I'm not much of a stargazer -- seriously, I have no interest whatsoever in what famous people do outside of what happens between the opening and closing credits of a movie. At the same time, you do get these weird moments up here where you spot people in the street. Matthew Broderick was wandering down Main Street the other day; Robert Englund was at the corner of Park and Heber rocking a truly impressive C. Everett Koop beard, which I can only assume he's growing for a role.

I also rarely approach famous people, and when I do, I invariably wind up saying something like "Pardon me; I don't mean to trouble you, but I wanted to say I've derived tremendous satisfaction from your work." (This, of course, is assuming the prior statement is true; it's not like I'd walk up to, for example, Joel Schumacher and say that.) And earlier this week, I did something I've never done and asked an actor if I could snap their picture.

Wendell Pierce is here at Sundance as one of the actors in a short called Pariah, written and directed by Dee Reese; really, though, the reason why I wanted to get a snapshot is because I've been devouring The Wire throughout the past year, and Pierce plays Det. 'Bunk' Moreland. I asked Mr. Pierce for the snapshot, he said sure, and later on he and I chatted on a shuttle bus, and I was truly, sincerely, terribly psyched. The Olsens, the Hiltons, the Kardashians -- I couldn't care less. But give me a happenstance run-in with The Bunk, and I'm in heaven.

See the expression on Ice Cube's face in this photograph? I wore that same expression for the entire running time of First Sunday. The transition of the holiday movie season into the barren movie wasteland of January is always a jarring one. For the past three months, it seems like I've seen nothing but Oscar-caliber movies -- masterful films by outstanding filmmakers working from amazing scripts. So maybe First Sunday just pales in comparison...

But I don't think so.

No, this is not yet another sequel to that terrific Ice Cube comedy Friday, as many have suspected. Sunday tells the story of "new" characters Durell (Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan). As the movie opens, the boys are picked up by the cops for their involvement with some stolen wheelchairs. They are sentenced to 5,000 hours of community service, the owner of the wheelchairs comes to collect, and Durell finds himself broke. Things get even more desperate when Durell's ex-girlfriend (Regina Hall) tells him she intends to move to another state with his son...unless he can come up with $17,000 to pay off a debt. So Durell and LeeJohn do what anyone in their shoes would do -- they decide to rob a church. And of course, after a night amongst good Christian folk, they learn that crime is bad and God is good and blah blah blah.

Mark Ruffalo probably just sent an expensive bottle of something to his agent -- he's got a plum role in the new Martin Scorsese flick. Ruffalo will co-star with Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's 2004 novel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ruffalo plays "U.S. Marshal Chuck Aule, who travels with his new partner (DiCaprio) to the eponymous Massachusetts island in 1954. As they investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, they encounter a web of lies, a hurricane and a deadly inmate riot that leaves them trapped on the island." Oh good Lord, can't wait for this one! But...

Does anyone else wish the Scorsese/DiCaprio collaboration would come to an end? Scorsese is my favorite director, and DiCaprio is a talented actor, but we're not talking about the second coming of DeNiro here. Shouldn't Scorsese share the wealth a bit, spread the love around? I don't think the pairing has gotten stale yet, but why push it until it does? Oh well, anything that keeps Marty from movies about Tibetan monks is okay by me. Laeta Kalogridis (writer of -- uh-oh -- Alexander, Pathfinder and the Bionic Woman pilot) will adapt Lehane's book, which I will be reading on an airplane in about three hours. Lehane is mighty hot in Hollywood these days. He writes for The Wire -- the best show on television, and his books have been turned into Oscar winners (Mystic River) and Oscar hopefuls (this fall's Gone Baby Gone, which was great baby great). Shutter starts shooting this March.