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As I drove up to Park City from Provo Sunday morning, I reflected on my Sundance experience this year. Last year I sincerely loved every film I saw at the festival. This year? Well, I hadnt been as lucky. I Am Michael and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck missed the mark somewhat. The documentaries What Happened, Miss Simone?, Most Likely to Succeed and Racing Extinction were all really strong, but didnt impact me like last years documentary The Overnighters. Thats the luck of the draw with Sundance: There are hundreds of films showing, and you only get to see a handful.

Then I saw Chuck Norris vs Communism this afternoon.

Wow! What a documentary. It tells the story of communist Russia in the 1980s, and how an underground, illegal, in-state distributor of American films (which were banned) swept the country, changing attitudes about communism and influencing the downfall of the Nicolae Ceauescu regime. It was such a funny, touching, suspenseful film. The way this black market VHS distribution network grows is astonishing, but it shows just how suffocated the Romanian people were under communist rule. My sample size is limited, but I hope this doc gets consideration for the festival awards.

During the film I sat next to a woman who taught at BYU in the 1990s. Shes not LDS, and had interesting stories about what it was like to be an outsider there. Apparently, BYU had more than a few lesbian professors in the 90s, who kept their orientation private. Hows that for gossip?

I also ran into Greg Whiteley, the BYU grad and director of Most Likely to Succeed, in the Marriott Hotel lobby. I actually first recognized his daughter, who plays a key role in his documentary. The film premiered Sunday, and Whiteley told me its been getting a good reception. He also told me Netflix, which produced and distributed his last documentary Mitt, have expressed early interest in distributing Most Likely to Succeed. Time will tell.

Brett Morgan, director of the documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, chatted with me on the phone this afternoon. His documentary didnt include Dave Grohl, Cobains famous Nirvana drummer who went on to form Foo Fighters. In some ways Grohl has become pop cultures grand overseer of rock n roll. His absence as an interviewee was surprising. I asked Morgan about this, and he got noticeably agitated. This was a documentary about Cobain, he said, not Nirvana.

Grohl also wasnt available for interviews until three weeks ago. Morgan told me he has filmed that interview, but working it into the film on such short notice was too difficult. Itll be interesting to see if it makes the final cut once the movie gets a wider distribution. Check back with the Herald next week for a feature on Morgans documentary.

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Sundance Notebook: Communism cant handle Chuck Norris