This year’s Sundance Film Festival will likely go down in history as “the one with all the cult films,” meaning literal cult films, like films about cults, not box office flops that later gain traction with college kids who are into dress-up. But in between the more buzzed-about titles like Martha Marcy May Marlene and Sound of My Voice, Sundance 2011 also provided a proving ground for films focused on the intricacies of intimacy – namely, how honesty (and the lack of it) between partners can make or break a relationship. Miranda July’s The Future did it with a twee sweetness, and Joshua Leonard’s The Lie did it with a much darker bitterness. And that doesn’t quite explain the first poster for the film (which Leonard also directed from a T.C. Boyle story and some material from Jeff Feuerzeig that Leonard, Jess Weixler, and Mark Webber cobbled into their own screenplay), which makes the film looks like a new version of The Hangover, starring one man and one “soul crusher” baby. Check it out, along with a mini rant by me about it, after the break.

“Rife with honest moments, spurred by Farmiga-the-filmmaker’s keen eye for shading various relationships in loving, authentic ways, the film transcends the specificity of its setting to evoke the joys and pains of everyday life, and the proverbial search for the meaning behind it.” That’s how our very own Robert Levin describes Vera Farmiga’s directorial debut Higher Ground. Clearly he was one of the many who fell in love with it at Sundance earlier this year. Now you have a chance to fall in love with it by checking out the trailer:

If you were looking for the camp that a school of piranhas could deliver, look elsewhere. The new trailer for Shark Night 3D makes it clear that the filmmakers aren’t joking around (no matter what the title might make you believe). Kids. A lack of clothing. Water sports. Actual water sports. Sadly, there are sharks infesting the waters, and from the looks of the trailer, they might not have just wandered up from the estuary.

A good horror movie is a lot like a good meal. Preferably it’s meaty and delicious, needs a knife to complete, spills a bit of blood, and leaves you satisfied in the end. Or something like that I guess, I survive solely on peanut butter and steak smoothies. Bitter Feast isn’t a gourmet meal served in many courses. Nor is it exactly fast food. It’s kind of like a pretty decent banquet buffet that unfortunately sends you to the toilet right at the end. What could have been an interesting and delightfully macabre film about a chef taking out revenge against an overly harsh food critic misses a few notes and ends with what I called a “shitty cliche ending.”

Gadgeteer? Technophile? Camera guy? Horror Fan? Indie hipster douche? Have we got a story for you!

If there is one thing that we can take away from director Lynn Shelton’s awkward sex comedy Humpday, it is that there is nothing more uncomfortable to watch yet strikingly hilarious than two straight men who set out to have sex on camera.