We made the most recent entry to our Sundance deal chart late Sunday, and since then, there just hasn’t been anything firm to report. In fact, from Sunday to Tuesday, I think there have been more “why aren’t movies selling” think pieces in places like Variety and the New York Times than their have been actual deals throughout the course of the festival. Of course, nobody really knows what the problem is, but everyone’s willing to hazard a guess.

In her writeup for Variety proper, Anne Thompson said buyers are holding out for “that magic combo of an easy-to-market movie that will earn great reviews”; on her blog, she said buyers “are looking for love. And some may not have found it yet.” David M. Halbfinger’s NYT piece suggests that buyers are holding out in the hopes that prices wold drop. He also manages to find a way to blame bloggers for the sluggishness, with a quote from Sony’s Tom Bernard:

“I had to leave What Just Happened? early to go meet a director, and where I was, these bloggers were getting text messages about how the movie was playing, while it was still playing. In a sense, the press is too immediate for the sellers, because they can’t really dupe people anymore.”

Interesting: bloggers may be the scum of the earth, but apparently if we post that a film is getting lukewarm reaction before Variety does, we’re responsible for saving studios millions of dollars.

I don’t have “relationships” with buyers, so I don’t know what’s going on for sure. But can tell you that, at the press and industry screenings that I’ve attended, the critics, bloggers, producers and festival programmers I’ve talked to have been hugely underwhelmed with the quality of the dramatic features, with the exception of Ballast. The only other non-fiction film that I’ve heard anyone speak passionately about is The Wackness, and for every single person genuinely championing it, there are two who look at it as an I Know Who Killed Me-level camp classic. For the cool kids not to have embraced a single international dramatic feature, by this point in the festival, is insane. The docs are making an impression, and they have been selling, but in this market non-fiction films need a huge hook to make an impression theatrically, and no one’s willing to put down a lot of money on that gamble.

If bloggers have so much power that we can block the sale of a film that shouldn’t even need Sundance to find a distributor, you’d think when we all get behind something, we’d have the power to make a sale happen. Until Ballast lands a US theatrical deal, I won’t be convinced of either.