Sundancing, Part the Third

(image via spotlightnews)

Let the party begin: Perez Hilton is at Sundance (How does he do it? And we thought we were ubiquitous). But the talk of the weekend is "Little Miss Sunshine." Bloggingsundance notes:

"I was having dinner on Main Street and struck up a conversation with an acquistions manager for a major film studio. While we were waiting for our food, we chatted about which movies we'd seen and how we liked them (he raved about Little Miss Sunshine, which he'd just seen, and felt that A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints was uneven, and that the part with the kids was better than the part with the adults, which surprised him). I asked him what buzz he'd heard and what deals were being made. He told me "half the deals have already been done, and it's the first day of the festival", that his studio would be acquiring one or two, and that Little Miss Sunshine is being acquired 'right now, actually' by Paramount for 'some ridiculous sum of money'."

And then there's the politics. All eyes are on former Vice President Al Gore, who, if you saw his Martin Luther King Day speech -- here -- on the subject of Presidential power, looks to be running in 2008 for President as a Progressive social libertarian (Count on it; Hillary versus Gore -- Centrist versus Civil Libertarian-Progressive). A documentary on Al Gore set to premiere on Tuesday is already sold out. According to the Toronto Star:

"The guest list alone reads like a Who's Who of rebels with or without causes. Expected visitors include Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate, presidential candidate and all-round authority kicker who is the subject of Stephen Skrovan's aptly titled documentary An Unreasonable Man, a movie that promises to salute a querulous mind.

"It will be fascinating to see if Nader rubs shoulders on Main St. with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who suffered from Nader's gadfly presidential bid in 2000. Gore is doing the Sundance stump on behalf of Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, in which the ecology-minded politician attempts to sound the alarm about the dangers of global warming."

Davis Guggenheim -- of those Guggenheims -- is married to the Karate Kid's Elizabeth Shue, who is also expecting their third child. And, speaking of the 80s, at Monday's GenArt Beasty Boys concert, those intrepid Page Sixxies inform us, "THAT the Beastie Boys have requested oxygen tanks and 'high-end Napa Valley wines' backstage at their buzzed-about concert Monday night at the Gen Art party at Sundance."

Meanwhile, Sean P. Means of the Salt Lake Tribune reminisces of Festivals past:

"An old friend, R.J. Millard - formerly the festival's head of media relations - recalled a run-in with talk-show host Montel Williams.

"Williams, Millard said, 'shows up for Opening Night, uninvited, and walks the press line at the 2002 festival. After asking him to leave the press line and enter the theater so we could start the screening, he proceeded to grab me by the collar and say, 'If you put your hand on me one more time or ask me to move . . . I'll go when I'm done.' With that, every photographer in the room got that shot."