Every January, thousands of bundled-up reporters, celebrities, and hangers-on gather in Park City, Utah, for cold weather, free consumer products, and, oh yeah, films. The Sundance Film Festival is such an event that it’s easy to forget that, at its core, it’s supposed to be a celebration of independent cinema. It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly this happened — some claim it was when Paris Hilton started hanging out there, others chart its path toward irrelevance to Miramax and the boom of indie cinema two decades ago. Either way, it’s not much more than a pile of clichés at this point. Don’t get us wrong, there are a few great movies every year — Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” along with Martha Stephens and Aaron Katz’s “Land Ho!” immediately jump out on the 2014 program — but for the most part, the selection of films is laughable. So last year, we inaugurated one of our favorite features: The 10 most “Sundance-y” films at the Sundance Film Festival. Now we’re back. This year we have coming of age stories, Hollywood stars finding love in Bushwick, and Kristen Stewart playing a guard at Guantanamo Bay.
Click on the slideshow to see our list of the most “Sundance-y” films at Sundance.
