You’ve found yourself in Park City over the last half of January. The place is overrun with a&^holes who think they own the town, there’s no parking and the few regular spots are charging $20+ per car, the restaurants are overbooked, lodging is double-priced, and it’s cold. When you’re tired of celeb-spotting you can always see a movie…..

Here are the top 5 reasons to see a Sundance Film.

5. It’ll never come out in a movie theater or even on DVD

Bad bad bad. Just because a flick makes it into Sundance does NOT mean it’s good. Out of 10 movies, four might be decent, two bearable and four downright awful. About 8000 films get sent to the Sundance offices in Park City each year. Less than three percent make it into the program. You would think with the pick of the litter, every movie would be a masterpiece. Nope. The Sundance process is extremely political, subjective and mostly about who you know or have worked with (duh), and not about excellent storytelling.

4. You can’t afford to go to one of the better, up-and-coming festivals like SXSW or IFF or Boston or Oxford or Seattle or Ann Arbor. You live within an hour’s flight of Park City, Utah, you have friends with whom you can crash, you hear Justin Bieber may be in the audience, so why not?

3. You get to hear the filmmakers discuss what the hell they were thinking when they made their movie. It’s not every day you get Cliff Notes to what you’ve watched. Pop into a premiere at Eccles, the Park City Library or the Egyptian Theater and there’s usually a panel discussion of the director, a couple of lead actors and the producer. And, trust me, when you watch a Sundance film like Perfect Sense you will want to know why the filmmaker bothered. When Uma Thurman and Minnie Driver thanked audiences for appreciating their movie Motherhood no one knew it would come and go from theaters faster than popcorn in a five-year-old’s bucket. But the actresses both looked very pretty.

2. Someone gave you a ticket or you have nothing better to do in Park City. There’s no new snow, you’ve spent a month slip-sliding on crowded groomers and the last thing you want to do today is ski again.So instead you can stand in a waitlist line, get a number, then come back at least 30 minutes before showtime, stand in line again to actually buy your ticket, then stand in the ticket holders’ line to enter the theater. Did we mention that your ticket will cost $15 without 3D or Surround Sound?

And the Number One Reason to See A Sundance Flick:

1. Because all your friends will think you’re so cool when you say, “I saw it at Sundance.”