While Will Farrell is allowed to make mediocre comedy after mediocre comedy, Jan Hooks hasn't worked since 2004. Yes, SNL has launched the careers of countless male superstars, but what has it done for the women? Pretty much bubkas. There are a few notable exceptions—Tina Fey, Gilda Radner, Amy Poehler, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for instance—but whither Ellen Cleghorne, Victoria Jackson, and Julia Sweeney? From the show's original cast, Jane Curtin may have gone on to several sitcoms, but Laraine Newman has been doing little more than guest spots and voice work for the better part of the decade.

Luckily Ana Gasteyer and Christine Ebersole went on to find steady work on Broadway, but that's kind of like being the chastest girl at a Sex-aholics Anonymous meeting. Why can Jimmy Fallon get his own late-night talk show, when Nora Dunn and Cheri Oteri are at home waiting by their phones? And for every Janeane Garofalo — who fled 30 Rock after one season, allowing her to escape with her career intact — a dozen Siobhan Fallones or Mary Grosses float out of sight. Maybe they should have taken the Maya Rudolph route and married a hipster director and done a drama. Now people are talking about how she's an "actress" instead of a comedian.

And it's not that these women aren't funny; they did scale to the very pinnacle of their trade by earning their places on the show. Hollywood doesn't know what to do with funny women. After all, it would rather have an attractive but bland actress playing the female lead on a sitcom rather than someone who has actual comedic timing. Look at who is starring in this season's romantic comedies: Amy Adams, Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston, three ladies who never let themselves get pigeon-holed as "funny."

Don't worry, Casey and Michaela, just remember that there was a little girl named Sarah Silverman who got fired from SNL after one season too. She went out there and did her own thing, and in the end talent won out, and now she has her own show on basic cable! Look at how far you can go!

The buddy flick ships the three socially allergic women off to spring break at South Padre Island, where the eco-idealist political gofer Becky (Posey) is assigned to chaperone her boss's own awkward daughter (Amber Tamblyn). Becky's BFFs Judi (Dratch) and Gayle (Poehler) join up, soon losing — and ultimately finding — themselves in the seasonal co-ed debauchery. It's Revenge of the Nerds meets Sex and the City, with all of the former's giddy depravity and the latter's sharp camaraderie, but with neither film's relative ambition. Director Ryan Shiraki borrows heavily from the '80s playbook of underdog cheapies, with about their same inconsistency and cult potential.

Those margins aren't satisfactory for Warner Bros., which produced Breakdown several years ago, offloaded it to its troubled (now defunct) Warner Independent Pictures label, and now leans toward a straight-to-DVD release. The enthusiastic full house at the Library Theater would disapprove. If only it were up to them.

Meanwhile, Poehler had made the journey to Park City at around 5 a.m. and greeted us with a gape, maybe a half-yawn, we couldn't tell. "Pardon me," she said. "My lips are out of juice." Do we ever know the feeling. But it's the world premiere! Let's celebrate! "The world premiere!" Her eyes alit. "I like that. It was fun. It was kind of a dream world."

Adding to the surreal quality was the likelihood that we were one of five audiences — only at Sundance — who may ever see Spring Breakdown in a movie theater. Poehler shrugged. "Warner's sister is going to put it out. I think?" Really? "Maybe they still will. Like I said, I think there's an arm of Warner Independent or Warner's sister that's going to put it out. It's going to be Warner Independent Independent."

The optimism cooled proportionately as the Breakdown family exited into the freezing Library parking lot, where Shiraki (pictured here with co-writer Dratch after the premiere) declined to discuss its limbo, and one disappointed insider told us even an exuberant Sundance response wouldn't necessarily guarantee the film a theatrical life. It has champions among the brass — including WB production exec Sara Schechter, who was on hand gauging reaction as well — but if Warner Independent couldn't stand by a crowd-pleasing Oscar lock like Slumdog Millionaire, the adage around Park City goes, what odds did an microbudget indie comedy stand? Even (or especially, in the minds of WIP skeptics) with Poehler, Dratch and Posey.

Technically, the jury remains out. But it seems clear enough that if you happen to be among the hardcore hopeful for whom Breakdown is a lost, lamented moviegoing grail, we'd say you have one week in Park City to track it down. That whole "theater near you" thing seems a long shot from here.

[Photo credits: Top, Getty Images; bottom, STV]

This year's vintage features another barrel of celebrities with equally little margin for error, some less endangered than others. For your handy trajectory-watching reference, we've narrowed their ranks to 10 of the most interesting:

1. Ashton Kutcher: The festival itself describes Kutcher's gigolo farce Spread as "such a perfectly tuned, contemporary depiction of the trials and tribulations of sleeping your way to wealth and success that, guilty pleasure or not, it's irresistible." Either the responsible programmer's tongue is so far in his cheek it'll leave a bruise, or we must forge on with the faith that Kutcher is up to credibly depicting those fraught "trials and tribulations." He's a producer on this as well, upping the skeevy self-casting factor proportionately with the stakes that accompany putting this on the Sundance market. THREAT LEVEL: Severe

2. Rachel Dratch: As co-writer and co-star of the Midnight section highlight Spring Breakdown, Dratch is nominally on the hook for delivering a sort of inverted Sex and the City: Three terminally unsophisticated women (played by Dratch, Amy Poehler and Parker Posey) entrusted to chaperone a teenager to spring break wind up cavorting with the savage youth. Laffs, empowerment and, hopefully for Dratch, a cult following ensue, exhuming this film from the shallow grave where it has languished for months and on to video shelves where it's likely to make its next stop. THREAT LEVEL: Elevated

3. Pierce Brosnan: A man for whom being the most tone-deaf cast member in history's biggest musical is his primary film accomplishment of the last five years, Brosnan needs his grieving-dad weepie The Greatest to find legs during its Saturday premiere — and not those of critics and buyers fleeing the Racquet Club in terror. Like Kutcher and about a million other actors to travel here with movies over the years, he's got a producer credit, which means he needs a sale, which means to needs to be on his game. For once. Whatever that might be. THREAT LEVEL: Dire

4. John Krasinski: He'll be on hand presenting his writing-directing debut Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, an adaptation of the novel by David Foster Wallace. It's a double-jeopardy scenario risking both his own artistic humiliation and the ultimate torpedoing of his recently deceased source. That said, he's John Krasinski — how bad can it really be? Wait, don't answer that. THREAT LEVEL: Moderate

5. Jim Carrey: One month removed from a lukewarm success with Yes Man, Carrey isn't traveling to Sundance to reinvent himself as an indie influence-peddler. But he still has to convince distributors and a game if cynical-by-default press corps that I Love You Phillip Morris is anchored in anything other than the Carrey-on-McGregor romance gimmick. As mentioned here yesterday, this has as much potential to be this year's What Just Happened as it does to be its Little Miss Sunshine; don't look for it to be much in between. THREAT LEVEL: Critical

6 - 10. Billy Bob Thornton's co-stars: The man whose one-time castmates have occasional trouble staying alive arrives with two wildly disparate films — the LA excess potboiler The Informers and the crap-salesman dramedy Manure — featuring two wildly disparate ensembles including Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger, Kyle MacLachlan, Winona Ryder, Tea Leoni and others. Everyone make sure you have your affairs in order before coming to Park City. THREAT LEVEL: Imminent

When I heard about the straight to DVD treatment, my first instinct was to cry sexism. I assumed that movie studios were not going to release the film because even after the moderate success of Baby Mama, they believe a woman-led comedy will not sell. But then I thought about it some more, and had another revelation: maybe I'm the one being sexist.

I was raging to a friend about Spring Breakdown not getting a proper release, and he said, "Maybe it's just not very good." That floored me. Maybe it's just. Not. Very. Good. That made me remember a comment made in the post I did about the Bride Wars trailer. If you'll recall, I found the trailer played to all the worst Bridezilla-ish stereotypes, and to that a commenter made some very good points, but then also a very bad one. "It might have gotten dumbed down and crappified, but there might actually be a good movie hiding behind the obnoxious trailer. Wouldn't be the first time. And, like Baby Mama, just the fact that it's a big budget comedy starring 2 women is a big big deal," the commenter argued. I was nodding my head in agreement, until this part: "Hopefully in a few years we'll have tons of good, bad, and mediocre female-driven comedies, but for now don't be so quick to shit on a movie written by, produced by, and starring women."

The idea that we should judge comedies written by, produced by, and starring women by a different rubric than comedies created by men is the worst kind of sexism — it's the sexism of diminished expectations.

Melissa hasn't seen Spring Breakdown, but she's not positive it's a stinker, either, by anyone's rubric. Here's what she had to say:

It's been done forever and I thought it was supposed to come out last spring around spring break which would have been perfect. So the fact that it's been sitting on the shelf for a while is not good news. Many movies, especially women's films have difficulty breaking into the market because there are just not enough theatres so even getting a DVD release is good for some people. This year films by Michelle Pfeiffer (the Amy Heckerling film- I Could Never Be Your Woman) and films that starred Meg Ryan and Diane Keaton have been dumped to DVD.

But those were smaller films. Spring Breakdown is from Warner Brothers which only really knows how to release guy centric blockbusters. I think that the could release it and still make $20 [million] because its a comedy and its got Amy who is almost as big a Tina now. I'm sure there are many political issues that I know nothing about and I don't know if the film is a piece of crap. Baby Mama was good, not great, in my book but made money (and would make so much more now).

With women's films you are screwed either way, first you don't want to release a bad movie starring and about women, especially a comedy because there are so few of those. I can just see the Judd Apatow fraternity rolling their eyes at a bad women's comedy. Why give Hollywood more ammunition to think we aren't a market?

But we don't know if it is bad. I see comedies differently than my male counterparts. Maybe I would think it was funny even though the suits at Warners or the test audiences in Las Vegas or some other place didn't. Who knows?

Melissa also notes that Bride Wars was not written and directed by women — it had women as co-writers (it was directed by Gary Winick and written by Casey Wilson, June Diane Raphael and Greg DePaul). However, she also thinks there should be room for the crappy chick flicks alongside the female-driven comedies and dramas. "We need all kinds of women's movies, just like we get all types of men's movies," Melissa stresses. "I just wish we had more good scripts and more opportunities to see women on screen. Is that too much to ask for in 2008?" No, no it's not.

Spring Breakdown [IMDB]
Women & Hollywood

Earlier: Bride Wars An Insult To Women, Brain Cells
The Stepfordization Of Hollywood's Comely Comediennes

What happened there? I think the big thing was—at least what they told me—that at first they wanted to have more comedy sketches in the show. Then they decided they weren't going to focus on the sketches, so they needed more of a sitcom actress, as opposed to a character actress.

That's very diplomatic.
Ha! Yes, I'm phrasing this all very nicely. That's the party line, at least—it's what I can tell my parents!

Were you pissed?
Well, when Tina told me I was going to play different characters each show, I was actually psyched about it, because it sounded really unique. But then the media kind of ran with this "demotion" thing, so that was kind of a bummer. But whatever, I'm over it.

How many episodes will you be in? Six, but that's a whole other thing. I was kind of like, Why do I only have six? But then I decided I shouldn't open my trap too much, so I just left it at that.

What do you think of Studio 60?
What's weird to me about it is that they're so serious about comedy. In the real comedy world, no one's like, "We've got to change people!"

What's it like working with Alec Baldwin?
I haven't really worked with him that much, except for when I was starring in that first pilot. Cough, cough.

It's probably smart that Dratch didn't rock the boat when she discovered she was only getting six episodes, lest she awaken to a story in the trades in which boss Lorne Michaels tries to sell her new part as "the unusual lady who's sometimes lurking in the background of scenes but never speaks," as a "far funnier role in which Rachel will really get to exercise her nonverbal comedy chops."

• Rachel Rolls With It [Intelligencer via TVGasm]
• Previously: Debbie Downer Demoted Recast [Defamer]

Jane Krakowski has joined the cast of NBC's upcoming comedy series "30 Rock."

The former "Ally McBeal" actress will play the star of "The Girlie Show," a network variety show that serves as the backdrop for the workplace comedy, which stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin.

In the original pilot, Rachel Dratch played the star of "Girlie Show." She is now set to appear in multiple episodes, playing different characters.

Luckily, Dratch's stubborn refusal to address the network's note to make her character "more like the Ally McBeal secretary who lost weight and got all that plastic surgery after their show went off the air...what? She's available? Let's just get her," didn't cost her a job. In fact, she'll still play an integral part in the rejiggered cast, as SNL mentor Michaels and fellow EP Tina Fey have already supplemented Dratch's "cat wrangler" role from the pilot with appearances in future episodes as "spinster with dozens of cats," "crazy pet store clerk with unhealthy interest in cats," and a scene-stealing part as "woman with psychological disorder that causes her to groom herself with her tongue and shred furniture with her nails."

• Krakowski to headline '30 Rock' [THR]
• Previously: Debbie Downer Demoted [Defamer]

Dratch was originally tapped to play Jenna DeCarlo, an actress on "The Girlie Show" — the show-within-a-show on "30 Rock."

But with the focus of "30 Rock" moving away from "The Girlie Show" and more toward the interaction among stars Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan, the show's exec producers decided to scrap Dratch's character.

Instead, Dratch will appear in several episodes in a wide variety of roles. In the "30 Rock" opener, for example, she'll now appear as a cat wrangler (whose felines are needed for a sketch).

"Both Tina and I obviously adore Rachel, and we wanted to find a way in which we could go to her strength," said "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels, who is also an exec producer on "30 Rock." "The way it's been rewritten, it's a much funnier part."

Leave it to legendary smooth-talker Lorne Michaels to sell the demotion, probably precipitated by a test audience comment card reading, "I think I find Debbie Downer too depressing to be on this show all the time, but I dunno. Tell her I hope her cat with AIDS is OK," as an exciting opportunity that frees up more time to go on auditions.

• Inside Move: Dratch latched to multiple 'Rock' roles [Variety]