A 10.22 piece by The Wrap‘s Sharon Waxman declares that Sundance ’14 hasn’t delivered any “breakout buzzy” films. Not by my yardstick. I’ve seen five that easily qualify — Whiplash, The Skeleton Twins, Laggies, Boyhood and Life Itself. Plus I found The Battered Bastards of Baseball delightful (as well as obvious material for a feature if anyone wants to give it a shot). And you could add The One I Love for at the very least delivering a metaphorical observation about how relationships tend to evolve, etc.

Waxman claims that “while the festival had glimmers of excitement, the movies were — in the aggregate — interesting but not inspiring, thought-provoking but not thrilling” — nope.

On top of which Marshall Fine wrote this morning that the 3D The Girl from Nagasaki is “bold, experimental, engagingly weird…the most adventurously artistic vision I’ve seen in years. It’s destined to be a movie for critics, rather than audiences, I’m afraid, because the public appetite for more oblique entertainment simply doesn’t exist on the scale necessary for a 3D release in theaters.”