"Resembling an action genre re-dux of ‘Alive,’ but without the complex allegory or spiritual underpinnings, the movie stars Liam Neeson as a lone-wolf wolf expert employed with “ex-cons, drifters, and assholes” on an Alaskan oil rig."

"Sleepwalk With Me is a startling debut that takes Birbiglia's already successful stage production and presents it to larger audiences than a limited run off-Broadway show could ever provide. Mike has a knack for finding the comedic in everyday experience, and he captures that ability with confidence and grace, and pairs it with his absurd, yet genuine dream sequences that bring a slight air of worry despite their obvious humor."

"Every once in a while, a great director, an auteur even, will helm such a dastardly atrocious film, that you can’t possibly comprehend how such a work could come into being. The great Stephen Frears has such a film on his impeccable resume with this latest turkey, Lay the Favorite."

"Arbitrage is defined as “the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same securities, commodities, or foreign exchange in different markets to profit from unequal prices.” It's also a big no-no and the title of Nicholas Jarecki’s fictional feature debut."

"Excision is a hilarious, character driven flick, and one that manages to climax with an effective chilly final shot."

Winner of the 1982 Palme d'Or by proxy for Yol (he was imprisoned during production and gave detailed directions to Şerif Gören, the 'official' director, on how to make the film), Güney is the most influential Turkish filmmaker in the country's history, and, frankly, still probably the greatest of them all (Ceylan may well surpass him, though, especially if he makes any more films on the plane as Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, but that's a debate for another time and place).

" Robot and Frank, the feature debut of director Jake Schrier, sounds like it has the potential to land in independent cinema quirk hell, but surprisingly manages to hit all the right notes with its quiet arc. While it’s mostly a comedy featuring light dramatic streaks and science-fiction buttressing, at its core it features a much more melancholy tone, only furthered by an excellent turn from Frank Langella."

"While often derided as imitative of such American-made creature features as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Them - an odd criticism since all of these films were actually made at about the same time - Godzilla upped the ante by cashing in not only on a nation’s primal fears, but its recent experience with mysterious forces of mass destruction."

"Jones and McCormack's script continuously rejuvenates us with Celeste and Jesse's many character quarks, but the film is entrenched in the idea of coming to terms with deep regret. Despite its often lighthearted feel, the story is about a divorce that no one actually wants, and the chemistry found on screen makes it that much more tragic."

McCarthy’s debut is evidence that short films are indeed an art form and, if successful, do not necessitate a feature length running time. In fact, the tightest elements abound in the first third of the film, which shares the narrative of the short. McCarthy certainly nails a decent creepy atmosphere in his first few frames, but this convoluted turkey quickly kills any genre frills it tries to master.

"Recalling films like the 1935 Claude Rains’ starrer, The Clairvoyant or the underrated Séance On A Wet Afternoon, (and, strangely, maybe even a bit of De Palma’s The Fury, if only a Bernard Herrmann score could have accompanied the film), Cortes gives us an excessive amount of window dressing in its first half, only to pull the rug on us with one indefatigably head scratching conclusion. And this is what will either determine your reading of the film as convoluted or harebrained brilliant."

"Director Ava DuVernay returns with her sophomore feature, Middle of Nowhere, less than a year after her awesome yet terribly unappreciated 2011 debut, I Will Follow, and also a film as equally nuanced about loss and love."

"Kobayashi's nonchalant writing and deft direction of his first time actors make About A Pink Sky a solid debut, but the intimacy and inner conflict he creates with a shallow focus field and hand held cinematography brings the picture up a notch. Through teenage reckless abandon and a world stripped of both visual and aural extraneous noise, Kobayashi is able to remove the social shields of youth to unveil one of humanity's greatest gifts, compassion and understanding that beams through the awkward fog of aged humor."

Brit Daniel Mulloy is an award-winning short filmmaker (over 80 fest awards folks) who belongs to both the extended Sundance filmmaking family and a celluloid loving family of his own -- we've featured his sister Lucy and her debut film, Una Noche which is headed off to Berlin next month. We've been keeping tabs on the helmer since 2006's "Antonio’s Breakfast," and it was last year where I got to speak to Mulloy about what should be the last of a string of shorts, before he embarks on the feature filmmaking portion of his career.

Gerardo Naranjo's savage, bullet riddled, all-encompassing torrid thriller featuring a full scale border-war demonstrates the prowess of an auteur filmmaker who up until 2011 was labeled as an art-house rebel with the low budget experimental "Drama/Mex," and French New Wave influenced Voy a explotar. In comparison with these previous entries, Miss Bala counts as a monumental shift way in aesthetic, shape and form. With a brilliantly choreographed outline, Naranjo borrows from fact, takes a piercing/critical stance and depicts a society that is held hostage via a symbolic lead figure, who at times emblematically represents the "route" nature of the drug trade.

We've collected a list of Twitter accounts from the filmmakers, actors and folks behind the scenes in the U.S. Drama/Doc Comps, Premiere categories and NEXT section. Click on the twitter accounts (below) to follow folks such as Christine Vachon, Mike Birbiglia, the Tim and Eric guys for some lively feeds where the secrets of Park City will be revealed. And don't forget to follow the IONCINEMA.com team @ioncinema -- Nicholas Bell (NB), Eric Lavallee (EL) and myself, Jordan Smith (JS) will be tweeting from this channel.

Being a fan of the filmmaker, the principle actor and several key indie filmmaking members behind the scenes, we're proud to have your first look at the festival one sheet poster for For Ellen - the U.S. Dramatic Competition feature film from So Yong Kim. In the one sheet designed by Gregory Homs (who designed one-sheets for A Room with a View, Home Of The Brave), the spatial dimensions in the shot expound on the central characters' solace (Paul Dano's character of Joby appears to be torn by his past, but his forthcoming future as well)...

"While everything on the screen is likely based on fact, this portrayal of his life evokes the trite characterizations and sympathetic sucker punches typically reserved for only the most schmaltzy Hollywood dramas, and ignores any elements that might paint a negative image of the leader. It isn't quite propaganda, but it is a bit surprising that the film wasn't funded by Lula himself."

"We behold all of the unpleasant physical trainings and the grand achievement of a successful space voyage, and subliminally we are told that if you dream big, anything can happen. Unfortunately, most of us will never be millionaires with the privilege to spend without repercussions, and watching Garriot do so with such egregious waste is often downright annoying."

Incrementally perfecting his stylistic and narrative approach, in Japon and Battle in Heaven, Carlos Reygadas examined our will to live, defined how compassion and sympathy can sustain itself in dire trying moments, and he painfully, unflinchingly reminded us that there is nothing romantic about cruelty found in nature (violence brought about by humans). In his third feature, he examined such themes under the weight of the world or the gods above -- in my books the cinematic miracle known as Silent Light defies classification as it reaches far beyond the film patronage experience. Working with DP Alexis Zabé, with Post Tenebras Lux (literal translation, Light After Darkness), we should expect strong imagery, a deeply personal journey and a composition that the filmmaker described as “an expressionist painting where you try to express what you're feeling through the painting rather than depict what something looks like."