SUNDANCE 2010: Catfish, Blue Valentine, Winter's Bone, Buried, Boy, Cyrus, Howl, Get Low, I'm Here, The Company Men

'[Winter's Bone] Debra Granik’s blend of low-budget regional realism and crime thriller is an absolute knockout, for me the narrative film of the festival so far. Young Jennifer Lawrence is sensational as Ree, fierce teenage scion of an Ozark family of bootleggers, outlaws and meth-cookers' — Salon

'The advance word from Sundance on “Blue Valentine”—a romantic drama by Derek Cianfrance in which a couple on the rocks (played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) revisit their relationship in flashbacks—has been very favorable.' — The New Yorker

'Overwhelmingly sad, honest, creepy and ultimately hopeful, Catfish is easily the most buzzed-about documentary of the Sundance Film Festival so far... Catfish is a must-see for the Friend-Me-Now generation, as well as a striking portrait of a modern-day online relationship' — Cinematical

'Earlier tonight I caught the midnight world premiere of Rodrigo Cortés' Buried, the stuck-in-a-coffin film starring Ryan Reynolds. In short, it was phenomenal... I already knew it was set entirely inside a coffin where Reynolds is stuck and buried, but the big question is if they could actually pull off a 90 minute film set entirely in a coffin. They did. They not only pulled it off, but it's an amazing film.' — First Showing

'Guided by pitch-perfect performances from Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, along with one of Ben Affleck's finer roles, The Company Men is a sobering journey into how unsafe all of our jobs really are. It doesn't particularly tell a happy story, but that's the "nature of business," as they say.' — Film.com

'Given the red-hot politics of the gay marriage issue, her timing is arguably perfect, and at any rate the movie is worth the wait. Cholodenko gets memorable performances from Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as the flawed, self-involved but profoundly human partners in a long-running relationship that’s hitting one of those slippery, middle-age danger zones' — Salon

'Cyrus becomes a dark, poignant, sometimes hilarious war dance as [John C Reilly, Marisa Tomei, and Jonah Hill] walk the line between creepy and sympathetic. Each member of this awkward triangle teeters somewhere between bare honesty and furtive manipulation as he or she lets loose all manner of dysfunctionality.' — Carpetbagger

'A little while ago I emerged from Taika Waititi's Boy, which is now, I've decided, the other strong-recommend film I've seen so far at Sundance 2010Waititi has a little bit of Wes Anderson in him. The movie is as freshly felt and stylistically alive as Bottle Rocket and Rushmore did in the mid to late '90s' — Jeffrey Wells

'Spike Jonze’s new half-hour short film titled I’m Here is a robot love story celebrating a life enriched by creativity...The film is sweet, charming and surprisingly naturalistic, a mix of a romantic fairytale and the sad reality of blind love.' — Slash Film

'Intelligent and highly respectful of its central character and his titular landmark poem, "HOWL" is an admirable if fundamentally academic exploration of the origins, impact, meaning and legacy of Allen Ginsberg's signal work. It is also an intriguing hybrid of documentary, narrative and animated filmmaking' — Variety

'Aaron Schneider's Get Low [is] a first-rate backwoods American drama with a touch of whimsy. Superbly acted by Robert Duvall , Bill Murray, Lucas Black, Sissy Spacek and Bill Cobbs. An eloquent, plain-spoken, true-heart thing about values, friendships, backstories and buried business' — Jeffrey Wells

Vanity Fair's Julian Sancton, meanwhile, has assembled a list of indie-film tropes and the Sundance movies that employ them:— Car accidents (Hesher, Welcome to the Rileys, Nowhere Boy, Enter the Void, Blue Valentine, Animal Kingdom, Boy); Dead parents, usually by car accident (Hesher, Enter the Void, Welcome to the Rileys, Night Catches Us, Boy, Nowhere Boy, Animal Kingdom, Winter's Bone); Dead children, usually by car accident (Welcome to the Rileys, I Am Love, Enter the Void, Night Catches Us, Dead pets, all by car accident (Boy, Blue Valentine); Deadbeats (Hesher, Blue Valentine, Boy, Sympathy for Delicious); Slovenly beards indicating despair (Hesher, Blue Valentine, Sympathy for Delicious, Enter the Void, Douchebag); Prominent cigarette-smoking (Welcome to the Rileys, Blue Valentine, Enter the Void, Nowhere Boy, Hesher); Sexless marriages (Welcome to the Rileys, Blue Valentine); Use of the song "You and Me" by Penny & The Quarters (Blue Valentine, Night Catches Us) and Kristen Stewart as a runaway (Welcome to the Rileys, The Runaways). The Carpetbagger adds: a New York setting (Holy Rollers, Please Give, The Extra Man, Howl, HappyThankYouMorePlease); Dept of Eagles and/or Grizzly Bear on the soundtrack (Blue Valentine, Jack Goes Boating), and Kristen Stewart in smudged eyeliner (Welcome to the Rileys, The Runaways).