The 2009 Sundance Film Festival kicked off last night with Robert Redford’s traditional opening address. Predictably, Redford (looking like no kind of Sundance Kid these days) fielded a number of questions on the topic of the economic downturn’s potential effect on the festival. He used the opportunity to take a few shots at the outgoing administration: “You've got a lame-duck guy going out,” Redford said, "but he sure has done a lot of quacking in the last while. So therefore, the sooner they're gone, the better, and therefore, I'm very excited by the change that's coming."

After Redford’s remarks, the opening night film, Mary and Max, unspooled to mixed reactions. Variety says the Australian claymation effort “has its share of deadpan amusements, but its combo of mordant whimsy and tearjerker moments winds up curdling in an unappetizing fashion.” Slashfilm calls it “something magical. It is the perfect film to start off the festival, because it is everything that Sundance would like to stand for. It’s handcrafted and so very unique that it would have been impossible for any studio and Hollywood to produce anything like it. They wouldn’t have the guts.” Cinematical finds it “a tad sappy and heavy-handed at times.”

The L.A. Times says it’s a buyer’s market at Sundance this year. “Although the rapidly evolving marketplace suggests the odds of a Sundance bidding war this year are slim, there also could be simultaneous downward pressure on the sales prices -- known in the industry as minimum guarantees -- for Sundance's smaller films, especially nonfiction films.”

More cheery thoughts from the Toronto Star, which claims the sun may be setting on the indie revolution. “This annual 10-day showcase for independent film is feeling the effects of the global recession as the industry reels from reduced deal-making, curtailed releasing and the shuttering of several significant indie distributors, Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse among them.”

Sounds like party time in Park City!