The not-so underground film festival in Park City, Utah kicked off earlier this week. It will run through the 31st. This year, some of the films popping up on buzz lists are:

3 Backyards: “In a complacent suburban neighborhood, an emotionally troubled businessman wanders around his hometown while waiting for a delayed flight, a starstruck housewife embarks on an peculiar trip when she gives her famous neighbor a ride to the local ferry, and an eight-year-old girl takes a wrong turn on the way to school and finds herself in an unexpected adult realm.”

Cyrus: “Alone and acutely depressed, having just learned of his ex-wife’s wedding plans, John can’t believe his luck when he encounters beautiful, charming Molly at a party. The two get along famously and launch a passionate affair—until Molly’s 21-year-old son, Cyrus, enters the scene.”

Blue Valentine: “On the far side of a once-passionate romance, Cindy and Dean are married with a young daughter. Hoping to save their marriage, they steal away to a theme hotel. We then encounter them years earlier, when they met and fell in love—full of life and hope.”

Howl: “It’s San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. HOWL, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society’s reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself.”

Nowhere Boy: “Growing up in Liverpool in 1955, and raised by his aunt and late uncle, John is a smart, spirited, but directionless, teen who skips school, steals records, and is told he’s going nowhere. Having brought rock music into the “house of Tchaikovsky,” John widens the rift with Aunt Mimi when he seeks out his estranged mother, to whom he forms an immediate attachment.”

Any other premieres you’re excited to learn more about? Sundance has released an iPhone App, with which you can keep up to date on the news out of the festival, and watch some award-winning shorts from years past. Pretty cool.

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