BY SCOTT VON DOVIAK

Sundance 2010 Preview

January is the cruelest month for moviegoers (as even the studios tacitly acknowledged by declining to screen any of this week's releases in time for review — surely The Book of Eli can't be that bad), except for those lucky few hitting the slopes of Park City, Utah next week for the 2010 edition of the venerable Sundance Film Festival. Here are the five features and five documentaries we're most excited about. If you're Sundance-bound and looking for a few last-minute recommendations, check 'em out, and if you're staying home, at least now you'll know there's something to look forward to besides The Tooth Fairy.

 

F E A T U R E S

Cyrus

Mumblecore mavens the Duplass Brothers (The Puffy Chair, Baghead) return to Sundance with their first studio film, but despite the bigger budget and more recognizable cast, they've promised to stay true to their squirmy brand of semi-improvisational comedy. John C. Reilly stars as a divorced man who thinks he's found the woman of his dreams (Marisa Tomei) until he meets her creepy son (Jonah Hill).

 

Howl

We still can't explain James Franco's stint on General Hospital, but we're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt long enough to check out his starring turn in this biopic of legendary Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Co-directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (The Celluloid Closet) narrow their focus to the furor surrounding the publication of Ginsberg's Howl, and the poet's subsequent obscenity trial.

 

The Killer Inside Me

The mercurial Michael Winterbottom has two films in this year's festival: the documentary The Shock Doctrine (based on the book by Naomi Klein) and this adaptation of the classic crime novel by Jim Thompson (The Grifters), starring Casey Affleck as a Texas deputy who's secretly a psycho killer, and Jessica Alba as a prostitute, presumably with a heart of gold.

 

Night Catches Us

Pulling off a successful period piece on a low budget is a tricky proposition, but that didn't dissuade first-time director Tanya Hamilton. Set in the Bicentennial summer of 1976, Hamilton's film concerns an ex-Black Panther who returns to his Philadelphia neighborhood in hopes of rebuilding his life.

 

The Runaways

Twilight co-stars Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning encounter a whole different kind of vampire as the decadent Sunset Strip of the '70s comes alive in this rock biopic. Stewart and Fanning play the titular girl band's founders, Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, in Floria Sigismondi's film, which also features Michael Shannon as demonic impresario Kim Fowley.

Documentaries on page 2