Friday is Dubbed "Operation Get Movie Tickets."

Operation “Get Movie Tickets” begins before the sun comes up Friday morning.


First Plan A:

Up by 5:30 and out the door by 6:15 to head to the Box Office. Each morning the Box Office releases a few more tickets for the movies that are playing that day. By being there an hour before it opens, we were hoping to be able to score tickets to at least two movies. The other advantage of going to the Box Office is we should be able to exchange some of our extra tickets for Monday for Friday tickets. This saves us the hassle of trying to sell those tickets.

Plan A did not work out so well. We waited in line for 90 minutes and by the time we got to a ticket seller, there were one or two tickets available for a few Friday movies – nothing that met our needs. So, we left empty-handed. While we were unable to trade in our unwanted tickets, we did sell the bulk of them to people in line. Yeah, cash on hand!

On to Plan B:

Now that we are almost over our outrage over this crazy non-ticket-buying process, we are going to take another tactic to see two movies. We are headed to The Library Theater two hours before show time to see if we can get wait list tickets to see Buck (the horse whisperer documentary.) After that we will move to the Yarrow Theater, again two hours before show time, to try to get wait list tickets for Old Cats (a very quirky Spanish film in the Spotlight Category.) This is a tedious, time-consuming way to try to get tickets, but we are determined.

We are here to see movies, damn it, and see movies we will!

OK, so we saw one movie. We ended-up not getting in to see Buck. We had wait list numbers 47-50 and the theater filled-up about six people ahead of us. It’s playing again tomorrow, so we plan to try again. By sacrificing any other afternoon activities, we were able to get seats for Old Cats. We thought this was going to be a funny, charming look at old age and difficult mother/daughter relationships. Yeah, not so much. Instead it was a plodding, sad look at old age and difficult mother/daughter relationships. It was made by two Chilean film makers whose charming personalities almost made up for the lack of charm in the film.

Highlights of the Day:

• Being called “Sundance Fairy Godmothers” by a group of USC Law students who were trying to navigate the Sundance scene for the first time.
• Making a quick trip to Main Street and the Sponsor Co-op, where we scored everything from a free L.L. Bean tote bag to a tube of L'oreal lipstick.
• Jennifer, craving a chocolate chip cookie, insisted we stop in at an Internet Café. When she turned around, she literally ran into Elijah Wood. There weren’t many people around, so we are still kicking ourselves for not asking for a quick photo.
• Meeting all kinds of wonderful people in line. Including Jeremy from Chicago, who stars in a low-budget, handcrafted film that premieres Sunday and proudly shared photos of his 18-month-old daughter. And Mohanned who works for the Royal Film Commission in Jordan and travels to film festivals around the world, scouting movies and promoting Jordanian-made films.

This is what we love about Sundance.

Old Cats Directors Pedro Peirano and Sebastian Silva