Several Sundance Firsts

Every year, ticket buying is an adventure, but this year was just plain weird. Yesterday was our first opportunity to purchase tickets on line. We had a morning time slot on the first day and were optimistic about our chances. That optimism quickly turned to frustration when we saw the number of sold-out movies.

We wanted tickets to four more movies and had identified 40 options. Of those 40, we got three -- two Shorts Programs and one early morning movie. We bought tickets to another early morning movie that wasn't on our list of 40 to fill out our schedule.

I'm not sure why tickets were so hard to come by this year, but because of that we are looking forward to several "Sundance Firsts:"

• First time seeing the Documentary Short Film Program,
• First time seeing a musical at Sundance,
• First time seeing a movie in the Temple Theater (a new venue, added last year),
• And the first time we won't be seeing any movies at Eccles (the high school auditorium, which is the largest venue and where most of the "big name" films premiere.)

Here are the newest films in our line-up:

Bran Nue Dae -- The film mentioned above that was not on our preferred list and represents our first Sundance musical. An Australian film that adapts the stage production to film. I have to admit this is not my favorite genre, but Geoffrey Rush is in it, so it can't be all bad. (I'm also trying to overlook the fact that the title reminds me of high fiber cereal and is in desperate need of spellcheck.)

Documentary Showcase -- A collection of seven documentary short films from the U.S., Israel, Spain and Germany. It's hard to tell what they are about, but the description hints at drunken history, wife swapping and karaoke.

Shorts Program IV -- A collection of seven short films from the U.S., Poland, the U.K. and Canada. I have no idea what they are about, but there are few opportunities to see short films here in Portland and short programs always give us something to talk about.

(I'm fully expecting both of these shorts programs to give me a leg-up at Academy Awards parties.)

Abel -- Tuesday morning, before we fly home, we are going to squeeze in this family drama directed by Diego Luna (he also directed Rudo y Cursi which we saw last year.) It looks like a touching film about a unique little boy and how he changes the family dynamic.

We had another buying time slot this morning, so I logged on to see if the Box Office released more tickets today. No such luck. All that was left are shorts programs, midnight showings and films playing outside Park City. Bad news for anyone with a buying time slot after yesterday morning who wants to see a weekend movie. There was, however, a pretty good selection of movies midweek. Hmmm, maybe this needs to be a longer trip next year.