line with Sundance’s artistic aspirations.
1. New American Realism equals… drugs? For critics, commentators, and most bloggers, there was a lot to celebrate at Sundance 2008. Manohla Dargis (New York Times), tweaked to what she called the “emergence of a new American realism,” praised the Sundance crop this year for pointing a way beyond the twee and solipsistic, the mainstays of Sundance Film Festivals past. But at the same time, Todd McCarthy, in Variety, can’t help but comment on how many films this year feature characters trying, failing, succeeding, or thinking about getting high. American documentaries may be in the midst of a renaissance, and the injustices of the world may call for even closer scrutiny, but the stories America is telling itself seem stranded between a desperate holding tight to the bare bones of experience and the wisps of