The Sundance Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, January 19th in Park City, Utah, and one of the many, many films set to screen at the high altitude festival include Play the Favorite, a comedy-drama based on the memoir by Beth Raymer.  In anticipation of the Sundance debut, the very first clip from the film has made its way online, and it features Rebecca Hall and Bruce Willis as the two leads driving through Las Vegas and singing a tone-deaf rendition of "The Air that I Breathe" by The Hollies.

Sensitive American boy meets adorable British bird at college in Los Angeles.  Boy, played by Anton Yelchin, and girl, played by Felicity Jones, promptly fall in the kind of desperate, life-defining love that is almost guaranteed to end horribly.  When the girl overstays her Visa and is given the incontrovertible boat from These United States, neither lover can let go.  That's Like Crazy, which premiered to much acclaim at Sundance this year and has a wide theatrical release on the way.  The first trailer dropped today, and while the audio on all the dialogue could use a little cleaning up, the melancholic cover of Elvis Presley's "Fools Rush In" will leave little doubt that you should be feeling pretty sad.

You're no doubt familiar with the cinematic archetype of the dogged narcotics cop utterly determined to bring down a drug operation, usually run by a merciless  villain.  If you're unfamiliar, you can brush up on a few right here.  The first clip from this summer's comedy-drama Our Idiot Brother introduces a beat cop who does not quite fit in the same mold as Popeye Doyle or the bad boys of Bad Boys, but he does play on the naive stupidity of organic produce-purveyor Ned, played by Paul Rudd.

The clip covers the film's inciting incident, which lands Ned in jail and eventually, on probation.  Ned seems to be an effective comedic lead not simply because he's a bit of an moron, but because he's so well meaning and trusting.  These qualities are very much on display in the Our Idiot Brother trailer, as well.

As of today, two films that premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival now have one sheet posters.  The first is for Andrew Rossi's documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times, which chronicles a year in the venerable paper's newsroom, complete with the WikiLeaks classified document dump and the struggles to stay afloat in a rapidly changing media environment.  The other is for The Art of Getting By, which was previously titled Homework.  The romance stars Freddie Highmore and Emma Roberts as high school students in New York.

Michael Rapaport is a character actor who has been popping up in supporting roles since the early 90's.  You might recognize his face and distinctly accented voice from films as varied as True Romance, Big Fan, Next Friday, Mighty Aphrodite, and Deep Blue Sea.  At Sundance this year, Rapaport premiered his directorial debut, the documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest.  Now, Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American distribution rights to the documentary, which chronicles the often tumultuous relationships between members of the alternative hip hop group.

Director Gregg Araki is a stylistic freak – whatever his budget , he will always color his films with a wide spectrum of shocking sights and sounds. Nothing is too delicate or controversial for the director.

In Kaboom, Smith (Thomas Dekker) is a regular bisexual college student: he lusts after his hunky blonde surfer roommate, Thor (Chris Zylka), and he hangs with his BFF, Stella (Haley Bennett). Everything is going well for him until Smith meets a girl named London (Juno Temple). The two quickly become more than just friends, and then suddenly chaos ensues when a mysterious red-head (Nicole LaLiberte) and a witch (Roxane Mesquida) – who becomes Stella’s love interest – appear.

Dekker is terrific in the role of the protagonist: he captures perfectly the vulnerability in his sexual ambiguity. As emotionally disturbed as the rest of the characters are, they are incredibly endearing. While the rebellious anti-heroes Araki idolized in the past still haunt his artistic vision, he now seems more enlightened and optimistic. Araki, however, still takes chances in his thematic work. He always finds a way to mix sexuality, violence, murder and nudity into the story. With Kaboom, the nudity and sex is prominently explored, yet the film isn’t nearly as violent as his The Doom Generation was. This is a story primarily of sexual awakening and embracing new experiences before our time on this earth is up.

One minor problem with the film is its much-too-quick final act. After focusing so extensively on character development throughout the strangeness, it would have been nice to slow down the action before the end credits. The final few minutes are too abrupt and explosive. I guess that’s why they call it… Kaboom!

Maybe it is the loyal fan in me. Or perhaps, it is sort of a relief to hear a filmmaker speak his mind whether you like what he has to say or not. Either way, I like Kevin Smith as a person, a writer/director and yes, even as a twitter enthusiast.

Years ago, Mr. Smith was in a little movie called Catch and Release (2006). I had a one on one interview with him to talk about the film and his role, but somehow the conversation geared toward horror. He told me about an idea he had called Red State. Back then, there was no script, no anything, just an idea. It also happened to be an idea that sounded very intriguing.

For months now, Kevin Smith has insisted that he would auction off distribution rights to his new action-thriller Red State immediately following the film’s Sunday Premiere at Sundance, the film festival where Smith first burst on the scene with Clerks. This strategy, along with Smith’s talk of a complete shift from his previous comedic work and his adversarial attitude towards the critical establishment, generated a whole lot of interest in Smith’s post-Cop Out flick. Well, Red State premiered at Sundance last night, and it turns out the auction was something of a promotional bait and switch.

The drama Perfect Sense, directed by David Mackenzie, is set to premiere at Sundance, but today there’s a trailer out for the film. It stars Ewan McGregor, hot off The Ghost Writer, and Eva Green, of Casino Royale fame and The Dreamers notoriety. It’s described as, “A poetic and magnetic love story about two people who start to fall in love just as the world begins to fall apart.”

Sundance Selects, the theatrical and video-on-demand film label announced the second partnership with the not-for-profit Sundance Institute for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival (January 20th – 30th, Park City, UT). Five films will be screened as part of the “Direct from the Sundance Film Festival” where each film will be simultaneously available nationwide, on-demand and through Sundance Selects.

The five films included are Brandon Fletcher’s Mad Bastards, Michael Tully’s Septien, Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton’s These Amazing Shadows, and Joe Swanberg’s Uncle Kent. One other film featured will be the U.S. premiere of Gregg Araki’s Kaboom. The screenings will begin on video-on-demand at the same time they premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.