A day ahead of its Jan. 28th Sundance Film Festival premiere, the comedy Don Verdean is giving the internet a sneak peek at the upcoming movie. Deadline debuted the Don Verdean clip, featuring two of the film’s stars Sam Rockwell and Danny McBride, as well as Leslie Bibb and Amy Ryan. Don Verdean is the new comedy written & directed Jared Hess and co-written by his brother Jerusha (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre), also boasting the likes of Will Forte and Jemaine Clement in the cast.

Don Verdean is Sam Rockwell, a self-proclaimed biblical archaeologist that gets hired by a local pastor to uncover sacred relics to promote the Christian faith. When Don’s effort become futile, he must launch a comedic cover-up. Don Verdean already sold to Lionsgate ahead of the festival, one of the first entries into Sundance to sell this year.

Today might not quite be Danny McBride’s, “lucky day,” but tomorrow he and everyone behind the new Sundance comedy Don Verdean will premiere their film in Park City, Utah. Watch the Don Verdean movie clip below:

Why on earth would this post-modern feminist put a crass, self-referential, bro-mantic apocalypse film in her top 5 of the year (thus far)? Because Seth Rogen and super side-kick Evan Goldberg (Superbad, Pineapple Express), hit it on the head with this film. Everything’s been done before. Stoner comedy. Check. Apocalyptic bromance. Check. Crazy amounts of cameos. Check. A healthy dose of celebrity voyeurism? Wait a second boys, I think you may be on to something.

From scene one in this film as Seth Rogen waits at the airport for his buddy from Canada, Jay Baruchel, to arrive for a visit, it’s apparent Seth is, well, real-life Seth. “Give us your trademark Seth Rogen laugh” an asshole with a camera at the airport chides. And he does, establishing that yep, he can turn it on and turn it up, and you’re going to eat it up. Seth takes Jay home and its established Jay isn’t a big fan of LA and it’s pompous Hollywood types. So the two stay home for gaming and smoking, until Seth throws out that maybe they pop over to James Franco‘s housewarming party. Jay is hesitant, they aren’t his crowd, and they represent Seth’s new Hollywood life.

They go anyway. Cameo after cameo of young Hollywood comedic actors pop up. Hello, Craig Robinson. Hello, Jonah Hill. Hello, Micheal Cera (busily casting off any semblance of George Michael Bluth by baring his ass while receiving “favors” from another party guest and blowing coke into peoples faces; not unlike a few of his other films coming out this year, ahem, Crystal Fairy and Magic Magic). Hello, Mindy Kaling. Hello, Aziz Ansari. Hello, Rihanna? Ok, who invited her?

Yes, it’s exaggerated, but it all just feels somewhat likely. For all we know these actors have weekly ragers at Franco’s house. Eventually Jay feels a bit stifled by Seth’s new group, and the two walk to the store for munchies. Queue the apocalypse, or as Jay will later devise, the Rapture, complete with blue light sucking the enlightened into heaven. Jay and Seth make it back to Franco’s house in time for most of the party to die via sinkhole in James’s front yard (or Cera by even more hilarious means) and Jay, Seth, James, Craig, and Jonah manage to survive and horde themselves into Franco’s house, immediately fortifying it with duck tape and barring the doors with Franco’s eclectic art collection as protection. Danny McBride shows up shortly thereafter, an oblivious and unwelcome member of the group.

The film is endlessly hilarious and it seems to manage this with the perfect amount of self-awareness. The actors trash talk each other in their tell-all room camera and we think, yeah, I bet Danny McBride is a pain in the ass. And when they sit around the dinner table describing just how difficult it is to be an actor because sometimes you have to pretend it’s hot, when it’s really freezing cold, it’s funny because as comedic actors (ironically, all who are now taking on much more serious roles, Jonah Hill is Oscar-nominated for Pete’s sake) we’d possibly expect them to be so shallow. One of the more hilarious bits is when Emma Watson shows up and the guys sabotage her stay by being overly sensitive to her role as a woman. In fact the lack of sexist jokes is worth noting.

In This is the End, during which I literally slapped my thigh and gasped for air at numerous times, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have created a film that maintains a steady comedic ride that never lets up. A feat I’d consider much more difficult than tugging at my heartstrings. As each of these actors recognizes they weren’t “good” enough to make it up to heaven and attempts to make up for that, we wonder in earnest about their fate. If living in sin is as funny as they make it out to be, could being good people possibly be as hilarious? It could. It can. It is.

At the very least, you must credit James Franco for even attempting to film what some consider to be a near impossible story to tell. William Faulkner’s classic 1930 novel, As I Lay Dying, features 15 different characters, each telling a part of the story in their point of view. Director James Franco does a marvelous job of recreating this by showing many parts of the film with a split screen that often shows one character speaking on one side and the reaction of the other character on the other side. Franco can now mark another tally under his growing collection of experimental films.

The overall plot of As I Lay Dying is a fairly simple one; a family travels on a journey to the town of Jefferson in order to fulfill the requests of recently deceased family member named Addie Bundren. The real story lies within all the details and burdens each character brings to the table. But the details are rather long-winded, which makes following what exactly is going on a bit challenging.

The biggest obstacle comes on the first day of their long-haul. The group must cross a river with their wagon that is carrying the coffin without the use of a bridge due to massive flooding. Their only option is to try crossing with the aid of an improvised ford, but it does end smoothly. One of the traveler’s leg gets badly injured during this mishap and requires some serious medical attention. I will spare some of the gruesome details that ensue when they attempt to treat the wound themselves.

I must confess that I did not read the novel before seeing the film and I think it was a real challenge because of that fact. There are indeed many films that you can get by just fine without having read the literature beforehand, however, I do not believe As I Lay Dying fits into that category. Not helping matters is a character named Anse (Tim Blake Nelson) who would give Bane (of The Dark Knight Rises) a run for his money at being more incomprehensible. The combination of his rotting teeth and extreme Southern drawl made it difficult to understand more than every tenth word he spoke. Even though As I Lay Dying is an English speaking film, the French speaking audience members at this screening likely better understood what was being said because they at least had subtitles to read.

James Franco came on stage to introduce the film at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and bluntly said, “This is a weird film.” Indeed it was. For better or worse, As I Lay Dying certainly felt like a literal interpretation of the novel, but as I mentioned before I have not read the book, therefore I cannot say that with absolute certainty. The acting in the film was very strong but the obvious standout is the film’s poetic and Malick like cinematography. Whether or not the film works may very well come down to one simple question, did you read the book beforehand?