With only a few days of the Sundance Film Festival left, many viewers are beginning to have ideas about what were the best films of the festival and what others who were not able to attend should be prepared to see when out in theaters. Joe Neumair, a film critic, shared with the New York Daily News what he thought the top movies were this year.
One of the top films, he shared, is “The Way, Way Back,” a “find-yourself-a-mentor comedy.” The film is about a 14-year-old boy spending the summer with his family at the beach, and finds a mentor in a nearby water park’s manager. Toni Collette and Steve Carell are featured in the movie, with Sam Rockwell playing the main character.
Neumair gave “Lovelace,” featuring Amanda Seyfried as Deep Throat and porn star Linda Lovelace four stars. The movie producers, he explained, “make the first half a “Boogie Nights”-style, candy-colored romp, to show what the public in the early 1970s assumed Lovelace’s life was. Then they stop and go back, to show the ugly, ‘Star 80’-ish truth she was living.”
Lastly, another film Neumair gives five stars is “Before Midnight,” the sequel to “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset,” a romance starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The movie builds on the previous two films and the relationship between “an American novelist and a French altruist,” adding twists of its own.
There will continue to be more films noted as the festival comes to a close this weekend and, with the recent Palm Springs festival as well, there are likely many viewers waiting for the films that were recently premiered to make their way to the theaters. For those looking for entertainment purposes, screening movies and films, including on outdoor movie screens, that gained publicity these past two months can help extend and expand the excitement of the festival.