I wasn’t expecting that much from Lynn Shelton‘s Laggies. I was actually a bit fearful before tonight’s Eccles screening. Having more or less hated Touchy Feely, I thought she might be on a downturn. But surprise — Laggies is the best Shelton pic since Humpday (’09), and that was essentially a bromance. Laggies is a Keira Knightley movie aimed at women and couples, but I swear to God Shelton and screenwriter Andrea Siegel get it right. The only problem is that Knightley’s character lies her teeth off in almost every scene or something like 80% of the film. She doesn’t lie emotionally or behaviorally in our eyes but she’s almost constantly fibbing to…you know what? This needs a more thorough explanation and I cant tap one out in the back of a moving cab.

Centered, spiritually mature Zen types don’t go in for loud sustained hysterical giggling in cafes and restaurants. Just saying. It’s great to hear people erupt in laughter once or twice, but I always look up and make a face when people do this repeatedly. The louder and more sustained the laughter in mixed company (i.e., with me around), the more emotionally repressed and spiritually suppressed the laugher(s).

Adult World (VOD, limited theatrical on 2.14) is about a “fame-hungry, financially-strapped, would be poet” (Emma Roberts) working at a “run-down adult bookstore” because she needs the scratch. John Cusack (hey, he’s not playing a creepy psychopathic murderer!), Cloris Leachman and Evan Peters costar. HE friendo Scott Coffey (Ellie) directed. What poet who wasn’t born into money isn’t financially strapped (or holding down a day job)? And isn’t being a poet probably the least likely creative path to becoming famous? The only poet whose work I’m familiar with, frankly, is Sophie Black, but that’s because she’s an ex-girlfriend. From way back. Who was born into money.

The first screening of the day, KStew‘s Camp X-Ray, happens 45 minutes from now (12:30 pm) at Park City’s Eccles auditorium. Three more at the Eccles will follow — God’s Pocket, Laggies and Frank. Spotty, shitty or nonexistent wifi at the Eccles means fewer postings. Twitter if nothing else.

Park City’s Yarrow hotel is where a good portion of the Sundance Film Festival press screenings happen, and each and every year I’m appalled at how chilly and drafty it always is in the lobby. Even the makeshift screening room feels underheated if there’s not a full house. I wore my overcoat during last night’s half-filled showing of Dinosaur 13. I’ve hung out in several snow lodges (New England, Germany, Italy, Switzerland) and none have had lobby areas as poorly heated as the Yarrow’s. That said, the bar is warm and the restaurant is fine.

Todd Miller‘s Dinosaur 13 is an intelligent, moderately interesting downer — a story about a group of nice guy dinosaur-fossil hunters in South Dakota getting badly screwed over by the government. Basing the story largely on Peter Larson‘s “Rex Appeal: The Amazing Story of Sue, the Dinosaur That Changed Science, the Law, and My Life,” Miller tells the tale with scrupulous exactitude. The fossilized remains were discovered in August 1990 in the black hills of South Dakota by Larson’s friend, paleontologist Sue Hendrickson (the Rex fossil’s namesake), but the story is mainly about Larson and his paleontologist homies. The film is good and intriguing as far as it goes, but it plods a bit. Especially after it reaches the halfway point and becomes a story about a demimonde of government assholes making Larson’s life hell. We all know the name of that tune. Franz Kafka wrote that tune. Dinosaur 13 is a doc that Tea Party and lefty types can agree on — i.e., there’s nothing like the oppressive hell of being fucked with by the government.

Damien Chazelle‘s Whiplash, which has been hyped as “Full Metal Jacket at Juilliard”, is a raging two-hander about a gifted drummer named Andrew (Miles Teller). Enrolled at an elite Manhattan music school and determined to be not just proficient or admired but Buddy Rich-great, Andrew is a Bunsen burner. We can see from the get-go he’s going to be increasingly possessed and manic and single-minded about the skins. (All great musicians are like this to varying degrees.) On top of which he really doesn’t want to be like his kindly, failed-writer dad (Paul Reiser), and he can’t find peace with a pretty girl (Melissa Benoist) because she isn’t as consumed as he is — too uncertain and unexceptional.

Miles Teller in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, which screened last night at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

That’s combustible enough, but Chazelle turns it up with the villain/angel of the piece — a snarling, egg-bald, half-mad music instructor named Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons). This guy is definitely not sane and yet he knows what it takes to be great. Andrew recognizes this kindred (if dominating) spirit and wham…we’re off to the races. You know these guys are going to butt heads, and that a lot of emotional-psychological blood will be spilt (along with the actual stuff). This is the super-demanding realm of classic jazz. Everyone listening to Rich and Charlie Parker and other legends of that ilk. Playing the hell out of “Whiplash” and “Cherokee” and dreading Fletcher’s wrath. No pikers, whiners or jerkoffs.

Fletcher is a music-academy variation of F. Lee Ermey‘s Sgt. Hartman in FMJ and Lou Gossett Jr.‘s Sgt. Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman — a foam-at-the-mouth Yoda, a perfectionist, a control freak, a rage junkie and torrential hurricane, motherfucker. Terence is the polar opposite of Reiser — his method is to basically goad and berate and terrorize. Give me 110%, asshole, or I will fuck you like a pig. On second thought get the fuck out of my class. The idea is to challenge and push gifted students past their breaking point, and perhaps (if they’re talented enough) to a level of performance that’s higher than they know they’re capable of.