizzle to the festival's program this year.
"Passing": Sundance is a great way for unknown directors to get some attention, but it's also a fine opportunity for actors-turned-filmmakers to get the word out. For her debut feature, actress Rebecca Hall has chosen the 1929 novel from Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen, about two old high-school friends (played by Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson), who reconnect after some years only to find they now sit on different sides of the race spectrum.
"Prisoners of the Ghostland": For years, I eschewed Nicolas Cage movies in favor of almost anything that seemed more palatable. Then, I missed out on "Mandy," one of the breakout hits of the 2018 festival. From that point on, I added him to my list (with mixed results so far, not being a fan of "Color Out of Space"). In any event, this film, one that Cage himself says might be the "wildest" of his career, features the gonzo stylings of Japanese director Sion Sono, as Cage plays a criminal having to rescue the daughter of a wealthy businessman else his special leather jumpsuit will self-destruct with him in it.
"Wild Indian": A young Anishinaabe student who likes to play in the woods with his friend unexpectedly commits a murder of a classmate and covers it up in Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.'s feature debut. As the pair of friends grow up and apart from each other, the secret between them finally resurfaces, forcing them to reconcile with their difficult past. Sundance has increased its presentation of Indigenous cinema over the past few years, and hopes are high that it has landed on another showcase with this work.
