J.J. Lask's first feature film sounds like Charlie Kaufman from another universe. Lask adapted his own book, 'On The Road With Judas' into a feature film, but he changes the story in major ways, and makes the movie -- about the making of the book -- into a movie, almost like Adaptation. Still with me? Okay, in this movie an actor (Aaron Ruell, better known as Kip in Napoleon Dynamite) portrays the "real" Judas, and another actor (Eddie Kaye Thomas) plays the actor playing Judas in the movie. This is the same for all of the characters in the film, and to confuse things even more, the whole story is told in a talk-show format, with Lask himself playing the host of the show and interviewing everyone involved in On The Road With Judas. Of course, he doesn't play himself in the film, so the part of J.J. Lask is played by Kevin Corrigan.

When MTV stopped airing Liquid Television many years ago, I lost an outlet that let me see groundbreaking animation that I'd rarely get to see anywhere else. With the rise of the internet, and the birth of networks like The Cartoon Network, animation finally has more places to be seen, but it's tough to find quality stuff that pushes the envelope. Like the different shorts programs, this is where Sundance steps in. I've made it a point to book tickets to the animation spotlight before anything else, and I've always enjoyed the different films they choose. This year was no different, and the program was chock full of different types of animation and genres. From serious to comedic, and CGI to paintings on glass, there was a little slice of everything.

Nick Broomfield is well known for his documentary films like Kurt and Courtney, Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam, and Fetishes, but this is his first time working with a script on a narrative film. At least, that's what he'd like to have you believe. He told us during the Q&A that he had previously made a scripted film, but that it was, "such shit, and no one ever saw it." Thankfully, Ghosts was extremely compelling and has hopefully encouraged him to make more scripted films.

While this isn't a documentary film, Broomfield worked with what he knew and this movie is filmed very documentary-style. The cameras are mostly handheld, and at times subtitles will pop up at the bottom of the screen with information like: "These workers typically make £30 per month" and so on. It isn't jarring enough to take you out of the story, but what it cleverly manages to do is make you feel like you're watching a documentary subject at times.

Snow Angels is one of those films that you run into frequently at Sundance: a movie that has great moments in it, but doesn't hold together as a whole experience. This was unfortunate because this was one of the films I was most looking forward to seeing at Sundance. Based on the novel by Stewart O'Nan, writer and director David Gordon Green does a great job of capturing snapshots of life in a small town, but overall it misses the mark emotionally.

This film has a disturbing event that serves as a pivotal moment and involves a small child, but it hasn't been talked about much due to the controversy surrounding Hounddog, which might unfortunately work to its disadvantage. Any publicity is good publicity, and hopefully the current media windstorm around the Dakota Fanning film won't hurt this one, but chances are that if you mention "the film at Sundance with the young girl in it," people will think about the other one, and not this.

While I've always enjoyed Japanese cinema, especially in the fantasy and anime genres, when I heard that Katsuhiro Ôtomo had a live-action film at Sundance, it became one of my must-sees. His film Akira is one of the most popular animated films in the world, and a pillarstone of Japanese animation. It helped give rise to the popularity of Japanese animation that continues to this day with films like Spirited Away and Ghost in the Shell, and I couldn't wait to see how this foray into live-action was. Fittingly, it is an adaptation of the 'Mushishi' manga from Japan, and I wasn't disappointed with this film.

Bugmaster is a multi-layered film that tells the story of a young boy as he grows from an orphan into a 'bugmaster' (mushishi), a sort of doctor/alchemist who treats problems caused by 'bugs,' or spirits. He travels from village to village in turn-of-the-centry Japan, diagnosing symptoms and then selling remedies from a sort of combination backpack/chest of drawers that he carries around on his back. He doesn't deal in martial arts, which I quite frankly expected him to bust into at any moment. He's a bit like Caine from Kung Fu, except without the butt-kicking.

Laura Dunn's film about the dangers of overdevelopment, and the effects it can have on the environment, is the type of documentary that manages to knock the wind out of you as you watch it. This is because she manages to hit the nail on the head of the "how can you not see this?" correlation between cause and effect. Dunn interviews key people involved in the political overdevelopment in Austin, Texas that was bitterly fought between developers like Gary Bradley and environmentalists in the Save our Springs alliance. While people talking about the dangers of overdevelopment are not new, Austin serves as a perfect window into the debate, because of Barton Springs, a natural spring-fed pool near downtown Austin that has served as a public swimming hole and park since the early 1900s.

One of my favorite things about the Sundance Film Festival has always been the different shorts programs they offer. These are short films from around the world that you would probably never be able to see anywhere else. There is always a great variety of different material, styles, and performances. Sure, sometimes you'll run into something that you might not enjoy, but you know that within ten minutes or so, you'll be watching something else. Not to be cliche, but it's a bit like a box of chocolates ... some are good, some aren't.

This year's Sundance shorts are being offered up on iTunes, which is a fantastic way for these films to reach a new audience. Typically you might see these films at Sundance, and then never be able to find them again. If you were lucky, you might see them on the Sundance Channel, but even the chances of that were slim. Kudos to the festival and Apple for making these available online. As much as I'm a fan of flash fiction and short stories, short films are perfect for me, and I'm sure there are other people out there who enjoy them.

If you can imagine what it would be like to try to document the life of one of your closest friends after their death, and to assemble everything into feature film length, you can probably see how difficult the process might be. This is what director Julien Temple had to do while he directed Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, about the lead singer for one of the world's best known bands, The Clash. Temple's documentary utilizes an enormous amount of archival footage, personal interviews, news interviews, vintage photos, audio recordings and footage that he himself had been filming since 1976. Temple also had access to Strummer's personal notebooks, writings and recordings, so they feature heavily in the doc. He uses Strummer's doodles and writings in animations that serve as transitions between scenes, or to underscore different pieces of the film. Of course, the main element that keeps everything sticking together is Joe Strummer and his music.

The extremely popular online virtual reality world of Second Life is getting a new real-world addition: the Sundance Film Festival. If you haven't ventured online in Second Life yet, the best way I can describe it to you is to imagine The Sims times about one million. It's an extremely detailed virtual world that allows users to customize every possible aspect of their appearance, and even develop professions, as well as own real estate and build whatever you want on them. Second Life has many real-world counterparts that exist virtually, like Dell and Toyota, and now Sundance will be joining them.

The first time I ventured into Second Life was a couple of years ago, and after an extremely disorienting first 30 minutes or so, I began to get the hang of things. It's a bit like Tron meets Virtuosity meets What Dreams May Come. Once you create your avatar, the virtual representation of yourself in the game which can be male or female, and look like you or not, then you are released head-first into the sprawling vastness of the Second Life universe. Your character can literally fly, like Superman, to any location in the game, and interact with the environment and other denizens of the virtual. You can do things like find a job, go sightseeing, and even purchase genitalia for your avatar. Yes, it's that detailed.

Sundance is going to be trying to duplicate the festival experience online, by way of the Sundance Channel. Vincent Tibbett, one of the Sundance avatars for Second Life told Netscape's Karina Longworth, "Imagine hanging out with people from your local art house theater. That's the environment we plan to replicate in SL." Having spent two trial weeks inside this world, and also being a veteran of the Sundance experience, I'm not sure how well it will translate, virtually speaking. Still, if it serves as another outlet to introduce films to the world, real or not, I'm all for it. Sundance is a great film festival, but it is often limited by the fact that you have to journey to Park City, UT in order to see many of the films, especially in the different Shorts and Animation categories, that you might never see anywhere else. If Second Life can give users a chance to experience Sundance films from the comfort of their own home, then how can it not be a step in the right direction?

The film launching the Sundance Second Life experience is Four Eyed Monsters, which was written and directed by two people popular in the vlogging world, Arin Crumley and Susan Buice, which should help it make an easy transition to the digital world. We'll be tracking more with the Second Life Sundance presence as it develops. In the meantime, be sure to visit our sister site dedicated to all things Second Life.

Sundance Film Festival director Geoff Gilmore announced the lineup of films that will be screening at the 2007 festival today, and said that choosing the 64 films that will appear in the four competition categories (dramatic, documentary, world cinema dramatic and world cinema documentary) was harder this year than ever before. While that's a bit like someone saying "You guys are the best crowd ever!" they definitely did have more films to choose from for the same number of slots, so who can blame him? They received 3,287 films for consideration this year, the most in the festival's 39-year history.

122 total films were chosen (not all of them screen in competition), and 82 of them will be world premieres. That's a heck of a lot of movies over two weeks. If you've ever attended Sundance in the past, then you know how difficult it is to get tickets. Passes are expensive and sell out quickly (in fact, only one level of pass is currently left, the $2500 Express Pass-B), however individual tickets will go on sale the week of January 9. You can pre-register right now through January 4 on the Sundance FIlm Festival website to receive a random, lottery-style time that will allow you to log in and purchase tickets that week.

Sundance is one of my favorite film festivals because of the sheer volume and variety of films that you are able to pick and choose from. Plus it's a chance to meet the filmmakers, other film lovers, and to experience it in beautiful Park City, Utah. The last two years that I've gone it was with minimum preparation and usually as a last-minute decision, but I've still managed to see at least 15 films in about five days each time. It's well worth the trip and enduring the cold to step out of your own world and into a creative environment, if just for a little while.

You can download a PDF file of all the 2007 Sundance Film Festival selections here. The festival runs from January 18th through the 28th -- time to start picking and choosing!