8 Movies I Saw At Sundance

Tucker and Dale VS. Evil

This was undoubtedly my favorite choice of the whole festival! There are so many pretentious and disturbing movies at Sundance, that when all a director wants to do is make you laugh- it’s almost a relief. Also, I’m a huge fan of both Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine.

I can’t really say a whole lot about this movie because even a hint on what the underlying story is would somewhat spoil the whole film. It was advertised as a “Hillbilly horror” film but there is a lot more to it than that. It’s also funny, entertaining, creative and most of all, original.

Splice

Unlike the above review, it’s always bad form to reveal the whole entire plot of a movie from start to finish, but in this scenario I am left with no choice. Withstanding a cruel joke, I would NEVER recommend this movie to anyone. Here goes: Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody (both actors I truly enjoy) play two cutting edge scientists who have developed some type of fleshy worm pods that contain plant and animal DNA in which they do a lot of successful research and development. They get the bright idea to secretly try making one of the pods with human DNA. What comes out looks like a skinless bunny with only two hind legs. This creature then develops into what looks like a bald little girl with triple jointed legs and a tail. The little girl whom they call Dren (nerd for backwards-brilliant!), keeps growing so they take her out to a secluded farmhouse and hide her in the barn. Oh yeah, and she’s now developed wings.

Polley and Brody, who are romantically involved in the film, take on a very paternal/maternal role towards her. However, it is made obvious that Dren has a bit of a crush on Brody’s character and seduces him to the point of them getting in on in the barn- complete with her four digit hoof-looking foot ripping off his shirt!

I can honestly say that the last half hour of this movie had the audience laughing out loud when it clearly was not supposed to be funny.

After the cinematic love scene, Dren soon suffocates. They tearfully bury her. She pops out of the coffin but she has become a he. That’s right, Dren has switched sex! He rapes Sarah Polley’s character, kills Adrien Brody with the stinger in his tail only to have his own head bashed in by a rock. The very last scene is Polley receiving a huge payout for all her research and you guessed it, she’s pregnant! Now do you see why you might wait for this one on DVD?

Winter’s Bone

The description of this movie did not really entice me to want to watch it (a young girl’s father, who is a crystal meth cook, skips bail and she sets out to find him) but I had my own particular reasons for seeing it anyway. It was filmed about 30 mins. from where I live, actors from my town where in it and it had been on the local news on several occasions. Quite honestly, I was expecting something cheaply done about the Ozark Mountains but I was completely off.

The film was indeed about a girl looking for her drug-dealing father but the story was so much more complex and multifaceted than that. The main character, Ree, is really the only one responsible for her family. Her mother doesn’t even speak and she has two small siblings that she needs to take care of.

Despite everyone’s warnings, Ree goes to some extreme means to track down her father and gets involved with a group that I can only describe as the white trash mafia.

The movie does such a tremendous job in portraying the sheer desperation of trying to feed one’s family when they are in the middle of generations of such abject poverty. This is why it, most deservingly, won both the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize.

Douchebag

It’s obvious that this film will have to change its title if it wants any type of theater distribution whatsoever. (It’s kind of common at festivals, last year’s Push turned into Precious).

Despite the title, this movie was neither a hit nor a miss in my book. Sam, who is getting married in a week, takes his brother Tom (who he hasn’t seen in years), on a bizarre road trip. They are in search of Tom’s fifth grade girlfriend, who Sam wants him to bring as his date the wedding. Along the way you soon discover who the “douchebag” truly is. There are some great moments of comic relief but takes a little long to get there. C +.

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