The word out of Sundance, this past January, was that Celine Song's debut feature "Past Lives" was an absolute masterpiece. One critic I'm friendly with maintained it wasn't just the best film at this year's festival, but the best film they had ever seen at Sundance, period. With every rapturous declaration, I gnashed my teeth further: While a great deal of Sundance was available to critics via the virtual portal, this film was one of the few exceptions. Its distributor, A24, had made it so, and were even more unwavering when it came to the flood of press requests for a screener after its premiere. It made a few brief rounds at Sundance in-person, and then the studio shut it down until months later, upon its release.