The next gay wave.

I always know the New Year is afoot when my Sundance catalog arrives. No, not the one that pushes Anatolian kilims and canoe-shaped curio shelves for prices that could double the environmental protection budget. Rather, the annual film orgy in Park City, Utah--January 21-31--spotlighting all those worthy independent movies that were made on a dime and won't gross more than a quarter regardless of how many awards are thrown at them.

Sundance is redeemed from its homo-hostile host state by good taste and a rebelliously homo-friendly policy. A trio of Sundance 1998 alums--The Opposite of Sex, Gods and Monsters, and High Art--not only emerged as three of the past year's best films but also have dominated the acting prizes in critics' contests on both coasts.

At first glance this year's crop appears to reflect the narrowly circumscribed worlds and libidinal yearnings of its youthful directors. Expect a rash of coming-of-age yarns, a blitz of buffed bods, and an utter absence of stories showcasing the domestic lives of elderly lesbians and gay men in long-term relationships.

But how is it that there is only one comedy about chain-gang escapees who stage a young-miss beauty pageant? I mean, that subject justifies an entire genre. Mark Illsley's Happy, Texas should be worth the $8.50 to see Jeremy Northam and fave flake-head Steve Zahn queer it up for sheriff William H. Macy. There is also only one candidate for the dubious subgenre spawned by Heathers, a style-conscious black comedy about high school bitch goddesses called Jaw-breaker from out director Darren Stein.

The sundry cruelties of teen years also figure prominently in a trio of coming-of-age flicks. Tod Williams's The Adventures of Sebastian Cole sounds the most pleasingly off-center, with the quietly sexy Clark Gregg as the young hero's transgendered stepdad. Simon Shore's Get Real features England (say no more), and David Moreton's Edge of Seventeen features Lea DeLaria (say no more, again). The catalog describes the latter as set in the "conflicted and confused 1980s." Funny, but I always thought the greed, selfishness, and fascism of the '80s were totally direct and clear-cut.

The Mighty Lea notwithstanding, the only SLC (some lesbian content) flicks to be found do not wear their sexuality on their sleeves. The Canadian 2 Seconds venerates a doelike, spandex-clad Charlotte Laurier in a Breaking Away for chicks, while Roberta gives us a brooding Daisy Rojas as a hooker wrestling with life choices.

There may be no women loving each other in James Herbert's Speedy Boys, but when you have nude wrestling between two horny straight boys, you've got a serious Women in Love thing going on. Herbert's voyeuristic drama about a pair of young American hunks who share their hormones with half the population of Italy fills out the pretty-boy category, which includes Jim Fall's Trick. This year's answer to Broadway Damage, Trick has Tori Spelling hagging it with two Manhattan men in love. Another urban love story, of the New Zealand kind, Garth Maxwell's resolutely bisexual When Love Comes promises something for everyone. But no promises are being made by Treasure Island, Scott King's teasingly ambiguous "psychosexual black comedy" set in the second World War.

Two returning indie stars are The Living End's Gregg Araki and Swingers' Doug Liman, each of whom has Los Angeles on the brain. The unrelieved hetero-osity of Liman's first film gets a break in the intriguing triple narrative of Go--which features Jerry Maguire's Jay Mohr and Party of Five's Scott Wolf in a gay stow line. Splendor gives us a Jules and Jim scenario, Araki-style, which means the guys are humpy and the tone is very "fuck you too."

The real stars of any festival, in my book, are the documentaries, especially when they star Advocate columnist and faux blond Bruce Vilanch (Get Bruce) or a mother-son team of voyeurs who deified musclemen in the '50s (Beefcake, by Thom Fitzgerald, director of The Hanging Garden). But the sleeper star may end up being the only Japanese entry, a "queer-ambient" curiosity by Hiroyuki Old called Yusho-Renaissance. Yusho me yours, and I'll show you mine, and I'll get to Utah afore you.

Stuart is theater critic and senior film writer for Newsday.