Dueling 'Dancers

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 25, 2006 6:48PM

The Tribune’s Mark Caro is a lucky guy.

No sooner does his Pop Machine blog debut than he’s off to Park City, Utah to cover the Sundance Film Festival. Wait…you don’t suppose they planned it that way, do you?

In any case, we’ve been getting a kick out of Caro’s warts-and-all coverage, especially his realization last week that people might, you know, read his blog. Unfortunately, this didn’t occur to Caro until after he took a backhanded swipe at Jennifer Aniston’s new film Friends With Money but before his scheduled interview with Aniston and co-star Catherine Keener. We doubt Aniston or Keener saw the post, but the interview fell through anyway thanks to a publicist pulling a variation on the ol’ bait-and-switch routine.

Not to be outdone, Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert is filing his own reports from Sundance. While Sundance is now plagued with Brobdignanian goodie bags and Paris Hilton, Ebert says he does not “attend Sundance expecting glamour” as he relates his unsuccessful attempt to track down instant coffee. Alternating between long-form pieces (like this interview with director Julie Kwan) and almost blog-like entries that relate anecdotes from the fest, Ebert takes full advantage of his access and gives us a look at the directors and films that will be making news in the next year.

And finally: RIP, Nice Guy Eddie.