Screengrab editor emeritus Bilge Ebiri reports from the frontlines of Park City.

The big dirty secret of this year’s Sundance Film Festival is actually that it may be one of the better fest lineups in recent memory. The first few days at the festival tend to be ones of disappointment, but the films this year seem to be challenging that assumption. At least so far.

Having seen over a dozen of the films even before I left New York, I was suspecting this might happen. The docs slate, as usual, is loaded with interesting work, but even a number of the narrative features screened in advance left most critics impressed. In the Loop and Bronson, in particular, are two films that emerged from their New York screenings with deafening buzz. More on those as the festival rolls along. (I actually haven’t seen them yet.)

As for crowds, the rumors of a stripped-down festival in which everyone is reeling from a combination of financial ruin and a looming boycott of All Things Mormon don’t appear be carrying much weight either. Sure, a lot of old Sundance faces are missing, and this is the weekend, but the crowds seem robust. (The buses are certainly still packed. Fuck.)

The first day of the festival brought a number of well-received premieres, with Lee Daniels's coming-of-age melodrama Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, Lynn Shelton's bros-doing-gay-porn comedy Humpday, and Antoine Fuqua's cop epic Brooklyn’s Finest all generating a significant degree of buzz. Press screenings for the African thriller Johnny Mad Dog and the Sam Rockwell sci-fi drama Moon also left a number of critics impressed. I'll have more on these soon as well, but for now, the big acquisitions heat seems to be centered around Push and Humpday. The former in particular counts as a surprise, since it features a performance by Mariah Carey -- pretty much never a good sign -- and was directed by former producer Daniels, whose first directorial outing, the Cuba Gooding, Jr., hitman melodrama Shadowboxer, left, uh, something to be desired.

If you like heart-warming show-biz success stories, you need to check out this account of how Gabourney Sidibe, a twenty-four-year-old sometime performer too level-headed to pursue an acting career full-time at the expense of a steady paycheck, won the leading role in the movie version of the poet-novelist Sapphire's Push at an open audition; it has everything but a big star breaking her leg just before the curtain goes up and Warner Baxter telling Ms. Sidibe that if she doesn't go out there and become a star, the finance company will repossess the prop man's daughter's braces. It's all the more resonant because Ms. Sidibe is a plus-sized African-American woman, which is to say that she's not someone who could have stormed Hollywood confident that there would at least be a surplus of available roles for which casting directors might deem her appropriate. "When she was younger," reporter Jake Mooney writes in The New York Times, "she was teased about her appearance. More recently, when she hung out with her theater friends, some other girl, taller or skinnier, always got all the attention. 'I was comic relief,' she said. 'The best friend.'" For hope and inspiration, she would turn to the example of Mo'Nique, "the plus-size actress and comedian. . . and pray to be like her." In Push, which will be directed by Lee Daniels (Shadowboxing), Mo'Nique will be playing Ms. Sidibe's mother. — Phil Nugent