Ready to go Sundancing? There's something for every film lover at Park City

PARK CITY — Ah, snow and Sundance — two things Utah should be known for — have arrived, and the smog that has blanketed the Wasatch Front for the past few weeks is now someone else's problem.

Sure, the O2 might be thick with the frantic cell phone conversations of publicists and producers. But it's a darned sight better than having to cut the air you breathe with a knife.

So, leave the iron lung at home and do a little Sundance.

Speaking of cell phones, iPhone users this year can use a feature that keeps them in touch with the hottest Sundance news. Apple is charging $5, which the company says on its Web site goes toward supporting Sundance's non-profit gig, thereby five bucks no doubt well spent.

Got Facebook friends to update? Dig Flickr?

Sundancers are urged to stay electronically connected, with updates on film news or perhaps photos of a Q-Tip sighting or a Main Street encounter with terminal cutie Marisa Tomei.

If Twitter is more your style, tune into Joan Rivers for news during the festival. She may decide to tweet on how all of her plastic surgery holds up in the freezing temps and high altitude of Park City.

Seriously, there are plenty of justifiable reasons, however shallow or irrelevant naysayers might think you're being, to be a festivalgoer this year.

As we carve into the meat of the festival, the entertainment value alone is worth it for indie movie buffs and stargazers. Right now may be your only chance to see some of the festival's films, unless you unearth one later on the Internet or at a niche video store. Many flicks never get picked up by the fat-cat studios for wider distribution.

There's a film this year about the controversy surrounding late poet Allen Ginsberg's "Howl." The epic poem starts out, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix …" Based on the poem's opening lines alone, it should be an interesting movie.

Documentary filmmakers spent time at a dangerous U.S. military outpost in Afghanistan to bring intense images to the piece "Restrepo." Be prepared to be informed, shocked and unsettled rather than necessarily entertained. It's the type of entry that makes Sundance a well-rounded festival.