flashing lights: pt. 3

Nothing is guaranteed at Sundance. You may desperately want to spot a Colin Farrell or a Paris Hilton, but instead you get Bijou Phillips and her friends clad in miles of hair extensions and faux fur. You want to see the next "Donnie Darko", "Reservoir Dogs", or "Clerks, which all debuted at the festival, and instead you get the clunker with so and so and that one guy you saw in that movie last year. What I saw wasn't especially great, nor was it especially memorable or exciting. I should have done my homework before the festival because these are the five films I wish I would have seen:

CHOKE, directed by Clark Gregg
Actor and first time director Clark Gregg adapts Chuck Palahniuk's darkly humorous portrait of a sex addict and his equally flawed and compulsive friends, co-workers, and family. The last Palahniuk adaptation wasn't well received by critics, but every teenage male in the late '90s identified with the pre-millennial alienation of its anti-heroes. Will this film receive this kind of warm reception when it's released?

SMART PEOPLE, directed by Noam Murro
There was a lot of dark material at Sundance and this could have been the welcomed respite to all of that gloom and doom. This well reviewed film from first time filmmaker Noam Murro looks like the title, a funny movie with smart people behind it.

MOMMA'S MAN, directed by Azazel Jacobs
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times hailed, "the film beautifully combines the idioms of independent fiction narrative with the personal expressiveness of the avant-garde for a work of surprising emotional and structural complexity. This is independent cinema defined." Big praise for a movie about a man who abandons his family to move back in with his parents. Perhaps this is the movie that could restored my faith in independent cinema.

SUGAR, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
The directing duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's astonishing debut, "Half Nelson", made Ryan Gosling a star and established them as filmmakers with an eye for emotional realism and a love for characters that pierce through the screen. The follow up is the tale of a Dominican baseball player recruited for an American league. Described as a searing and subtle work of masterful achievement this could be one of the films to watch this year.

BALLAST, directed by Lance Hammer
That obnoxious guy on the shuttle hated this movie but critics loved it and compared to a sobering drama as lensed by Terrence Malick. A film that takes its own time to tell the story of a suicide and those affected by it in the delta of Mississippi. IFC picked up the distribution rights and it premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last week. Why didn't I see this movie?