The Sundance Film Festival is underway, and reviews are pouring in for some of the major films exhibited — and the minor yet totally intriguing ones.
There are definitely others out there (the Pussy Riot documentary, the comedy from the writers of The Descendants), and there are still five full days of movie marathoning in Park City, Utah, but here's a breakdown of what the critics are liking... and not so much.
THE BEST: 'Before Midnight'
Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke are back in what is perhaps the most indie trilogy of all time, and they are getting raves.
Slate says it's "nearly perfect." HitFix says audiences will see "how much greater it is than it should be." The Hollywood Reporter says it "retains a clarity of spirit undimmed by 18 years."
Yeah, no one is saying bad things about this movie:
Jesse and Celine are back and ready for you to fall in love with them again.
THE BEST: 'Fruitvale'
The dramatization of the true story of Oscar Grant, who was shot by a police officer in the Bay Area, has already been picked up by the Weinstein Company.
Indiewire calls it an "incredibly moving and confident first feature." Per HitFix, what the "film does so well, and when it is at its best, is when it fleshes out and defines the life lost, the father trying to put his life back together and the pain that came with his death."
The Hollywood Reporter uses that famous movie superlative "powerful." And it's never too early for Oscar talk in Park City.
THE BEST: 'Ain't Them Bodies Saints'
David Lowery's fim about outlaws starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck is Malick-y in a way that works, as Screen Daily says. Indiewire waxed rhapsodic, saying it "channels genre expectations into sheer poetry."
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