Welcome to WTI’s Weekend Streaming Recommendations where I recommend 4-5 films that under-watched, under-appreciated, or just plain old personal favorites. My goal is to take the hassle out of deciding which film to stream on the plethora of streaming sites that populate the internet. To make your streaming life easier, I include which platform each film is available on along with a link to the trailer. Now sit back, relax, and click on play!

We Are What We Are

Jim Mickle has been gaining a lot of fans over the past decade and is being heralded as one of the next big things in horror. He debuted with Mulberry St. and then blew audiences away with Stake Land. Now we have Mickle’s remake of the Mexican hit of the same name. I’m going to tread lightly here with how I describe the plot because watching this moody, dread drenched film unfold is finger-licking fun. Two young sisters are forced to go beyond their normal everyday tasks to help provide for their reclusive family who live by ancient and diabolical means. I know it doesn’t sound inviting, but trust me; Mickle’s film is chilling at times while his relaxed, yet, fixated filmmaking captures the cruel violence that is expunged upon the innocence. We Are What We Are has a good, small following; now it’s your turn to see what all the fuss is about. – Watch the trailer

8 Million Ways to Die

Hal Ashby’s (Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Being There) final film before his death has Jeff Bridges as Matt Scudder, an alcoholic detective whose mental state worsens after he shoots someone during a police raid. With his marriage ruined and job lost he turns to Alcoholics Anonymous to turn his life around. Then he meets a mysterious woman who asks for his help in solving a murder. Will the mounting pressure of trying to solve the brutal crime turn Scudder back to alcoholism? Ashby’s film, based off an Oliver Stone screenplay, is ferociously violent but endlessly fascinating to watch. Bridges, who has been one of the best actors for over 40 years, is a delight to watch in one of his most underrated roles. There are 8 million ways to die; chose one. – Watch the trailer

Charley Varrick

While The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three will always be my favorite Walter Matthau film from the 70’s, I can’t help but throw some love Charley Varrick’s way. Don Siegel (Dirty Harry, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Beguiled) directs this gangster thriller that has Matthau playing the title character; a leader of a trio of bank robbers who knock off a bank owned by the mob. The mob isn’t too happy with this and sends out Molly (Joe Don Baker), a mob enforcer, to unleash vengeance upon Varrick. Baker is, as far as I’m concerned, one of the best character actors that has ever worked in film and is sensational here. The final 30 minutes of Varrick are insanely preposterous, but who cares? The cat and mouse game between Matthau and Baker across the American Southwest is a delight to watch and you’ll have a big grin on your face as the film ends with bang. – Watch the trailer

Poolhall Junkies

Mars Callahan stars (as well as writes and directs) as Johnny, a former pool hall hustling master who gave it up for the girl he loves. Johnny’s younger brother soon starts to follow in his old footsteps by trying to out hustle the other sharks that circle the local halls. But when he gets into trouble with a very dangerous local gangster (the scintillating Chazz Palminteri), Johnny must revert to his old lifestyle to help is brother out. The film is endlessly entertaining from beginning to end as the cast has a blast with the material. Christopher Walken shows up a few times to provide a little bit of weight to the action and even has an epic monologue near the height of the film that’ll send the audience into frenzy. Poolhall Junkies is far from setting the cinema world on fire, but it’ll have you laughing and cheering loudly by the time Callahan throws down the gamut in the final act. – Watch the trailer

All the Boys Love Many Lane

The story behind the film is probably more interesting than the film itself, but All the Boys Love Many Lane is still a rarely seen gem. Completed in 2006 and shown at various film festivals around the world in 2007, the film wasn’t released in the U.S. until 2013! This was due to the complicated ownership of the film, but thankfully it’s out there and available for audiences to finally see. Mandy Lane (Amber Heard, who should be a bigger star than what she is presently) is the good girl at her high school, still a virgin and somehow got extremely hot over the summer. The popular kids invite her to a secluded ranch where they throw a party while many of the young men do their best to be her suitor. As the party rages on, guests at the party start disappearing and film becomes a “who dunnit” with slasher appeal. Mandy Lane is definitely a solid horror movie. – Watch the trailer

Jim Mickle’s We Are What We Are (a remake of the 2010 Mexican horror film of the same name) received a lot of buzz from its Sundance premiere earlier in the year though we first saw the film a few months later when it played during the Directors Fortnight at Cannes. More recently we had the opportunity to sit down with Mickle to chat about his film in our interview. The film is now starting to make its way into a wider public release and to give a little more background on the film they have released a short featurette.

The featurette gives some insight on how important it is to question certain traditions, especially growing up. We Are What We Are centers on a creepy family who carries out a disturbing family tradition which leads to some nauseating images towards the finale. The film is essentially an exploration into fundamental religion mixed with in a throwback to the horror genre of a few decades back.

Watch the We Are What We Are featurette:

Jim Mickle loosely remakes Jorge Michel Grau’s 2010 horror flick, Somos lo Que Hay, with We Are What We Are, an American Gothic mutation of Grau’s well-received tale about a family of cannibals. More family drama than gore fest, Mickle’s film is driven by atmosphere and mystique, more concerned with creeping you out than making you hurl…until the abominable grand finale, that is.

The film opens in a small town outside of the Catskills, with Emma Parker (Kassie DePaiva), the matriarch of the cannibalistic Parker family, dying of a freak accident, leaving behind her husband, Frank (Bill Sage), teenage daughters Isis (Ambyr Childers, The Master) and Rose (Julia Garner, Martha Marcy May Marlene), and young son, Rory (Jack Gore) to carry out their creepy family traditions, the ambiguously religious origins of which are revealed in time. Mama Parker was responsible for preparing a ritualistic mortal gumbo for the family to chomp on, so now the burden of the slaughter falls on the shoulders of the eldest daughter, Isis. Papa Parker drags home a hapless victim for Isis to butcher, but she and Rose (constantly frazzled and paranoid) begin to buckle under the immense gravity of the task at hand when they discover that the poor soul they’re meant to mutilate is a girl from school.

Frank is a menacing man of few words, unpredictably snapping in bursts of rage, employing intimidation (both physical and psychological) to raise his children. Sage is eerily understated and an imposing force of nature, evoking a sense of tight-lipped dread–you’ll be on edge every second he’s on screen. Garner and Childers, both exceedingly talented for their age, put forth absolutely heartbreaking performances, though, to no fault of their own, their wholesome, Disney-kid good looks seem to sap the terror out of certain scenes, perhaps because their beauty distracts from the grisly atmosphere rather than juxtaposing it. Tarantino favorite Michael Parks is as dependable as ever, playing a good-hearted doctor who begins to catch on to the Parkers’ bloody history as he finds “clues” (i.e. human remains) floating down the flooded river, and his encounter with Mr. Parker when he finally puts the pieces together is the best scene of dialog in the film.

For the most part, Mickle uses the same quiet, lingering creepiness that pervades Martha Marcy May Marlene (much of his crew worked on that film, as well), allowing the stillness and ambiance of the moment to buzz in your ear a bit, needling at your nerves. Oddly, there are certain scenes that would have been elevated by this “silent treatment” (most notably the spectacularly gory ending), but instead have bizarrely melodramatic music plastered all over them, muffling the shocking immediacy of it all. In the films most egregious dip in artfulness, an inexplicable sex scene (it’s so out of the blue you’ll laugh) cartoonishly screeches to a halt with a splash of Platinum Dunes-style gore. Against the palpable, pitch black atmosphere Mickle and company create, the sequence feels a little silly, though the stumble doesn’t hurt the film all that much.

The Parker household–and the entire film, in fact–feels of another time, with candlelight flickering against the deep shadows of its corridors, contrasting brilliantly with the biblical rainstorms pouring outside the windows. There’s a not-so-subtle knock on fundamentalist religion that’s ever-present in the film, but the storytelling is effective whether you choose to digest it as a religious parable or not. Mickle and his crew deserve a lot of credit (especially cinematographer Ryan Samul) for exercising a great measure of finesse and deliberateness in crafting We Are What We Are, which could have easily become a throw-away jump-scare machine in less caring hands. Though the Salo-level gore of the final act doesn’t repulse so much as it confounds, the well-executed slow burn that leads us to it is worth the price of admission.

We Are What We Are trailer:

After directing Stakeland and Mulberry Street, two indie horror films that are slowly building cult followings, director Jim Mickle is back with his third film, We Are What We Are (a remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s 2010 film of the same name). A more somber, calculated breed of scare cinema, it stars Bill Sage as the patriarch of a family of flesh-eaters–Julia Garner (Martha Marcy May Marlene) and Ambyr Childers (The Master) play his lovely daughters–and explores the darkest side of fundamental religion (parabolically, of course), all leading up to a revolting, hurl-inducing finale that’ll have everyone who sees it talking for days.

We spoke to Mickle about being upfront about the cannibalism aspect of the story, being liberated by the fact that it’s a remake, what scares him more; cannibalism or religion, making French people angry, and more.

How’s it been touring with the movie?
It’s good. It’s crazy. You make a movie, you get it all out and you want to tell people about it, and you can’t! You go to a festival and you sit on it for six months. All of a sudden, it’s a year later and it’s like, “Talk about that movie again!” I have this weird relationship with it now, like a distance to it, which I guess is good. I guess it’s healthy.

Are you familiar with Hitchcock’s definition of suspense versus surprise?
Yeah. The bomb under the table.

You show the bomb under the table. You tell us very early in the movie that this is a family of cannibals.
I used that example many times with Nick [Damici], the screenwriter. We would talk about that a lot. “Okay, great. We’ve got this [cannibal thing], now let’s play with that.” It was really fun to go into a movie and, whether we said it or not, people are going to come into it knowing it’s a remake of a film. By the time I heard about the original We Are What We Are, I knew it was a “family of cannibals” movie. So, people are going to come into this knowing. It was really cool to say, “Look. We don’t have to worry about when we drop the hammer.” It’s not like The Crying Game where the last scene is like, “Hey!” It was cool to do that because then the issue wasn’t “What are they?” The issue was, “How does it work?” Why are these pretty girls running around with floral prints? We let that be the suspense of how it was going to play out.

So that’s what it freed you up to focus on.
Yeah, totally. To me, it’s not about the cannibalism. It’s not that they’re cannibals. The family tradition is the horror. That’s also what was fun about it, to say, “They’re cannibals, but it’s not a cannibal movie.” It’s more of a condemnation of fundamental religion.

What’s interesting to me is, this is a remake of a recently released film, but you seem to be liberated by that as opposed to tackling the pressures inherent in a project like this. You don’t seem to be concerned with those pressures one bit.
What was cool was using it like a springboard to do another story and not feel beholden to do his film. Not because we didn’t like it, but because it would be completely redundant. His movie was great; he set out to do a certain thing and he did it. It’s got his voice, his style, and it deals with really interesting themes. It was like, what would you do if you made a remake of this? There’d be nothing there, you know?

It’d be unnecessary.
Which is what most remakes are. It became a cool challenge of, let’s make an original movie that can play by his rules.

When I see filmmakers tackle remakes like this, especially of recent movies, they seem to be a little competitive. Like, “If we’re going to do this, we have to make it bigger and better.” You go the other direction. You don’t even want to think about competing with the original.
Totally. In my last film, Stakeland, we came up with this idea that we were going to do a web series that was going to take each character and was going to have its own universe. We came up with concepts for each character, what their life was like before this apocalypse happened. At some point, we got bogged down and didn’t have the time or the ability to do it. We thought, let’s grab five filmmakers that we really like, who are friends of ours, and say, “This is your challenge. You can see the film, you can see what we did. But now, with your own voice…make a short film with our character.” It’s almost like an artist guest appearing in a comic book series. For us, it was this liberating, awesome experience. There was no sense of competition, just this beauty of storytelling. If someone came to me wanting to make my film, I would want it to be in that spirit as well. I think Jorge kind of got that. He said, “I like your movie. I’m working on my own movie, so I don’t have time to be involved if you wanted me to be involved, so go make it, and I can’t wait to see it!” He got to see it, and I think he really liked it.

What scares you more; cannibalism or organized religion?
Organized religion, by far.

That was a quick answer! Did you try to feed that animal to generate horror in the film?
You find it as you go. Every time you do a little polish or a little pass or a draft, you start to iron these things out. We never set out and said, “We’re to make a movie about a family of cannibals with two girls in it and it’s going to be a parable of Mormonism.” Those things happen, but you never really start out doing them. You explore it, you get lost in it, and you talk about what matters to you. It’s almost like holding a mirror up, like a kind of therapy. But, when you ask me point blank…yeah, organized religion scares me more than any of that stuff.

What’s a great horror movie that explores the theme of religion?
Rosemary’s Baby. There are a lot of parallels with that movie and this one, and it was a big inspiration. These girls feel like they could be some sort of weird descendants of Mia Farrow, in a way. Martha Marcy May Marlene. I just love that movie.

Some of your crew worked on Martha, right?
A whole bunch of them did, actually. Julie [Garner] is in it, one of our producers is from that movie, we have the same script supervisor, hair stylist…

You can feel some of the same sensibilities from Martha in your film, like the use of silent beats. What do you like about quiet moments?
We’d done two movies that are very rich and filled with elements. Seldom is there a quiet moment. When there is one, it pops because there’s been so much music and sound effects. Both of those movies are very motivated by external conflicts. Monsters, creatures. After doing two movies like that, I found that my favorite parts were the dramatic scenes. I wanted to do a whole movie of just that, really. I think it was that, Martha, and a bit of Japanese horror, which I’m enamored with. I love the confidence of those filmmakers to be able to make things creepy in a way that you wouldn’t expect. Those films are unsettling and weird, but they don’t try to jump scare you. It’s the visual storytelling. We wanted something where, because we weren’t giving you certain information, it was going to engage you more, as opposed to filling you up with story and plot twists. We also subverted as much as we could and let it play beautiful and classical.

Talk about the Amish-like clothes the characters wear. Does that stuff creep you out?
Yeah, totally, but it’s also weirdly comforting, too. I grew up around Amish communities.

Where’d you grow up?
Outside of Redding, Pennsylvania, kind of near Lancaster. Not so much now, but growing up there was a bit of an element of Pennsylvania Dutch and this sense of tradition in a lot of people. There’s something about that that’s very comforting. That’s what we play with here–something that’s really comforting can also be corrupted to be something very wrong.

Was the rain in the film real?
No, it was all fake! (laughs) Every shot that has rain in it is fake, except someone corrected me the other day. It actually rained on the first day of the shoot, where we did all the 1780’s stuff. It poured that day, and we put tents outside the cave to block it so we wouldn’t see the rain. It was so funny because it wasn’t supposed to rain for that scene, and then we cut to the rest of the movie where it rains and we had to fake it for every shot.

You’ve traveled with the film for a while now. What’s the most memorable reaction  by an audience member to the big finale?
It was at the Deauville Film Festival about three weeks ago. The film was playing with Fruitvale Station and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. It was a crowd of about 1,500 people, and everyone who goes to it is expecting the next Sundance thing that’s going to go on and win Oscars, the next Fox Searchlight thing, or whatever the hell Sam Rockwell’s in that year. I don’t know if they’ve ever programmed a horror movie there, and the audience just went in blindly. It was all these really bourgeois French filmgoers, probably none of them under the age of 50, and all of them with these salmon-colored sweaters tied around their shoulders. I think we flew in that morning, and I was beat. We had just wrapped another film. I had slept for maybe four hours, got on a plane to France, and all of a sudden we were being ushered to this matinee screening of our film. As soon as the ending happened, people started booing and hissing and yelling. “Out with the director! F the director! This isn’t cinema!” Everybody’s screaming, making a show, violently walking by and making hand gestures to me. The rest of the audience applauded for those people to leave and then gave us a standing ovation. We went out in the lobby, and there were people waiting for us, yelling, “Scandal! Scandal!” We were told, “Now let’s go to the press conference.” And we were like, “Press conference?!” The journalists were arguing in the audience! They were arguing with each other and storming out of the press conference. It was insane. I loved it.

What a perfect response. You pushed right past the boundaries.
People would come up to us three days later when we were walking around town, and people were like, “That’s my favorite movie of the year! Thank you for making it.” Other people would give us the evil eye as we passed. That’s what I wanted to do with the movie. It was the perfect response.

Making difficult decisions simply goes hand-in-hand with film festivals, and Cannes is certainly no exception. Deciding upon which film to see when inevitably two play at the same time is just the start. Because there are approximately 4,500 press in attendance, most films require you to wait in line for about an hour a before the film is scheduled to begin. And that still does not guarantee access, especially for films that are in high demand. The real difficult decisions come when you must decide upon waiting in line to better your chances for a spot, or to eat a proper meal. However, in Cannes there is one simple rule that everyone abides by; films always receive the highest of priorities.

Yachts that surround Cannes

Sarah Prefers To Run

As you probably guessed, Sarah Prefers To Run is about a 20-year-old woman who cares little about anything other than running. Her talent in the sport lands her an opportunity to be a part of a university program in Montreal. The only problem is that Sarah does not have much money saved up to cover the costs of moving and living expenses for there. In addition, she has no support from her mother because of a not so great relationship between the two. Her mother has told her before that running will not put money on the table for her in the future, but there is a hint of something else causing their riff.

But Sarah is unwilling to let money issues prevent her from achieving her dreams as a runner. So she visits her friend Antoine, I’ll give you one guess how she got there, to ask if he will be a roommate of hers. He agrees and the two share an apartment together in Montreal. Because Sarah has no time for a job with school and running taking up most of her time, she is not even able to half of the rent. So Antoine comes up with an idea that only a twenty-year-old would think is a good solution; to get married so they can collect money from the government. At first Sarah is very reluctant about Antoine’s plan as she only sees him as a friend not a lover. But with no other options in sight, she agrees on the notion it is purely for financial reasons. The shot of her agreeing with the arrangement is shown as a blurry reflection from a window that perfectly fits the decision at hand.

Sarah’s shyness, haste for the government, and estranged relationship with her mother may all stem from a detail that the director Chloé Robichaud only faintly chooses to expose, much like the personality of the main character herself. At one point her character is asked if she believes in destiny to which she replies, “No.” Perhaps Sarah prefers to make her own destiny by controlling the things that she can. One thing is for sure, Sarah does prefer to run.

RATING: 8.1

The Bastards

Claire Denis’ latest film The Bastards serves up a heavy dose of drama in the form of sexual exploitation that at times is gruesome enough to make you cringe. You will certainly never look at corn on the cob in the same way. Denis hits all the right notes from a technical standpoint; fantastic camera work, solid cast, and a good old-fashion revenge story. But despite all of that, in the end The Bastards does not fulfill. The largest offender for the unsatisfying results is a story structure that is far more complicated than it really needs to be. There is no happy ending when all the characters are bastards.

One of the better sequences found in the film is at the very beginning when jump-cut footage of a woman wearing nothing but high heels walks down the street in complete shock. Police lights fill the streets of Paris at night at the site of an apparent suicide. It is not until much later that the film reveals who it was. The woman has obvious signs of abuse which results in the family to investigate and seek revenge on everyone involved.

RATING: 6.4

We Are What We Are

The much buzzed about film from Sundance named We Are What We Are played tonight here in Cannes as part of the Directors Fortnight section. This is a remake of the 2010 Mexican horror film that shares the same name about a creepy family who maintains disturbing family traditions. Preparation of one such tradition requires the family to fast for a few days leading up to this event. The youngest family member is starving and his two older sisters remind him that no food can be consumed. And they take this very seriously.People from the town they live in seem to be disappearing – which also might have something to do with the tradition.

We Are What We Are paces itself all the way until the very end, but even the climax is muted. The little amount of suspense that the film does generate eventually dissolves and is unrewarding. Almost all of the characters are dumber than they should be, examples; a doctor ends up committing one of horrors most offending rules, a young cop who is completely unconvincing, and one of the sisters that wants to make an escape but never tries very hard to do so. In the screening I attended, the film received more laughs than thrills and the only gasps were because of some of the gore that was shown on screen. Maybe that was what the film was going for, but even if that is the case it still did not satisfy.

RATING: 5.5

With 2012 behind us and the Oscars only weeks away, the year in film for 2013 is just about to get underway. Park City, Utah is home to the Sundance Film Festival, a showcase for new independent films in America and (to a lesser degree) the rest of the world. Despite running at the start of the year, Sundance has premiered plenty of films that have eventually gone on to successful runs at the box office and award shows. If you want an example, look no further than last year when Beasts of the Southern Wild premiered to raves and ended up with four Oscar nominations including Best Picture.

So now with Sundance already getting underway, will there be another film ready to ride a wave of success all the way to awards season at the end of the year? Since Way Too Indie won’t be attending the festival this year we won’t be able to see any of the films playing yet, but we’ve gone through the festival line-up and picked the movies we’re most excited to watch. If you want to check things out yourself, the Sundance 2013 line-up can be seen here.

Way Too Indie’s Top 10 Most Anticipated Films Playing Sundance Film Festival 2013

Before Midnight (dir: Richard Linklater, Premieres)
Back in 1995 Richard Linklater released Before Sunrise, a simple but enjoyable film about an American (Ethan Hawke) and a French woman (Julie Delpy) spending the day together in Vienna. Nine years later Linklater, Hawke and Delpy reunited for Before Sunset which found the two characters reuniting in France. Sunset turned out to be one of Linklater’s best movies, and ever since then people have been wondering if a third film would ever get made. Now, nine years after Before Sunset, the three have reunited again for Before Midnight. It remains to be seen whether or not Midnight will live up to the quality of Sunrise and Sunset, but either way it’ll be nice to catch up with Jesse and Celine again. [C.J.]

Before Midnight

Touchy Feely (dir: Lynn Shelton, U.S. Dramatic)
Lynn Shelton is no stranger when it comes to Sundance, Touchy Feely will be her third film in a row that will play at the festival. Her previous film, Your Sister’s Sister, was one of my favorite films of 2012, so I was naturally excited to hear that she would be presenting a new film this year. Back again for a lead role is Rosemarie DeWitt who plays a free-spirited massage therapist but develops a mysterious aversion to bodily contact, which makes her job intolerable to do. Shelton explains that the film is “Literally and figuratively about attempting to live in your own skin.” If it is anything like her previous films, we should expect a film with less script thus more natural feeling dialog, which helps maker her films so genuine. [Dustin]

Touchy Feely

Concussion (dir: Stacie Passon, U.S. Dramatic)
When the line-up was announced I ran through the lists as quick as I could, looking for familiar names and faces, I picked up on the storylines I thought I’d like instantly, and ignored one or two I knew I wouldn’t. Looking through the list again, with personal taste and bias set aside, I noticed quite a few more that had originally got tossed aside. I saw the film still that promoted Concussion on the festival’s programme for U.S. Dramatic and was drawn in to read more. The woman looked exhausted yet beautiful; I read the small description below and was eager to find the About the Director video. Written and directed by Stacie Passon, one of the many female directors amid the Sundance 2013 line-up, the film depicts the life of a married lesbian couple, and primarily focuses on one woman’s struggle of feeling alone, jealous and ultimately sexually abandoned by the person she thought loved her the most – an interesting and diverse storyline. [Amy]

Concussion

Upstream Color (dir: Shane Carruth, U.S. Dramatic)
It has been nearly 10 years since Shane Carruth took Park City by storm with his debut film Primer. Since then his name has barely been mentioned, except for a “special thanks” credit in Looper, until just recently when Sundance made its lineup announcement. Sticking the genre he knows best, Upstream Color looks as if it is another science fiction mind-trip from Carruth. Amy Seimetz plays a woman who has been drugged and brainwashed by a small-time thief. She ends up falling in love with someone who may also be under the same influence. The film has generated a lot of buzz around the internet, making people wonder if he could once again win the Grand Jury Prize. [Dustin]

Upstream Color

I Used To Be Darker (dir: Matt Porterfield, NEXT)
Back in 2010 Matt Porterfield released Putty Hill, a radical and surprisingly powerful film that slowly built up a following of critics who passionately supported it. Shot on an incredibly low budget over 12 days, Putty Hill stood out for its gorgeous cinematography, excellent use of unprofessional actors (including pop singer Sky Ferreira) and unorthodox format that made it feel like a hybrid between documentary and fiction. Two years later Porterfield has returned, this time to a bigger venue, and will hopefully make a bigger name for himself. The story in I Used To Be Darker involves an Irish runaway staying with her American aunt and uncle whose marriage is falling apart. Going by the trailer it looks like Porterfield might have another winner in store. [C.J.]

I Used To Be Darker

Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes (dir: Francesca Gregorini, U.S. Dramatic)
There’s an unintentional theme occurring with my choice of films, being that they’re all directed by women, this one however, is a film that gains greater depth given that the auteur is female. Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes represents the personal story Francesca Gregorini has portrayed through a young female character whose mother died at child birth, therefore leaving her daughter with a missing piece to her life. The director admits that this film is autobiographical as being unable to bare children she relates to the main character’s difficulties and hardship. Francesca Gregorini lays out her feelings and emotions towards loss and despair for the world to witness through this promising, very moving film. [Amy]

Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes

Mud (dir: Jeff Nichols, Spotlight)
Mud opened to a warm reception when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year, where it was in competition for the esteemed Palme d’Or award. Though Jeff Nichols’ previous thriller Take Shelter was certainly worth a watch, Mud looks like it could be an even more intense thriller than his previous work. The first trailer for the first recently surfaced on the web, just ahead of its U.S. premiere, and it certainly looks promising. Matthew McConaughey appears to have found his niche in playing the “bad guy” role recently, first with Killer Joe and now with this. [Dustin]

Mud

We Are What We Are (dir: Jim Mickle, Midnight)
Anyone who considers themselves a fan of horror films should keep their eye on Jim Mickle. Years ago his debut feature Mulberry Street, about a virus in New York City that turned people into rat-like creatures, was overlooked by people when it got released in After Dark’s “8 Films to Die For” series. Years later Mickle finally started to make a name for himself with Stake Land, an ambitious film about a vampire apocalypse. Now Mickle has returned with We Are What We Are, a dark story about a family trying to keep its horrifying traditions alive. A remake of the 2010 Mexican film with the same title, Mickle has proven himself to be a unique and talented director in the horror genre and we can only hope that his latest movie will continue that trend. [C.J.]

We Are What We Are

In a World (dir: Lake Bell, U.S. Dramatic)
Trying to keep updated with all Sundance news and updates I immediately began following almost all the directors of the official selection on Twitter in search of more information. Lake Bell was one of the later profiles I came across, and now she feels a very familiar personality and a director whose work I am really eager to see. After reading some of her seriously happy, excitable and endearing tweets towards In a World and watching the interview she gave about the film I picked up instantly on her wonderful charm and have high hopes for In a World to surprise Sundance. [Amy]

In a World

Stoker (dir: Park Chan-Wook, Premieres)
Park Chan-Wook is known best for his Vengeance Trilogy, which includes his outstanding film that previously earned him a trip to Sundance, Oldboy. This year he will be bringing his first attempt at an English-language based film, about a woman who is dealing with the recent passing of her father when a mysterious yet charming family member shows up that she has never met before. Soon she starts to suspect this family member may have some ulterior motives. Stoker is said to be a cross between a psychological thriller and a horror film, so with a veteran like Park Chan-Wook at the helm, consider this writer highly intrigued. [Dustin]

Stoker

Other films we are looking forward to

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s writing and directorial debut Don Jon’s Addiction; George Tillman Jr.’s passion project The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete; teenage drama Very Good Girls; Midnight line-up films including S-VHS (the sequel to V/H/S), Hell Baby, Magic Magic and In Fear; Calvin Reeder’s sure to be divisive The Rambler; Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling`s follow-up to Sound of My Voice called The East; and Blue Caprice, a drama based on the Beltway sniper attacks. The Sundance film festival officially started today in Park City, Utah and will continue through January 27th.