• While many cinephiles were watching indie films at Sundance and celebrating the nominations of little-seen Oscar-hopefuls, regular moviegoers were buying tickets to Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which topped the box office for a second weekend in a row. With 10-day earnings at $65 million, the comedy has already outgrossed Best Picture shoo-in Slumdog Millionaire. Of course, nearly all major Oscar contenders did at least see a boost in box office following the announcement of nominees (Doubt being the exclusion).
• Was anyone else watching the SAG Awards last night and wishing it would turn into a death match, or at least a debate? Well, Variety has a multitude of backstage quotes from actors from both sides of the infighting union. And of course there’s the onstage taboo-breaking prophecy of Tina Fey.
• In an admitted attempt to battle piracy and boost the Hong Kong film industry, producer Stephen Shiu Jr. is making a 3D sequel to the 1991 erotic adventure movie Sex and Zen. Simply titled 3D Sex and Zen, it will apparently be the first 3D erotic film ever made. Perhaps this is just what digital 3D needs to get that much-needed rise in interest.
• Universal has moved Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno from mid-May to mid-July, reportedly to fill a gap left by 2012, which was pushed back to November. Of course, it also won’t hurt Cohen to avoid getting hammered by Angels & Demons.
• And for those of you who missed the additions to our Sundance deals chart, the films Spread, Moon and Art & Copy were all picked up for distribution over the weekend.

This morning, I called in to CNET’s new podcast, The 404, to talk about Sundance hits (Baghead, Timecrimes) and misses (The Wackness, Downloading Nancy), why the SAG Awards can’t replace The Oscars, and why Alec Baldwin’s looks have declined as his career has resurged (hint: age is only half of it). You can listen here.

• Daniel Day-Lewis and Julie Christie continued their winning streaks over the weekend, each picking up the top individual prizes at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. The WGA had issued SAG a waver to allow them to produce a telecast with professional writers, which thus made it cool for stars to show up, which thus created the conditions for this photograph of Angelina Jolie in what appears to be a tie-dyed chiffon sack, thus giving credence to recent rumors that she may be carrying two new doses of Pitt spawn.
• Of the many “specialty” films which expanded their theater count in hopes of capitalizing on Oscar nominations, only Atonement failed to see a bump in percentage this weekend, with The Savages gaining 2% even as it shed screens. But the real story of weekend in the indie box office realm––which Variety buries at the very bottom of their writeup––is that Cristian Mungiu’s Cannes-winning, Oscar-ignored drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days earned $48,176 across just 2 screens.
• Ben Fritz gets off a nice joke about Sylvester Stallone being an “ancient warrior” in his mass-market box office writeup, but it must be little comfort to the team behind Rambo, which opened in second place behind something I had never heard of called Meet the Spartans.  Cloverfield dropped almost 70% in its second weekend, which makes sense considering the film’s hype peaked six months ago.

• Oh, the perils of being an organization built on starfucking: if the Hollywood Foreign Press Association can’t get the WGA to issue a waiver to allow writers to pen lame banter for the Golden Globes, then there’s a strong chance that most stars will refuse to cross the (real or theoretical) picket line to attend the ceremony. No stars=no photo ops=virtually no point in going through with the awards. Variety says the HFPA’s chances at landing a waver look slim, although the WGA just issued a similar pass to the SAG awards.
• In other awards news: Juno and Into the Wild lead the nominations for the Critics Choice Awards; Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, one of my favorite films of this year, and Bruce Greenwood McDonald’s The Tracey Fragments made the Toronto International Film Festival Group’s list of the Top 10 Canadian Films of the Year. Winnipeg will also open the Forum sidebar at the Berlin Film Festival in February. It’s screen alongside Green Porno, a collection of three short films by Isabella Rosselini about the sex lives of insects.
• This story is days old, but I missed it: a German producer has acquired the remake rights to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.