Sundance Movies I Made Up

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival occurs as we speak, although it means little to anyone besides the relative few attending: scrappy filmmakers, passionate critics, fast-talking execs, and irrelevant celebrities there for the open bars. The ambitious, low-budget and trailblazing movies currently premiering are months away from appearing at the local art theater (to be replaced three days later by the latest Woody Allen pretension-fest) and, though you and I can only dream of the cutting-edge cinemexitement raging upon that wintry gauntlet of dreams, I thought it would be fun to—like a character in a relatable yet wondrously novel indie picture—make-believe myself into the world of the celebrated festival. Here’s my catalog to the Pretend Movies of Sundance 2012:


I Will Always Be Here With You, Forever, Always 
Directed by Angela Jonesnowse
A family loses everything. Can they get it back? No. But thanks to their neighbor, a disgraced lawyer/self-help author (portrayed by a Dalmatian) they might learn more about what it means to be humans and people than they ever thought possible.

4Givnezz 

Directed by Macy Wortherston 

A portrait of urban struggle in modern times like you’ve never seen, 4Givnezz portrays the attempts of an affluent white family to do their errands in an anonymous inner-city one very long November Saturday. During one unforgettable day, they’ll see life’s joy and hardship through the eyes of a downtrodden but soulful community of minorities, with whom they’ll forge an unlikely friendship… and maybe learn something about themselves.

Please/No/Maybe 

Directed by Alfrede Goodin 

Upon their father’s death, three feuding brothers learn that they must compete in a local Simon Says contest to win his inheritance. A lightly moving and hysterical journey of self-discovery.

My Love is A Weapon 

Directed by Bhill Z 

A not-so-ordinary romantic dramedy regarding a man, his wife, his lover, his lover’s wife, and their lives on a Pacific northwestern fishery during a Renaissance fair. Set to a soundtrack of minimalist Sudanese techno. Narrated by Billy Baldwin. 

The Remainder 

Directed by Paul Rapple 

The first feature film written and directed by Eujehnnaghl Award-winning theoretical algebraist Paul Rapple, The Remainder is a gripping tale about the final days of a think tank’s efforts to solve the Frenson Principle. A unique drama set entirely within an MIT faculty lounge, this film blends lengthy, unexplained fragments of mathematical discourse with a story that concerns what it means to be human, to live, and to be a living human. Soundtrack by Bobby McFerrin. 

Broomy and Hank 

Directed by the Plap Brothers 

In a unique animated film in which all the shots are comprised of live-action footage, Broomy must find his brother Hank—to whom he is not related and has never met—in a landscape sculpted from a comatose hairstylist’s dreams. Featuring the voice talents, and also regular physical acting, of Paul Giamatti and Bill Paxton. The film is dedicated to the memory of Wilbur Wright. 

Henry IV, Part 1 

Directed by Alex H. Donq 

Two rival high school quiz bowl advisors—who used to be champion co-beekeepers—take each other on in the only arena left to them (as they have, at this point, lost everything): competitive sandwich preparation. Co-starring Cheech Marin’s nephew, this is the first quirky dark quiz bowl satire ever screened at the festival entirely in glow-in-the-dark.