WEIRDLAND: Best Sundance Fiction Films of the Decade

Monday, January 25, 2010

Best Sundance Fiction Films of the Decade

"If the '90s were the boom years at Sundance, the '00s were a much more unsettled time, swinging between optimism and pessimism, bumper crops and aesthetic droughts, as uncertainty increased about the future of distribution, criticism, exhibition, and of film itself. Amid all this volatility, plenty of great work was produced —"

2. DONNIE DARKO (2001) Set on the eve of the '88 Bush-Dukakis contest and starring Jake Gyllenhaal as the brooding Donnie, Richard Kelly's debut combines wormhole metaphysics and apocalyptic teen angst to sensational effect. With a soundtrack that brings to mind a dusty, beloved mix tape, this unlikely offspring of BACK TO THE FUTURE and BLUE VELVET was one of the defining cult movies of the aughts and remains the last word on what it was like to grow up in the Reaganite '80s.

1. PRIMER (2004) A couple of white-collar drones tinkering away in a suburban garage invent what turns out to be a time machine — before long, reality as we know it is spinning off its axis. Both a satire and an embodiment of DIY resourcefulness (it was reportedly shot on a four-figure budget), Shane Carruth's ingenious feedback loop of a movie matches its onslaught of brain-twisting paradoxes with coolly composed visuals and rapid-fire science-nerd banter that suggests David Foster Wallace rewriting David Mamet. A deserving winner of the 2004 Grand Prize and the best first feature of the decade. Source: www.sundancechannel.com
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2 comments :

  1. UltraViolet7:03 PM

    Interesting that one and two are both time travel movies, of a sort.

    I haven't seen a lot of the Top 10. I wasn't crazy about In The Bedroom, though. Half Nelson was good, but not great. I'll have to check out some of the other ones.

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  2. Weirdland8:04 PM

    Hi, UltraViolet!

    I found "In the bedroom" a very accomplished and tense familiar drama (boring at some points, though), and I thought "Half Nelson" was a bit redundant despite of a tremendous unpretentious performance by Ryan Gosling.

    I'd recommend you "Smiley Face" with Anna Faris over "The Savages" (more a typical weirdo dramedy).

    And "Primer" is excellent (it deals with time travel -unlike Donnie Darko- in a very technical level so it's conceptually a bit difficult to grasp).

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