<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"FacebookPinterest\n\n It's the middle of January, when Hollywood studios dump their worst films in mostly-empty multiples, and everyone in Indiewood brings their down parkas and downer movies to Park City, Utah. Nostalgists whine: \"It's too commercial!\" \"It was better in the '89!\" \"The films are depressing.\" With all due respect, screw them. The last few years, the festival has introduced us to Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Olsen, and Carey Mulligan\u2014and that's just the beautiful leading women. Odds are, all of your favorite actors have premiered their best films here recently, from Ryan Gosling and Anton Yelchin to Steve Carell and Michael Shannon. So what if it's freezing? With the explosion in affordable digital filmmaking and distribution, the competition is stiffening\u2014and that's only good for filmmakers. So forget the whiners, there are reasons to be optimistic. In fact, here are twelve for this year's festival, which kicks off tonight.\n\n\n\n 1. Because Chris Rock falls in love with Julie Delpy\n\n It's now well known that Chris Rock has a thing for French films and directors\u2014but if anyone says they predicted that he'd be starring in a comedy as the friend of Julie Delpy, they're lying. 2 Days in New York, the sequel to Delpy's effortlessly charming 2 Days in Paris, just feels right. Delpy, who broke your heart in Before Sunrise and Before Sunset with Ethan Hawke, is, by far, the best comedic actress Rock has ever starred opposite. Here's hoping they have chemistry.\n\n 2. Because Spike Lee is going old school\n\n Not only does Spike's new film Red Hook Summer revisit the same Brooklyn that he roamed in his first films, Lee straps on the Air Jordans to play Mookie again, too. Even more old school, he skipped the studios and is trying to sell the film out of the festival, just like the film-school kid he once was.\n\n 3. Because Ari Graynor is talking dirty in a phone-sex comedy\n\n For a Good Time, Call... is written by Seth Rogen's wife, Lauren Miller, who co-stars with Graynor as two hard-on-their-luck ladies who turn to 1-900 to pay their bills, bills, bills. Rogen and Justin Long play their titillated beaus.\n\n 4. Because Aaron Paul doesn't have to be Walt's bitch anymore\n\n In Smashed, Paul finally gets to step outside the cruel, brilliant universe of Breaking Bad and into a starring role opposite Mary Elizabeth Winstead, in James Ponsoldt's drama about a married couple struggling with addiction.\n\n 5. Because LCD Soundsystem is back, at least for 90 minutes\n\n The documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits will attempt to unexplain the inexplicable and unscrew the inscrutable: Why the hell did James Murphy kill off one of the best bands of our generation?\n\n 6. Because Lizzy Caplan is back\n\n Party Down loyalists, stop mourning for a second: That movie might never happen, but at least Caplan is starring in Bachelorette, an antic comedy with Kirsten Dunst and Isla Fisher, and Save the Date, a comedy about sisterhood with Alison Brie.\n\n 7. Because Peter Jackson took a break from Middle Earth to produce a documentary\n\n West of Memphis, Amy Berg's documentary about the wrongfully convicted West Memphis Three, rides into the festival on a historic overturned conviction and a wave of good word-of-mouth. Peter Jackson is strongly behind the goth-accented film, perhaps because it's about what can happen to folks who look like they read a lot of Tolkien.\n\n 8. Because Antonio Campos could be the next big thing\n\n This year, New York filmmaker Antonio Campos has been everywhere with his production partners at Borderline Films, stumping for Martha Marcy May Marlene\u2014but many have been waiting for the follow-up to his precocious, Cannes-approved debut Afterschool. His new film Simon Killer stars Brady Corbett as a young college grad who tumbles into the dark side of Paris, with help from a prostitute, played by Mati Diop.\n\n 9. Because three terrific films from other fests are making their stateside debuts\n\n Oslo, August 31 is Norwegian standout Joachim Trier's heartbreaking follow-up to Reprise, perhaps the most exciting debut of the last decade. Lynn Shelton's Your Sister's Sister was every bit as sexy-funny as her debut, and mashed up a hilarious love triangle with Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt, and Rosemarie DeWitt. And The Raid, an Indonesian action flick about policemen who raid a building full of baddies, is simply the most bad-ass, old-school, crack-a-skull-against-a-linoleum-floor action flick I've seen in years.\n\n 10. Because So Yong Kim is one of indie film's most underrated directors\n\n Korean-American director So Yong Kim doesn't make noisy films that demand a whole lot of attention, but her subtly calibrated indies In Between Days and Treeless Mountain are nonetheless two of the best low-budget features of the last decade. Now that she's got Paul Dano, Jon Heder, and Jena Malone starring in her new film about a hardscrabble musician locked in a custody battle, we'll see if she makes some more noise.\n\n 11. Because actor Josh Radnor is actually a good director, too\n\n Did you see Happythankyoumoreplease? Perfectly likeable, the How I Met Your Mother dude's debut broke the actor-who-wants-to-direct curse by not sucking\u2014despite a few shaky performances. The reason to believe his second film, Liberal Arts, might be even better is that he's scored a terrific cast: He will star opposite Elizabeth Olsen, Zac Efron, Allison Janney, and Richard Jenkins.\n\n 12. Because Rashida Jones might finally get the leading role she deserves\n\n Jones seems poised to clutch that next ring of stardom. Could it happen with Celeste and Jesse Forever? She'll co-star opposite Andy Samberg as one half of a divorcing couple."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/sundance-film-festival-best-movies>