Park City. Elsewhere, 1/20.

Sundance, Slamdance and all the other hoopla going on in Park City give us all a breather between the Globes and Oscars to, as Manohla Dargis puts it, "partake in that collective fiction known as the American independent film movement." The crux of her tone-perfect preview of the festival that's become "wildly annoying, but invaluable": "The [studios'] special divisions have been good for American mainstream cinema, but they seem to have been murder on the little guys."

Also in the New York Times: Lorne Manly tells the story behind Awesome! I Fuckin' Shot That!, the Beastie Boys movie shot by 50 fans screening Saturday night at Sundance.

Ok, the online hubs to keep an eye on throughout the fest (besides this one, of course):

• IndieWIRE, naturally. Besides the news, the blog and the pix, the most recent interviews are Patricia Foulkrod (The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends), Juan Carlos Rulfo (In the Pit), So Yong Kim (In Between Days), Malcolm Ingram (small town gay bar), Auraeus Solito (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros), Rex Blumstein (KZ), Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer (Quinceañera) and Aaron Dobbs previews the standout shorts. Also: Eugene Hernandez reports that IFC Films has picked up Caveh Zahedi's I Am a Sex Addict (Sujewa Ekanayake comments) and Cedric Klapisch's Russian Dolls.

• Movie City News collects its own coverage and its plentiful links outward all on one page.

• Cinematical's Karina Longworth, Kim Voynar, James Rocchi and Jason Calacanis (recently profiled by Eryn Brown in Wired) seem to be having a blast.

• Flavorpill, with entries posted by the cinetrix, Jürgen Fauth, Marcy Dermansky and more.

• The Hollywood Reporter and Variety have opened up their special sections.

• Roger Ebert's got his special section up and running, too.

John Horn: "It's considered the Sundance Film Festival's ticket to stardom. But for any number of its past winners, nabbing the festival's Grand Jury Prize has been more like a kiss of death." Also, Stephen K Wagner interviews festival director Geoff Gilmore.

Also in the Los Angeles Times: Tina Daunt on An Inconvenient Truth, a doc capturing Al Gore's views on global warming, and Kenneth Turan's preview: "The festival invariably ends up both better and worse than anyone anticipated."

Anthony Breznican previews ten films screening at Sundance for USA Today. One of them is Moonshine, which has a total budget of "$9,200, including the cost of a Panasonic camera, a PowerBook G4 and website hosting," reports Jason Silverman at Wired News. At Sundance, "a total of 90 movies - including Moonshine and 24 of the 32 works in the Independent Film Competition - will be projected digitally. That's double the number in 2004."

Denis Seguin previews Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated for the Times of London.

Amazon is using the fest as a launching pad of sorts for its foray into online TV, Amazon Fishbowl With Bill Maher. The AP's Allison Linn reports: "The company plans to record the first show at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend, with guests including authors Stephen King and Armistead Maupin, musician Rob Thomas and actress Toni Collette. It will then preview tidbits of that show beginning Tuesday and leading up to the June 1 launch."

For those of us who can't make it to Park City, MaryAnn Johanson suggests a few ways to throw yourself a DIY Sundance: "Don't forget to overcharge yourself for snacks, and consider hiring some hip neighborhood teenagers to come in and snub you."

Posted by dwhudson at January 20, 2006 12:52 PM