The Sundance Film Festival is going on in Utah right now, but being that I actually have to work for a living, I’m not there. Plus, Mormons fear me, because I exude what scientists refer to as “raw sex appeal”.
Anyway, some of the stories we’ve been following:
Paris Hilton and so forth doesn’t have anything to do with anything," he [Sundance founder Robert Redford] said. [Canadian Press]
Perhaps, but she was there promoting The Hottie and the Nottie (perhaps the worst idea since Meet the Spartans or Major Movie Star) and generally embarrassing anyone who cares about movies by being a trashy stupid whore. And speaking of trashy stupid whores, Kim Kardashian was there with boyfriend Reggie Bush – more support for the thesis I’m working on: Black Guys Like Chicks with Huge Asses.
In other douchebag news, Adrian Grenier was in town to promote Adventures of Power, a movie about air drumming, and play drums for his band the Honey Brothers at the after party.
At 3:15 a.m. they were finally ready to play, but Mr. Grenier could not find — I am not making this up — his drumsticks. [NYT]
See folks? I’d love to report the Entourage guys aren’t as stupid as they seem, but… God doesn’t want me to. You know you’re stupid when a New York Times reporter has to promise that he’s actually telling the truth before he reports something you did.
Industry News: No one’s buying anything.
There has been no big bolt of theatrical lightning this year, no “Little Miss Sunshine” or “Once.” There are movies that will find both audience and distribution one way or another — “Sunshine Cleaning,” starring Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, seems perfectly confected — but others that rode in on a wave of hype have been just sitting there. After the premiere of “What Just Happened?,” directed by Barry Levinson and starring Bruce Willis and Robert De Niro, people said nice things. But the answer to the question posed by the film? Not so much.
“There was this huge run-up with all of this talk, partly because there is so much new money producing films, but when you got here, there was really not much to buy,” said one film executive who did not want to be seen as soiling Sundance’s reputation for commercial and artistic excellence. “There are a lot of bad movies here, movies that should not have been made. And the few ones that could be turned into something in the market are going to have to head into the sweat lodge and wait it out. No one is throwing the kind of money around they were last year.” [NYT]
There you have it, folks. It’s tough times out there for everyone. Ps, a bunch of Hollywood people in a sweat lodge? I’m gonna go out on a limb and say nothing super gay happens.
UPDATE: Looks like Fox Searchlight bought Choke for $5 million. That’s actually good news. I’m speechless.