Park City, 1/25.

Manohla Dargis has had an "unexpectedly rewarding week.... [T]his felt like a year of discovery." Specifically, she awards the New York Times seal of approval to Sugar, Ballast and Momma's Man:

One theme of that discussion will be the emergence of a new American realism. Although my favorite fiction films at Sundance were different in theme and tone, they were united by stylistic commonalities, a feel for the still moment - and, importantly, for beauty — a grounded sense of place and some obvious influences, including the Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. What was missing from even the most intimate of these works was the solipsism that characterizes one Sundance mainstay, the kind with anguished young men who yearn to break free of their families and towns so they can run away to film school (or a Sundance Institute lab) and turn their suffering into entertainment.

"Most of the so-called major premieres in Park City this year have been widely viewed as disappointments, and beyond the brief and bizarre bidding war that erupted over the high-school musical farce Hamlet 2 (which went to Focus Features for $10 million), there's been far less acquisition activity than expected," notes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir in his festival wrap-up. "It was business as usual in the gifting villas and corporate-sponsored party spaces here, but the mood at industry events has been muted and muddled, between the still-unresolved writers' strike and the death of Heath Ledger.... But I'm not saying this was a bad Sundance. To my own enormous surprise, in fact, I'm saying the opposite."

AJ Schnack's found more evidence at the festival of "a 'Nonfiction New Wave' that rejects dogmatic strictures of form and that is, ironically, a return to the genre's roots."

"There's nothing all that groundbreaking about the idea that visual artists and filmmakers can share similar practices and tools," writes Glen Helfand at SF360. "A far more interesting dynamic emerged from the edgier portions of Sundance 08, that being a sense that a broad swath of features, docs, installations, and projected art shared similar socio-political concerns, which they grappled with via well-honed aesthetic filters."

"Robert Redford and Geoff Gilmore need to make a course correction at Sundance," argues Anne Thompson in Variety. "[T]his year's Sundance crop seemed to be heavy on Hollywood-indie hybrids that were neither fish nor fowl." Also, a list of faves.

Matt Dentler wraps his stay, too, and posts more pix.

"Blimey, it's all so American." David Bloom blogs for the Guardian.

"This week, I attended the Sundance panel, Alternative Storytelling For New Digital Media Platforms at the New Frontier on Main." And Brian Chirls has a clip at Filmmaker.

Photos: Ray Pride.

Online viewing tips. David Poland lunches his way around Park City.

Posted by dwhudson at January 25, 2008 4:10 PM