I find it slightly ironic to note that, at the beginning of this year's Sundance Film Festival, there was much Twitter-chatter and shuttle-talk about how the event was on the downswing this year. It's all the fault of the economic recession, everyone said, and it sure seemed like Sundance was markedly less packed with buyers, sellers, critics, ticket-holders, publicists, producers, reps, and producer's reps. But here's the punchline: As far as flicks are concerned, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival had a surprisingly strong batting average. (I only saw TWO films I actively disliked, and that's not bad!)

So as a way to wrap up this year's festivities, we'd like to put all our Sundance coverage into one handy post. This post, actually. So if you're worried that you missed any live reports or some of the brilliantly insightful film reviews, this is the post for you. As always, we welcome any and all feedback from our readers, so long as the abuse is kept to a minimum. (Seriously though, we want to know what you guys think. Without y'all, we got nothin'.) On a personal note, I'd like to thank Erik Davis, James Rocchi, and Eric Snider for being three of the finest collaborators I've ever had. Sundance can be a hectic clusterhump at the best of times, but working on a team like this makes my life so much easier. Plus they're my friends. for which I am very grateful. Anyway, enough heterosexual-man-love...

The Reviews

1. 500 Days of Summer (Fox Searchlight)
   
2. Adam (Fox Searchlight)
   
3. Adventureland (Miramax)
   
4. Art & Copy (Arthouse)
   
5. Big Fan
6. Black Dynamite (Sony)
   
7. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
8. Bronson
9. The Carter
10. Cold Souls
11. The Cove
12. Dead Snow (IFC)
    
13. An Education (Sony Pictures Classics)
    
14. Five Minutes of Heaven
15. The Girlfriend Experience
16. Good Hair (HBO)
    
17. Grace (Anchor Bay)
    
18. Humpday (Magnolia)
    
19. In the Loop (IFC)
    
20. The Informers
21. Mary and Max
22. The Missing Person
23. Moon (Sony Pictures Classics)
    
24. Mystery Team
25. Paper Heart
26. Peter and Vandy
27. Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire
28. The September Issue
29. Sin Nombre (Focus)
    
30. We Live in Public
31. When You're Strange
32. World's Greatest Dad

(Note: I added the owners for movies that are presently ... owned by a U.S. distributor.)

In the Loop, which was picked up for U.S. release by IFC at Sundance, seemed tailor-made for easy summations: "It's The Office meets The West Wing," the early-screening set said, along with raving endorsements about how funny In the Loop actually was. And the latter part of that was proven right when I saw In the Loop at Sundance; it's achingly, wrenchingly, dizzyingly funny, with a bleak, bitter sense of humor that makes each laugh feel like the people behind In the Loop are not so much tickling your funny bone as they are going at it with an ice pick.

And yes, In the Loop has the handheld-yet-slightly-too-steady camerawork of The Office, where the comedy of uncomfortable silence builds and builds as the camera lingers and stays on, and it also has the petty rivalries and silly squabbles of The Office; it seems that whether you're selling paper or pushing it, work is work. And In the Loop also has the insider-y, rushed feeling of The West Wing, where many scenes are done as a walk-and-talk and we're reminded that they talk about the corridors of power because that's usually where the deals get cut.

But In the Loop also transcends those easy comparisons, and does so to great effect. The idea that government is as messy and petty and foolish as any other workplace is scary, and funny; the insider's view of politics in it isn't warm walk-and-talk idealism but the ugly, mean pragmatism of the stalk-and-talk, or even the prowl-and-growl. On the surface level, In the Loop is The Office meets The West Wing, sure; what it winds up feeling more like is as if John Cleese and George Orwell wrote Dr. Strangelove for our media-soaked age where wars are conducted in part through press releases and focus groups, or Catch-22 for the 24/7 news era.

One of the more fascinating and gut-wrenching films at this year's festival, Sin Nombre managed to snag a couple of awards (Best Director and Best Cinematography in U.S. Dramatic Competition) before skipping town with a writer-director who's sure to become Hollywood's next great filmmaker. The film, while frequently heartbreaking to watch, also comes with its own unbelievable story. Focus Features became involved early on based solely on its script, and then proceeded to provide financing to a first-time feature director for a film that was entirely in Spanish and featured some main actors that had never been in a movie before. The good news for Focus is their gamble paid off, and Sin Nombre is easily one of the best films of 2009 so far.

Essentially a road trip thriller with a love story mixed in, Sin Nombre tracks the fate of three teenagers traveling through Mexico on their way toward the U.S. border. Sayla (Paulina Gaitan) is living a hard life in Honduras when her father and uncle decide it's time for the three of them to attempt to cross over into the United States and meet up with dad's "other family" in New Jersey -- full of brothers and sisters her pop fathered before he was caught and deported. But the journey is a tough one: First the trio must cross a river into Mexico, and then hop a train -- by riding on its roof -- for a three-week journey to the border. Before the train arrives, Sayla's father tells her that half the people traveling with them (100-200) will either die or be caught by border police and sent back home. Nevertheless, the promise of a better life on the other side is too appetizing to ignore.

Wow. Just wow. This is easily one of the most powerful, heartfelt, and (yes, I'll say it) important 'nature' documentaries I've ever seen. Here's a brutally honest and effortlessly fascinating film about one specific cove in Taiji, Japan, in which approximately 23,000 dolphins are killed every year. Yes, you read that right: 23,000. Dolphins. Annually. And here's the really twisted part: Given the amount of mercury that's found in these creatures, they're practically poison. But where there's money to be made, there are atrocities to be committed.

So while most of the better "socially conscious and angry" documentaries are forced to look at a tragedy with years of hindsight, The Cove is so timely it almost hurts. This is not a film that looks backward and says "Jeez, what a shame that was," but one that screams "Look at what's happening right now, and we really have to stop it!" As this masterful documentary states its case, we're introduced to a bunch of key players: Richard O'Barry, former dolphin trainer and longtime advocate for the animals; filmmaker Louie Psihoyos, who spearheads a massive effort to expose this sickening practice; a pair of world-class free-divers who gladly throw their skills into the mix; and an extra handful of daredevils, tech experts, and cameramen who are willing to risk a month in a Japanese jail ... just so they finally can get some video footage of these secret slaughters.

Relationships are tough, and filming relationships for the big screen is even tougher. How many times have you watched (insert romantic comedy here) and thought, "Real people in real relationships don't do that or talk that way or race through the streets on foot in an attempt to stop the person they love from boarding that airplane to Fiji." But then again, if we really filmed the mundane goings-on of your average relationship, is there really anything cinematic about that? Newbie writer-director Jay DiPietro totally thinks the "realness" of the relationship is what's most fascinating, and with Peter and Vandy, his first film, DiPietro teases us with several glimpses -- moments, really -- of a relationship between two young New York City lovers.

Like several other films here at Sundance this year, the story of Peter (Jason Ritter) and Vandy (Jess Weixler) is told out of order, with bits and pieces from the beginning, middle and end chucked into a bowl, tossed, and thrown in front of the audience to dissect. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't -- in the case of Peter and Vandy, the non-linear plot does, at times, feel like a gimmick or a device to simply make the film a little more interesting. But then you get to moments like near the end -- when we're on their first date at an Indian restaurant -- and it's a scene that means more and feels more alive because we know these people now, and we've been on this journey with them.

One of the audience and sales success stories at this year's Sundance Film Festival wound up on my screening schedule late in the week through the cruel editorial equations of film festival journalism: An Education became a film I should see because I should see it. There had been praise for Nick Hornby's screenplay adaptation of Lynn Barber's memoir, a coming-of-age-story set in 1961 London; there were raves for Carey Mulligan's performance in the lead role; there was the news that Sony Pictures Classics had picked up the North American distribution rights for $3 million. Late in the festival, buzz and business both assured, An Education became a film to see if only to see if the hum and thrum of the week prior was in fact right.

An Education opens with the sight of young girls balancing books atop their heads to improve their posture, learning ballroom dancing, and taking home economics; since we know that the '60s are coming, and the young women we see don't quite, yet, the vision is like seeing a dinosaur, back straight and eyes front, walk blithely into a tar pit. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is part of this world, but looking past it -- she's applying to Oxford, making sure her application looks good on paper. Told by her father (Alfred Molina) that she shouldn't be practicing her cello when she should be hitting the books, she's confused: "I thought we agreed cello was my interest or hobby. ..."

The Missing Person, playing at Sundance even as its star Michael Shannon earns an Oscar nomination for his work in Revolutionary Road, isn't merely a clever, cool spin on the classic private eye story, but it also works as a private eye story. It showcases a lurching, hunched, quietly lived-in performance by Shannon but offers more than just that performance. It has the knowing, humane touches of Paul Auster's brilliant urban fiction but still manages to rope in familiar crime genre characters like the rich widow, the collaborating cabbie, the wanted man, the ethical crimelord, the unethical businessman, the femme fatale and -- most importantly -- the sad-sack, mercenary-but-moral private eye.

John Rosow (Shannon) lives and works and drinks -- and does a far better job of the last thing in that list than the first two -- in a shabby office in Chicago. The phone rings. Get to the train station by 7, he's told. Board the Zephyr Express from Chicago to L.A.; there's a man to follow. An old friend in New York recommended him, and he's got the job if he wants it: "Five hundred dollars a day, plus expenses ... not including gin." After Miss Charlie (Amy Ryan) gives him the dossier of background and some cash, Rosow shaves, puts on a brown suit, goes to the train and takes the job. Because that's what a private eye does, as near as he can tell. And aside from the ringing phone being a cell, we could be in the 30's or the '40s or the '50s with the train and the gin and the cash and the job. But, of course, we're not.

Heading in to watch The Carter, a new documentary that chronicles the life and times of Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. (aka Lil' Wayne), I thought what more is there to know about the hip, slick, fast-paced rapper lifestyle? Well, surprisingly, director Adam Bhala Lough expertly pieces together not just a movie about another well-to-do rapper, but one about a workaholic, a drug addict, a father, an artist and an icon.

When we first shove our way into Lil' Wayne's life, he's holed up in a hotel room in Amsterdam, smoking mass amounts of marijuana while he religiously stands at a make-shift mic for hours recording songs on the fly thanks to the portable studio he brings with him everywhere. We learn Wayne's new album, The Carter III, is due in stores in nine days -- and even though a million copies have already leaked overseas, Wayne and his manager both feel they'll sell a million copies in the first week. As we jump back and forth between the United States and Europe, we slowly become more intimate with Wayne through his interviews with international reporters, as well as through the unpredictable man himself.

You hear it in lots of (usually sad) movies, and I'd say it's probably one of the truest things ever spoken: "There's nothing more tragic than having to bury your own child." But, just for the sake of argument, let's pretend -- for just a second -- that (in one specific case) it wouldn't be the end of the world. As a matter of fact, let's further pretend that the death of a child could somehow lead to several wonderful and life-changing results.

Sick, I know, but that's one of the ideas that runs through the twisted-yet-amusing dark comedy World's Greatest Dad. Written and directed by the consistently unpredictable Bob Goldthwait (he also gave us the similarly strange Shakes the Clown and Stay), and anchored by an unexpectedly strong Robin Williams performance, World's Greatest Dad is indeed about a high school poetry teacher who finds his life blossoming after his son accidentally commits suicide.

Raw, blistering, harsh and compelling in the way that only a really good "prison film" can be, Nicolas Wining Refn's Bronson is a rather rough experience. Fortunately it's also very smart, dark, intelligent and disturbing, supported by a force-of-nature lead performance and a screenplay that focuses more on the "character study" angle and less on the "wow, prison sure is disgusting" perspective.

Based (apparently very closely) on actual events, Bronson is about a British thug named Michael Peterson, a rough, gruff, and muscle-bound troublemaker who somehow earned the title of Britian's most violent prisoner. Incarcerated for a stupid (but non-violent) post office robbery, Peterson adopts the moniker of American film star Charles Bronson and begins a long and rather unpleasant life behind bars. Although he's more of a angry man than an outright evil one, poor Bronson has a serious problem keeping his temper in check. Stuck in a cell with little to do besides build muscles and pace around nervously, Bronson snatches every opportunity to dole out some raw-knuckled fisticuffs whenever the "screws" invade his cell.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." -- Socrates

"Night City was like a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button." -- William Gibson, Neuromancer (1986)

We Live in Public, the newest documentary from director Ondi Timoner (Dig!, Join Us), looks at internet technology and how it's changing us, prying into these larger issues through looking at the life and times of Josh Harris, who the press notes call "The greatest internet pioneer you've never heard of ..." Harris made a fortune from the internet before you ever heard of it with his consulting and analysis firm Jupiter Communications, then launched a revolutionary web-based set of video programs called Pseudo and then descended into a series of ornate and risky multimedia art projects: First was Quiet, a constantly-broadcast bunker and residence in 1999 New York that offered participants comforts and privileges in exchange for certain rights and concessions. Then came We Live in Public, where Harris and his girlfriend Tanya Corrin lived in a loft with a 24/7 web broadcast of everything they did, said and were to each other.

There are documentaries, and there are comedies made to look like documentaries, and Paper Heart is both. Conceived by comedian Charlyne Yi and filmmaker Nicholas Jasenovec, it combines elements of reality and fiction in an amusing, meta-referential way, though one's enjoyment of it may ultimately come down to one's enjoyment of Yi as a performer.

It is set up as a documentary about Charlyne's search to determine whether true love really exists. She doesn't think it does -- or, at the very least, she thinks she's not capable of feeling it. (I can't imagine anything sadder than being unable to experience romantic love, but that's beside the point.) To investigate, Charlyne travels the country to interview biologists, old married couples, and Las Vegas wedding chapel officiators who dress as Elvis. Those segments are real, like you'd find in any documentary.

But in the process of making the documentary, Charlyne meets actor Michael Cera at a party, and they start tentatively dating. The documentary director (played by actor Jake Johnson), knowing a good thing when he sees one, insists on following Charlyne and Michael around. It's a no-brainer, really: She's making a movie about love, and in the meantime starts dating someone? Perfect!

Those segments are loosely scripted, of course; while Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi have been romantically linked, the film is not a real chronicle of their relationship. But the film plays it straight, shooting all the scenes, real and non-real, in the same way, as if they were part of the same documentary. Savvy viewers are meant to understand where the line is, but I wouldn't be surprised if some audience members come away thinking the whole thing was a straightforward documentary. A lot of people thought The Blair Witch Project was real, too.

Perhaps I'm predisposed to liking Big Fan since a) I'm a die hard Giants fan, b) I grew up in the neighborhood where it was shot, and c) it's a film about sports fanaticism, which is a topic I know quite a bit about. But that doesn't mean you'll hate Big Fan if you aren't familiar with sports or the New York football Giants because this isn't a film about sports, it's a film about fandom -- about being so in love with something you go overboard and neglect your friends, your family and your life in order to feed your addiction. This isn't a comedy about the goofy football fan who gets off on chanting and screaming his team's name; it's instead a cold, lonely drama (with brief moments of awkward humor) about the neurotic football fan who'd give up everything (and I mean everything) to see his team make the playoffs.

Set in the borough of Staten Island, home to the blue collar heroes of New York City, Big Fan follows just one of several guys who live and die by their favorite sports team. Football is in no way just a simple form of weekend entertainment in New York; it's almost a religion for some people -- including Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt), a 35-year-old Giants fanatic who still lives at home with his nagging mother while working the late shift inside one of those parking garage toll booths at a hospital. While at work, Paul spends his time carefully penning Giants-themed trash talk speeches so that he can call in to the overnight talk radio show and give those Philadelphia Eagles fans (especially one loudmouth nicknamed Philadelphia Phil) some of the business. This is Paul's entire life -- and when he's not at work writing his speeches, or outside Giants Stadium watching the games on a makeshift television with his one friend, he's dealing with a family who want Paul to finally do something with his life.

The spoof (aka broad parody) sub-genre is a schizophrenic beast. At its best, the spoof can treat you to something as sublime as Airplane!, as mindlessly amusing as the Scary Movie series, or as stunningly worthless as Epic Movie. But the spoof remains the comedy sub-genre for filmmakers who are also movie geeks. Basically, you need to have seen a lot of Airport movies to write Airplane!, and you need to have some solid experience with blaxploitation movies to produce something like Hollywood Shuffle, I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, or this newest arrival: The slightly overlong but consistently giggle-worthy Black Dynamite, which aims to do to Shaft and Superfly what The Naked Gun did to police procedurals.

And for the most part, the experiment works like a charm. What I found most appealing about Black Dynamite is that, while it will certainly strike a chord with the old-school blaxploitation fans, the flick also works on its own as a very broad, very goofy, and (yep) very clever little satire. Even if you wouldn't know Hammer from Blacula, there's a good deal of straightforward silliness to be found in Black Dynamite -- and it also feels like one of those eminently quotable comedies that frat guys and movie geeks will come back to time and again. Black Dynamite is to blaxploitation what Austin Powers is to '60s spy flicks -- and really, how many young comedy fans know anything about In Like Flint, Sweet Charity, or Modesty Blaise? Very few, I'd wager, but that didn't prevent Austin Powers from becoming a mega-popular franchise.

Director Scott Sanders and a team of screenwriters have concocted a '70s-era comedy that, to its credit, actually manages to evoke several of the sub-genres staples: Our hero is a noble ass-kicker who uses odd slang; women hang on his every gesture; villains quake at the sight of Black Dynamite's fighting stance; and of course the proceedings are coated with a colorful sheen of tacky clothes, crazy cars, and hilariously over-the-top fight scenes.

I'd heard a few unpleasant rumblings regarding the Sundance title Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, in addition to numerous opinions on how the source material (a collection of stories by the late David Foster Wallace) had been labeled more or less "unfilmable." But that's pretty much the same stuff I heard about a Sundance title from last year called Choke ... and I ended up really liking that flick. Plus, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men marks the directorial debut of the very likable John Krasinski (yep, good ol' lovable Jim from The Office), AND it boasts a very colorful cast, a scant running time, and a premise that sounds pretty interesting.

But ... unfortunately I'm going to side with the "unfilmable" naysayers this time out, because, despite a few (early) sections that deliver some chuckles alongside some slight-yet-interesting insights into the male psyche, much of Mr. Krasinski's first feature is an aimless, pretentious mess. Well-intentioned? Sure. Intermittently entertaining? I suppose. But a full-bore movie movie? I'd say no.