The boycott talk is coming from outside the industry, not inside. So far, calls for a boycott are mainly coming from bloggers, not influential directors, producers, and actors. We don't see that changing, unless the cash-poor Harvey Weinstein decides to make a dramatic nonattendance statement as a way to save face (and plane airfare).

A boycott big enough to matter is unlikely. The young filmmakers accepted into the festival would crawl over their own mothers to be there, and the Sundance hangers-on like Paris Hilton have never been bastions of activism. Without enough straight allies who could bear to part with their tickets to Park City, there's no chance to make a big dent, because...

The gay presence at Sundance has waned. Back before your associate editor took up blogging and adopted the royal "we" at Defamer, I held a regular gig as The Advocate's film critic and attended several Sundances working the gay beat (not as hustler-ish as it sounds!). Though the film festival has a deservedly gay-friendly rep, it's gone through some pretty sparse queer years as of late. At the 2007 festival, the gay slate had so little on it that the centerpiece was a Chad Allen movie. If Sundance was boycotted by gay filmmakers and queer-themed films, the lineup wouldn't change that much.

We're all about new and novel ways to protest (what's this we keep hearing about "A Day Without a Gay"?), but the Sundance idea seems DOA to us, especially when everybody's already got their plane tickets set for January. Next year might be a different story — there'll be a lot more lead time — but let's hope there won't be reason to protest then, OK?

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Gay Activists vs. Utah and Sundance [Variety]

This is clearly a vain attempt by the Weinstein Company to avert Star Wars fans' impending boycott of all of their films. Well, guess what? It's not going to work, Darth Weinstein!

There was never any doubt that you would release both versions of the movie on DVD — probably months apart, so as to leech as much money from Star Wars fans as possible! ...

There is only ONE VERSION OF FANBOYS - THE ONE THAT WAS MADE BY STAR WARS FANS! ... If you release your mutilated anti-fan version of FANBOYS in ANY FORM, you can look forward to a lifetime boycott of your studio by every Star Wars fan on the planet.

As such, the Fanboys supporters are sticking to their picket plans for this weekend, with sizable protests scheduled in both New York and Los Angeles. Knowing what we know about Harvey, though, we expect this to be all the compromise these guys are going to get. Moreover, where the hell are all the Wong Kar-wai fans to protest Harvey's cut of the long-delayed Norah Jones / Jude Law / Natalie Portman road flick My Blueberry Nights, finally opening April 4 with an ugly, sludgy sheen added in edit bays sequestered deep inside the Weinstein Death Star. Even Roosevelt and Stalin had the common sense to ally against the Axis 65 years ago; with art-house romantics and and sci-fi geeks on the same page, we're confident Harvey Scissorhands wouldn't have a prayer.

• Geeks Get Their Movie... Kinda [The Hot Blog]

• DARTH WEINSTEIN MAKES A DESPERATE LAST-MINUTE ATTEMPT... [Stop Darth Weinstein]

We've now read this CNN.com story about the incident twice, however, and failed both times to find any mention of the broad, Spielberg-boycotting actions referred to in the headline. (The 10th paragraph does mention that they are preparing a response.) Still, should Spielberg find himself a director non grata inside the borders of the most populous nation on the planet—subjected to a Supreme and Glorified People's Movie Ratings Committee-sanctioned protest in which every copy of the director's oeuvre (except 1941, Hook, and The Terminal) was incinerated in a massive, air-polluting bonfire staged in Tiananmen Square—it seems a small price to pay for following one's conscience.

• Olympic organizers mull Spielberg boycott [CNN.com]