Here Comes the Sundance

''The Good Girl'' It's another unsettling comedy by Mike White and Miguel Arteta, the writer and director behind ''Chuck and Buck,'' and this time they're dragging squeaky-clean Jennifer Aniston into their perversely hilarious muck. She plays a bored cashier who decides to cheat on her husband with a fellow register jockey (''Donnie Darko'''s Jake Gyllenhaal).

''Stolen Summer'' This is the film that you've been watching dazed first-time director Pete Jones botch up on HBO's ''Project Greenlight.'' Will it be the sloppy, ''Afterschool Special''-esque disaster that it appears to be? Or has the reality series been giving a twisted perspective on what will actually be a moving coming-of-age drama? (The former is a safe bet.) Miramax -- which produced the film and series -- claims it pulled no strings to get this very un-Sundance movie into the fest, but you can bet a cadre of suspicious, bitter filmmakers who believe otherwise will be rooting for its failure.

''Bark'' This comedy about a dogsitter who decides she prefers to live life as a pooch stars and was written by Helen Morgan, whose highest-profile credit so far was on the short-lived 1995 reprise of ''Get Smart.'' So why the great buzz? No doubt the film was helped along by its stellar supporting cast, which includes Lisa Kudrow, Hank Azaria, and Vincent D'Onofrio.

Christina Ricci crowned as Sundance Queen Many have worn the crown before -- Parker Posey, Sarah Polley -- but this is Ricci's year, with three films at the festival: the dark comedy ''Pumpkin,'' in which she plays a snooty sorority sister who falls in love with a wheelchair athlete and is deemed uncool; ''Miranda,'' where she plays a mysterious love interest; and HBO's ''The Laramie Project,'' based on the play about the aftermath to the 1998 Matthew Shepard murder. Posey will be returning with the drama ''Personal Velocity,'' but here's hoping she'll be gracious and let Ricci have her time in the snow. The last thing we need is an ''All About Eve'' moment in Park City; the altitude just makes everyone that much cattier.

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