Sundance’s last year in Utah takes us on the road to California, school musicals, and memory lane.

Five years in a row I’ve been to the Sundance Film Festival online, and I was able to grab a few tickets to warm myself up for the upcoming year. I’ll go there in person soon enough, especially when it will be relocating from Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah to Boulder, Colorado (the same place that celebrates BIFF), but for now I’ve got some movies to talk about.

“Little Miss Sunshine” (Now on DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD)

20 years ago, “Little Miss Sunshine” was celebrated at the festival and Fox Searchlight Pictures earned the rights to distribute it, and 20 years later, they were celebrating it again with a special screening and appearances from some of the cast members. I couldn’t go in person, but I have respectively told Steve Carell and Paul Dano that this movie changed my life, and they both thanked me.

It told the story of a dysfunctional family-the Hoover family-who must travel in their shabby VW bus from Albuquerque to California to enter their youngest member into the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Greg Kinnear plays the father and motivational speaker Richard Hoover, Toni Collette is his wife Sheryl, Steve Carell is her gay suicidal brother Frank, Paul Dano is her mute teenage son, Abigail Breslin is Richard and Sheryl’s daughter Olive, and the late Alan Arkin is Richard’s heroin addict father.

“Little Miss Sunshine” made me want to become a film critic, who loves both blockbusters and Indies. It’s a comedy that treats its dialogue with real laughs. Not obligatory comedic words, but real and honest words. It couldn’t be more quotable, even as time moves forward. It knows how to drop F bombs, and it knows how to create a colorful range of characters. Each person has a voice, even the bus can identify itself as a character caught in the middle of the humor and pathos within. It should be celebrated again at the festival, and I feel like an old man knowing that it’s now 20 years old. Only I have no Nazi bullets in my ass.

And now, here are the movies I was able to see from the festival.

“Union County” (Release Date: TBA)

The first film I watched from the festival is “Union County,” which deals with drug addicts, especially in a time of opioids. It’s a somber movie that is more into talking than the obligatory fightings and drug hallucinations. So, don’t expect any Darren Aronofsky or Gaspar Noe trips. Expect some human characteristics regarding those who can get clean, those who can’t, and those who need more help.

Will Poulter stars as Cody Parsons, a young opioid addict in Ohio, who is assigned to a county-mandated drug court program. At this point, he’s currently homeless-sleeping in his car, brushing his teeth with a jug of water, and doing his laundry outside in the woods-as the program’s men’s and homeless shelters are full. His foster brother Jack (Noah Centineo) is in the same program but is in worse shape when he fails his alcohol screening with only a couple of beers and can’t pay his fines. At least they both have jobs at a construction factory. But after a bad night of drugs which resorts in a car accident, Jack is placed in an intensive treatment center, while Cody now has a place at the sober house.

Besides Cody and Jack, we also hear from other people in the Adult Recovery Cort, even real members like Annette Deao are cast in this film. How drugs have ruined their lives and how some members were given a wake up call about how life can be better without them. And for those who can’t be in court in person, because they’re at an intensive treatment center, they’re given video chats. And on a final note, it was filmed in a real drug court, so you can sense some authenticity within the film.

There’s also Anna (Elise Kibler, whose background includes TV episodes for “Daredevil” and “The Night Agent”), who is in the same program and does peer support at the women’s house. After the program, they are respectively thinking of relocating to Columbus for better opportunities. Although, she does asks: “If everybody leaves, then who’s going to be here for the people who can’t?,” and even he agrees on that. And there are no guarantees of these two starting a romantic chemistry, because Anna also has a custody situation to deal with.

And we see the estranged relationship between Cody and his sister Katrina (Emily Meade), who doesn’t know if she can forgive him for breaking into her house to either steal stuff or to do drugs. And she was haunted seeing Jack in a hospital bed.

“Union County” should delve deeper inside this kind of sad world, because the subject matter should hit hard, but it does have a voice and acknowledges what’s underneath the surface. At this point, we’re more concerned about Cody and how he’s dealing with his own treatments and life choices. There are moments when we’re supposed to worry about what he’s doing in certain moments, and there are moments when he does make his speeches with sincerity and truth. And Poulter gives one of best performances in the ways he eases with this emotions and how he delivers the human characteristics in his character.

This is a sad movie, and not every addict will be able to recover or survive. But it’s also well-acted and drawn with convictions by up and coming writer/director Adam Meeks, who sets the recovery story in his hometown. And if Cody can keep moving forward, then you know “Union County” isn’t going to be cynical and unhappy. It wants to speak to those who need a second chance at life, and I’m no addict, but I can sense when a movie like this has a voice. It’s about triumphs overcoming these kind of messes.

“The Musical” (Release Date: TBA)

Don’t let the title “The Musical” fool you. The genre is not a musical, but it does regard a school play that was supposed to be “West Side Story,” but ends up being something offensive, like the 9/11 attacks being lampooned. nd we know when a girl wearing cardboard wings runs into cardboard boxes of the Twin Towers. Think about how “Springtime for Hitler” surprisingly won the audience over in “The Producers.” Now, think about how people would react to the attacks being lampooned here.

All that aside, “The Musical” is also a comedy that provides more anger and revenge than laughs. The set-up regards a disgruntled playwright and middle school teacher named Doug Leibowitz (Will Brill), who tries and fails to patch things up with his ex-girlfriend and fellow teacher Abigail (Gillian Jacobs). He brings her flowers and asks to start over, but she tells him that she’s currently dating his rival Principal Brady (Rob Lowe). That’s when his hatred elevates him.

He also tries and fails to apply for the New York Playwrights Fellowship Application, which is why he calls one of the people behind the committee (Clancy Brown voice cameo on the phone). If his writing was good back then, then why isn’t it good enough now? He tells Doug that the committee think his work is impersonal, and therefore, his moxie and ambitions are raised higher.

As I mentioned before, Doug was working on a school production of “West Side Story,” but he decides to come up with a 9/11 show that could flip off the principal. Something that could destroy his chances of winning the Blue Ribbon of Academic Excellence. He wants to keep this production discreet, and wants his students and cast to not tell anyone about it. After all, he suggests to them: “The superpower of the theater is the element of surprise.”

There are also times when an activist student like Lata (Melanie Herrera) would comment to Doug about his casting decisions, like earlier when he casts a white girl like Cindy (Chyler Emery Stern) as the Puerto Rican heroine Maria in what was supposed to be “West Side Story.” He suggests it’s because of Cindy’s singing voice, and “There are no small parts. Just small actors.” Even the principal wants no controversy.

And the one student he connects well with is Mikey (Nevada Jose), who serves as the stage manager and his confidant.

Sometimes, “The Musical” has that Stanley Kubrick feel with the score as the intensity vibrates. You can sense something is about to crack as the music pulsates, and when emotions are going to be transferred through the main character. And given the tone, I was reminded a bit of last year’s dark comedy “Friendship.” But that film was trying to break form in the buddy comedy genre. This one is angrier, but not really in a comical way. More in an indulging manner.

There are times when Brill’s anger is a little funny, but mostly, it ends up being exhausting. If the film was trying not to give him a redeeming quality, then it’s working. And even when his character claims to find his place after the 9/11 show commences, we still think he’s going to revert back to the same tropes. It’s a shame that I have to prefer Lowe over him, but he’s quite charming playing the principal. An actor who is still charming in his 60s should still play a character of his standards.

I was not a fan of “The Musical,” because of its leading character and concept which still seems like a mean-spirited version of “The Producers.” This is coming from a film critic who saw through the flaws of “Friendship” and laughed his ass off. I didn’t with this movie.

“Rock Springs” (Release Date: TBA)

“Rock Springs” is definitely a midnight horror movie. In fact, it was labeled “Midnight” at the festival. It opens and middles with what looks like some kind of supernatural world with sandy rocks, and a little girl wandering around. We don’t know what is going on yet, which is why we need to keep watching.

We can sense this horror movie wants to fight against asian racism. You can start with an assumption that all Chinese people need to find a Chinese restaurant and a white girl who makes fun of a mute asian girl, and merge the supernatural world with the Rock Springs massacre.

And it’s also the latest horror movie to use the genre to handle grief. We’ve had “We Bury the Dead,” “Bring Her Back,” “Hereditary,” “Midsommar,” “The Babadook,” “Pet Sematary,” “The Changeling,” and “Don’t Look Now,” among others. And now, we have “Rock Springs.”

We begin with a family who relocate to a cabin in the woods in Rock Springs, Wyoming, after a tragedy strikes for them. The young mother is a Vietnamese cellist named Emily (Kelly Marie Tran), her little girl is Gracie (Aria Kim), and her Chinese mother-in-law is Nai Nai (Fiona Fu). They struggling over the death of Emily’s husband, but she tells the child they have to keep going in life.

The old lady believes in the spirits of the afterlife more than her daughter-in-law (“Your mother isn’t Chinese. She doesn’t believe in these things,” she tells Gracie). In fact, she tried to warn her that they shouldn’t leave during “Ghost Month,” especially when she believes her dead son needs guidance to get to the spirit world. But Emily does see visions of her husband saying: “You Shouldn’t be here,” while she’s playing music, and tries to convince herself he’s not really there.

The little girl has been mute for months, and the mother struggles to get her to talk again. She is the one who hurts that prejudice white girl. I can assume she makes fun of Gracie because she doesn’t talk. And she’s the one who truly believes in her grandmother’s spiritual journeys. Even without dialogue, we can sense that she needs to figure out what to believe in the real world.

We also travel back to 1885 during the Rock Springs massacre, when white people-many of whom were immigrants-murdered Chinese immigrant workers on their day off. They were stabbed, shot, burned alive or dead, and even had their Qing Dynasty hairstyles cut off. Benedict Wong and Jimmy O. Yang are among the people trying to escape from those killers.

Some of the most impressive visual effects of “Rock Springs” regards a hand move out of the grass and an eye ball blinking out of the ground. This is all until whatever is connecting the past and the present together forms into something WTF. What is it? I can’t really explain, but I can suspect it has something to do with the family’s recent turmoil.

Tran, Kim, and Fu are all very good at dealing with their characters’ grief. They don’t rely on formulas to do so, they acknowledge about the belief of what the spirit world unfolds. And despite their different ethnicities, they deal with the right Asian themes.

I didn’t understand everything going on in the story, but I was able to acknowledge a lot, and I know when a midnight horror film dares to be different and informative at the same time. We have to see the past and present to see the connection of everything, and it speaks its mind in both English and Chinese languages with truth and authenticity.

“Carousel” (Release Date: TBA)

In the independent circuit, Chris Pine and Jenny Slate have respectively proven to us that they can be as entertaining in them as they can be in commercial films. Let’s not forget that Pine was in “Hell or High Water,” “All the Old Knives,” and “Z for Zachariah,” while Slate was also in “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” “Obvious Child,” “Gifted,” and “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,” among others.

“Carousel” is their first collaboration, and it’s a sweetheart movie that allows these two to carry it. I wasn’t sure what to think of this movie in the early stages, but I was able to see some emotional elements worth checking out. It’s an independent romance with a similar low key vibe as “Materialists,” which was on a different level. This one is more about what divorce and heartbreak does to people and it’s honest.

Pine stars and produces himself as a divorced Ohio father named Noah, who is struggling to keep his family medical practice afloat (“I’m no George Bailey,” he says), and reunites with his high school girlfriend Rebecca (Slate). She was a politician in Washington D.C, and now serves as his anxious teenage daughter Maya’s (Abby Ryder Fortson) debate coach, and she is in the middle of trying to sell her home (with Jeffrey DeMunn and Jessica Harper as her parents).

This moment is a little inferior to how Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson were arguing in “Marriage Story,” but it is handled in a gentler fashion. Noah and Rebecca admit that before they reunited, they were thinking of writing and saying bad things about each other, like him thinking she is the “C” word or her calling him “an emotional terrorist” in what would have been hate mail.

Ever since the divorce, Maya is struggling with her anxiety, getting upset about cutting her finger on a door or forgetting her class project at home. Both of which is like the end of the world to her. These scenes are a bit much to deal with and we should get a better examination of her pathos, but at least the film doesn’t make her out to be the brat that McKenna Grace was acting like in “Regretting You.” It shows her trying to deal with her family drama, as well as using the school debate to help take her mind off things, and Fortson has already proven herself to be a fine young actress with movies like the first two “Ant-Man” movies and “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.”

And we also get Sam Waterston as Noah’s dead father’s friend and co-worker Sam, who is dating his mother (Katey Sagal, Leela and Peg Bundy herself) and is on the brink of retirement. But not before he can give him some words of wisdom about life (“Grief is a nasty business,” he says).

“Carousel” was written and directed by Rachel Lambert, who also made “Sometimes I Think About Dying.” Her next entry has Pine and Slate both giving human and sincere performances. And the fact that her character is a politician in D.C. makes me believe that this film is, in an allegorical sense, a better version of “Ella McCay,” which talked so much that I lost interest in the story ands characters. This movie is able to breathe after each conversation, and therefore, we’re able to acknowledge what life has brought to these former high school lovers.

This is a low key film that draws us in, because we love the leads, but it also draws us in because of the development Lambert provides for them. And we also must appreciate the optimism given in Waterston’s character, because of how he tries to be the sensible one in Pine’s story. He’s not placed there because a drama requires a character like him, but to allow him to listen and sympathize with the lead.

“Carousel” isn’t always going to be easy, but it is going to keep going, and it likes to think things carefully before pushing Pine and Slate into the romance. Think back with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in “When Harry Met Sally” or Chris Evans and Dakota Johnson in “Materialists” They all took the time to spark or reignite their chemistry and they all work.

“Run Amok” (Release Date: TBA)

School shootings are among the serious topics to discuss in our society. How to be prepared, how to overcome the pathos, and what schools are willing to do to prevent them. When I was in school, a codename for a drill was “Mr. Locke, come to the office.” And since it’s been a long time since I’ve graduated from high school and college, I don’t know what schools are like nowadays, but I do get the messages about school shootings, and I’m repulsed by them.

“Run Amok” wants to use that subject matter as a school play, and uses the word “catharsis,” which is the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. There are moments that kept me involved, but there are also times when I’ve gotten tired of the annoyance and cynicism the film tries to push at us.

We meet the high school student Meg (Alyssa Marvin from Broadway’s Appropriate” and “Grey House”), who lives with her lacrosse star cousin Penny (Sophia Torres) and her Aunt Val (Molly Ringwald) and Uncle Dan (Yul Vazquez), after her art teacher mother was killed in a school shooting a decade ago. The kind-hearted music teacher and local hero of the shooting Mr. Shelby (Patrick Wilson) is arranging a commemoration of the tragic event, and she decides to make a musical and a reenactment of it, and even convinces her cousin to regain her singing voice.

Ever since the school shooting, the PTAA (Parent Teacher Arms Association) has teachers carrying guns that shoot rubber bullets. The wood shop teacher Mr. Hunt (Bill Camp) is often scolded for shooting at squirrels that are damaging his bird houses, and when he injures a student named Elton, who was carrying a water gun for a project, he ends up taking a leave of absence.

As I mentioned, Mr. Shelby is the local hero, because he killed the shooter, but he never overexploits himself. In fact, he supports the kids and their attempts to put this pathos behind them. Even he stands up to the cynical principal Linda (Margaret Cho), who is not amused by Meg’s attempts to bring out the pathos of it all. Besides, she wanted her to sing “Amazing Grace” in the first place.

The story represents a lack of answers for why a shooting would take place, and even Nancy (Elizabeth Marvel) the mother of the shooter, can barely provide answers. You can sense the finicky and traumatized appearance and tone of this woman. How would a mother live her life if her child was a killer?

I’ve had my optimism for “Run Amok” when it wants to address a serious subject matter like school shootings, and Marvin does some good work showing us her emotions underneath her dorky and annoying tone. Her character needs to have a voice regarding this kind of pathos. And I also liked Wilson for his sweet nature, and not being the cocky local hero indulged by the fame. In fact, when students chant his name, he tells them to stop.

But I also had my doubts regarding the opening when Meg has a giant harp and her cousin can’t drive her, or her aunt and uncle not acting like loving parents to her until near the end. But those are minor things, because my problem has to do with the film’s choice of cynicism. It gets too cliched when the play has have its downfalls during development and what the director is bringing. And it’s annoying when we need to depict Meg as a teacher’s pet, as if it’s supposed to be an excuse to hide her emotions through who she has lost in the shooting.

“Run Amok” has good spirits and its heart in the right place, but it ends up being overshadowed by its lack of commitment and loses the message of moving forward and guns aren’t the answer during the second half. That’s a shame, because the movie should fight against them.

“Hot Water” (Release Date: TBA)

I admire watching road trip movies about life. Not all movies of the genre have to regard “National Lampoon’s Vacation” slapstick or violence and car chases. They can be about people, the states they travel through, and what unfolds for everyone and everything. That’s certainly the case with “Hot Water,” which is a mother-son road trip movie, but a better one than the Seth Rogen-Barbar Streisand comedy “The Guilt Trip.”

Early in the film, I was feeling some vibes from “The Visitor,” as the main teacher can’t give a student another chance before he finds himself on an unexpected journey through life. Only this time, the teacher is female and also Lebanese. Her name is Layla (Lubna Azabal), who eats clementines as a substitution for smoking cigarettes. And she does it while scolding a student who did a sloppy job on her assignment.

Her son Daniel (Daniel Zolghadri from “Eighth Grade” and “Lurker”) ends up being injured after getting into a fight a school. But being the assailant, he’s immediately expelled, and needs to finish his high school year somehow. Their only recourse to drive half way across the country to California, so he can live with his dad Anton (Gabe Fazio). He may be grounded with no cellphone because of his expulsion, but the movie never annoys about that. In fact, these two are still able to see America for what it is. Let’s forget the racism and pollution for a second, and see it for the nature it celebrates and the whimsical people who pop up. Like when the mother and son visit an earthly woman named Sasha (Dale Dickey), who shows Daniel the joys of being naked in the hot springs.

“Hot Water” was written and directed by Ramzi Bashour, whose background includes short films (“The Trees,” “No One Gets Out of Here Alive”) and grew up in Saudi Arabia where movie theaters were banned until he moved to Beirut. His feature debut is an impressive step-up, because of how he draws the characters who refuses to succumb to cliches and wishes to use their words to express their emotions.

There’s a scene when they reluctantly take in a hitchhiker (producer Max Walker-Silverman, who also made “Rebuilding” and “A Love Song.” ), and they ask him to leave because he smells bad (“Well of course I smell bad, he shouts). And when he refuses to leave the car, Daniel threatens to hit him with his hockey stick, which sets off a range of emotions for both the mother and son. But it doesn’t have to act all hostile about everything.

Maybe we could have gotten more time for them to see the states they’re visiting, but I think the road trip itself can be identified as a character. One trying to learn about the mother and son, and how close they can get the longer their journey gets. There’s even the suggestion to spend time with your mother while you can.

I’ve already taken that message long before this movie. I’m glad I still have my mother, and I’m glad I got to spend time with both my grandmothers before they passed away this decade. Take the time you can with your mother or grandmother. Either way, life has a lot to unfold for you.

And throughout this journey, Azabal and Zolghadri are both excellent when they develop and don’t give us the silent treatment. We want to hear from them, and we want to support them in any way we can. And we should make sure he doesn’t turn the car lights off when driving in the dark.

“The Incomer” (Release Date: TBA)

Winner of the NEXT Innovator Award

I was expecting a lot of things out of”The Incomer,” which is a Scottish comedy about siblings who live on an island like birds. Their parents, who come from the mainland, have told them many stories of folklore, but I don’t even think they taught them any manners if they do meet new people. I don’t even think they wanted their kids to meet anyone off the island.

I was expecting it to be a dark comedy with a similar vibe as “Trainspotting,” and a lead like Domhnall Gleeson. But I didn’t expect it to have an echo of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” nor did I anticipate that the siblings would still act like children, even in their adulthood. I guess it has its own meaning of the word “original,” and that’s what I find most appealing about the film.

But before I get ahead of myself, we meet two siblings-Isla (Gayle Rankin) and Sandy (Grant O’Rourke from “Outlander” and more recently “Grow”)-who have been living on a remote Scottish island for 30 years. They survive on eating seagulls, give their blessings by shouting CAW!!!!, and prepare to face their enemies-visiting people, whom they call “incomers.” And to prepare for battle, they dress up in black and white rags to form as giant birds and hold clubs. They call themselves Gulls of Auk Isle.

The latest incomer is Daniel (Gleeson), an awkward land recovery coordinator, who is sent to tell the siblings of their relocation to the mainland by his boss (Michelle Gomez). He doesn’t teach them their Ps and Qs, but he does teach them about his version of “The Lord of the Rings,” what a vegan is, and how good a banana is. But mostly, he’s trying to convince them that there’s more to life than living on an island with seagulls as food and very limited resources.

Throughout this movie, Sandy is haunted by a humanoid seal folklore known as the Finman (John Hannah), who tries to lure her into the sea. When Daniel decides to teach her to swim, a jumpscare has to emerge. But I knew the Finman would appear at some point. I like to imagine if this was a Scottish film spoken in Scottish Gaelic, and the creature was speaking in that language as well. After all, I remember “The Quiet Girl” being the first Irish film to be Oscar nominated in the International Feature category, I can assume because of how it spoke in Irish Gaelic. So maybe they can still try to preserve the language, and “Kneecap” was an advocator of it. The Finman segments are a nice touch to “The Incomer.”

I grew exhausted of Isla’s behaviors, which require her to act all angry and even injuring Daniel when he tries to kiss her and she thinks he’s attacking her. No apologies are given from both of them. But Rankin is very good at representing a woman who may not have been happy all these years on the island, and I like her chemistry with Gleeson, who adds some wizard fanboy appreciation and honesty. And I’ve never heard of O’Rourke before, but he is very funny and whimsical, and open to all the new things the Incomer is suggesting to the siblings.

Writer/director Louis Paxton (whose background includes short films like “Dollface” and “Satan Has a Bushy Tail”) was inspired by his family’s Orcadian heritage and a family trip he took to an island abandoned in the 70s and learning about siblings who lived there. And in “The Incomer,” he provides a lot of laughs, warmth, a fight against cynicism, and absurd characters who manage to delight you almost every step of the way.

These are the movies I saw at the Sundance Film Festival. I may not have seen as much as the late Roger Ebert or Patrick Beatty would, but I still do my best to give you guys the scoop on what’s good and what’s bad. And you can expect updated full reviews of my movies, when they get closer to their release dates.

On a closing note, thank you Robert Redford for founding the festival. You will truly be missed.