It's always refreshing to interview people who have never gone through the PR grind before. It restores your faith in the process. Neither Fran Kranz nor Kristen Connolly, newborn stars of the Drew Goddard directed, Joss Whedon produced cult hit in the making "The Cabin in the Woods," have done any press for movies before.

"Boston Phoenix" stalwart correspondent Harlan Jacobson is busy watching movies and breathing thin air at the Sundance Film Festival. Here's the first of his dispatches from the event that will be the arbiter of the year's independent movies:

It's raining in Park City, which only has snow and Sundance to recommend coming here, the way Palm Springs only has the sun and no dance, or Tombstone only has a graveyard.