Sundance Film Festival 2026

I wasn't very interested in the lineup but, since this was the final year that Utah would be hosting the Sundance Film Festival, I knew that I had to attend at least one screening to bid farewell to something that has been a part of my life for well over a decade.  I ended up seeing The Weight last night at the Rose Wagner with my nephew and I think it is incredibly appropriate that I ended with a film starring Ethan Hawke because I have seen so many of his films at Sundance over the years!  Both my nephew and I liked it because it feels like an old school Western but it is set in the Pacific Northwest during the Great Depression.  Samuel Murphy (Hawke) is a widower arrested for fighting and sent to a convict labor camp run by Clancy (Russell Crowe).  He is separated from his young daughter Penny (Avy Berry) and he is desperate to get back to her before she becomes a ward of the state and eligible for adoption.  Clancy is impressed by Murphy's ingenuity and offers him an early release if he smuggles gold from a mine run by his associate Taggert (Alec Newman) and transports it through a dangerous forest to a safe location before the federal government can confiscate it.  Murphy agrees and sets off with three other convicts, Rankin (Austin Amelio), Singh (Avi Nash), and Olson (Lucas Lynggaad Tonnesen), two armed guards from the mine, Amis (Sam Hazeldine) and Big (Jeffrey Lee Hallman), and Anna (Julia Jones), an indigenous woman on the run who joins them, on a perilous journey with higher stakes than he imagines.  It is incredibly tense (people jumped out of their seats several times) because they face dangers from nature, from a miner (Cameron Brady) who happens upon them and suspects what they are doing, and shifting dynamics within the group.  It does sometimes get bogged down in between the action sequences but they are great, especially one on a suspension bridge and one during a thunder storm.  Hawke gives a riveting performance that hearkens back to classic Westerns as a rugged and resourceful loner on a mission and the locations are gorgeous.  It was really fun to experience this with a Sundance crowd and I will really miss the festival.

I have so many to choose from but here are some of my favorite memories from the festival:

Whenever I saw a screening at the Rose Wagner, I always tried to sit in the same seat and at one screening I got chatting with a volunteer about my preference.  During the next screening, I noticed that this seat had a reserved sign on it.  The volunteer had put the sign on "my" seat so that I would be sure to get it!

I saw Hereditary at the old Tower Theater which is incredibly atmospheric (and probably haunted) and therefore a great place to see a horror film.  I jumped out of my seat and screamed out loud during an especially tense scene and so did everyone sitting around me.  It is one of the most memorable movie viewing experiences I have had!

When I was teaching, I was able to take my students to the free screenings offered by the Sundance Institute.  One year I had a group who really enjoyed reading Hamlet so I was beyond excited when we were able to see Ophelia.  They loved the film and all of their discussions on the bus ride home comparing it to the play made my teacher heart want to burst!

I am a big fan of the musical Hamilton so I had a fangirl moment when Daveed Diggs, who originated the role of Lafayette/ Thomas Jefferson, showed up for the Q&A after the screening for Blindspotting. I may or may not have screamed when he came to the stage.

I loved being able to talk to people who also have a passion for film while standing in line and I eventually became friends with several people who came to the festival year after year.  I always looked forward to seeing them and I am so glad that I got to connect with a few of them last night!

My favorite films seen at Sundance are Manchester by the Sea, A Ghost Story, Nine Days, Past Lives, and Sorry, Baby.

Sense and Sensibility at Parker Theatre

Last night I spent a delightful evening in Regency England with Parker Theatre's original adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. The death of their father leaves Elinor and Marianne Dashwood (Jasmine Hohl and Isabelle Purdie, respectively) in reduced circumstances so they have no other option but to seek advantageous marriages. The sensible and reserved Elinor silently pines for Edward Ferrars (Truman Schipper), who is expected to marry well by his mother, while the passionate Marianne is swept up, literally, in a romance with the dashing John Willoughby (Spencer Hohl), who needs a wealthy wife after he is cut off by his family for his indiscretions. Both sisters ultimately find happiness when they balance reason with emotion. Elinor finally reveals her feelings to Edward when he is free to propose and Marianne finds the value in real love, rather than impetuous infatuation, with Colonel Brandon (Jordan Palmer). I didn't especially like the adaptation I saw at the Utah Shakespeare Festival several years ago because it made too many changes to the source material but, even though this version also takes a few liberties, I think it remains true to the spirit of the novel and I really enjoyed it. I especially loved the addition of several scenes that show the juxtaposition between Colonel Brandon and Willoughby more fully. I was impressed with the entire cast but the standout for me was Hohl because her Elinor has a very dramatic transformation and the scene where she finally reveals her heartbreak over Edward's engagement to Lucy Steele (Maryn Tueller) is incredibly charged and gave me goosebumps. A lot of the performances are informed by the characterizations in 1995 movie and I laughed out loud at Brian Douros as the overly exuberant Sir John Middleton, Rowena Greenwood as the busybody Mrs. Jennings, Nick Mathews as the disdainful Mr. Palmer, Daniel Summerstay as the clueless John Dashwood (the way the servants continually ignore him is a funny running bit), and Josh Augenstein as the obnoxious Robert Ferrars (his dancing at the ball is absolutely hilarious). I love the way this show is staged with large moving panels that are configured and reconfigured to become various locations and set pieces that are brought on and off stage very efficiently by the ensemble who are costumed as servants. The projections are atmospheric and immersive but they are very muted and I wish that they had been more vibrant. Finally, the period costumes are beautiful (I love the Regency silhouette) with lots of opulent and embellished fabrics (my favorite costume was a gown worn by Elinor with with a row of embroidered flowers down the front of the skirt). Jane Austen is always a good idea so I highly recommend getting a ticket to this show (go here). It runs on Fridays and Saturdays through March 7.

H is for Hawk

Yesterday I went to a matinee of H is for Hawk, an adaptation of the best-selling memoir of the same name by Helen Macdonald, and I found it to be incredibly moving.  Macdonald (Claire Foy) is a fellow at Cambridge University who is grief-stricken over the sudden death of her beloved father Alistair (Brendan Gleeson).  She is assaulted by memories of her father, especially their bird watching excursions together, so she decides to get an Eurasian goshawk, a particularly aggressive bird of prey, in order to keep these memories alive.  She subsumes her grief into bonding with and training the bird she names Mabel which causes her to abandon her research and teaching responsibilities and avoid her worried family and friends.  However, it is when she observes Mabel hunting that she begins to understand the necessity of life and death in nature which leads to acceptance and healing.  This is a very powerful portrayal of grief and I was particularly struck by how the memories of her father would randomly overwhelm Helen when she least expected them because that is my own experience with grief over the death of my father.  Her interactions with Alistair, shown through flashbacks, are so poignant that I had tears in my eyes on more than one occasion (Gleeson gives a lovely performance).  I also loved the strangely compelling interactions between Helen and Mabel (I wonder how long some of these sequences took to film and how much training Foy received because they appear so authentic) and the beautiful cinematography as Mabel flies through the sky hunting for prey.  Foy gives an amazing performance, in my opinion, because, even though it is incredibly restrained, you understand everything that Helen is feeling just by her body language and facial expressions.  This is a very slow and introspective movie so it might not be for everyone but its themes resonated very deeply with me and I loved it.

Shelter

If there is an action movie starring Jason Statham released in January I will be seated so my nephew and I went to see Shelter last night.  It is exactly what I expected and I liked it!  Michael Mason (Statham) is living in self-imposed exile on an isolated island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland for reasons.  His only contact with the outside world is a former Royal Marine with whom he served and his teenage niece Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) who deliver supplies to him every week.  When their boat capsizes during a turbulent storm, Mason is able to rescue Jessie but she sustains an injury that necessitates a trip to the mainland where he is caught on surveillance cameras.  This triggers a response from MI6, including an agent named Roberta Frost (Naomi Ackie) who believes that he is a priority-one terrorist and dispatches an attack force to the island, and Steven Manafort (Bill Nighy), the former director of MI6, who knows who he really is and sends a covert operative named Workman (Bryan Vigier) to kill him.  Mason takes Jessie on the run, calling on contacts from his past to help him, but will he be able to elude MI6 to get her to safety?  The story is both convoluted, with a nefarious plot involving a shady surveillance program called T.H.E.A. authorized by the prime minister (Harriet Walter) and a black-ops organization run by Manafort, and frustratingly vague, with hints about Jessie's identity that go nowhere, but it hardly matters because that is not why audiences see these movies!  The non-stop action sequences are a lot of fun, even if they are not particularly groundbreaking, and I especially enjoyed a sequence on the island involving booby traps, a car chase over rugged terrain, a stylish shoot-out in a nightclub, and two fights involving hand-to-hand combat (and the use of several ordinary objects close to hand).  Statham is his usual taciturn self but I liked the relationship that develops between Mason and Jessie (Breathnach is very appealing) and I always love seeing Nighy.  This is a decent entry in Statham's action filmography (I liked it more than last year's A Working Man but not as much as The Beekeeper) and I recommend it to fans of the actor.

Beetlejuice Jr. at the Empress Theatre

I went to see Beetlejuice Jr. at the Empress Theatre last night and I was so impressed by this clever and energetic production. Beetlejuice (Brittain Heywood) is a lonely demon who is tired of being invisible but, in order to be seen, he needs someone who is alive to say his name three times. He enlists the help of Barbara and Adam Maitland (Mary Layton and Donnie Hankammer), a recently deceased but very mild-mannered couple, and convinces them to haunt their former house which is now owned by Charles Deetz (Carson Hardle) and his daughter Lydia (Gweny Adams). However, Lydia, who is still mourning the recent loss of her mother, is herself quite strange and unusual so she is able to see the Maitlands and Beetlejuice. Chaos ensues when Lydia uses the Maitlands to stop her father from replacing her mother with her life coach Delia (Alice Lopez), when she tricks Beetlejuice in order to get to the Netherworld to find her mother, and when Beetlejuice uses her to bring him back to life. What I loved most about seeing the Broadway touring production of this show is the dazzling special effects and the elaborate sets. I was not expecting the same over-the-top production design at a small community theatre but I was very pleasantly surprised by how well the staging, choreography, costumes, and lighting design enhance the minimal set and immerse the audience is this quirky world. The lighting is particularly effective in the Netherworld scenes and all of the iconic costumes are fantastic. There are even a few fun effects used in the show (I loved the appearance of a sandworm and a shrinker). The talented young cast is also a highlight. The leads are all incredibly confident with tremendous stage presence and this really sells all of their performances, especially Heywood's spirited and entertaining renditions of "The Whole 'Being Dead' Thing," "Say My Name," and "That Beautiful Sound" as well as Adams's emotional versions of "Dead Mom" and "Home" (my favorite songs in the show). The members of the large ensemble do a great job with the dynamic choreography and they are so much fun to watch because they all have wide smiles on their faces and are clearly having a great time performing! Their energy is infectious and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the big musical numbers! This is a great show for the whole family with a surprisingly poignant message about self-acceptance and I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here). It runs at the Empress Theatre on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays through February 7.

Note:  The Empress Theatre very graciously provided me with tickets so I was once again able to bring my sister to this show. She loved it and is becoming more and more impressed with this theatre!