The two most important events of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival were (a) the debut of Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester–by–the–Sea, a masterful, Oscar-calibre drama which was acquired by Amazon (and which two days ago was already being partly dismissed by Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson for not being commercial enough for the rubes), and (b) the debut of Nate Parker‘s absurdly over-hyped The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent climate of p.c. terror, generated by comintern types who seized upon Birth reactions as a political antidote to the OscarsSoWhite brouhaha back in Los Angeles. It took two or three days before saner, less ecstatic reactions to Parker’s film began to sink in and affect the conversation.

Sundance ’16 will also be remembered (in my head at least) for (c) the two Weiner flicks — Todd Solondz‘s reprehensible Weiner-Dog as well as the first rate Weiner, a doc about the downfall of Rep. Anthony Weiner; (d) the two Christine pics — Antonio Campos‘ fact-based Christine (which contains a first-rate, Spirit-nomination-deserving performance by Rebecca Hall) about the late Sarasota newscaster Christine Chubbuck, and Kate Plays Christine, a doc; (e) the debut of the Sundance film-geek term “boner buddies“; and (f) the ultra-thin-sliced chicken episode at Fresh Farms.