Dang homosexuals; they're all a bunch of troublemakers.

If you were looking to get your gay cinema on at Sundance, Wednesday night in Salt Lake City was your moment, with two films involving same-sex rabble rousers screening simultaneously.  You could go historical with Howl, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's bio pic about Allen Ginsberg's poem and the obscenity trial it spawned.  Or you could choose a more current option with former-Mormon Reed Cowen's film about how the LDS church influenced the vote on Prop 8 in California (8: The Mormon Proposition).  I chose Howl, largely because I've grown tired of listening to the gays and the Mormons pick on each other. I think I made the right choice.

Before I comment on the film, I offer this observation.  If you want to clear a theater, don't yell fire.  Just show a sexually charged, gay-themed film.  There was a steady stream of people leaving the theater. And they all seemed a little miffed that they'd just lost $15.

I like this film.  Because it's the kind of film you hope to see at Sundance.  Surprising actors, in surprising roles, telling unexpected stories in fresh, independent ways.   James Franco is intoxicating as Allen Ginsberg. And Mary-Louise Parker's cameo as an uptight English professor is delightful.  Jon Hamm made me nearly shed tears (and I'm not kidding) with his portrayal of the lawyer defending Ginsberg's poem.

This is less a bio pic than it is a film poem, with a wide range of cinematic devices used to tell a gorgeous love story.  The film moves from black and white to color to psychedelic animations and the result is stunning. But what matters most are the words. Whether it's the poetry, the Ginsberg interviews, or the gripping courtroom dialogue, the words in this movie deliver real impact.

There was a lot I needed to hear in this film. Maybe I need to be more open to the ideas of others.  And maybe I need to be more open about who I am.

Mall art takes a turn for the better.

Every year Sundance takes over the lower level of the Main Street Mall in Park City for New Frontiers on Main.  Usually it's just a collection of vendors showing off the latest in film-making gadgetry, or a place to check your e-mail. This year, Sundance stepped it up a notch with an intriguing array of installations by some respected names in the art world.  This is art worth the trip to Park City and stuff you'll have a hard time finding again in Utah anytime soon.  Let me mention a few of my favorites.

At the top of my list is a video installation by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist called Lobe of Lung (The Saliva Ooze Away to the Underground), 2009-2010.  Rist recently had a critically acclaimed installation at MoMA. This work of precisely projected videos surrounds viewers with trippy, trance-inducing images of flowery fields and watery worlds.  And the body-length floor cushions are the perfect way to take a plush break from the craziness of Sundance.  Here are a few photos of people enjoying the show.

The End (2008) from Iceland's Ragnar Kjartansson is a folksy concert shot in five locations in the Canadian Rockies.  All five "tracks" are shown simultaneously on five large screens, creating a wondrous musical/visual experience.  And it felt perfectly at home in Park City, Utah.

Tracey Snelling's Bordertown (2006-2009) is a Mexican/American tale writ small.  Miniature scenes created in three dimensions feature video windows that tell stories and remind us of our intertwined lives. Here's a photo of one of the miniatures.

Cloud Mirror (2009) by Eric Gradman is a social media experiment that puts the viewer in the art.  Viewers wear special badges and when they step in front of large screens, their images appear with witty captions.  The system also connects to participants' Facebook pages, borrowing and returning information and images.  Here I am in the Cloud Mirror.  It appears something has gone horribly wrong.

Petko Dourmana's Post Global Warming Survivat Kit (2008) is like nothing I've ever experienced.  When you step into the work it is completely, blindingly cark.  You can't see a damn thing.  Until you lift the night-vision devices to your eyes.  Suddenly there's a new world including a tent with post global-warming remnants inside.  And there's also an amazing video installation that you just can't believe completely disappears when you stop looking through the binoculars.  It's disturbing the way art should be.  But it's also just a whole lotta fun.

Thanks Sundance for bringing great movies, and great art to Utah.

Twilight without the vampires. Oh, and a better story.

Kristen Stewart (yes that Kristen Stewart, star of the Twilight movies) makes her Sundance debut with James Gondolfini in Jake Scott's Welcome to the Rileys.  This is the story of a suburban couple struggling to maintain their marriage years after their teenage daughter is killed in a car accident. While at a plumbing convention in New Orleans, the husband (Gandolfini) innocently meets an underage prostitute (Stewart) and develops an unusual friendship. This forces all the characters to step out of their comfort zones and into surprising new realities.

The first half of the movie crept slowly across the screen. But once the action moves to New Orleans, the film gets a lot more interesting.  And Stewart, just ho hum as a brooding teenage in love with a vampire, is pretty dang good as a brooding teenage stripper.

A fresh crop of docs.

Documentaries are always big at Sundance. Except when they're small.  This year's selection of documentary shorts was one of the best programs I've seen so far.  They were all good but here are a few of the highlights:

Quadrangle by director Amy Grappell. This movie is the result of a daughter interviewing her estranged parents; parents who befriended another couple in the 70s and soon found themselves swapping partners.  The split-screen dialogue was strange and a little shocking.  I expected that.  I didn't expect it to be so warm and funny.

Drunk History: Tesla and Edison by directory Jeremy Kramer. Speaking of funny, this is the most hysterical short doc I've ever seen. Here's the idea. Take a guy, have him drink a six pack of beer and a half a bottle of absinthe, and then film him as he recounts history.  That alone was funny enough.  But the Kramer took it a step further, with bad history-channel-like reenactments featuring John C. Riley as Tesla and Crispin Glover as Edison.  Brilliant!  I've heard there are other Drunk History lessons on YouTube.  I can hardly wait to investigate.

Notes on the Other by directory Sergio Oksman. This beautiful film brings together a host of stories with surprising lyricism.  It begins with Ernest Hemingway's first encounter at the running of the bulls where he watches from a hotel window as a man is gored.  We meet the descendant of that very man who now barricades himself in the family business near the very location where his great grandfather was gored.  From this vantage point the shopkeeper takes dramatic pictures that look back towards Hemingway's historical view.  Throw in a gaggle of Hemingway look alikes and you have a movie that weaves a wondrous thread of human life.

Shorts weather arrives early.

Today, while riding the Sundance shuttles in a cold and snowy Park City, not one, not two, but three people got on the bus wearing shorts. What's the reason for their attire confusion? Maybe they were confounded by the rash of shorts programming at the film festival.

I went to the Shorts Program V and it was pure Sundance fun.  These movies are indie in the extreme.  And it always amazes me that strange themes seem to emerge from the group of films.  This group's themes? Unexpected pregnancies and women peeing.  Even one of the directors commented in the Q&A that he didn't know how his film made it into Sundance since no one was peeing. I'll admit it, watching all those women dropping their pants and squatting made me a little squeamish.

Here are a few of the highlights from the program:

Shimasani by director Blackhorse Lowe.  This story about a Navajo mother and her two daughters in the 1930s is lyrical and immensely melancholy.  It also features some of the most beautiful black and white cinematography I've every seen.

Tub by director Bobby Miller.  A tale of absurd horror.  When asked about his inspiration for the film, the direct blamed a friend who said he masturbated so much in the shower that there were babies in the sewer.  And yes, this is the story about a horny guy rebuffed by his girlfriend.  So, he masturbates in the shower.  And later that day, clears the plugged drain by pulling out a horrific baby creature.  Wow, this film is a lot better than it sounds.

Charlie and the Rabbit by directors Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck and Robert Machoian. A young boy watches Elmer Fudd hunting rabbits.  And then grabs his BB gun and heads out on his own hunting adventure.  A great story. The scenes of the kid on his bike are magical.  And putting a gun to a rabbit's head was never so shocking.  At least it all ends well.

These were some of my favorites but all the movies in this group were rewarding.  I liked the Swedish lesbian drama of Birthday.  The blue collar reality of Little Accidents. And the story of taboo love in Rob and Valentyna in Scotland.

Movies like this make me want to go out a tell great stories in ingenious ways.  Thanks Sundance.

They say that if you meet your double, you should kill him.

It's just not Sundance if you don't experience at least one weird art film.  One of this year's entry in the weird-art-film genre comes from German director Johan Grimonprez.  Double Take starts with Alfred Hitchcock (and a Hitchcock look alike).  Film of the famous director and clips from his films are woven together with television footage from the cold war and of politicians from the 1960s like Richard Nixon, Nikita Khruschev, and John F. Kennedy. My favorite moments were the clips of Folgers Coffee TV ads from the 60s.  Seriously, I could watch two full hours of these commercials.  Oh, for the good old days, when wives were judged on quality of their coffee.

I don't claim to know what this movie was about. But in the end, I liked the strange mashup of pop culture and politics.  Double Take is like mid-century modern for the film fans.

The good. The bad. And the animated.

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.  It is in this spirit that I'm writing this very short review of the Animated Showcase at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

Let's start with the good.  The hands-down star of the collection was Runaway, a Canadian film by Cordell Barker about a runaway train.  A clever, simple story that's animated with crazy antics that would be at home in a Road Runner cartoon.

Little Dragon by director Bruno Collet was also of note. It's the story of a Bruce Lee action figure come to life.  But even here the story left me wanting an ending.

Beyond that, I didn't like anything. I realize Sundance is about experimentation, but many of these films were so experimental that they just looked like really bad computer graphics. And no one likes bad computer graphics.