It’s beginning to look a lot like Sundance … well, maybe not quite yet, let’s get through Christmas first before we start packing for Park City. But Sundance has announced its competition entries for 2011, and there are some things that immediately caught my eye:

US Dramatic Competition

The American dramatic competition films offer up an interesting mix of films that look (on the surface at least) to fit the mold of the “Sundance film” and some more diverse storyline options, with both new and familiar names. Inevitably, no matter which films I pick from the narrative feature competitions, I end up missing something that pops at the fest as really great, and then scrambling to find a late screening so I can catch it before the fest ends. But you have to narrow down your screening list one way or another, so here are some films from this slate that look promising:

William Mapother, who was so excellent as the bad guy in In the Bedroom way back in 2001, is in U.S. Dramatic Competition entry Another Earth, which is about a duplicate Earth, a horrible tragedy and a love affair. Mapother’s presence makes this one infinitely more interesting.

Vera Farmiga makes her directorial debut with Higher Ground, about a woman’s struggle with her faith. Farmiga also stars in the film, and cast also includes John Hawkes (who played Teardrop in Winter’s Bone) and Josh Leonard (Humpday). Hawkes’ presence alone would put this one on my want-to-see list.

Little Birds, about two teenage girls who run away to Los Angeles and get into trouble, caught my attention because it stars Juno Temple, who was fantastic as Dani in Dirty Girl (she’s also set to star in the long-awaited teen-lesbian-werewolf film Jack and Diane, which according to IMDb is actually filming at long last, but I won’t believe that until I see it). This one also stars Kate Bosworth, who I think has been a bit underrated; she strikes me as an actress who could actually go “serious” ala Charlize Theron if she could get the right roles. Maybe this is one of them.

Another film with John Hawkes (what, is he aiming to be this Sundance’s Zooey Deschanel?), Martha Marcy May Marlene (say that four times fast) is about a woman trying to re-assimilate with her family after leaving a cult. See above for the John Hawkes Factor being enough to make this one worth catching.

Azazel Jacobs, who wrote and directed the excellent Momma’s Man, which played Sundance in 2008, is back in 2011 with Terri, a comedy about a teenage boy in a small town and the high school VP who takes him under his wing. Stars John C. Reilly, which would make me want to see it even if I wasn’t already intrigued to see what kind of film Jacobs made after the moody, darkly funny Momma’s Man.

Lastly for this section, I’m curious about the film listed as Untitled Sam Levinson Project on the Sundance schedule and The Reasonable Bunch on IMDb. Whatever its real title is, it’s a comedy about a chaotic family wedding. That alone doesn’t make it particularly interesting — chaotic weddings/funerals/holidays are pretty overdone — but the cast does: Demi Moore, Kate Bosworth (that’s two for her, she’s keeping pace with Hawkes), Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, and Thomas Haden Church.

World Cinema Dramatic Competition

The World Cinema Dramatic Competition slate tends to be one of my favorite categories at Sundance … one of these years, I might just front-load my schedule with every single film in this competition and work everything else around them, because I always seem to miss one or two films that I’m kicking myself later for not seeing. This year, these are some of the films that I’d like to find room for on my sched:

Abraxas (Japan) is about a depressed Zen Buddhist monk with a “heavy metal past” who latches onto music as a means of reviving his spirit. Okay, okay … they had me at “monk” and “heavy metal.”

It’s been a while since I saw a Columbian film, but All Your Dead Ones (Todos Tus Muertos) looks like a good possibility. It’s about a peasant who finds a pile of dead bodies in his crops, and then finds the authorities want nothing to do with them. Dark comedy? Drama? Thriller? Not sure, but I want to check it out.

Heading over to Algeria, we have A Few Days of Respite (Quelque Jours de Repit), about a couple of gay men from Iran who find safe harbor in a village in France. Not familiar with the cast, but the director won a couple of awards for his 2008 film, The Yellow House.

Apart from the presence of Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleeson on the cast list, the Sundance description of The Guard (Ireland) got me to read it three times:

A small-town cop in Ireland has a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humor, a fondness for prostitutes and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international drug-smuggling ring that has brought a straight-laced FBI agent to his door.

Both Cheadle and Gleeson are proven performers, and I’m hoping they chose well when they signed onto this project.

Kinyarwanda (Rwanda) is about Rwandans during the 1994 genocide who made refuges of mosques without regard for tribe or religion. I realize that some folks are about as tired of “genocide in Africa” films as I am of anything to do with the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, but I have not yet hit my saturation point for this topic.

You gotta love the Australians, especially when the entry from Down Under in the world competition category is titled Mad Bastards, is about an “urban street warrior” facing off with a local cop, and features the Pigram Brothers, a country/folk rock Aussie band. If you’ve never heard them, take the time to check them out before Sundance. I’m curious to see how well their music is used in this film.

From Israel we have a film I’m really interested in seeing,
Restoration (Boker Tov Adon Fidelman). This one’s about an antique furniture restorer, his mysterious apprentice, and the estranged son who’s trying to shut his father’s business down. An unhappy family film that appears not to involve either a holiday or a road trip? Worth catching to me.

Lastly, I definitely want to make room on my schedule for UK entry
Tyrannosaur, just because it stars Eddie Marsan, who was a riot as the uptight, nutty driving instructor in Happy-Go-Lucky. That’s pretty much all I need to make it worth seeing.

I said lastly, but then the final film on the world cinema list caught my eye: Vampire, which stars Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider). The description on this one says it’s about a seemingly nice guy who teaches and cares for his ailing mother, who trolls message boards seeking “the perfect girl who will ensure his own survival.” A movie presumably about a vampire, but it’s showing in world cinema, not midnight? Interesting. Okay, I’ll bite (sorry, sorry).

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