Smells Like Indie Spirit: Our Favorite Sundance Movies Of All Time (Part One)

Like Saturday Night Live, people never get tired of complaining about the Sundance Film Festival, comparing it unfavorably to its glory days of yore...and yet, just as Lorne Michaels' 34-season comedy juggernaut (despite decades of grumbling and reports of its imminent demise) has and continues to spawn everything from the Blues Brothers and Bill Murray to 30 Rock and Tina Fey's Sarah Palin impression, Robert Redford's love child has likewise changed the face of American filmmaking for (mostly) better and (sometimes) worse since its inception in 1978, 1981 or 1985 (depending who you ask...especially if you ask our own Phil Nugent).

I was tempted to illustrate this introduction with a sexy naked picture of recent Sundance carpetbagger Paris Hilton tied up in microphone cord to (A) draw the prurient eyeballs of hooksexup.com sex enthusiasts, but also (B) to make a snarky statement about the way Redford's annual celebration of the "indie spirit" is really little more than a high-altitude version of the same old Hollywood rat race, where the usual suspects pimp low-budget versions of the same old crap while patting themselves on the back for their "edgy" artistic integrity at pricy soirees that would fund a dozen projects by the real indie filmmakers shivering in the cold on the wrong side of the velvet ropes separating them from the A-list glitterati.

But, no...instead I chose a still from "Any Given Sundance," because (A) the Simpsons are cooler than Paris Hilton and (B) as a reminder that, for all its faults, Redford's indie film revolution (like the Easy Riders and Raging Bulls of the 1970s American film renaissance) has penetrated mainstream culture and generally expanded the boundaries of what audiences see, both in the art house and (to a certain extent) on multiplex and television screens.

And so, partly to wrap up our extensive coverage of this year's festival and partly to remind ourselves of the hours and hours of fine entertainment Mr. Redford has indirectly unleashed upon the world, this week we here at the Screengrab are hitting the slopes with our FAVORITE SUNDANCE MOVIES OF ALL TIME!

STRANGER THAN PARADISE (1985)

The first Special Jury Prize winner at Sundance way back in 1985 was also the movie that really put Jim Jarmusch on the cultural map. Watching it today, it's easy to see why judges found it so charming, but it's also easy to see how little Jarmusch's overall aesthetic has changed: he's got bigger budgets now and can afford actors who demand bigger paychecks than the goofy Richard Edson and the lovely Eszter Balint (making her film debut here), but his technical approach