As the weather gets grayer and study period begins, look no further than Cornell Cinema for interesting and thought-provoking films to fill the intellectual void that the end of classes brings and that the mindless memorization of studying only makes deeper. The Sundance Selects series — a series of films featured at this year’s Sundance Film Festival — continues at Cornell Cinema with three unique and diverse films that have little in common apart from their Sundance origins. From an Australian claymation to a political documentary, the continuation of the Sundance Series offers movies that will appeal to every mood, and more importantly, to every type of study break.

For fans of animation, there’s Mary and Max, an Australian claymation that chronicles an unlikely friendship between a nerdy eight-year-old Australian girl — Mary Dinkle (voiced by Toni Collette) — and a forty-four-year-old obese New Yorker with Asperger’s Syndrome — Max Horowitz (voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman). When lonely Mary finds Max’s address by chance in a phonebook, she writes to him and begins what will turn into a twenty-year correspondence.

In Mary’s quest for acceptance and for the answers to the many questions her alcoholic, chain-smoking mother and taxidermy-obsessed, dead-beat father are unable to answer, she turns to Max. Some questions are comical. Believing that babies in Australia come from beer mugs, she asks if babies come from Cola cans in America. Most of her questions, however, are just insightful. Why is she bullied? What is love? How do you find it?

Despite distances, both geographical and metaphorical, Mary and Max are able to help each other navigate the difficult world. What may appear a bizarre and inaccessible premise becomes in the hands of its filmmaker Adam Elliot a charming and highly relatable tale about friendship. Ultimately, the movie is one which glorifies understanding, compassion and, ironically (given that the main characters are both social rejects) humanity. And it does all of this without stooping to any clichés.

If animation doesn’t appeal, however, or if you’re looking for something a bit lighter, then try the British film Unmade Beds. Directed by Alexis Dos Santos, Unmade Beds follows the intersecting lives of twenty something-year-olds in London. The two main characters, both squatters in the same sprawling apartment along with fifteen or so others, are foreigners to London, each hoping to find something different. For Belgian Vera, London is the perfect place to forget an old boyfriend, and look for new love. For Spanish Axl, London is the city where hopes to find his estranged father, who left him when he w­­­as still a child.

As the title suggests, the characters are messy. Moving from one bed to the next, their unmade beds illustrate that instead of doing the menial tasks of life, Axl and Vera are simply trying to live. Each night offers a different bed, and each morning a new chance to leave it for the streets of London where (almost) anything is possible.

But taking his cues from French cinema, the plot in Dos Santos’ film is rather unimportant. What makes the movie mesmerizing is not its plot (which is relatively minimal), but rather, the mood it evokes. With a beautiful soundtrack, and dizzyingly bright and surreal filming, the life of the young squatter is transformed into something romantic.

Despite being unrealistic — cops never disrupt the squatters’ vodka and cigarette-soaked lives — the film still manages to leave with its audience a palpable, and believable vision of youth and all its struggles. Love, self-acceptance, lust, identity, and ambition — Unmade Beds subtlety tackles all of these.

So if you’re really in need of some motivation, then look to the third film — political documentary The Yes Men Fix the World (also part of the Earth Day series), which will make you want to continue your education so that, depending on your politics, you can either join the “Yes Men’s” cause or fight against it.

The movie is the second by the “Yes Men” (in reality Andy Bichelbaum, and Mike Bonanno), anti-corporate pranksters and do-gooders who crash corporate conferences and get interviewed live by the BBC as corporate representatives — all in the hopes of “fixing the world.” Of stopping corporate greed, getting Wall Street to ’fess up to its sins, like the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India that has killed thousands, and compensate those whose lives have been ruined. Though their self-righteousness can be a little hard to stomach at times, the film truly does point to r­eal issues. It is a fascinating look into the injustices of the free market, and a reminder to all that American big business has a far-reaching effect.

Perhaps the most interesting part, however, is simply being able to see how the “Yes Men” accomplished the pranks that made headlines. How were they able to present products at a conference as Halliburton representatives? How did they get invited to speak at a housing summit New Orleans and address the Mayor as an assistant undersecretary from HUD? The “Yes Men” reveal all, and love them or hate them, you simply cannot deny their style.

Three great films, three different styles; Mary and Max, Unmade Beds and The Yes Men Fix the World are all good and memorable in their own right. So support the Cinema and take the opportunity to see one or all of these lesser-known movies on the big screen — if only to procrastinate.