Bill Haney’s sobering, engrossing documentary The Last Mountain details a practice that has only recently garnered coverage in America although it threatens to endanger the drinking water of tens of millions of Americans. Mountaintop removal – which the coal industry endorses because it ensures maximum profit in the most efficient manner – involves blasting off the tops of mountains to have easier access to the coal seams within those mountains. In West Virginia, where the practice threatens to ruin Coal River Mountain, the last mountain near the homes of a small but determined tribe of activists, the coal industry is particularly powerful, although Haney points out in the film how prevalent coal plants are throughout most of the United States.

Judging from the coverage about them, you get the sense that some of the directors and actors associated with the mumblecore movement would rather lounge on a bed of nails than hear that term again. It seems as if mumblecore, the genre of low-budget, sexually frank, microscopically intimate movies about characters trying to define their lives, usually made with a director’s friends and even family, is something those directors and actors used to do, not something they still claim as their own. Then there’s 29-year-old Joe Swanberg, who—more than the Duplass brothers, Greta Gerwig, Jess Weixler, or Andrew Bujaski—has kept the mumblecore torch burning.

The summer of 2009 was supposed to usher in a new age of noticeable and lasting democracy in Iran. A groundswell of optimism for real societal change was roaring through the country in anticipation of new presidential elections, and many thought the overthrow of the economically and politically disastrous administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was imminent. This “green wave” of reform grew to become a formidable force, taking to the streets en masse with a thunderous and self-assured voice for real and lasting change and a new beginning for Iran.

British comedian and filmmaker Richard Ayoade is perfectly aware how sappy and indulgent some coming-of-age films can be. Submarine, his first narrative feature, is a coming-of-age movie, set in Wales. “Often coming-of-age films tend to be based on the filmmaker or author and there’s this tendency for the character to be sainted,” Ayoade says.

The opening to director Kelly Reichardt’s film Meek’s Cutoff sets a grim scene—a group of pioneers arduously carries their belongings across a river, while a man carves a message into the bark of a dead tree: “LOST.” Meek’s Cutoff is based on the true story of the pioneer group led by Stephen Meeks, a guide who promised to lead them through a shortcut on the Oregon Trail in 1845. A Sundance Film Festival veteran, Reichardt (River of Grass, Old Joy) applies quiet atmospheric shots of the barren plains to illustrate the loneliness and fear of the pioneers (played by Michelle Williams and Bruce Greenwood).

Taking a step (or two) that is new, the team behind James Franco’s installation Three’s Company: The Drama premiered a cheekily re-enacted episode from the beloved 70s sitcom at last night’s opening party for New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival. The four-wall projection installation normally features doctored and sonically remixed footage from the actual show, but this special screening featured Franco and company in slapdash drag, reinterpreting the show’s broad comedic dialogue as a breathless, self-serious soap opera. A small crowd crammed into a shoebox replica of Jack Tripper’s living room, spilling into the adjoining exhibits to complement the haphazard, impromptu spirit of the film, which stars an asymmetrically blonde Franco as Jack, a bearded man (Tyler Danna) as short-shorts-wearing Chrissy, and Franco’s own assistant, Dana Morgan, as Janet.

Saying that Tom McCarthy’s moving new film Win Win is a wrestling movie would be like saying that The Wizard of Oz is about a pair of red sequined shoes. There may be a lot of wrestling in it, and nail-biting turns of the plot may take place on a wrestling mat, but Win Win is really about the modern American family and the sometimes strange and unexpected ways a family becomes itself. Paul Giamatti plays a strapped New Jersey attorney who agrees to become the guardian for an elderly client, but he moves him into a retirement facility just as his client’s abandoned grandson has fled his drug-addled mother in Ohio and plopped himself on his grandfather’s doorstep.

Director (and hard working actor) Michael Rapaport premiered his documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest to a pumped audience at the Temple Theatre on Saturday night, followed by an emotional Q&A. Rapaport brought up Phife Dawg, a member of the pioneering hip-hop group, and shared the mic with him.Rapaport made sure to acknowledge all the film’s producers, insisting he did not make the film alone.

As I gear up for another Sundance Film Festival, it brings back memories of my time at the 2007 Composers Lab (this year more than the previous years I’ve been to the Festival because Circumstance, the film I worked on during the Lab, is a U.S. Dramatic Competition entry).

What’s the most casual, intimate, stimulating, and surprising setting to have a conversation with the people behind the films of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival? Each morning at 10:00 a.m. at Filmmakers Lodge, Cinema Café Presented by Chase Sapphire gathers up a couple of interesting folks to chat about interesting things.

The great (and rough) thing about the Festival is the total immersion of films and events over 10 days in the sun and snow. Great for your soul, rough on the body. Here’s some stuff from what I think was the last 24 hours.

An effective film score moves seamlessly with a film’s images, imitating the ebb and flow of a film’s tone, or offering a restless, vibrant counterpoint to it. We usually think that a film score goes about its job without thrusting itself to the forefront—except for when it does, and even then, it’s still augmenting the story, involving the viewer more deeply in the experience of a film. But music can often be overlooked at a film festival.

You may be aware that the Sundance Film Festival couldn’t operate without the army of volunteers who make it possible to produce the Festival every year. Anyone who’s been uncertain about which shuttle bus to board, which line to stand in at a Festival venue, or attended a Festival screening has been helped by a Festival volunteer.
The numbers behind the Festival’s volunteer operations are impressive, despite the ubiquity of the volunteers during the Festival: there are 1,650 volunteers at this year’s Festival, about 350 different kinds of jobs those volunteers need to do, and approximately 5,000 shifts that need to be filled during the 10 days of the Festival.

Although Sundance Film Festival Director John Cooper explained at yesterday’s Day One press conference that 2011 is the first year that films from all of the Festival’s competition sections kicked off the 10-day celebration, Thursday night was more bustling than ever, with films from the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary competitions, along with one program of shorts.