Your Premiere Source of SUCK

Let's get it out of the way--I know I am not by any stretch original by bitching about Premiere Magazine being the lap bitch of the industry. But when you cavil about a subject you should sporadically provide evidence on behalf of the familiar rant. Case in support, the April 2004 issue of said rag, with the cover's seduction claimer that this is a Special Collector's Edition.

That impulse tag was not my reason for plucking this issue. Against my better judgment I fell for the cover banner announcing their coverage of the Sundance Film Fest. This weakness was due to my having crashed the Premiere party at the bottom of Main Street, the weakest bash during the fest. It had a long swag table with near empty gift bags, yuppies trying to appear hip and plugged-in as they guarded their own bags filled to 3 times capacity, and the worst crime of all--a cash bar! The place seemed to play host to all the things people complain about Sundance.

The new issue follows their tradition of emulating an all movie version of Entertainment Weekly. For instance, what makes this not just a collector's edition, but a Special Collector's Edition is the reliance on the now industry wide requirement that all periodicals offer a list of the "Greatest"-something-or-other of all time. This go round we get the "100 Greatest Movie Characters of all Time." All I need to show that this is fluff is that they feature Rebecca Romijn Stamos in photos as some of the female characters, and one of them is Sandy from "Grease". (Although her take as Alex Forrest was better than Glenn Close.)

Then they manage to find page space for the Sundance coverage, which begs you to skip ahead to the puff piece on Jim Carey's new attempt. Unable to help himself writer Tom Rolston not only mentions the appearance of Paris Hilton at Park City, he does so in the first sentence. He tries to couch it as a criticism, but he dedicates the entire opening paragraph to her turning heads at parties and even mentions her unstimulating video tape. Eventually he gets around to reporting that some movies were playing out there as well.

Apart from her bootlegged bedroom performance--which was only notable for showing her willingness to answer her cell phone in mid-romp (coitus-waiting?)--Paris has had no film history to warrant her being mentioned in a piece about Sundance, let alone being allowed in town to begin with. I first caught a whiff of her void-like screen charisma in a short film called "QIK2JDG". She has since appeared in other disposable versions of herself, such as a sex toy without lines in "Wonderland", and as a nightclub lemming in "The Cat in the Hat".

I guess the one thing we can be grateful about is that she never graced the screens during the festival, opting instead to populate venues that had nothing to do with film, like the Blender Magazine nightly affairs. When a movie with Paris Hilton is accepted into Sundance it will surely be a sign that they have gone over the edge. At least Slamdance will give a reason to fly out to the Utah Mountains.