Sundance in Brooklyn

By Ethan Alter

You don’t need to schlep all the way out to Park City, Utah, to see the best of Sundance.

On Thursday, one of the festival’s most anticipated selections comes to you with a screening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

A spirited and very funny genre pastiche that defies easy categorization, “Kaboom,” from cult auteur director Gregg Araki, follows a bi-curious college freshman (Thomas Dekker) who gets caught up in a bizarre plot involving, among other things, a hot surfer dude, a lesbian witch and a bizarre cult that’s preparing for the end of the world.

“There’s really no other movie out there right now like it,” said Araki, who burst on the Sundance scene 16 years ago with “The Doom Generation.”

“It has a free spirit and goes to these crazy, supernatural places.”

BAM is one of nine locations across the country hosting Sundance films this month as part of the program Sundance Film Festival U.S.A.

“I love it there — the audiences are always great,” said Araki of BAM. “And this movie is so much fun to watch with an audience.”

“Kaboom” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music [30 Lafayette Ave. at Ashland Place in Fort Greene, (718) 636-4100], Jan. 27 at 7 pm, followed by a Q&A with the director. $15. For info, visit www.bam.org.