Everyone, it's official: the Sundance Film Festival in Utah is the new Hollywood rage, the IT place, the place to be. Which is a pity, because the largest independent cinema festival in the States is slowly turning into a parade ground for a lot of Hollywood... well, not yet rejects, but certainly D-listers, who, as always, are readily available to make the most of the spotlight and media attention. I'm not talking about the festival as such, but about the whole accompanying suite of parties, parties and... well, parties that seem to slowly build a whole new side of the festival. A new Sundance glitzy-glam rage seems to be developing these days and I don't like its superficial air in the slightest. But hey, since it's a source of fresh information and a good pretext to gossip a little bit (more) on who's there and what's their pretext and so on, we may as well try to make the most of it.

The fact is, all the porn stars... I mean, sex tape protagonists seem to have flown to Utah for their share of media loving. Not that they'd actually deserve it, but hey, since when has Paris Hilton needed pretexts to make herself the center of attention? Once again donning a dress that leaves little to the imagination, the soon-to-be-ex-heiress put in an appearance and apparently drove the crowds crazy. You see, this is one of the main reasons this festival is beginning to worry me. Since when has Paris been so popular? I mean, it's already been about a year since she got out of jail, so it can't still be that. Her new movie? Well, I'm sure I will burn in hell for saying this, but whoever is willing to pay to have Paris in a movie is either crazy mad or simply banking on her being popular for no reason and so the human equivalent of a valuable publicity stunt.

The more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to feel that the festival organizers were right to hand out buttons to all filmmakers reading "Focus on Film" last year - only trouble is, it doesn't seem to work anymore. I'm not sure what Kim Kardashian was doing at the festival, for example, and the same goes for Paris' little sister Niki, her boyfriend, and the likes of Audrina Patridge, Samantha Ronson and Mary Kate Olsen. Oh, that's right, I forgot - some of these people seem to think they're big, hot-shot movie stars. Um, did someone tell Paris and Kim that starring in your homemade sex tape does not equal acting credits? And yes, I do think we have to keep an eye out on the Internet (more than usual, I mean) because I have a feeling so many sex tape stars partying together (and by together I mean even a mile off each other) plus the excellent pretext of a film festival equals a potentially groudbreaking sex tape in the making. Don't say you weren't warned!