Overheard at the press screening for Momma’s Man, 8:57 a.m., January 23rd: "It’s Wednesday. Who’s still here, ya know?"

Howdy from Park City, PopWatchers, where I’m sitting in the now-celebrity-free photo studio as the video crew watches Clive Owen hunch about in Derailed on the HP big-screen and we hungrily await our Thai food. It’s oddly quiet here, despite the movie’s presence — and hey, look! I just summed up the last two days of Sundance!

With the tragic news about Heath Ledger yesterday, the festival —  which was already slowing down —  officially became a little bit desolate. The streets have emptied out, the swag shops have closed, the weather has turned clear and frigid, and, with the exception of the high-wattage Raisin in the Sun cast —  Sean Combs, Sanaa Lathan, Audra McDonald, John Stamos, and Phylicia Rashad, who, when assembled on our couch, damn near made me pass out from their conglomerated attractiveness —  most of the stars have headed home.

This is my favorite time at Sundance, if I’m allowed to have a favorite time after just two years in attendance. If you’re still in town, you pretty much just want to watch the moving pictures, not the shiny people. Even better: After my screening of the Palestinian rap documentary Slingshot Hip-Hop tonight (and my interview with ROCK LEGEND NEIL YOUNG tomorrow), my professional obligations here will be largely complete, and I can just start seeing stuff I want to see. Of course, I’ve done a bit of that today, too. After the jump, we cover yesterday’s slightly shell-shocked events, and the somewhat less emotionally awkward activities of today. Come with me, won’t you, my darling pocket peeps?

READ FULL STORY »

I just got back from this evening’s premiere of A Raisin in the Sun. The film — based on Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play about a poor African-American family living in 1950s — screened here at Sundance in advance of its Feb. 25th airing on ABC. The audience couldn’t have been more excited to see the cast (Sean Combs, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan, and Phylicia Rashad, all of whom were in the play’s 2004 Broadway revival) in the flesh. Camera flashes strobed nonstop as they entered before the movie started, and a standing ovation capped the closing credits. When post-show Q&A time came, viewers gushed over young star Justin Martin, who put the mic to his chest to show how fast his heart was beating. But the star everyone seemed particularly excited to see was Rashad. Every time the actress gave that mischievous you-better-not-be-messing-with-me look in Raisin, the crowd snickered with delight. And when the erstwhile Clair Huxtable took the stage to talk about what the remake meant to her, she received a standing-O of her own. Stay tuned for more from the cast, who I talked to this morning…

addCredit(“Kwaku Alston”)

To sell ornot to sell? That has been the question dogging every fledgling filmmaker atthis year’s Sundance Film Festival, where sales have been remarkably slow. But it wasn’t a concern for the producers of Hamlet 2 — thebizarro comic farce about an about an eccentric high school drama teacher (SteveCoogan, pictured) who tries to save his drama program and his marriage to his fed-up wife(Catherine Keener) with his production of a sequel to Shakespeare’s masterwork. Their quandary was more about how much to sell their movie for, and to whom.

The raucous comedy had been the subject of tremendous buzz coming into Sundance…before it was even completed, and without a mere mention in the event’s catalogue. Indeed, the unfinished film was such a late entry into the festival that Park City’s primary premiere location, the Eccles Center, was fully booked. But that didn’t stop Hamlet 2 from knocking Sundance out of its mid-festival doldrums with a rowdydebut screening Monday night at the Library Center theater. The room erupted in hystericsabout two minutes into the show, and things stayed that way for nearly two hours.

Afterward,Harvey Weinstein hovered by the door, ready to kick off thedeal-making. He was far from alone. Producer Eric Eisner, whose L+E picturesfinanced the film, fielded offers "from all the usual suspects," including FoxSearchlight and Lionsgate. But it wasn’t until after he spent the whole night hashing things out at the bargaining table in his condo that he finally settled on adeal to sell the worldwide rights to Focus Features for an astronomical $10million — one of the highest sums ever fetched by any movie in thehistory of Sundance. Eisner insists it wasn’t simply Focus’ deep pocketsthat helped that distributor win the bidding war. "We love their whole overall approach tomarketing and filmmaking," says Eisner, who will confess that Hamlet 2outperformed even his high expectations. "It’s been quite a ride. Now it wouldbe nice to get some sleep." —Christine Spines (with additional reporting by Missy Schwartz)

addCredit(“Frank Micelotta/Getty Images”)

August, the second film from XX/XY directorAustin Chick, premiered to a vibrating crowd at the Library Center theater on Tuesday: The audience’s enthusiasm spilled over into the first five minutes of the movie as they applauded the opening credits. Starring JoshHartnett (pictured), Adam Scott, Robin Tunney — and featuring a perfect cameo from DavidBowie — the film is a sort of Boiler Room for the dot-com era, chronicling theboom and historically inevitable bust of a startup called Landshark in themonth leading up to the 9/11 attacks. It’s visually stylized andhas a nice, jittery score, but is perhaps most notable for Hartnett’sstrong performance as Landshark’s CEO (think JerryMaguire/Magnolia-style Tom Cruise). —Whitney Pastorek

Look who stopped by the photo studio today: George Lopez, star of one of Sundance’s first big sales, Henry Poole Is Here! Vanessa "Ciudad" Juarez was so excited when he walked in, because her quest to find her "people" here in Park City is finally complete. And so, without further ado…

okay everybody … my first trip to sundance, and the second day … it’s been a blast, a very good trip… my movie HENRY POOLE IS HERE got sold like 3 hours after the premiere … I’ve been hanging with my boy luke wilson … we just got back from golfing in palm desert, and with samuel l jackson, we won the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic … so it’s been a wild week … I’m really not a skier, and I’m kind of not digging the cold … but there are a a lot of people all dressed the same who look alike … this place ROCKS !!!  6000 feet at the top of a mountain is the last place a chicano from los angeles thought he would ever be … but that’s what makes america the greatest country in the world … dont forget to wear your sunblock … ROCK ON !!! 

Thanks, George!

addCredit(“George Pimentel/WireImage.com”)

I have to apologize, PopWatchers, but Sunday night I had to take you out of my pocket for a bit. It had been a pleasant enough day: I interviewed the creative team behind U2 3D (more on that tomorrow), saw Nick Cannon grow up in American Son, even caught a little football and barbecue at the ESPN House (which, you’ll recall, was one of my favorite places last year).

But then I went to go see Smart People, a warm, tweedy comedy starring Dennis Quaid (pictured, left) as a cantankerous English professor, Sarah Jessica Parker (at right) as the ER doc who accidentally loves him, Ellen "Juno Schmuno" Page as Quaid’s daughter, and the eternally brilliant and hysterical Texan Thomas Haden Church as Quaid’s adopted brother. And after the film, which comes out in April and which I enjoyed quite a bit, my colleagues and I went to the party and ate some food. And after I ate the food, it all went to hell.

So I’d like to thank the fine folks at Miramax for poisoning me, and I’ll spare you the details except to say that the Marriott bathroom is no place to spend the night. When I woke up this morning, I’d missed a screening of Chronic Town — a movie whose star, JR Bourne, I was supposed to interview — and basically wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

addCredit(“Smart People: Bruce Bermelin”)

READ FULL STORY »

So in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been giving each other nicknames in our Sundance posts. It’s a solidarity thing. Whitney is "El Jefe," Missy is "El Sueter," editor Dawnie Walton is "Flaps." Well as of last night, we’ve crowned Sundance vet Owen Gleiberman "The Big Cheese." Why? He had the VIP power to get "Flaps" and me into a party that — granted we waited for 20 minutes to get in — was at "capacity." Matthew Perry came out of it, so it had to be good, right? Sure, the ambience was cozy: good booze, good music (I’m old so that means Depeche Mode), and good company. People were talking within comfortable personal distances — and even dancing — which is more than you can say about clubs in New York’s Meatpacking District. What perplexed us when we finally walked out was that the venue was not at "capacity," yet people were still waiting in droves. Hell, even Rachel Dratch was bundled up in the crowd trying to make her way in. So here’s to our "Big Cheese," or as one actor on the street referred to him, "the Julia Child of film criticism."

"Feel free to laugh," said director Terry Kinney before the premiere of Diminished Capacity, his comedy about Alzheimer’s, baseball cards, and going home again — and the audience was happy to oblige. Starring Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen, and anchored by the always-excellent Alan Alda, the movie was warmly received by the folks at Eccles tonight, with one woman standing up simply to scream out "BRAVO!!" during the Q&A. I was sitting next to one of the film’s financiers, and he told me beforehand that I was free to hate the movie — which is seeking distribution — but I didn’t. It’s my second head injury picture in as many days (after Smart People yesterday, coincidentally starring Broderick’s wife, who you may have heard of), and I’d watch a third, at this rate. Seems the Broderick/Jessica Parker family figures the airfare to Park City was worth it. As Matthew said at the podium tonight, "This was a good weekend." Could get better: Buyers have yet to drop a big wad of cash on anything, and this project has talent to burn. Could it score the first big money on this special Sundance edition of Press Your Luck? Stay tuned. No whammies. —Whitney Pastorek