Our Report from Sundance

EDITOR'S NOTE: From time to time, we share real-time, from-the-scene reports. First, it’s from Greg and Erin from Sundance!

As you know Erin and I attended the opening weekend of Sundance. For those of you that have never been to the festival it is like one of those Grand Prix endurance races. "How hard is it to sit in a speeding car for 72 hours?" you ask. Well, try it. We saw four films and Ben Affleck. Three of the films I would recommend:

1) Waiting for Superman: The makers of An Inconvenient Truth tackle the decline of public education in America. If this film garners any kind of a wide release teacher's unions should start getting scared. According to this film Democrats and Republicans have both contributed to the current mess but it is teacher's unions that stand stubbornly in the way of cleaning it up. At the Q&A I attended people were ready to lynch the head of the NAHT. Several of this mob included actual teachers who seemed only too willing to pick up their pitch forks. Could this film really work to change public ed in this country?

2) Four Lions: A Jihad Comedy. That is right, a Jihad Comedy. Can you imagine pulling this off? Well, it's a really tricky film.  My kudos come from achieving laugh out loud moments without dismissing the horror of Jihad.  In fact, the dark moments are somehow made even more dark by the comedy and sympathetic view of these protagonists bent on such despicable  acts.     We view these Jihadists with sympathy and (spoiler alert)  ultimately sadness.  I've never seen anything close to it.  A very important film, in my opinion.

3) Cyrus: John C. Reilly and Marissa Tomei are great. Jonah Hill matches both of them beat for beat. Smart, super funny and even tender.