The 15 Must-See Movies at Sundance This Year
- 01.16.14
- 9:30 AM
For 30 years, the Sundance Film Festival has been the place where little indies make big names for themselves. Usually those indies are quirky comedies or heartfelt dramas, with only the occasional sci-fi or genre picture. This year, that's changed. When the festival starts later this week, its slate includes documentaries about internet addiction, Aaron Swartz, even Facebook darling George Takei. There's a movie where Aubrey Plaza is a girlfriend-turned-zombie, and a film that explores "the connective tissue between love and science." There's even an Iranian vampire Western. In short, it's going to be good for anyone interested in tech, genre films, and internet history alike.
And some of the coolest things coming to Sundance this year aren't even films. Virtual-reality company Oculus will be on hand, showing off their VR Cinema app. It's a technology that could change not just the kind of films that win at festivals, but how they are shown. "There's a lot of anxiety around that conversation," said Sundance senior programmer Shari Frilot. "But I always think that what will happen will be what always happens—nothing gets supplanted, it just becomes more capacious. The movies didn't go away, we just now also have Apple TV and Netflix. It's just going to make it broader—it really then becomes how do we connect with the work, and that's really the chapter we haven't seen yet."
Click through above for more of the coolest and newest movies and technologies coming to Sundance this year.
Above: The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
Made lightning-fast over the course of the last year, director Brian Knappenberger's documentary about the life, death, and influence of Aaron Swartz will be a look at the work of the late internet activist—it's also an examination of much larger issues like the value of freedom online and the NSA firestorm. This one is as relevant as they come.
Photo: Noah Berger/Courtesy Sundance Institute
Oculus: The Virtual Reality Movie Experience
For a while now we've been talking breathlessly about how cool the Oculus virtual reality system is for videogames. At Sundance we'll get a chance to see how it works as a movie-watching platform, including what promises to be a cool way to watch Beck's 360-degree "Sound and Vision" video.
Image courtesy Oculus
Love Child and Web Junkie – Two Films About Internet Addiction
Web Junkie and Love Child are two very different documentaries about the same topic. Both deal with internet addiction, but whereas Love Child looks at what happens when a young couple's baby dies while they were in an internet café by looking at hyper-connected life in South Korea and not the parents themselves, Web Junkie deals with internet addicts head-on. Junkie follows the treatments given to young people in China at a web-addiction rehab. Neither offers answers about just how addicted we could get to the online world, but both ask fascinating questions about how healthy it is to have it so intertwined with our real one.
Photo: David Foox/Courtesy Sundance Institute
The Story of a Young Woman in Iran Who Wants to Be an Astronomer
Just outside Tehran, a teenage girl named Sepideh has become a renowned astronomer. The only problem is that teenage girls living just outside Tehran generally aren't expected to be astronomers. The documentary Sepideh – Reaching For the Stars follows that young woman as she pursues her passion for space against entrenched cultural resistance. Young astronomy-loving heroine? We're in.
Photo: Jahan Panah/Courtesy Sundance Institute
The Brilliance of George Takei
We all love George Takei for being Sulu. Also for being a mastermind of social media (if you don't keep up with him on Facebook, get on that). But Jennifer Kroot's documentary To Be Takei digs deeper, and finds a man who spent time in a Japanese-American internment camp and—since coming out a few years ago—became a vocal advocate for marriage equality. Beam us to the theater, Scotty.
Photo courtesy Sundance Institute
The First Female-Directed Iranian Vampire Western. (Probably.)
We're partial to this one; in fact, we asked folks to donate to writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour's IndieGoGo campaign more than a year ago. It's equal parts Sergio Leone and Sin City, features a vampire on a skateboard and Ranjit from How I Met Your Mother, and even has a corresponding comic. We're not saying it'll be a theatrical smash, but it's up our alley.
Lyle Vincent/Courtesy Sundance Institute
David Cross's Directorial Debut Hits – A Movie About Viral Videos
Thanks to Mr. Show and Arrested Development (and about a million other things), David Cross's particular brand of comedy has been internet fodder for years. For his directorial debut Hits, he's riffing on that with the tale of a municipal worker (Veep's Matt Walsh) whose video goes viral, causing hipsters from Brooklyn to arrive in his small hometown to make sure his rights don't get squashed by "the man."
Photo: Sabrina Lantos/Courtesy Sundance Institute
52 Tuesdays: Movie, App, and Experience
52 Tuesdays is a lot of things. First, My 52 Tuesdays is a worldwide app that asks you a new question each week and allows you to share it far and wide. 52 Tuesdays is also a great narrative film (we were able to screen it before the festival) about a daughter who watches one of her parents come out as trans* and begin a big life change. Finally, My 52 Tuesdays is also a booth that will be placed outside 52 Tuesdays screenings in Park City to ask some questions of its own.
Photo courtesy Visit Films
The Zach Braff's Kickstarter Experiment
Last spring, Scrubs star Zach Braff launched a Kickstarter to fund his next film, leading to all kinds of chatter about whether Kickstarter was still a place for actual innovation, or just for famous actor types to get their funding. He wound up raising more than $3 million, and will unveil Wish I Was Here at Sundance, finally giving people a chance to decide or not they want their pledge money back.
Photo: Lawrence Sher/Courtesy Sundance Institute
Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd in a Rom-Com Parody
It's been over a decade since Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd were in writer/director David Wain's classic summer-camp flick Wet Hot American Summer. Now the dream team is, well, re-teaming to skewer the romantic comedy formula in They Came Together. Finally, a rom-com we can actually fall in love with.
Photo courtesy Sundance Institute
Aubrey Plaza as a Zombie
There's a movie called Life After Beth in which Parks and Recreation's Aubrey Plaza plays a girl-friend-turned-zombie. That is all.
Photo: Greg Smith/Courtesy Sundance Institute
A Heart-Wrenching Story About Science
I Origins is the latest film from director Mike Cahill, who made Another Earth, a very human story about redemption set against the discovery of a second possible home planet. His new movie is a similarly human story about a molecular biologist who has to face losing what he loves in order to chase a scientific discovery. If it's at all like Earth, the blend of sci-fi and heart will be exquisite.
Photo: Jelena Vukotic/Courtesy Sundance Institute
Michael Fassbender in a Band. With a Fake Head
Frank is about a guy named Jon who joins an eccentric pop band. That seems interesting enough. But this band is lead by an enigmatic dude named Frank (Michael Fassbender), who wears a giant fake head. To clarify: Magneto will be wearing a giant fake head and playing in a band in this movie.
Photo: Lorey Sebastian/Courtesy Sundance Institute
The Comedy Dear White People
Director Justin Simien's Dear White People started as a trailer that he made as a pitch that subsequently went viral. Then there was the @DearWhitePeople Twitter feed, which racked up a few thousand followers. Now it's a full-length feature that is a "whip-smart satire about black militancy, post-racial fantasies, and the commodification of blackness." Yes, please.
Photo: Ashley Beireis Nguyen/Courtesy Sundance Institute
Hackers Get Locked Up in The Signal
The Signal is about a pair of MIT freshmen who follow a rival hacker's clues and wind up having a crazy confrontation in the middle of a desert. Then they regain consciousness in captivity. You had us at "follow a rival hacker's clues."
Photo: Olivia Cooke/Courtesy Focus Features
For 30 years, the Sundance Film Festival has been the place where little indies make big names for themselves. Usually those indies are quirky comedies or heartfelt dramas, with only the occasional sci-fi or genre picture. This year, that's changed. When the festival starts later this week, its slate includes documentaries about internet addiction, Aaron Swartz, even Facebook darling George Takei. There's a movie where Aubrey Plaza is a girlfriend-turned-zombie, and a film that explores "the connective tissue between love and science." There's even an Iranian vampire Western. In short, it's going to be good for anyone interested in tech, genre films, and internet history alike.
And some of the coolest things coming to Sundance this year aren't even films. Virtual-reality company Oculus will be on hand, showing off their VR Cinema app. It's a technology that could change not just the kind of films that win at festivals, but how they are shown. "There's a lot of anxiety around that conversation," said Sundance senior programmer Shari Frilot. "But I always think that what will happen will be what always happens—nothing gets supplanted, it just becomes more capacious. The movies didn't go away, we just now also have Apple TV and Netflix. It's just going to make it broader—it really then becomes how do we connect with the work, and that's really the chapter we haven't seen yet."
Click through above for more of the coolest and newest movies and technologies coming to Sundance this year.
Above: The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
Made lightning-fast over the course of the last year, director Brian Knappenberger's documentary about the life, death, and influence of Aaron Swartz will be a look at the work of the late internet activist—it's also an examination of much larger issues like the value of freedom online and the NSA firestorm. This one is as relevant as they come.
Photo: Noah Berger/Courtesy Sundance Institute
Oculus: The Virtual Reality Movie Experience
For a while now we've been talking breathlessly about how cool the Oculus virtual reality system is for videogames. At Sundance we'll get a chance to see how it works as a movie-watching platform, including what promises to be a cool way to watch Beck's 360-degree "Sound and Vision" video.
Image courtesy Oculus
Love Child and Web Junkie – Two Films About Internet Addiction
Web Junkie and Love Child are two very different documentaries about the same topic. Both deal with internet addiction, but whereas Love Child looks at what happens when a young couple's baby dies while they were in an internet café by looking at hyper-connected life in South Korea and not the parents themselves, Web Junkie deals with internet addicts head-on. Junkie follows the treatments given to young people in China at a web-addiction rehab. Neither offers answers about just how addicted we could get to the online world, but both ask fascinating questions about how healthy it is to have it so intertwined with our real one.
Photo: David Foox/Courtesy Sundance Institute
The Story of a Young Woman in Iran Who Wants to Be an Astronomer
Just outside Tehran, a teenage girl named Sepideh has become a renowned astronomer. The only problem is that teenage girls living just outside Tehran generally aren't expected to be astronomers. The documentary Sepideh – Reaching For the Stars follows that young woman as she pursues her passion for space against entrenched cultural resistance. Young astronomy-loving heroine? We're in.
Photo: Jahan Panah/Courtesy Sundance Institute
The Brilliance of George Takei
We all love George Takei for being Sulu. Also for being a mastermind of social media (if you don't keep up with him on Facebook, get on that). But Jennifer Kroot's documentary To Be Takei digs deeper, and finds a man who spent time in a Japanese-American internment camp and—since coming out a few years ago—became a vocal advocate for marriage equality. Beam us to the theater, Scotty.
Photo courtesy Sundance Institute
The First Female-Directed Iranian Vampire Western. (Probably.)
We're partial to this one; in fact, we asked folks to donate to writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour's IndieGoGo campaign more than a year ago. It's equal parts Sergio Leone and Sin City, features a vampire on a skateboard and Ranjit from How I Met Your Mother, and even has a corresponding comic. We're not saying it'll be a theatrical smash, but it's up our alley.
Lyle Vincent/Courtesy Sundance Institute
David Cross's Directorial Debut Hits – A Movie About Viral Videos
Thanks to Mr. Show and Arrested Development (and about a million other things), David Cross's particular brand of comedy has been internet fodder for years. For his directorial debut Hits, he's riffing on that with the tale of a municipal worker (Veep's Matt Walsh) whose video goes viral, causing hipsters from Brooklyn to arrive in his small hometown to make sure his rights don't get squashed by "the man."
Photo: Sabrina Lantos/Courtesy Sundance Institute
52 Tuesdays: Movie, App, and Experience
52 Tuesdays is a lot of things. First, My 52 Tuesdays is a worldwide app that asks you a new question each week and allows you to share it far and wide. 52 Tuesdays is also a great narrative film (we were able to screen it before the festival) about a daughter who watches one of her parents come out as trans* and begin a big life change. Finally, My 52 Tuesdays is also a booth that will be placed outside 52 Tuesdays screenings in Park City to ask some questions of its own.
Photo courtesy Visit Films
The Zach Braff's Kickstarter Experiment
Last spring, Scrubs star Zach Braff launched a Kickstarter to fund his next film, leading to all kinds of chatter about whether Kickstarter was still a place for actual innovation, or just for famous actor types to get their funding. He wound up raising more than $3 million, and will unveil Wish I Was Here at Sundance, finally giving people a chance to decide or not they want their pledge money back.
Photo: Lawrence Sher/Courtesy Sundance Institute
Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd in a Rom-Com Parody
It's been over a decade since Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd were in writer/director David Wain's classic summer-camp flick Wet Hot American Summer. Now the dream team is, well, re-teaming to skewer the romantic comedy formula in They Came Together. Finally, a rom-com we can actually fall in love with.
Photo courtesy Sundance Institute
Aubrey Plaza as a Zombie
There's a movie called Life After Beth in which Parks and Recreation's Aubrey Plaza plays a girl-friend-turned-zombie. That is all.
Photo: Greg Smith/Courtesy Sundance Institute
A Heart-Wrenching Story About Science
I Origins is the latest film from director Mike Cahill, who made Another Earth, a very human story about redemption set against the discovery of a second possible home planet. His new movie is a similarly human story about a molecular biologist who has to face losing what he loves in order to chase a scientific discovery. If it's at all like Earth, the blend of sci-fi and heart will be exquisite.
Photo: Jelena Vukotic/Courtesy Sundance Institute
Michael Fassbender in a Band. With a Fake Head
Frank is about a guy named Jon who joins an eccentric pop band. That seems interesting enough. But this band is lead by an enigmatic dude named Frank (Michael Fassbender), who wears a giant fake head. To clarify: Magneto will be wearing a giant fake head and playing in a band in this movie.
Photo: Lorey Sebastian/Courtesy Sundance Institute
The Comedy Dear White People
Director Justin Simien's Dear White People started as a trailer that he made as a pitch that subsequently went viral. Then there was the @DearWhitePeople Twitter feed, which racked up a few thousand followers. Now it's a full-length feature that is a "whip-smart satire about black militancy, post-racial fantasies, and the commodification of blackness." Yes, please.
Photo: Ashley Beireis Nguyen/Courtesy Sundance Institute
Hackers Get Locked Up in The Signal
The Signal is about a pair of MIT freshmen who follow a rival hacker's clues and wind up having a crazy confrontation in the middle of a desert. Then they regain consciousness in captivity. You had us at "follow a rival hacker's clues."
Photo: Olivia Cooke/Courtesy Focus Features
Angela is a reporter for the Underwire, Wired's pop culture blog. She is also a senior editor of Longshot magazine and a contributor to Pop-Up Magazine.
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