Sundance Selects: The Festival Faves We Anxiously Await

And yes, that is Sean Penn in the picture.

Sure, going to Sundance - which just wrapped - sounds like fun, but it's bitterly cold in Park City, Utah, this time of year. Also crowded and cliquish. Yeah, you're better off staying where you are, letting us keep our eyes open for you. Here's what we can't wait to see later on, in a warmer theater:

Fear Factory - A decade after hailing Bruce Campbell as the King in Bubba Ho-tep, Phantasm director Don Coscarelli is back with John Dies at the End, a movie - about a rare drug that heightens the senses and chooses its own addicts - whose title suggests it may be impossible not to spoil. Meanwhile, a new generation of auteurs who grew up on videos of Coscarelli movies have collaborated on the faint-inducing, found-footage flick V/H/S, with spooky segments by the likes of Ti West (The Innkeepers), David Bruckner (The Signal) and Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead).

Creator Comebacks - In Red Hook Summer, Spike Lee takes on Tyler Perry with his own unique spin on similar spiritual themes and recurring comedic characters (could Mookie vs. Madea be next?). Rodrigo Cortes made an hour and a half of just Ryan Reynolds in a box compelling with Buried; we look forward to his work with Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver in supernatural thriller Red Lights. And we've no idea why Sean Penn looks ready to sing for The Cure in This Must Be the Place...but we wanna know.

Going Long -  Can SNL digital-short star Andy Samberg sustain the full-length romantic comedy Celeste & Jesse Forever? Will Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie be six times better than their TV show? Stay tuned...

Forward to a Buddy Invite a Buddy