The Discovery may be the discovery of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.  With an intelligent script, excellent acting, and unique story, this is a science fiction love story you don’t want to miss. In a not-so distant future, Thomas Harbor (Robert Redford) has discovered that an afterlife does exist, which causes millions of suicides across the world.  His son, Will (Jason Segel), goes to visit his father and convince him to shut down his research, all…

Patti Cake$ is Hustle ‘n’ Flow (2005) with a sprinkle of 8 Mile (2002) and a lot of New Jersey.  This is a dirty, base-shaking, crowd-pleasing, hip-hop heavy dramedy about keeping a dream when on the grind. Patricia Dombrowski (Danielle Macdonald), a.k.a Killa P, a.k.a. Patti Cake$ is an aspiring rapper fighting through a world of strip malls and strip clubs on a quest to make it big in the rap game. This is a movie about the grind.  Patricia…

Wind River is as cold as its setting.  Taking place in the frigid mountains of Vermont, where it is negative degrees in spring time, this is a place where everything hurts and blood stains the angel white snow. Writer/director Taylor Sheridan, the writer behind such films as Sicario (2015) and Hell or High Water (2016), completes his, what has now been called, The New American Frontier Trilogy, with the same intensity and style as the the two films I just named….

Dayveon tells the story of Dayveon (Devin Blackmon), a 13-year-old boy who, after the death of his brother, joins a gang in Little Rock, Arkansas and learns about the brotherhood and violence of gang life. One of the best things about coming to Sundance is seeing movies that expose me to different parts of life.  Whether it takes me to another country, or shows me inner workings of other cities across the U.S., Sundance always broadens…

Landline is director Gillian Robespierre follow-up to her 2014 sleeper hit, Obvious Child, a film that I absolutely loved and one that put star Jenny Slate on the must-watch list.  You can tell both Robespierre and Slate have both grown as artists in the last couple years, as Landline is a bigger, cleaner, breezy, wonderfully acted family comedy. Landline looks at the flaws and insecurities of one family in the mid-90’s.  Dana (Jenny Slate) is recently engaged…