The Sundance Outsider

We Ended on a High Note

2012-01-29T13:53:00.000-08:00

Our last Sundance movie was "Filly Brown," the story of an up-and-coming Latino hip hop artist. Filly, passionately played by Gina Rodriguez is using her music to tell the immigrant story and help her struggling family. Rodriguez received all the attention around this film as a previously undiscovered actress who delivers a dynamic performance, but I don't want the film itself to be overlooked in the wake.

Filly Brown is a story with a huge heart. It's about the immigrant story, yes, but it is also about family, loyalty and being true to oneself. Lou Diamond Phillips is great as Filly's dad and the almost all Latino cast crackles with energy and anger throughout. The original music (sung mostly by Rodriguez) illuminates the Latino hip hop scene, provides a pulsing backdrop to the film and may even convert a few dyed-in-the-wool rap haters into fans.

I'm not sure if this film will make it into mainstream theaters. If so, check it out, if not, put it in your Netflix queue. Here are some other much-talked-about films that premiered at Sundance this year:

In the Dramatic Category
The Surrogate
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Compliance

In the Documentary Category:
Ethel (about Ethel Kennedy)
Finding North (about Hunger in America)
Searching for Sugarman (about a 70s rocker whose music becomes a hit in South Africa)

This year's award winners have also been announced: http://www.sundance.org/festival/blog-entry/2012-awards/. Check them out for more interesting Netflix options.

Where are the Writers?

2012-01-27T14:54:00.000-08:00

Jenn and I saw a shorts program and a feature film today and all total heard about 20 lines of dialog. Ok, that's a slight exaggeration, but we have heard several filmmakers say that "they wanted the relationship to be communicated through body language" or "they wanted the story told through the character's eyes." A little of that is fine but a whole movie of brooding looks is tedious and slow.Such was the case with, "For Ellen" featuring Paul Dano and basically, only Paul Dano, as Joby Taylor an almost-rock-star sorting out his feelings about being a deadbeat dad as his divorce is finalized. The movie plays out mostly in his head. In the Q and A the film maker says she was going through a bit of a midlife crisis when she wrote it. I say, have your crisis... in private ... don't bring us all down with you.I don't even know what to say about Shorts Program III. We have seen some great short films over the years, but the six films in this program were a bust. One of the films had no dialog at all and it was actually one of the better ones. Four of the six played like a small segment of a larger story. They had no resolution and left the audience to finish the story. The one we liked best (and that's not saying much) was a comedy by a Polish director called "Frozen Stories." It focused on two incredibly lonely people who are pushed into entering a reality show/contest called "The Unhappiest Person in the World." Yep, I said comedy. One more movie tomorrow and we are hoping to end on a positive note. We'll see ...

This is Why we Come to Sundance

2012-01-27T14:37:00.001-08:00

On Wednesday, we saw three films that really represent the Sundance experience. One quietly elegant film set in Kashmir, one a moving exploration of grief and fatherhood, and the last one a comedy featuring an over-zealous boss.Valley of the SaintsThis film is simply gorgeous and made even more beautiful by it's story. Set in Kasmir around Dal Lake, it is a story of struggle and friendship and poverty and hope. While ever-present in the background, the country's political unrest is not the primary focus of the story. Instead, the story centers on the Lake and the people who live there. Using mostly untrained locals as actors (the lead actor still makes his living taking tourists for boat rides on the lake) gives the film its heart. The film makers took many risks in making this film and I'm grateful they did. For an intimate look at an often overlooked part of the world, this film is so worth seeing.The End of LoveDirected by and starring Mark Webber, "The End of Love" tells the story of a recently widowed father trying to find his way alone with his son. We were amazed to learn that every scene involving the 2 1/2 year old boy in the movie was unscripted and shot in one take. Webber was able to accomplish this by casting his own, incredibly cute, son in the role. Not a terribly uplifting story, it was compelling without being overly sad and uses an extreme situation to explore some of the sacrifices that come with being a dad. Price CheckBecause Sundance features so many realistic films dealing with painful subject matter, a comedy is always a welcome break. Price Check features Parker Posey as a somewhat crazed boss and Eric Mabius as one of her star employees. The premise is not new -- compromising one's dreams to earn a living and support a family -- but P.P.'s over-the-top performance and the scene where one particular employee gets a new nickname is worth the price of admission.

Day Two -- Movies Three Through Five

2012-01-27T09:16:00.002-08:00

We started our day with a 9:00AM movie (something I would only do at Sundance), Julie Delpy's "2 Days in New York." A comedy, the story unfolds as Marion's (played by Delpy) family descends on the small apartment she shares with her boyfriend Mingus (Chris Rock) for a visit from France. While the whole cast is great, Delpy's father steals the show as - who else - Marion's father. Destined for distribution, while this movie won't blow your socks off it has some very funny moments and anyone who has had a stressful weekend with familial house guests will relate to it. Gypsy Davy was our next film. The film maker, a very angry daughter, turns the camera on her father, who abandoned her and her mother. Her father is a flamenco guitarist who travels the world leaving a trail of women and children in his wake. Using a combination of home video, interviews and narration a very personal story unfolds. In the end, the film feels a little self-indulgent. Father and daughter are on better terms in the end, but I personally didn't need to go along for the ride.Our third film was a documentary about Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist and dissident. "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" is a brilliant portrait of the man created by a very young first-time film maker. I was already a big fan of Ai Weiwei, but after this movie he has been elevated to hero status. His art is provocative and thoughtful, and his politics are communicated passionately and rationally. Currently silenced by the Chinese government, follow him through the film's Twitter account: AWWneversorry.If this film comes to the Portland International Film Festival, see it!

Kid-Thing ... So not my Thing

2012-01-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

We saw two movies and a short on our first day of the Festival. The second film redeemed the day for us. But first, I will try to describe the terrible short film and depressing feature film that kicked-off the day. As I don't think these films will be shown anywhere but here, I don't think I'm spoiling anything.The short film was called "Don't Hug me I'm Scared." It featured a crafty (and I mean that literally) set made entirely of felt. Picture a felt refrigerator. A talking notebook (also made of felt) encourages three puppet-like characters to use their brains and "get creative." In the course of this less than 10 minute film, things degenerate into rolling brains in glitter and slicing a brain-filled cake. Blech, blech, blech!The feature film that followed at least had human characters. Primarily one very alone, bored and neglected 11-year old girl named Annie. As you follow her through one empty day after another, you get the point ... this girl is completely lacking a moral compass. The bleakness of her life is further amplified by the ridiculously slow pacing of the movie and almost non-existent dialog. (How many times do the cars on a dirt track need to ram into each other for the audience to understand we are at the demolition derby?) When Annie discovers a woman who has fallen in a remote well, she has a chance to make a good choice. In the end, she makes several very wrong choices and jumps in the well herself. The End. Blech, blech, blech!Luckily we ended the night with Mike Birbiglia's comedy based on events from his life, "Sleepwalk With Me." Already a fan of Mike's from The Moth (search his name on www.themoth.org or check out bornite.com) I was really hoping I liked his film. I did. Throughout the movie Birbiglio (renamed Matt Pandapiglio in the movie) speaks directly to the audience as he takes us back through the events that brought him to the present. Despite the name change, the movie is clearly autobiographical. A fine cast, a story-telling format and a series of unbelievable dream/sleepwalking sequences all work together to keep the audience engaged. At the start of the film, Ira Glass says he just wants the audience to leave liking Mike the way he likes him. We did.In true Sundance fashion, we bumped into many of the cast from this film having lunch in the booth next to ours the day after the screening. I congratulated them and then slid into the booth next to them for a photo. Carol Kane played Mike/Matt's mom in the film and we were all proud of ourselves for resisting the urge to quote lines from "The Princess Bride."

I Can't Believe it's Year 9

2012-01-11T19:46:00.000-08:00

As Sundance 2012 quickly approaches and the flurry (aka stress) of ticket-buying subsides, I decided I better dust off the old blog and do some postin’. I wouldn't want to disappoint my fans (Hi Mom and Dad.)

To bring you up to date, my sister, Jenn, and I spent the long Christmas weekend pouring over the Film Guide and carefully crafting the Ultimate Sundance Viewing Schedule. As with previous years, that plan was completely scrapped once we discovered the lack of available tickets. We did however end up with an interesting mix of movies that even includes some of our first choices (thanks to the fact that Jenn has put off getting an Oregon driver’s license, so still "appears to be" a Park City resident.)

Reading the Film Guide is an exercise in code-cracking. As this is our ninth year, we have learned a thing or two about how to interpret the two-paragraph descriptions for each film (see previous posts about completely awful movies.) Here are some examples of actual descriptions that cause our red flag to fly:

“Using a non-linear timeframe…”

“…a funky, surreal, world of deadpan absurdism.”

And this one right from the description of Wuthering Heights (yes, that Wuthering Heights): “A stark cinematic expression of the novel’s fierce beauty. Stripping the story to its elemental form, [the filmmaker] dispenses with narrative embellishments, music, literary sheen and romanticism – leaving a wondrous, spare aesthetic of somber hues and harsh textures dominated by nature, natural sounds, animals, and the craggy, windswept terrain.” This description, coupled with the fact that there is no mention of the actors’ performances makes me think it’s a film comprised of brooding looks and physical tension rather than dialog. I’ll pass.

We prefer (and are seeing) films with descriptions that include:

“…propelled by an exceptional cast, and fused with a fierce hip-hop score…”

“Chris Rock … who convincingly plays the straight man…”

"Parker Posey” (You had me at P-uh.)

And this little gem from the Australian movie Kid-Thing: "...a carefully observed film that is both harsh and poignant, but one that retains [the filmmakers’] idiosyncratic humor – you will learn how to ‘blow a chicken’s mind’." Could be useful in chicken-centric Portland.

If these little snippets aren’t enough and you have a half day to spare, check out the on-line film guide in its entirety at: http://filmguide.sundance.org/

The Festival kicks off on Thursday, January 19, but we will not be arriving until the weekend and plan to see movies every day from 1/23 to 1/27. In the meantime, you will have to do with my musings and ramblings about the films we plan to see and the wines I plan to pack (it is Utah after all.)

We Were Here, Taking Shelter on Another Earth (This will make sense later)

2011-01-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

Our last day at Sundance 2011 and we saw three very different movies. We all agreed that we like every movie better after the Q & A session that follows each movie. We call this the “Sundance Factor.” Keep that in mind as you read my reviews.

Another Earth

Part tragedy, part science fiction, Another Earth explores the opportunity to right a dreadful wrong. It begins with the discovery of a new planet -- completely identical to earth, right down to the folks that live there. On the night the planet is discovered a young girl causes a tragic accident. As she struggles to get her life back on track and make amends to the man whose life she destroyed, the rest of the world is tuned-in to unfolding news about this new planet.

This is a smart film. I love the way a real-world situation is juxtaposed with this big “what if?” scenario. The characters are relatable and it plays as two-stories-in-one until the end when they come together. The very young, very hyper Director, Mike Cahill, was hugely entertaining in the Q and A, including a Sundance first where he stopped to zip his fly in front of 1200 people. My sister swears he was joking around, but I’m not so sure.

Possibly coming to a town near you, see it with friends so you can have your own “what if” discussion.

The Cast and Crew of Another Earth

Director, Mike Cahill, who was very excited to be there.

Take Shelter

It’s never easy watching a film about mental illness and this film is no exception. It is, however, a brilliant portrayal of one man’s decline into irrational fear and the impact that has on his family. Punctuated with special effects and ghoulish nightmares, the audience is placed in this man’s head as much as possible. Set in rural Ohio, the film is an actualized rendering of the impending doom that the filmmaker senses many Americans are currently feeling. The tension in the film was such that I had to remind myself to breathe.

Casting was right on. Michael Shannon played the main character, Curtis and it didn’t seem to be too much of a stretch. He seemed as disquieted in person as his character was in the film. I particularly loved how his wife’s character was written. Played with subtlety and grace by Jessica Chastain; she was a strong, take charge woman, who stayed by her man even when he was at his least lovable. Their deaf daughter was played by Tova Stewart, a young student from the nearby School for the Deaf. Her first role ever, she came across as a seasoned professional.

I think this film has already found distribution, so if you like an edge-of-your-seat, psychological thriller featuring a loving, hard-working family in a small town, be sure to check it out.

Jessica Chastain and Tova Stewart

Michael Shannon

We Were Here

Chronicling the gay revolution in San Francisco starting in the 1970s, this documentary is an intimate and deeply personal portrait of the Aids epidemic. From the nurse who dedicated her life to caring for Aids patients and helping to find a cure, to the men who lost countless partners and friends; the story is told chronologically through interviews and hundreds of archival photographs. Bottom line, it’s sad, very sad.

If I thought it would make a difference, I would love to force every one of those protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church to watch it.

2011-01-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

Sunday we set out with high expectations. This is the day where we have three Premieres in a row at Eccles, the Park City High School Performing Arts Center, which is the biggest and nicest of the venues.

Higher Ground

Our first film of the day, Higher Ground, was directed by and stars Vera Farmiga (of Up in the Air fame) and is based on a memoir called This Dark World written by Carolyn Briggs. It tells the life story of Corinne, who marries her high school boyfriend, has kids and finds God (not necessarily in that order.) It’s a story of a spiritual journey and a story about being true to oneself. I must admit this film hit close to home for me – I could totally relate to Corinne’s character and I appreciated someone telling an honest story about faith and doubt. It was a very personal and emotional directorial debut. I don’t know if this film will find a wider audience, so I’m glad I was able to score a ticket at Sundance.

Vera Farmiga discusses Higher Ground.

Another Happy Day

Another Happy Day is one of those "Sundancey" films that really has no plot and features dysfunction on every level. An all-star cast tells the story of a family with big issues that completely boil over when they all come together for a family wedding. Ellen Barkin is terrific as a mom at her wits end. Ellen Burstyn and George Kennedy play her parents and Thomas Hayden Church plays her ex-husband. Demi Moore is great as the controlling and somewhat slutty new wife, but I particularly liked the two boys who play Ellen Barkin’s sons. Ezra Miller plays a brilliant, but drug-addicted son with Tourettes while Daniel Yelsky plays his precocious little brother. Together, they provide what little levity exists throughout the film and delivered all the best lines.

Despite the excellent cast, this sarcastically-titled film is so relentlessly sad that it is hard to enjoy and I even found myself wishing it would end. A person can only take so much of Ellen Barking crying. The truly remarkable thing about this film is that it was written and directed by 25-year-old, Sam Levinson. To be that young and create a story that authentically gives voice to three generations is a true gift. I predict bigger and better things to come – he’s definitely one to watch.

Sam Levinson, unknown guy (sorry, whoever you are), Ellen Barkin, Demi Moore and Kate Bosworth

Cedar Rapids

Cedar Rapids is one of the hottest tickets at Sundance this year – partly due to its well-known cast and partly due to the fact that it is one of the few comedies. It stars the loveable Ed Helms (Andy from The Office) as a small-town insurance salesman who travels to the big city (relatively speaking) for an insurance convention. John C. Reilly steals the show as the glad-handing, potty-mouthed roommate. I wish I could remember all the off-color euphemisms he delivers -- suffice it to say he had colorful phrases for everything from a white guy hugging a black guy to having sex with a red head. This film is part coming-of-age, part moral dilemma and completely hilarious.

Other stars include Ann Heche, Isiah Whitlock and Sigourney Weaver. A little smarter than The Hangover, this could be your guilty pleasure movie for 2011. Here's a link to the trailor if you want a sneak peak: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1067817753/.

Ed Helms, with Director, Miguel Arteta right behind him.

The cast and crew of Cedar Rapids

Movies!

2011-01-24T08:48:00.000-08:00

Saturday went much better than Friday. We spent a lovely 12 hours at the picturesque Sundance Resort and saw a total of five movies (two feature-length films and three short films.) Between films, we walked along a postcard-worthy stream to hang-out in another building which houses a restaurant, bar, gift store and deli/coffee shop. Everyone there was friendly, the staff was very accommodating and the facilities were top notch. Now that we know how comfortable it is to see movies at the Resort, I’m sure we will make it a point to spend at least one day there every year.

Pariah

Our first movie of the day was our favorite of the day. Pariah tells the story of a teen African-American lesbian whose family is having difficulty accepting her lifestyle. This film is remarkable for several reasons. First, it shed lights on a common issue for gay teens in a very authentic and honest manner. Second, it is beautifully acted. Each actor portrays his or her character were such sensitivity that you find yourself sympathizing with all of them. And third, this is a very complete and polished film created by a team of mostly young, unknown talent. It is Director Dee Rees’ (photo below) debut film. Newby Cinematographer, Bradford Brown, did an amazing job and the cast poured its heart and soul into it. By the end of the movie everyone in the building was crying, including the cast and crew.

Documentary Shorts II

Three short films were bundled together to make this shorts program. The first two should be seen by every American, the third … not so much.

Living for 32

This is the story of Colin Goddard, a Virginia Tech shooting survivor who is now dedicated to lobbying for gun law reform. In light of our recent experience in Tucson (we were on vacation there and not far from the site of the shooting when it occurred) this young man is my new hero. He was shot four times and is one of seven survivors in a classroom of 17 people. After dedicating himself to getting better physically, he has now dedicated himself to making America a better place. He is involved in the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. I plan to get involved when I get home. Here’s the link if you are interested in knowing more: http://www.bradycampaign.org/.

The Barber of Birmingham

This film provides a snapshot of the Civil Rights Movement through the eyes of 85-year-old James Armstrong. Armstrong was a Civil Rights Foot Soldier, his sons were the first black kids integrated into a Birmingham elementary school and you cannot help but cheer along with him as he tearfully watches Obama’s inauguration. A hard-working barber, this delightful man fought the fight with humor, grace and relentless dedication. He passed away shortly after the film was made and I hope this film will find audiences across America so his story will continue to be told. Much of his family attended the screening and his legacy will definitely live on through them.

Animals Distract Me

The group was split on this film. Personally, I thought it was a frivolous waste of time and film. Directed by Isabella Rossallini, she tells about her infatuation with animals in a completely meaningless, nonsensical way. If you have ever seen her two-minute shorts series on the Sundance Channel called Green Porno, you will have a sense of the film. It starts with charming childhood photos of her very famous family and their pets. From there, it goes downhill fast. It is a series of cheesy segments that range from a visit to Mario Batali to discuss guilt-free eating to Isabella dressed as a bug that lives on eyelashes being smeared with mascara. This film tells us nothing new and can't even be called art. To me it seems to exist merely as a vehicle for Isabella to put herself in front of the camera.

The film seemed even more frivolous in that it followed two hard-hitting, well-made documentaries about serious social issues. My sister is a big Isabella Rossillini fan, so we did get a photo of the two of them together. My “big dork” moment came earlier in the day when we saw Ms. Rossillini at the restaurant and, seeing a familiar face, I said “Hi.” Even though I did not look a bit familiar to her, she was gracious enough to say “hello” back. This is why I don’t talk to celebrities.

Restoration

A very quiet, slice-of-life film about an Israeli man trying to save his antique furniture restoration business and sort through his feelings about his son, this film is not very everyone. It drags in places, has very little action and is in Hebrew with English subtitles. That being said, it is beautifully made and acted. This is a case where I liked the film better after hearing the director discuss it than I did while watching it. I didn’t like the fact that many parts of the story are left untold, so it was nice to have the Director fill in some of those holes at the end. I doubt it will find U.S. distribution, but if it does, skip it.

Friday is Dubbed "Operation Get Movie Tickets."

2011-01-22T18:40:00.000-08:00

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

The Saturday Line-Up

2011-01-20T14:07:00.000-08:00

Despite my down-beat post earlier this week, we did manage to get a few movie tickets. This year we will be seeing movies at The Sundance Resort for the first time (http://www.sundanceresort.com/.) The Sundance Resort, founded by Mr. Redford himself, is a high-end get-away at the base at the base of the Timpanogos Mountains. During the Festival, it has one theater showing movies and is host to workshops and panels geared toward those folks in “the biz.” Other times of the year, the Sundance Resort is a place for skiing, hiking, art and fine dining. At some point we hope to partake in the last of those four.

Saturday, for our day at The Resort, we are seeing:

Pariah

Produced in part by Spike Lee, this film tells the story of a 17-year-old Lesbian who is keeping her true identity hidden from her conservative family.

Documentary Showcase II

One of our favorite parts of Sundance is seeing the variety of short films they present. Last year we really enjoyed the documentary shorts, so we re-upped this year. Typically a shorts program will have five to seven films. This one only has three, so I guess they are long shorts. One is about a Virginia Tech survivor lobbying for gun control (interesting in light of current events), the second is about an African-American barber in Birmingham, Alabama and the third (directed by Isabella Rossellini) is a 47-minute stroll through New York through an animal-lover’s eyes (huh?)

Buck

We don’t actually have tickets for this documentary, but we are hoping to waitlist in. It’s the story of Buck Brannaman, the real-life horse whisperer. Jenn's a horse-person, so for her, we'll wait in line.

Restoration

The first Israeli-made movie we have seen at Sundance, Restoration (in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition) tells the contemporary story of the owner of a failing antique furniture-restoration business trying to save his business. Jois is married to an Israeli, so for her we'll read subtitles.

We have now arrived in Utah and are looking forward to picking up our tickets at the box office tomorrow, collecting the other two members of our posse from the airport and hitting The Bombay House for our traditional Indian feast! Still hoping to score some tickets for Friday.

Dear Sundance

2011-01-16T21:20:00.000-08:00

Dear Sundance:

As I prepare for my eighth trip to the Sundance Film Festival, I have never felt so much like an outsider. I am completely discouraged and disheartened by the lack of ticket availability. We jumped through your hoops. We registered ahead of time for the on-line ticket sales lottery and were excited when we got two buying time slots for the first day. That excitement quickly turned to frustration when we realized most movies were already sold out.

I understand the filmmakers and industry executives need tickets to the movies. I understand the pass holders pay big bucks to go to whatever movies they like. I understand you take care of the locals first. And I understand the number of seats in each Park City venue is finite. What I don't understand is how there cannot be a single decent ticket left on the first day of on-line ticket sales.

I know the Festival attracts the wheelers and dealers, the celebrity watchers, the party-goers and people who can afford to rent a condo in Park City that week. But we have had many conversation over the years with people who are there for the same reason we are. They love film, particularly independent film, and Sundance is one of the best places to see the latest and the greatest.

So, for those of us film lovers who have already booked our flights and reserved accommodations, please figure this out! Let me know if I can help in any way.

Sincerely,

The (Literal) Sundance Outsider

Sundance 2011 is Underway!

2011-01-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

Any downtime I had during the holidays was spent reviewing this year's Film Guide and mapping out a game plan for Sundance 2011. If you have followed this Blog before, you know that this is a lot more time consuming than it sounds. All I can say is thank goodness for Excel spreadsheets and highlighters. Here's my plan (if only the rest of my life were this organized):

Step One: identify the movies playing while we are there (we attend four days of the ten-day Festival.) Step Two: identify the movies playing in Park City (Sundance screens films in Ogden and Salt Lake too, but they are far away and the real action is in PC.) Step Three: eliminate any movies that seem just a little too "out there" (such as this year's film titled Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same.) Step Four: Avoid 8:30am and midnight movies as much as possible, especially back-to-back. Step Five: decide between any preferred films that are playing at the same time (there are nine venues showing movies all day throughout Park City.) And Finally: make sure there's time to get from one theater to the next between showings (the best part of Sundance is the Q & A after the movie, so it's a bummer to have to leave early.)

Once I do all that, I gather up my spreadsheets and anxiously await our first ticket buying opportunity. This year, that opportunity came today when my sister was able to select twelve tickets to fulfill her Locals Pass. One strategy I suggested to her was to try to stay in one theater all day. We have done this before and it makes for a much more relaxing day less. One of the best opportunities for this was Sunday at Eccles Theater, where all five of the movies that day look great. Plus Eccles has free parking on Sundays (we know all the angles.)

Typically my strategies go by the wayside once we log-on and see the limited ticket availability. Today, however, we were able to stick with the plan and Jenn came up with four tickets each to three Sunday movies: Higher Ground, Another Happy Day (both in the U.S. Dramatic Competition) and Cedar Rapids (in the Premiere category.) The great thing about all of these movies is we are seeing the first-ever public screening of each of them. This pretty much guarantees that the directors and most of the cast will be there for the Q & A after the film.

Higher Ground is directed by and stars Vera Farmiga. Another Happy Day is directed by Sam Levinson and stars Ellen Barkin, Demi Moore, Ellen Burnstyn, Thomas Hayden Church, George Kennedy and others. Cedar Rapids stars, among others, Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Sigourney Weaver. According to the Film Guide, "Cedar Rapids achieves the impossible: it makes insurance fun." There are actually two movies about the insurance industry screening this year -- go figure!

Our Sunday schedule is complete! Next week, with spreadsheets revised, we will attempt to purchase the perfect line-up for Friday, Saturday, Monday, and possibly an early movie Tuesday morning. Game on!

Twelve Movies in Four Days Plus One this Morning

2010-01-26T19:31:00.000-08:00

Waste Land

We named Waste Land our favorite documentary of the festival because we knew nothing about the subject and everything about this film surprised us. Vik Muniz is a Brazilian artist, who uses his art to bring attention to social concerns. The film documents a project that took him to the largest landfill in the world, Jardim Gramacho, in Rio de Janeiro. The site is home to “pickers” who gather two tons of recyclable materials from the garbage daily. He befriends several pickers, photographs them and they help him transform those photos into large scale portraits made entirely of the recyclables they collect. We expected it to be depressing, but instead it was a story of stoicism, hope and the power of art to change lives.

Shorts Program IV

Here’s one of those cases where the Film Guide description did nothing to inform us about these films. With every short film programs, there always seems to be at least one film that is so bad we can’t wait for it to end. This program lived up to that expectation, but thankfully, there was more that we liked than disliked. Here’s what we saw:

Wisdom Teeth
A five-minute film featuring stick figure animation where one friend offers to remove the other’s mouth stitches. The result is something that can only happen in animation.

Family Jewels
This story of a woman leaving her family to serve as a translator in Afghanistan quietly shows her inner conflict and the strain it puts on her marriage.

Renegades
ICK -- Creepy guys, doing creepy things! One watches the other have sex with a prostitute, they eat pink and blue cake with creepy guy #3, and accidentally shoot creepy guy #4’s ear off while he’s having sex with creepy guy #5 in the woods. ICK!

Laredo, Texas
This film distills what is likely a typical conflict at this Mexico/America border town by following a pay phone coin collector as he trains an undocumented worker to do his job.

Echo
A Polish film involving two young boys accused of a crime. This film, like a lot of shorts, left me with more questions than answers.

The Armoire
A somewhat disturbed young boy “copes” with the death of his best friend when a game of Truth or Dare goes terribly wrong.

Can We Talk?
Our favorite film of the seven, Vince tries to dump his girl friend, but ends up getting dumped instead. Deadpan delivery of cheeky British humor makes this 11 minute film hysterical from beginning to end. After the show, we met Sam (who plays Vince.) We told him how much we enjoyed the film and I’m pretty sure we even promised him a new pair of Nikes. He’s a starving artist “pulling pints” in London, so we instantly became surrogate mothers to him.

This is Dede, Sam (from Can We Talk?) and I outside the theater. You can't see his shoes, but trust me, he could use a new pair.

8: The Mormon Proposition

This was the hottest ticket at Sundance this year. The theater was packed for this disturbing look at the deceit, manipulation and money the Mormon Church used to get Measure 8 passed in California. (Yes, I’m biased, but it’s clear that full disclosure is a foreign concept to the Mormon Church.) As disturbing as it was, it did clearly explain what the Mormons believe that makes them so opposed to gay marriage. It also sheds light on the suicide and homeless problems plaguing Utah due to the ostracizing of gay children born to Mormon families.

A particular thrill for me was meeting Linda Stay, the Mormon mother of two gay children who started "Moms for Equality" in Southern Utah. She and her son are featured throughout the film. I had met her by phone before I left Portland (she contacted me looking for extra tickets for her family.) This woman is an inspiration to me -- epitomizing the courage, dedication and devotion that come from that all powerful place, a mother’s love.

Me, Linda and Steve Stay after 8:TMP

The Q & A was different from any I have attended. It was part gay pride rally, part political activism and part testimonials. It is my hope that this film informs everyone, angers “fence sitters” to the point of action and, in some way, provides strength to the gay youth of Utah and the rest of the United States.

Thursday morning before our flight home, we caught one more movie and boy am I glad we did. The first film directed by Diego Luna was a smash hit in my book.

Abel

This is the story of an emotionally damaged young boy, who snaps out of his non-communicative state when he is released from the hospital and decides to become the head of the household. It’s about the resilience of children, the difficult decisions moms have to make on behalf of their kids and the struggles of single parenting. The children in the movie had never acted before and they bring a fresh innocence and beautiful honesty to the film. Funny and tragic at the same time, I loved this movie.

The actors who played Pablo and Abel enjoying their fame and mugging for the camera.

I’m back in Portland now, but hope to add a postscript about some of the wonderful interesting people (see photo below) we met during our time in Park City and some of the lessons learned for next year.

This is Parker and Hailey. I met them in the audience of Waste Land. Parker made his blue yarn beard and planned to wear it all day. "It's keeping my face warm. My brother's making one too."

Beautiful People, Beautiful Movies, Beautiful Day

2010-01-25T21:42:00.000-08:00

Well, we finally had to pull out the old sunglasses and rubbed elbows with a few celebrities. Today was our day on Main Street. Main Street in Park City is the hub of Sundance. The box office, Sundance Store, film maker workshops and panels, hospitality venues, nightclubs, etc. are all along this street. In short, it's a scene.

But first, we shuttled to the Temple Theater for our only documentary of the day. On our way there, we met the director of Joan Rivers -- A Piece of Work and her researcher/production assistant. It premieres tonight and Ms. Rivers will be there for the Q & A. The director encouraged us to try to get tickets. She's proud of it and wants everyone to be able to see it. It's funny, many of the directors we have talked to are concerned that no one will come to their films, even though every movie this weekend is "sold out."

Upon entering the theater, our new friend pointed out Michael Moore in the lobby. As I headed to the restroom, I grabbed my camera to get his pic. He had disappeared by then, but I bumped into this guy (see photo below.) He was very nice as I thanked him for Supersize Me (no more McDonalds for my kids after that) and complimented him on the recent Simpson's 20th Anniversary special.

Me and Morgan Spurlock

12th and Delaware
To make this documentary, one corner in a small town in Florida was filmed for a year. On one side of the street is an abortion clinic and on the other a "Pregnancy Crisis Center" (aka Right to Life facility.) This gave the film makers a bite-size picture of the greater abortion debate and why it won't be resolved any time soon in the U.S. With full access to both sides of the street, the film makers give equal time to each perspective. As someone who is pro-choice, however, it was illuminating to see the somewhat underhanded tactics of the opposite side. The really telling stories, however, come from the interviews with the women visiting each clinic. Every high school kid in America should see this movie.

Sundance added another new film category this year called "Spotlight." These are films that the programmers have seen at other festivals and loved, so they worked hard to bring them to Sundance. These next two films were in that category.

Women without Men
This gorgeous film, adapted from an Iranian novel, focused on four women in 1950's Iran. The film, which will never by shown in Iran, was directed by an Iranian-American who is a visual artist, so it had a stunning beauty to it and felt more like a poem than a narrative. It was a challenging film (for example, we were never entirely sure if the main character was alive or dead throughout the movie) but the period costumes, beautiful Moroccan landscape and exemplary acting made for a very compelling total package. The director described the film as "magical realism" and I think that's the best description of her unique storytelling and exquisite cinematography.

The director (the tiny, but brilliant woman on the right) and her producers and cinematographer from Women without Men.

I am Love

This Italian film starring Tilda Swinton (who is British) as the Russian born wife of a wealthy Italian industrialist (did you get all that?) almost overwhelmed the senses. Dramatic flashbacks, sensuous feasts and a soaring soundtrack hit you from all sides. As, for various reasons, the family starts to unravel, the audience is taken for an emotional ride. In the end it is a story of discovery and being true to yourself. I'm not sure if it will ever play in U.S. theaters, as there's one sex scene that leaves little to the imagination. That being said, if you get a chance to see it, do.

Tilda Swinton and Director, Luca Guadagnino during the Q & A. Every woman in the room coveted her shoes and, at the same time, wondered how she was getting around in them in the snow.

Two Documentaries and a "New Low"

2010-01-24T09:38:00.000-08:00

Waiting for Superman

This is a must see documentary for anyone involved in public schools -- students, parents, teachers, administrators -- that's you. Already bought by Paramount, it will come to your hometown theaters (probably next Fall.) Directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth), it tells a clear story of the problems plaguing the U.S. public school system and shows some examples of schools that are getting it right. The statistics are appalling, but the film refrains from too much finger pointing and gives credit where credit is due.

Drunk History: Lincoln and Douglass

We saw the Tesla and Edison short yesterday, here's another volume that screened before New Low. Will Farrell as Lincoln, Don Cheadle as Douglass and Zoey Deschanel as Mary Todd Lincoln. All narrated by a drunk. Need I say more? There are three Drunk History videos on YouTube - search "Drunk History" and enjoy.

I met the two men responsible for Drunk History in the lobby.

In reaction to criticism that they have strayed from their original mission, Sundance has added a new category this year called "Next." This category is dedicated to truly independent (low budget, homegrown) films. This next film defines that category.

New Low

Written, directed by, paid for and starring 25-year-old Adam Bowers; this love triangle story with a total loser leading man is charming. Filled with self-deprecating humor and awkward moments, you can't help cheering for geeky Wendell. Filmed in five weeks on borrowed equipment and starring all his friends (who got paid in pizza and gas money), it never feels amateurish. I would love it if this film became a cult classic. Here's the director (on the left) and his friends:

Last Train Home

This documentary gives a glimpse at the lives of the millions of migrant workers in China. It follows one family, where mom and dad live in the city, while their mother takes care of their children at home. The trials of living apart become very apparent as the parents travel home for an annual visit each Chinese New Year Holiday. Filmed over three years, the movie paints a very intimate portrait of the Chinese culture, the pitfalls of their economy and the challenges facing the next generation.

The Good, The Bad, The Musical!

2010-01-23T14:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we saw our first three films. Here's a recap:

The Good: Documentary Spotlight
This was a collection of seven short documentaries.

Quadrangle -- The film maker interviews her mother and father about their open relationship with another couple that eventually resulted in them trading spouses. It was extremely well made. She used a split screen to show both parents describing this time in their lives, so that it was almost as if they were conversing about it. The director does a nice job of removing herself from the subject, presenting a very honest account of this period in her family's history in a fairly straight forward and non-judgmental manner.

Drunk History: Tesla and Edison -- I'm still trying to imagine the creative meeting where the concept for this film was discussed and agreed upon. The film maker decided to have someone get drunk (yes, he was actually drunk) and recount a piece of history. As he tells the story, well-known actors (in this case, John C. Reilly played Tesla and Crispin Glover played Edison) don cheesy wigs, mustaches and costumes to stage reenactments. Their dialog, however, uses the drunk guy's words, not their own. You are just going to have to trust me when I say it was hilarious. This is one in a series and they ar part of a longer comedy program debuting on HBO next month. Tonight, we are seeing another Drunk History short, this time on Douglass and Lincoln -- I can't wait!

Notes on the Other -- A short look at Hemingway and how he created his own persona. The topic was explored by visiting the son of a man that Hemingway saw fall during the running of the bulls (who photographs the event every year) and visiting a Hemingway look-alike contest. The film asked us to figure out the link between all these events and I think I failed the test -- it just didn't come together for me.

Bus -- An Israeli film maker explores the difficulties of traveling by bus between Israel and Palestine with images of the checkpoints and recorded phone conversations.

Thompson -- This film hints at the changing friendship of two teenage boys as one graduates from high school and the other doesn't. At least I think that was what it was trying to do -- no clear story line ever actually developed. When the film makers were asked about their inspiration, they said that they were at a party across the street from Matt Thompson's home and he wandered over, so they decided to make a movie about him. Oh... that explains it.

Born Sweet -- My favorite of the collection, this film illuminates the problem of arsenic poisoning in Cambodia (over $2 million people have it) and how one non-profit is using Karaoke to educate the next generation. Focusing on the story of Vinh, a 15-year-old boy, with arsenic poisoning who loves Karaoke, it puts a face on the problem and delivers a message of hope.

Wagah – This film explores the separation of India and Pakistani through the eyes of three young children and the pageantry around the lowering of both flags at the border gate. The children lend an element of honesty and innocence to the story, while the flag ceremony is all about patriotism. Not allowed to cross the border, two film makers were enlisted. One filmed from the Pakistani side and the other from India. Although they did not meet until after the film was complete, they somehow created a seamless story.

The Bad
Lourdes -- This French film by an Austrian film maker focuses on, Christine, a paraplegic woman who travels to Lourdes in hope of a miracle. Even though she is the main character, we never really get to know her. (In fact, I had to look her name up in the film guide.) The pacing of the film is painfully slow and the characters all seem to speak to each other as little as possible. I doubt this film will ever show up in U.S. theaters, but if it does, skip it.

The Musical
Bran Nue Dae -- An adaptation of a popular stage musical from Australia, this film had catchy tunes, loveable characters and all the hokiness you would expect from a musical. I didn't like it as much as Jois and Dede, mainly because I found the ridiculousness of it distracting. It also kept bringing to mind other movies (Grease, Little Miss Sunshine, and just about every Disney Movie made between 1960 and 1980.) That said, it had a great cast: Australian Idol runner-up Jessica Mauboy as the girlfriend, Geoffrey Rush as a shifty and eccentric Priest, and Ernie Dingo (yes, that's really his name) as the pickled, but wise Aboriginal elder. It does entertain, it doesn't offend and you may even catch me singing a few bars of "I’d rather be an Aborigine."

We have three more movies today, finishing up about 11:00pm tonight. It's still snowing like crazy, but with less wine and slower driving, we hope to stay on the road tonight.

Blog Disrupted

2010-01-23T06:36:00.000-08:00

I had every intention of blogging about the movies we saw yesterday (the good, the bad and the musical), but forces (some beyond our control and some not) conspired against me. After an early dinner (that included a bottle of wine, secrets revealed and lots of laughter -- gotta love an all-girl vacation) we went and shared another bottle (or two) with a friend down the road. Time got away from us and the snow kept piling up.

On the way home, I took a corner too fast in our non-snow-worthy rental car and landed in a ditch. See photo. We called our friend to rescue us and he too slipped off the road and got stuck. We were all eventually rescued by my sister and her Big-Ass-Truck! It's great to a have strong women on your side!

By the time we got home it was almost midnight. With an early movie this morning, it was right to bed for us. I'll provide a more thorough update later today.

It Wasn't Easy, But We Have Tickets in Hand

2010-01-20T16:31:00.000-08:00

I went to pick up our tickets today. As none of them were purchased under my name, I had to jump through a few hoops to do it. First, I posed as my sister and presented her driver's license to pick up her tickets. The woman looked up the order and told me those tickets had already been printed. After a great deal of back and forth (where I often forgot I was supposed to be Jenn) we finally found a note on the account that said, "OK to reprint. Fed-Ex delivery cancelled." Whew!

Then I had to go to another area to pick-up the tickets purchased as part of a local's pass under a friend's name. I had a signed note with a photocopy of his driver's license giving me permission to pick them up. The first person I talked to said they are not releasing tickets to people with notes until tomorrow and that I needed two more pieces of documentation in order to pick them up. I left dejected and called my sister. She said she could produce one of the documents, but not the other.

I decided to go back and find out what my options were without that third piece of documentation. I waited in line (again) and talked to another representative. She looked at my note, said everything was in order and got me the tickets. The passes also came with two creditial passes (access to the music venues, panel discussions and other non-movie events), a keepsake film guide and a water bottle. I am so glad I decided to go back!

I'm watching the news as I type this and they are predicting lots of snow in the mountains over the next three days. It sounds like the worst of it will hit Southern and Eastern Utah, so I'm hoping Jois and Dede have no trouble getting over the pass tomorrow night. On a positive note, this is the warmest I have ever been in Park City in January.

Travel Day

2010-01-19T21:35:00.000-08:00

Laptop, iPod, Blackberry, camera – check!
Boots, hat, scarf, and mittens – check!
Lip Balm, sunscreen and plenty-o-moisturizer – check!
Festival.Sundance.org/2010, blogspot, Facebook and imdb.com bookmarked on Internet Browser – check!
Twitter account set-up (SDOutsider) and synced to Blackberry so I can rate one movie as I walk to the next and post my ratings on Sundance.org – check!
Low-fat bran muffins baked and packed – crap (no pun intended) I forgot the muffins!

While we might be missing our fiber, we won't be missing any fiber optics.

I’m feeling very techy this year as I gather all my portable electronic devices (as they say in airplane-speak), the appropriate charging and power cords for each, and my passwords/user names for the various social networking programs. I'm wondering if I will feel chained to all this technology or if it will make me feel more “dialed in?” We shall see.

Several Sundance Firsts

2010-01-13T08:57:00.000-08:00

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.

We Now Have Tickets to Nine Movies!

2010-01-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

My sister had an opportunity to purchase tickets at the box office yesterday and was able to get tickets for six movies. As it stands right now, we will be seeing five documentaries, four dramatic films and five foreign films (two documentaries and three dramatic.)

You can read more about these films at http://sundance.bside.com/2010/. In the meantime, here's a brief synopsis of each:

Lourdes - The filmmaker is described as "nestling Lourdes between religious satire and redemption story." The subject of miracles is explored.

Waiting for Superman- An American-made documentary that explores all aspects of the public school system by following some promising students through their academic life.

New Low - A comedic love triangle -- yay, a comedy! It was written and directed by 25-year-old, Adam Bowers (who also stars in it) and shot on borrowed equipment by whichever friends happened to be available at the time.

Last Train Home - A Canadian filmmaker made this documentary about the exodus that happens in China every New Year's Holiday. While this is considered the world's largest human migration, the focus is on one couple's story and it sounds like it ends up being a much broader story about China the plight of its people.

12th and Delaware - An exploration of the abortion debate by turning the cameras on an intersection in Florida where an abortion clinic and a pro-life office sit right across the street from each other.

Waste Land - A documentary about a Brazilian artist who creates realistic images of people out of materials found where they live. The film documents his latest project, using garbage to portray the people who live around the largest landfill in Rio de Janeiro.

We will be buying more tickets on Tuesday and I'm confident we will be seeing no less than 13 movies during Sundance 2010. Woo Hoo -- we are on our way!

SUNDANCE TWENTYTEN -- The Adventure Continues

2010-01-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

After a long break from blogging, I'm back to record my experiences at what will be my seventh trip to the Sundance Film Festival. Two weeks from now, myself and two movie-loving friends will trade our rain boots for snow boots and rendezvous with my sister in Park City, Utah. In the meantime, we have been preparing by registering to buy tickets, studying the Film Guide, and mapping out a game plan that lets us see at least 12 movies in four days.

We asked 10 friends and family members to enter the lottery to help us score an early ticket buying time slot. This strategy paid off, resulting in one pass (good for 12 tickets), one box office buying time (hopefully resulting in 20 more tickets), and three first day time slots for on-line buying (potentially good for 20 tickets each.) We won't need that many tickets (we're only there for three days after all), but it's good to know that we will mostly certainly arrive in Utah with tickets in hand.

Our strategy in buying tickets is complicated, but works. It goes like this:

1) Identify those films that are playing while we are there (the actual Festival is 10 days long -- we go for the first weekend.)

2) Of the films that are playing while we are there, identify the films we want to see. Sundance provides an on-line catalog once the films are announced. Over the years, we have learned a great deal about how to interpret the film guide descriptions in order to avoid the stinkers. Here's a good example from this year's guide regarding a film called Armless: "For years, John ... has secretly wanted to have his arms chopped off." Yikes, big red flag!

3) Identify any time and distance constraints. Movies play from 8:30am until midnight at eight theaters around town. The town is completely clogged with people and vehicles, so you really need to understand where a movie is showing, when it ends and how long it takes to get to the next place before you buy.

4) Map out your first through third choices for movies for every time slot and every day.

5) Stick with that plan until movies start selling out -- then throw the whole plan out the window and buy whatever you can.

Today we were able to select the 12 tickets that make up our pass. Already, one of the films we wanted was sold out and one had only two tickets remaining. Other than that, we were able to grab four tickets each to the following movies:

Women without Men - Adapted from an Iranian novel, this film tells the story of the 1953 removal of Iran's democratically elected government through the individual stories of five women. I'm hoping for a visually arresting film that alters my perceptions of Iran.

I Am Love - An Italian film (in Italian and Russian with subtitles) starring Tilda Swinton, hmmm, what's that about? That's enough to get me interested right there, but it is also described as "a feast for the senses." We'll see ...

8: The Mormon Proposition - A documentary about the Mormon church's involvement in the passage of Proposition 8 in California. I know it will make me mad, but sometimes it's good to be a little angry.

My sister, Jenn, will be hitting the Park City Box Office this Saturday to try to score 20 more tickets and we will do our best to fill in any holes through on-line ticket sales on Tuesday. For us, it's all about the movies!

Sundance Moments

2009-01-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

Me and the Nesquick Bunny on Main Street.

There are many reasons we pay over $15 a ticket to see movies at Sundance, but first and foremost, it is those small moments throughout the day that could only occur in that environment. Sure the money helps fund a non-profit institute that supports aspiring filmmakers. Yes, there is added value in the interactive session with the directors, writers, actors, producers etc. that occurs after almost every movie. But, most of all, it's the unscripted moments before and after movies -- in line, on the shuttle, in restaurants, etc. -- that we really enjoy. Here are some examples from this year.

Before Prom Night in Mississippi started, Jois struck up a conversation with the man in the seat next to her. It turns out he is a Senior V.P. for Paramount. She then mined him for information and opinions on all the Festival movies he had seen so far. As he sees five a day, he was a wealth of information. Both agreed that Prom was excellent.

I said "hello" to a familiar face in passing and it wasn't until I was way past her that I realized I only knew her because I had seen her in the lead role of Toe to Toe two days ago. I wished it would have clicked sooner, so I could have told her how much I enjoyed her performance.

Dede having a "Tourettes moment" in the lobby when she realized the familiar face she was seeing was the director of one of the shorts we saw. After loudly shouting, Jerrycan!, she recovered nicely and had a lovely conversation with him about that film and his next project.

The young couple who came out from Boise to volunteer at the Festival that we met in line. We sort of adopted them (by sharing our licorice) and invited them to stay with us if they ever come to Portland. We saw them the next morning and Gaby stands in front of a full theatre and asks "Where are my teacher friends? Did you bring me any snacks?"

The mother and her 18-year-old son we met who have been going to the festival every year for the past six years. She buys an all-access pass (that's what I will buy when I win the lottery) for both of them. We told him he has a really nice mother. In response, he put his arm around her and said he has the best mother in the world. Awww.

Being moved by a simple documentary about a high school in Mississippi. Then being even more moved when two of the high school girls in the film make the trip to Sundance (one of whom had never been on a plane) and stand in front of large audience to answer their questions.

Trying to figure out how to discreetly tell the guy standing up in the row in front of us that his fly is down. Not so discreetly telling the people in the row behind us to stop talking. For those of you who know Jois, you won't be surprised to hear that she handled both situations.

Meeting the woman from upstate New York who writes for a Hispanic publication, runs a public library and operates a theatre dedicated to Independent films. Meeting a guy who does set design for major motion pictures and started the Boston Film Festival, because no one else would. Joking with two couples on the shuttle as if we have known them forever.

Sundance is a shared experience. Thousands of people from around the world gather together for a few days in a freezing cold, small town in the mountains of Utah. Most check their egos at the door and almost all share a love of storytelling through film. It's just a privilege to be a part of it.

Day 4 - Should Have Gone for the Burrito

2009-01-20T08:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the day we had four movies in a row, all at the same theatre. We left the house around 11:15 am and got home just before midnight. We never went back outside after we got there and meals consisted of trail mix, oranges, protein bars and one overpriced slice of pizza. Now that's a vacation!

Three of the four movies we saw were excellent, but we should have sold our tickets to Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and walked across the street for burritos. This is the film I wanted to see because it was directed by and starred John Krasinski (that's him in the photo -- he's just a cute in real life as he is on The Office.) While it was great to see him in person, the movie was so bad (sorry John) that I would have preferred a burrito. We all agreed that we had to have one clunker in the bunch. It's all part of the "Sundance Experience."

Here's a brief synopsis of the good, the really good and the not-so-good:

Adam

This was a sweetly told love story of a young man living with Asperger's Syndrome and his relationship with his school teacher neighbor. Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne play those characters with authenticity and compassion. An intelligent script, a strong supporting cast and thoughtful visual design all contribute to the simple beauty of this film. Yes, it sheds light on Asperger's, but it goes deeper than that -- speaking to tolerance, understanding and honesty. This was the first movie this year to make me cry.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Based on the novel by David Foster Wallace, this was an exploration of the male psyche done under the guise of a doctoral candidate conducting research by interviewing a variety of men about their relationships. What that translates to is a bunch of talking heads. A stellar cast of talking heads, but talking heads nonetheless. Unfortunately, the script felt like someone reading aloud from Wallace's book. There was no action, and the film was sprinkled with frequent and abrupt scene changes. I found it boring and tedious. It may make a great stage production, but it didn't work well on the big screen.

Adventureland

Set in 1987 in a cheesy amusement park, this is a fun story about young love, figuring out what really matters in life and having a miserable job. It doesn't break much new ground, but it has an amazing cast, fun characters and many relatable moments for those of us over the age of 40. It also had a great 80's soundtrack! Due to be released nationwide in March it is coming soon to a theatre near you.

The Messenger

Starring Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson, this moving story shows a side of the military and war that is not often seen -- the process of notifying a family that their son or daughter has died. Foster and Harrelson are remarkable as two damaged soldiers who have returned to the U.S. and been given this assignment. By showing a seldom seen side of the military, it also illuminates the grief, loneliness and unique male relationships of soldiers. Timely, thoughtful, intense and real; this movie delivers on all fronts (no pun intended.)

I'm home now -- tired from the journey and elated that Obama has been sworn in. Tomorrow I hope to find time to share some of our "It could Only Happen at Sundance" moments.

Day 3 - Can't We All Just Get Along?

2009-01-18T19:34:00.000-08:00

We only saw two movies today, one fiction and one documentary, and both tackled the issues of race relations in high school. I am starting to realize that a lot of the Sundance gems lie in the documentaries. It helps that we get to ask questions of the director after the film, but often these stories are just as amazing on their own. For every Supersize Me, there are probably 100 other true-life films that only reach a handful of people. It's really too bad and I appreciate the Sundance Institute for continuing to champion this category of film.

I really hope the documentary we saw today hits the big screen.

Prom Night in Mississippi

Here's the story. Charleston High School in Charleston, Mississippi was finally integrated in 1970. They continued, however, to hold a white prom and a black prom. In 2008, Morgan Freeman, who lives in the area, offers to pay for their prom if it is integrated. (This is the second time he has made this offer. In 1997, he was turned down.) The filmmaker spends 4 1/2 months in the town interviewing kids, teachers and parents and following the plans for the first ever integrated prom. It turns out the adults of the community have been driving the separate proms and it's not at all what the kids want.

On the heels of the election of our first African-American President, this film illuminates clearly that racism is still very much alive in America. It also sheds light on the difficulty of breaking the cycle that's passed from generation to generation. For example, there were kids who would not speak on camera unless their identity was concealed for fear of repercussions from their parents. Morgan Freeman is also interviewed and he so articulately expresses his motives that every kid in America should see this movie just to hear his words. It was also great to hear how clearly the kids were able to express their beliefs and fears.

Two of the girls in the film (one who had never been on a plane before) made the trip to Park City. They and the filmmaker answered many questions after the screening. Yes, the school is planning an integrated prom for 2009 and this time they hope to have it at the school, which shows school administrative support and takes some of the power away from the parents. Morgan Freeman has agreed to match the money pitched in by the District. No, it has not been bought yet, so distribution remains to be seen. I want my kids to see it, so I'll be watching for it on DVD if nothing else.

Toe to Toe

This work of fiction was written and directed by a young female director (Emily Abt) and stars two up-and-coming young actresses (Louisa Krause and Sonequa Martin.) Go girls! It was written in response to the statistic that 87% of all inter-racial friendships end by age 14.

The story revolved around two high school senior girls, one black and one white, who play lacrosse on the same team for their prep school. Both are misfits and transient and so they find each other ... sort of. As the relationship disintegrates, we learn more about these two girls and why they are the way they are. It is a well-told story -- not a rush-right out and see it movie --but good nonetheless. If nothing else, it highlights a director and two actors, whose stars are on the rise

Day Two – The Ticket Debacle, Main Street and L.A. Stories

2009-01-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

After a relaxing morning at home (our first movie wasn’t until 12:15 PM) the four of us loaded into the rental car and headed to the town at a leisurely pace. Once we were in line to go in, I pulled out our tickets, only to discover that I had brought Sunday’s tickets not Saturday's. I immediately hopped back in the car, sped back out of town (Jenn lives about 15 minutes outside the city) and, driving 90 MPH at times, was able to get the tickets and get back in time for the movie. I keep saying I don’t want to be in charge of the tickets, but they won’t fire me.

It all had a happy ending and we got good seats for what I think was the best movie we have seen so far.

Amreeka
This debut feature tells the story of a Palestinian family’s immigration to Illinois. It was written and directed by Cherien Dabis (pictured here with some of the cast) and largely autobiographical. What I loved about the movie was it was so intensely personal. It was also very true to both the Middle Eastern culture (luckily we have Jois, who is married to an Israeli, along to confirm that) and the Arab immigrant experience post 911. I don’t think you could watch this movie without caring deeply about the characters and rooting for their success. Told with heart, humor and honesty I consider this film a treasure to be discovered.

With a three hour break after Amreeka, we had lunch at Shawn Levy’s favorite burrito place. (We thought of you Shawn, sorry you couldn’t join us.) We then headed to historic Main Street to experience the “scene” that is so often associated with Sundance. We just missed seeing 50-Cent, but did bump into the Nesquick Bunny. (OK, so it’s not quite the same.) We also got to participate in a group Macarena that streamed live on some web site and then scored some free water bottles at the Brita tent. It really doesn’t take much to make us happy.

Then it was back to Eccles for our final two movies. These two movies were both Premieres, both set in L.A., both had popular stars in them and are both only playing twice in Park City. Therefore, the theatre was packed. We had to sit in the balcony for the first, which was fine for the movie, but a bummer for the Q & A. I’m sure you will see the first movie, 500 Days of Summer, in a theatre near you sometime in 2009 as it is a Fox Searchlight Pictures release. Spread, the second movie, will probably also be distributed, although I’m not sure what rating it would have – lots of nudity and sex. Here are my two (not 50) cents.

5oo Days of Summer
This was an absolutely charming tale of boy meets girl, boy falls in love, girl doesn’t. Told from the male perspective, it’s a little harsh toward women, but so true and funny that it doesn’t matter. Joseph-Gordon Levitt plays lovesick Tom and was absolutely adorable and Zooey Deschanel plays, Summer, the object of his love. I guess you would classify this as a romantic comedy, but it rises above that format by unfolding in a non-linear fashion and including several delightful dream/fantasy sequences. In my favorite, the euphoria Tom feels after first sleeping with Summer is expressed in a big song and dance number that spontaneously erupts as Tom is walking to work. Set in some of the more picturesque areas of Los Angeles and underscored with an amazing soundtrack this film had all the right elements to tell a not-so-graceful story, gracefully.

Spread
Produced by and starring Ashton Kutcher (pictured right -- what’s up with that hat?), this is the story of a male Gigolo in Los Angeles and features lots of beautiful people naked. If Ashton Kutcher gets you hot and bothered, this movie is worth the price of admission. If you have an aversion to explicit sex scenes, you should probably skip it. I would have really struggled with this movie, had the script not taken the main character away from his sexual exploits about midway and finally started given him some likeable human qualities. If you want a glimpse into the lives and style of the beautiful people of L.A., this film will have you on sensory overload. If you are looking for deep commentary on the same, you might leave disappointed. Amusing and sad at the same time, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of this film, but it was lovely to look at and fairly entertaining.

We have two more movies today, so I’ll post my thoughts on those tonight.

Day 1 -- The Short and the Long of It

2009-01-17T07:19:00.000-08:00

We are loving the fact that we don't have any early-morning movies this year. Yesterday, we were able to get in a long walk, a decent breakfast and lots of coffee before our three movies. A later start also means the weather is warmer. No scraping ice off the windshield at 7:00am in 10-degree weather. Woo Hoo!

Today's movie watching started with a Shorts Program. Here's a quick synopsis of those seven 10-15 minute movies.

Miracle Fish: This was the unanimous favorite. A little Australian film about a boy who falls asleep in the sick room at school, only to awaken and find everyone gone. It was amazing how in 17 minutes this director told a complete story. It had thoughtful character development, dramatic tension and took the viewer through a range of emotions. It was a simple, tiny gem.

Predisposed: This was also a well-told story. This time about coping with substance abuse. It was based on the absurd and true premise that addicts without insurance can only be admitted to rehab centers if they are high when they come in.

Asshole: A film about a man who personified assholeness (is that a word?) who is visiting a physician because he is having trouble with his body part of the same name. Bitingly funny and extremely well-written, (in my favorite line the main character compares wiping his butt to removing peanut butter from shag carpet) this film had the audience howling. The actor who played Vincent, the asshole, (see photo right) was there for the Q & A afterward and his sarcastic improv stole the show. It didn't go unnoticed that he wore the same shirt to the screening that he wears in the film -- I'm thinking he wants to be recognized.

The Young and the Evil: A difficult (due to graphic imagery and the disturbing subject matter) film about a young, gay African-American who is intentionally having unprotected sex with HIV positive men. Apparently this is a big problem in the African-American community and the filmmaker wanted "to start a conversation" around the issue.

The Dirty Ones: This is the first time I have heard of a potential feature film being made into a short -- usually it's the other way around. In our opinion, it needed to be a feature, or at least longer. This story about two young Mennonite traveling through a big city for the first time left us with more questions than answers. After the movie, we happened to sit next to the filmmaker, a really young guy from Nashville, so we did get some of our questions answered then.

Jerrycan: A simple story about young, impoverished boys with too much time on their hands. It was based on the Australian film maker's childhood and none of the kids in the film were actors. It was a gritty and compelling look at what can happen when you hang with the wrong crowd.

Acting for the Camera: A portrayal of a day in the life of an acting class, starring a perverse and creepy instructor. Two students are acting out the scene from When Harry Met Sally when Sally fakes an orgasm in the restaurant -- over and over again. It starts out as amusing and then gets weirder and weirder, causing us all to squirm in our seats.

We then had a long break, so visited one of our favorite restaurants, Windy Ridge, for lunch and debrief. We then walked to the next film, Art and Copy, our first documentary.

Art and Copy: This film provided an inside look at what is considered to be the best of the creatives in the advertising industry. The director had access to a group of advertising legends and those interviews were very interesting. It also told the story behind many well-know advertising campaigns ("Got Milk?", "Just do it.", etc.) The film itself seemed too long, had some distracting segues (think satellites being launched, billboards being installed and long still shots of nature) and didn't reveal much that people in or close to the industry don't already know. We were happy that Portland's Wieden and Kennedy got their due and both Dan Wieden and David Kennedy were there for the Q & A afterward. My favorite line came from Dan Wieden where he admonished everyone to "Live a creative life."

And finally, Rudo y Cursi: This Mexican film highlighted the relationship of two brothers -- each trying to find fame and fortune -- and the competition between them. A comedy, starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna (the two stars of Y Tu Mama Tambien, also directed by Carlos Cuaron. Cuaron wanted to make a comedy that explored the relationship between two brothers and revolved around soccer, without showing much soccer. Here he succeeded. He also wanted to provide viewers with an authentic view of modern day Mexico. I'm not sure how much he succeeded here, but I felt the characters and their aspirations were fairly typical of many Mexicans. Whether he succeeded in making a movie with appeal outside Mexico also remains to be seen.

The Vacation Photos

2009-01-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

Horse photos from yesterday:

Addie -- Jenn's Horse

Sherpa -- My lesson horse

The Calm Before the Storm

2009-01-14T20:54:00.000-08:00

I made it to Park City without incident last night and woke this morning to 8-degrees and sunny. Jenn and I headed off to her work (she is the barn manager and special event coordinator at an equestrian facility.) It wasn't sunny there, so it may have been even less than 8-degrees. I have a new appreciation for how hard she works and how cold it is when she does it.

We first had to make sure none of the horses' water was frozen. Jenn then took her horse out for a lesson and followed that by giving me a lesson on another horse. She is an awesome instructor -- very clear and encouraging. The main thing I learned was how much I have to learn. While it was very humbling, I still loved being back on a horse.

After that, I took Jenn's truck and headed to downtown Park City to pick up all our movie tickets. I had written permission and copies of photo ID from the people who actually bought the tickets, so I didn't have any trouble getting them. We now have all 52 of our tickets in-hand! I also checked out the Sundance store (I'm not too thrilled with the merchandise selection this year -- good, maybe I'll save some money) and walked historic Main Street.

The main activity on Main Street was the frantic delivery and set-up of all the various Sundance-related sponsor/party/music venues. There were delivery vehicles lining the streets (often parked on the sidewalk) and piles of tent materials, rental furniture, sound systems, signage and outdoor propane heaters being unloaded. You could tell people were stressed and everything was going to continue non-stop for the next 36 hours.

Tomorrow we'll avoid the chaos of Main Street by taking the dogs snowshoeing and maybe doing a little shopping at our favorite store in Salt Lake. Jois and Dede arrive late tomorrow night, so we'll have soup on and a fire going. Ahhh ... vacation.

I'm Outta Here

2009-01-13T08:42:00.001-08:00

As I'm frantically packing in order to make my 4:00 PM flight, I realized a packing list might be helpful for those of you who are considering this trip.

Park City/Sundance Essentials include the following

A water bottle (empty of course, because they won't let you take in on the plane.) It is extremely dry on this mountain and I am thirsty the minute the plane lands.
Sunglasses (nothing like snow glare after leaving a dark theatre.)
Lip Balm and hand lotion (did I mention it's dry?)
A warm hat, scarf, and gloves or mittens.
Comfortable, warm boots with traction.
Camera, cell phone, blackberry or any combination of the three.
Obsessively highlighted Film Guide (although we will pick up clean copies once we get there.)
Plenty o' cash (wait list tickets are sold on a cash only basis as are all the deals made on the street, plus it makes splitting a check so much easier.)

If you want to look like someone important, you need:

Designer jeans tucked into fleece or fur lined boots,
Designer sunglasses,
A huge designer handbag,
A laptop, and
To be talking on your cell phone every minute that you are not in a movie.

We also tend to take:

Long johns,
Protein bars,
Hand and foot warmers, and
Gifts for our lovely hosts (think Oregon micro brew and wine -- they live in Utah for God's sake.)

I better stop typing and get packing. Look for actual Festival updates and photos soon!

Wendy and Lucy

2009-01-12T21:32:00.000-08:00

Sunday night I met a friend at the Hollywood Theatre to see the movie Wendy and Lucy. I was interested in it because it is based on a short story by a Portland author and was filmed here in Portland. It is the story of a homeless woman who has two valuable possessions: her car and her dog, Lucy. En route from Indiana to Alaska, her car breaks down in Portland and, through a series of events, she loses her dog. The entire movie is dedicated to the three days she spends here trying to find her dog and resume her trip.

This is not a movie you go to when you want to escape. It is an 80-minute look at some of the realities of homelessness. There is no comedy, no thrilling action scenes and no white knight who saves the day. All in all it presents a pretty bleak and just plain sad picture.

Michelle Williams is very believable as Wendy and the rest of the cast looks like they were plucked right off the streets of Portland. The gritty cast, combined with limited dialog and slow pacing all contribute to the futility of her situation. The real tension comes, however, in that everyone in the audience desperately wants her to find Lucy.

While I can't heartily recommend this movie (because it's so sad), it has stuck with me. Twenty-four hours later, I continue to see how it quietly illuminated some of the many issues facing the homeless. If it does this for everyone who sees it, who cares about "entertainment value."

Thank God for our Local Connections

2009-01-07T09:35:00.001-08:00

Dede didn't have as much luck on the first day of on-line ticket sales, but still managed to get us some great movies. Our schedule is basically complete with a total of 13 movies over four days. I will still log on at 1:00 PM today to see if there's anything left.

Here are the movies Dede got tickets for:

Shorts Program II - Friday at 11:15 AM
Five 10-17 minute films whose titles are: Acting for the Camera, Asshole, The Dirty Ones, Jerrycan, Miracle Fish, Predisposed, and The Young and The Evil. Make of that what you may.

Lulu and Jimi - Sunday at 9:00 AM
In the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, this German film is about an interracial couple in the 1950's.

Toe to Toe - Sunday at 2:15
In the U.S. Dramatic Competition, this is another film dealing with issues of race. This time it's between two senior girls who are lacrosse teammates at a competitive D.C. prep school.

Every year, we notice a common theme in many of the films we see. One year we saw a bunch of films, both dramatic and comedic, that addressed homosexuality. One year there were a lot of films about climate change. Last year there were many about war and/or politics. This year, there seem to be a lot of films dealing with race and bigotry. In fact, our entire Sunday schedule is dedicated to films with this theme. This could be a heavy day. I may look into breaking it up with something else if I can get tickets.

Adam - Monday at 12:15 PM
Also in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, Adam tells the story of a somewhat awkward burgeoning relationship. (I love it when the nerd gets the girl.) While I don't recognize the two young stars who play the couple, it also stars Peter Gallagher (who I find somewhat creepy -- what's up with those eyebrows?) and Amy Irving (haven't seen her for a while.)

The Messenger - Monday at 9:30 PM
Starring Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster as Army soldiers, the film guide promises that this is not a story about politics or even the military. Instead it sounds like it's about life after war and putting the pieces back together in the real world.

Talk about ending the trip on a bang. Our Monday schedule gives us four movies back-to-back at Eccles Theatre (basically from noon to midnight.) I only have one question. When do we eat? If I give up my ticket to Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, I could pop over to the burrito joint across the street. Hmmm, burrito vs. seeing John Krasinski ... that's a toughie.

Local Connections Pay Off Again

2009-01-04T13:56:00.000-08:00

Jenn got an early ticket-buying time for locals only sales at the box office this Saturday. It's another lottery situation, but she got 8:30 AM, the first buying time of the first day. Woo Hoo!

She was able to purchase her full quota of 20 tickets (4 each for 5 movies.) In previous years, we have met people at Sundance who arrive in Park City with no movie tickets in hand, so I'm feeling pretty good about the fact that we already have tickets to eight movies.

Here's what we have:

Friday

Art & Copy -- 5:30pm
This is a documentary about the advertising industry. Given that my husband, Scott, works for Nike and thinks all Nike ads are superior, Dan Wieden is mentioned in the film description, and I have a marketing background, I'm interested in this film from a personal standpoint.

A non-Sundance aside: Scott's days as the corporate spokesperson for advertising at Nike were also highly entertaining. He once had to defend a horror-film-style ad featuring Suzy Hamilton being chased by a chainsaw wielding lunatic that aired during the Olympics (see link below). Later, he had to promise PETA that no chickens were harmed in the making of a football ad where a Minnesota, Viking lineman chased a chicken around his yard and eventually cooked and ate it. (PETA insisted the chicken was subjected to undue mental anguish.) Hmm, maybe someone should do a documentary about advertising PR.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX-QhoihLeI

Rudo Y Cursi -- 9:30pm
This Mexican film features two brothers who, in chasing their dreams, fall into competition with one another. It is described as high energy and comedic -- always welcome at 9:30pm after a day of movie-watching.

Saturday

500 Days of Summer -- 6:15pm
Described as a postmodern love story with a nod to Shakespearian farce, this premier stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Gordon Levitt is probably best known as Tommy from 3rd Rock from the sun, but we saw him in an intense film called Brick a few years ago and were really impressed with him in a dramatic role. Zooey Deschanel is currently in Yes Man with Jim Carrey. Regardless, it sounds warm and fun.

Spread -- 9:15pm
This is the film I mentioned earlier that stars Ashton Kutcher as a male gigolo in Hollywood. I predicted earlier that this will be the hot ticket of the year (due to fan-crazed girls wanting a glimpse of Kutcher (or middle aged men who want a peek at his wife.) If this holds true, maybe we should consider selling our tickets to subsidize our trip. If it turns out I'm no good at predictions, we'll keep the tickets and enjoy.

Sunday

Prom Night in Mississippi -- 11:30am
A documentary by a Canadian filmmaker about a high school prom in Mississippi. What makes it interesting is the story behind it. Morgan Freeman offers to pay for the school's senior prom only if it is racially integrated. The school (that does have integrated classrooms) turned him down once, then in 2008 (yes, that date's right) accepted his offer and had their first ever integrated prom. I'm sure it will be shocking at times, but I'm hoping it points to a more tolerant future.

Both documentaries that we are seeing are preceded by shorts. One is called The Archive and is 8 minutes long and the other is called Suspended and lasts 9 minutes. I assume they are documentary shorts, but we have no description of them, so we shall see.

Our next day to buy tickets is Tuesday at 10:00am (Pacific Time). We need to buy at least two movies for Sunday and one each for Friday and Monday. That would give us three movies a day for a total of 12 movies. That sounds like plenty to me, but Jois is already lobbying for four a day. Yikes!

Tuesday is the first day of on-line ticket sales, so we should be able to get most of what we want. We have several buying opportunities throughout the week, but the selection of available movies rapidly declines as the week unfolds. I'm hoping our schedule is filled on Tuesday, so I can stop obsessing about movies and start obsessing about how to get several bottles of Oregon wine and microbrews to Utah with me.

We Have Tickets!

2009-01-01T13:20:00.001-08:00

My sister and her husband returned to Park City on Tuesday. We had a great visit and were able to talk Sundance logistics, look over the movie guide together and purchase twelve tickets Tuesday morning.

These twelve tickets were to fulfill a pass that we bought way back in October. It's called the "Film Lovers" pass and it's available to local residents only. It came with an inflated price per ticket (around $18 each, instead of $15), but allowed us to get first crack at some movies. It also comes with one credential pass, so one of us could take in an insiders party, panel discussion or other event if we want -- highly unlikely!

So, back to the twelve tickets we bought... Our strategy was threefold. First to buy four tickets to each of three movies in the prime time slots (i.e. not the earliest or the latest in the day.) We also identified movies that we thought would be in high demand. Those in the Premier and Dramatic Competition categories often have recognizable stars in them and tend to sell out fastest. And finally, we were trying to get three movies in a row in the same theatre. It's great when you don't have to jump a shuttle and race to the next venue.

We were successful in our first two goals, but not in the last. A couple of the movies we wanted were already sold out. This doesn't mean they are sold out forever. It just means the allotment for local pass holders is gone. We also had more luck getting tickets for Monday movies than those showing on the weekend -- I'm guessing most locals need to go to work on this day, thus freeing up tickets for us.

So, here's what we have so far:

Amreeka playing at 12:15pm on Saturday. This is the first film by this director, Cherien Dabis, and has no "name" actors (at least I don't recognize any of them.) It is described as a "warm and lighthearted film about one Palestinian family's tumultuous journey..." from Palestine to Illinois.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men at 3:15pm on Monday. I wanted to see this because John Krasinski (who plays Jim Halpert on The Office) directed and acts in it. I love his dry wit on The Office and am anxious to see what he does behind the camera. It is based on the David Foster Wallace (DFW) book of the same name. DFW was a young, critically acclaimed author who committed suicide last Fall. While Wallace has a strong cult following, his books are not a walk in the park. Given that, this film may not not find a place in the mass market, so I'm glad we will see it at Sundance. I'm also looking forward to seeing and hearing from Krasinski in the Q & A after the film.

Adventureland at 6:15pm on Monday. This is the only Premier we were able to get with our pass. It stars Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale) and Kristen Stewart (Twilight) as two college graduates who find each other while working at an amusement park. This quote from the film guide clinched it for me: "Adventureland is a hilarious coming-of-age tale that will speak to anyone who ever had the job from hell but wouldn't trade the experience for anything."

Jenn has an opportunity to buy 20 more tickets this Saturday when individual tickets go on sale to locals only. She has an 8:30am time slot at the box office in downtown Park City. I always feel bad that she has to physically go to the box office, often standing outside in sub-zero temperatures, while I sit at home in my jammies, drinking my coffee, ordering tickets on-line. We are praying for dry skies -- blizzards have been known to mess-up our local ticket buying. I'll post her results over the weekend.

The Long and Short of It

2008-12-20T18:40:00.001-08:00

One of the other great and unique aspects of Sundance is you get the opportunity to see Short Films. I think film festivals are the only place to see short films and it's too bad. This year there are seven shorts programs which consist of 7-10 mini films shown in succession. These programs include one dedicated to short documentaries and one dedicated to animated shorts. We have seen some truly bizarre short films (i.e. robot fornication) and some truly lovely short films (one called Water that was a brilliant metaphor for futility.)

One advantage to going to a shorts program, is we are the only people at Academy Award parties who may actually recognize a few of the nominees in the short film category. We also tend to do well in the foreign film category as many of those films get their U.S. start at Sundance. While we may have missed the "big picture" nominees, we have a small (and I do mean small) advantage at picking the winners in those ancillary categories.

This year there are two shorts programs in particular that caught my eye. One includes a film called Pencil Face and somehow involves a giant, creepy pencil the other includes a film called Acting for the Camera. (I always like it when the movie industry turns the camera back on itself -- aka The Player.) Both of them seem to have more humor than creepiness. Last year we heard the documentary shorts were excellent, so that might be worth looking into this year.

Tickets for Shorts Programs are typically not hard to get, so I have not put any of those programs on our list yet. They will be useful for filling-in holes later, so we may add a shorts program at the end of our ticket-buying adventure.

Snuggled Up with the Film Guide

2008-12-20T17:36:00.000-08:00

It's been snowing (or icy) for a week now -- which is unheard of for Portland. While I wasn't expecting the kids to be out of school for the entire week, it has made me more ready than ever for Sundance. It has given me a new-found appreciation for Park City's ability to keep the streets and sidewalks free of snow (does Portland even own a snow plow?) and has afforded me plenty of time to study this year's film guide.

I have managed to narrow the 100 films that are screening while we are there to 42 that I really want to see. As 14 movies (in 3 1/2 days) is our record, we will have to narrow our choices further. Scheduling and proximity to other theaters are the next factors. It is almost impossible to see a 9:00am movie at Eccles Theatre and make a 12:00pm movie at The Egyptian (on the other side of town.) It's always great when we can score back-to-back movies in the same venue. There are shuttles running all over town, but they tend to get jammed. Jammed with people and jammed in the city's extra traffic. With parking at a minimum, they are still the way to go, we just know to allow ample time.

Park City has ten "theaters" that show Sundance movies during the festival. I put theater in quotes, because one is a converted hotel conference room and one is housed in an inflatable dome over the Racquet Club's tennis courts. This year, I have noticed there is a new theater in the line-up: The Temple Theatre. In Utah, the word temple is typically associated with the Mormon Church, so I'm very curious about this venue. There are many, many, many, many, many, many Sundance movies that I'm am certain would not garner church approval. No High School Musical or Marley and Me here!

Once the scheduling and venues are worked out, the box office and ticket- availability gods take over. I, being the geek that I am, will develop a spreadsheet with my first through third choices for each time slot, taking into account the preferences of my fellow movie-goers, but once the frenzy of ticket buying begins and movies start to sell out, desperation sets in and all bets are off. So far, we have some great ticket buying time slots, so I'm optimistic this year.

Since it looks like our treacherous weather is going to continue for awhile, I have rented four Sundance films that I haven't yet seen. Provided we continue to have power, I will watch those over the next few days and share my thoughts. If the power goes out, I guess it's back to the Film Guide ... by flashlight.

The New Film Guide Is Here! The New Film Guide is Here!

2008-12-16T20:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry to butcher a quote from The Jerk (one of my all time favorite movies), but it seemed to work so well. While I won't be finding my name in print, I found plenty of others. It looks like Robin Willliams, Jim Carrey, Billy Bob Thornton, Wynona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Spacey, Minnie Driver and even Mary Tyler Moore all have roles in Sundance films this year. I'm already predicting that one of the toughest tickets to get will be "Spread" in which Ashton Kutcher plays a male gigolo. I assume no further explanation is required.

In total there are 227 never-before-seen films screening at Sundance 2009. Each movie will be shown at least four times, with the first screenings of the day happening at 8:00am and the last at midnight. We intend to watch films all day Friday through Monday (January 16-19) and hope to see all of them in Park City. Eliminating the films that don't play on those days and/or that play in Salt Lake or Ogden, we have exactly 100 opportunities to see movies in those four days.

Now some movies will get eliminated for other reasons. For example, we try not to follow a late night movie with an 8:00am movie. In fact, I have made it my personal goal to avoid 8:00am movies altogether this year. Sometimes, however, the desire to see a decent movie and the lack of available tickets in other time slots makes this unavoidable. At the very least I hope to avoid seeing a movie at the Racquet Club at 8:00am -- it's f-in' freezing in there!

Here are a few other red flags:

The "Park City at Midnight" category tends to have movies that really shouldn't be viewed in the light of day. One to avoid this year is "Grace", where a woman carries her stillborn child to term and then it miraculously comes to life, but requires horrible sacrifices on the mom's part to remain alive. ICK!!!

Similarly, the "New Frontier" category highlights experimental films, which tend to be more art than entertainment and, therefore, are completely wasted on me. There are two films that are described as meditative (which I interpret to mean there is absolutely no dialogue.) In one of those, the director (and I quote) "...often uses her two sons in the main roles of her frequently violent, but visually charming, films." PASS!

And finally, in the "Spectrum" category -- dedicated to "the creative spirit in independent filmmaking" -- there's a film by David Russo called The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle. As far as I can tell, the main character finds himself one of a band of janitorial misfits who eat magic cookies which cause them each to give birth to a small blue fish. HUH?

Here are a few films that did pique my interest:

I Love You Phillip Morris -- from the makers of Bad Santa (which I wanted to hate, but laughed too much to find that to be true) comes the tale on a con-man (Jim Carrey) who falls in love with a fellow inmate (Ewan McGregor). Need I say more?

One Day in a Life -- Beautiful Italian men in swimsuits (see photo.) Who cares if it's subtitled -- do you know how cold it is in Park City in January?!

Good Hair -- A documentary by Chris Rock about African American hair culture, which was initiated by his young daughter lamenting the fact that she doesn't have "good hair."

Those are just a few of the films that caught my eye on my first pass through the guide. You too can read about all 227 films on www.sundance.org/festival. Just click on the film guide tab and download the PDF.

Sundance 2009 - The Anticipation is Killing Me

2008-12-15T18:51:00.000-08:00

While my kids are eagerly anticipating Christmas, I'm just trying to get through the Holidays and on to my favorite time of year -- the Sundance Film Festival. This year I am returning with my friend Jois and we have invited our friend, Dede. I am so looking forward to a long weekend with three incredible women (my sister, Jenn, is our host, so we hook up with her in Park City.) I'm anticipating lots of intellectual discussions, many interrupted trains of thought, solving of world (and minor) problems and laughing off of butts.

In the meantime forget stockings hung with care, our preparations include the following:

1) We have purchased our airline tickets (and are saving our pennies so our bags can also go with us.) Of course Delta dropped their dropped their fares a week after we bought our tickets, sigh ...

2) We were able to secure one "Locals Pass" (love those Park City connections). With a good buying time slot, we should be able to purchase our first 12 movie tickets on December 29 or 30.

3) We (and all our friends and family) have registered to buy advance tickets on line. That registration ensures you a ticket-buying time-slot, but does not guarantee that they won't be sold out by the time you get there. We have learned to maximize our chances for an early time-slot by having as many people as possible register.

4) We will be notified of our on-line buying dates and times on December 23rd. It's a lottery and if you don't get a time slot early in the week, chances are good you won't get any tickets.

5) The Film Guide has been posted on-line, so now we can spend the next several weeks developing a target list of movies. This is one of my new favorite Holiday traditions and it involves several colors of highlighters and a the development of a formidable Excel Spreadsheet.

There are over 225 films in this year's guide, each of which shows multiple times in multiple locations. So, in the weeks to come, we will be identifying which ones play while we are there. We will be there the 16-20, but the festival continues on until January 25. We also need to eliminate any films screening in Salt Lake, Ogden and at the Sundance Resort -- we don't want to go there.

We also read the film descriptions carefully -- it's always good to see words like "comedy", "humor" (although "dark humor" can be a red flag) and "uplifting", as so many Sundance films are a little too close to real life. Independent directors love to dramatize degenerate lifestyles and the downtrodden. That's fine every once in while, but when you go to three movies in one day, you need a break. We have also learned (the hard way -- no pun intended) to avoid movies with the word "pornographic" in their title.

And finally, we read the cast listing carefully. If there are big stars, it's harder to get those tickets and the audience will be made up of star-struck fans. (Who, by the way, seem to be the type to text during the film or loudly repeat the dialog for Aunt Mabel throughout the film. Arghh!) Also, if there is no cast listed, this means there are no people in the film -- we also learned this experientially and now there are two hours of my life that I can never get back.

So, in the weeks to come, look for the trials and tribulations of ticket buying, the films that are catching our attention and our actual viewing schedule.

Day 10 - Festival Awards

2008-01-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

Several festival film catagories are judged and the winners are announced on the last day. Most of Sunday's screening times are dedicated to showing the winners. They are also shown on Monday night to locals for free. There are two types of awards, those awarded by a jury and those awarded by the audience. I checked the website and here are this year's big winners:

Grand Jury Prize (USA)

Documentary: Trouble the Water
Dramatic: Frozen River *

Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema)
Documentary: Man on Wire
Dramatic: The King of Ping Pong

Audience Awards (USA)
Documentary: Fields of Fuel
Dramatic: The Wackness *

Audience Awards (World Cinema)

Documentary: Man on Wire
Dramatic: Captain Abu Raed

* Films we saw and therefore are described earlier on my blog.

There are also awards for best directing, editing screenwriting, cinematography, etc. To see the full list of winners, visit www.sundance.org/festival. While you are there check out the videos under "All Video" -- especially 10 Days of Different. In a few minutes, it really captures the flavor and spirit of the event. Also, if you click on the "Live @ Sundance" button, there are lots of Q & A recaps with directors and casts.

Here's a fun photo to leave you with -- "what not to wear at Sundance." If you watch the video, you will see lots of parkas, beanies, turtlenecks, etc. Amazingly, this is the only person I saw wearing a white eyelet bustier with little yellow daisies on it. I realize she looks bored in this picture. My theory is it's a cover for how hard she is trying to suppress those goosebumps.

Coming up, tales of my difficulty transitioning from days filled with make-believe to days filled with volunteer projects, dog walking, grocery shopping, etc. Also, Portland's International Film Festival Starts in less than two weeks, maybe we can take in a few movies there and share the experience.

I'm Pooped

2008-01-24T20:11:00.000-08:00

I got in very late last night and spent the whole day catching-up with my kids and working on all the things I put on hold for a week. I did find time to add some pictures to the blog (starting with Day 1). Now that all is said and done, I would rank the films I saw (excluding the Shorts Program) in this order of preference:

Smart People
The Last Word
Diminished Capacity
Sunshine Cleaning
The Wackness
Young@Heart
Pretty Bird
Good Dick
Be Kind Rewind
Frozen River
Sling Shot Hip Hop
Ballast
Choke
Anywhere, U.S.A.
Death in Love
A Good Day to Be Black and Sexy

Other films that we heard good things about were:

Anvil! The True Story of Anvil
STRANDED: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains
The Deal
U2 3D
What Just Happened
The Great Buck Howard
The Guitar

Jois and I have made a pact to try to see at least 6 more of this year's Sundance films before year's end. I'll keep you posted on that.

Day 6 - We're Done!

2008-01-23T17:10:00.000-08:00

Saw two good movies today and had a lovely lunch in between at Windy Ridge. Jenn is no longer throwing up, but stayed home today to rest. Right now I'm supposed to be packing-up to head to the airport. Since we arrive in Portland really late, I thought I would steal a few minutes to post the movie reviews.

Pretty Bird

This movie starred Billy Crudup as a wanna-be entrepreneur, who convinces his best friend to invest in a personal jet pack start-up business. He finds an out-of-work (and very bitter) aerospace engineer (played by Paul Giamotti) to help them. As with many shady business deals, the holes in this one start to show up and sh_t happens. It boils down to a story about three men coming from very different places and finding themselves working together.

The director was there to answer questions and he was this funny, hyper, articulate guy. (It's not too clear, but that's his photo to the right.) It was definitely the most entertaining Q & A session we have had with only one person at the mic. For example, when describing the process of writing the story and developing the characters, he said: "It really flowed, I just pooped it out onto the Mac." It almost helped me to get over the fact the the amazingly beautiful Billy Crudup wasn't there. Oh well, I got to look at him for 2 hours on the big screen prior to that.

The Wackness

This crazy movie was about the unlikely relationship that develops between an 18-year-old, drug dealer (played by Josh Peck of Nickelodeon fame) and his pot-smoking psychiatrist (played by Ben Kingsley.) It takes place in New York in 1994 and the plot develops around the fact that Josh's character falls in love with the psychiatrist's stepdaughter (played by Olivia Thirlby.) Mary Kate Olsen (who everyone has been buzzing about up here) has about a 7-minute role and Jane Adams (one of my favorite lesser-known actresses) also has a small role.

First of all, casting Ghandi as the psychiatrist and Josh from Drake and Josh as the drug dealer is just crazy, but somehow it works. Kingsley and Peck both give great performances. It was somewhat disheartening to me to see 1994 treated as ancient history, but then I saw the director -- turns out he was graduating high school around that time. If you are not offended by a lot of pot smoking and other drug/alcohol use, this is a tight story, with great actors and a fabulous soundtrack.

Tomorrow I hope to post a bunch of photos and I have some final thoughts about "how to Sundance," movie theater etiquette and what not to wear.

Day 5 - 2008 "The Stinkers"

2008-01-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

The day started well. The storm that was predicted never materialized and we woke to a beautiful setting moon right outside our window. Things went downhill from there, Jenn got violently ill (throwing up from 2:30AM-4:30PM) so didn't join us for any movies. It's a good thing too. They stunk! I guess it had to happen eventually, but we don't usually get all the bad movies on the same day.

I do not recommend any of these for various reasons, but here's a brief recap so you can decide for yourself:

Choke

Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk (a part-time Portland Resident who also wrote Fight Club) this is the story of a sex addict who works for a Colonial Theme Park and is caring for his senile mother. Now there's a fun premise for a movie! It stars Sam Rockwell, Angelica Houston and Brad Henke. Angelica Houston, always a great performer, doesn't disappoint. While there are a few plot twists, the story really lacks substance and the sex addict stuff gets old fast. Palahniuk's web site says the movie was bought early this morning by Searchlight Pictures so, if it seems like your cup of tea, it should be in theaters eventually. I'm sure it will come to Portland because the author has a big fan base there.

It was fun having the director, Brad Henke and Chuck Palahniuk there to answer questions. Palahniuk collaborated very heavily on the film, so it is pretty true to the book. I should have taken a picture of him though. He had this great 1950's Stephen Douglas (of My Three Sons) look going that I thought was really cool (all he was missing was the pipe.)

Anywhere, USA

"Anywhere" is actually Asheville, North Carolina and this is a very regional and personal flick. So personal, that I can't imagine it finding a wide audience. Told in three parts, "Penance," "Loss" and" Ignorance"; using a cast of first-time actors from the Asheville-area; and termed autobiographical by the director -- this is a very unconventional movie.

The three parts are more like three short stories. The first is about a redneck (it's OK, they call themselves that) relationship gone awry. The second is about a girl and her uncle trying to cope with life's realities. And the third is about prejudice in the suburbs. There are frequent references to moustaches, pistachios and the tooth fairy (your guess is as good as mine.) It does have some funny moments. Our favorite line was: "Being in love is like having a whole pile of dumb ass dumped on top of you." And the director's daughter who plays the young girl in the second story was terrific!

Death in Love

I don't even know how to write about this graphic, disturbing and tortured film. Jois and I are so bummed that it was our last movie of the day, because it will be hard to clear our heads of some of the images and themes in this movie in order to go to sleep.

The director wanted to explore how the baggage of parents (even from things that happened before their kids were born) trickles down into their childrens' lives. That's all fine and well, but he used the Holocaust as the past event that is still affecting the family. I don't know about you, but I feel the Holocaust is a little bigger than the typical "baggage". The flashback holocaust images were gruesome, the contemporary characters were so messed up it was hard to root for any of them, there were numerous sex and masturbation scenes, and not one moment of levity. As one guy we talked to on the way out sarcastically put it: "The perfect date movie."

It starred Jacqueline Bisset, Josh Lucas, Lukas Haas and Adam Brody. They were all there, but most of the questions were for the director, so they didn't get much chance to speak. There were also three female actors who had been nude and/or in compromising positions throughout the movie. How they get up there and talk to an audience who just saw them having sex on an enormous screen is beyond me!

Tomorrow is our last day. If Jenn's out of commission again tomorrow, she will have to work on Thursday. So, we sold our Thursday tickets and I'm flying home with Jois late tomorrow night. We are seeing two movies tomorrow -- let's hope we end on a better note than we did today.

Day 4 - 2008

2008-01-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

Eccles Theater this morning in the snow.

Whew! That's more like it. Back to three movies, with a break from 2:00-6:00 where we went to our favorite sit-down restaurant, Windy Ridge. You know you are on vacation when you have a glass of wine with lunch -- even if it is a chintzy Utah pour. Plus, to make matters worse, we haven't been able to buy any wine to take home for two days because yesterday was Sunday and today was a holiday. And people wonder why I go through the hassle of packing wine when I go to Utah! OK, I'm not here for the booze and enough Utah bashing ... Here's my movie recap:

The Last Word
If you get a chance, see this movie! It stars Wes Bentley, Winona Rider and Ray Romano. It's the story of a man who lives a very solitary life and earns his living writing people's suicide notes. The story evolves when he lets some people get close to him. While suicide is an unlikely topic for a comedy, this film is loaded with laughs and never crosses the line between comedy and good taste.

Ray Romano and a twelve-year-old girl who has a small part were the only cast members there, but the Q & A was great. Romano and the Director, Geoff Haley, (of American Beauty and Six Feet Under fame) practically had a stand-up comedy routine going.

Ballast
Ballast is an independent film in every sense of the word: new director, a cast of first-time film actors, shot on location, simple story line, etc. This director wanted to capture the sorrowful, bleak feel of the Mississippi Delta in winter. In casting it, he scoured community centers and churches in the area to find local actors. It has no soundtrack and long lonely shots of the area. The story follows several characters who are trying to find themselves after the suicide of a family-member. (Have you noticed there are a lot of films with a suicide theme in this year's festival?)

The story is as sorrowful as the setting, making it a difficult movie to watch. I also had trouble with the fact that it was all shot with a hand-held camera. The jumpy footage was very distracting for me, especially since we were sitting in the third row. In general, the rawness of the film probably will preclude it from any extensive release, so I think it will be tough to find after this ... and that's OK.

Diminished Capacity
I loved this movie, but I felt a little guilty seeing it without my husband because it takes place in Missouri (his old stomping ground) and is full of baseball references. (I called him after it and promised to see it again with him.) It's about a young man (Matthew Broderick) who suffers a head injury and is experiencing short term memory loss. He is asked to look in on his aging uncle (Alan Alda) who is starting to show signs of senility. During the visit, his uncle shows him a rare baseball card that they decide to sell at a card show in Chicago.

If you are a baseball fan from the Midwest, you will love the references to Cardinal fans vs. Cubs fans. If you know of someone who is getting senile, you will appreciate Alan Alda's performance. If you enjoy a heartwarming story, world class acting and smart comedy, this is the movie for you. It now holds the position for best film I have seen so far.

Many of the cast (Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Louis C.K. and Virginia Madsen were there), so the Q & A was terrific. I have great photos, but I'm still having trouble loading them. Stay tuned.

These two sat next to us during the screening of Diminished Capacity. He is one of the writers and he and his wife both have small parts in the film. The woman next to him (not his wife) plays the neurosurgeon in the film. It was fun chatting with them before the show.

My big accomplishment today was to approach Geoffrey Gilmore (the Director of the Sundance Film Festival) and, rather than ask him for a job like I wanted to, I thanked him for all his hard work, told him we were thrilled with the films we were seeing and commended him for not looking completely exhausted. He was nice about it as he inched slowly away from me -- I think he's more tired than he looks.

Tomorrow we have to be up by 6:30 AM to make an 8:30 movie, so it's bed time for me!

Day 3 - 2008: Four Movies, No Breaks

2008-01-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

Here we are waiting in line to go into the theater for our second movie of the day. We weren't nearly this happy or energetic by the end of the day. Sitting for a large percentage of the day and subsisting on granola bars and coffee is not exactly a healthy lifestyle. We saw some excellent movies, but (Jenn and I in particular) decided three movies in one day is our limit. Here's what we saw:

Shorts Program 1

There were eight films in this program, ranging from 3 - 19 minutes. There was quite an assortment, we are a little baffled about how they decide which ones to group together. Some we all liked, some we disagreed on and some we all disliked. Here they are in a nutshell: The Second Line: a story set in post-Katrina New Orleans - it was great. Dennis: A terribly sad story of a bodybuilder who still lives with his mother and is socially and emotionally still a little boy. The Adventures of Baxter and Maguire: The Boss - Animated male genitalia (hilarious). If you are intrigued by the thought of talking testicles, you can check out further Adventures of Baxter and

Maguire on Comedy Central's website. Harvest Time: A woman who is tired of tending her farm without any help from her husband decides to get rid of him in a most final way - really good and even funny. Teat Beat of Sex: Another animated film about sex - Jois liked it, but I think I'm getting prudish in my old age. Smile: A charming film about a Chinese-Canadian family having a portrait taken for the relatives back home. Bend It: Skip it, nuf said! Aquarium: a nerdy boy is misunderstood in his own family, but manages to connect with the cute girl next door -- a really sweet story, with a terrific cast of characters.

Sunshine Cleaning

This was an excellent flick about two sisters who start a crime-scene, bio-hazard removal business. Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin are all terrific in it. Unfortunately, none of them were there, but the director did answer questions afterward. We are wondering if Alan Arkin has found a new niche and only stars in movies with the word "Sunshine" in the title where his role is that of eccentric grandpas. I hope this film makes it into theaters because it is a very real story about life not turning out as you expected and making the best of it.

Be Kind Rewind

This film was packed and people had camped out in the waitlist line for hours trying to get in. Why? Because it starred Jack Black and was a comedy. It was a thoughtful story that takes place in Passaic, New Jersey. What's interesting is it was written and directed by a French man, who live in Paris. It tells the story of a young black man (played by Mos Def) who is entrusted with the care of his mentor's (Danny Glover) video store for a few days. His best friend (Jack Black) messes everything up and in the process of making things right they become filmmakers. I won't tell you any more, except to say it will be in theaters soon and, while it has some teenage comedy elements, it's worth seeing.

Here's a photo of the director (on the left, Mos Def, Jack Black and Danny Glover (hanging back in the shadows) before the screening.

Smart People

This quickly bumped Sunshine Cleaning out of its position as my favorite film so far. Quality acting, original writing and very human characters all added up to an excellent film. It stars Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thomas Hayden Church, Ellen Paige (of Juno Fame) and Ashton Holmes. It's the story of a widowed English Professor, his mixed-up family and his unlikely romance with a former graduate student. Thomas Hayden Church plays the screw-up adopted brother of the professor and he is the only one brave enough to call things as they are. He also has the funniest lines. Ellen Paige is brilliant as the super-achieving, Young Republican daughter. And, of course, you can't go wrong with Sarah Jessica Parker and Dennis Quaid in the leading roles.

The entire cast (excluding Ellen Paige -- it seems she's pretty these days), the director and the screenwriter were there to answer questions, but Thomas Hayden Church stole the show. He claimed to have a letter from Ellen, which he went on to read (see photo on right) and it was hysterical! We were, however, a little annoyed by all the star-seekers in the audience, who proceeded to gush over all the stars as they entered the theater, stood up to take photos, applauded after every word they said, etc. It's the World Premier people! Those with a role in the film are there! Get over it!

I also started collecting pictures of Sundance fashion "do's" and "don'ts." I will post those photos when I get back to Oregon.

Tomorrow it's back to three movies starting at 9:15 AM. We are planning an even earlier start, however, because a huge storm is headed our way and they are predicting 12-16 inches of new snow. It may be tricky getting out of Jenn's driveway, let alone into town.

Day 2 - 2008

2008-01-19T20:51:00.000-08:00

Started out early this morning to see Frozen River. This was not a very uplifting way to start the day, but let's face it, that's not why we are here. Frozen River tells a story of desperation in a small New York border town. It's based on the real-life illegal immigrant smuggling operation that exists on the Mohawk Reservation in the area. There were no big stars in it, but it was a powerful, well-told story. Unfortunately, I can't imagine it having a broad appeal and may never show anywhere except festivals.

Right after that we saw Good Dick, which incidentally, does not have any characters in it named Dick. They are using the word in "that other way." It is the story of a young man who works at a video store and develops a crush on a young woman who comes in every day to rent erotic videos. She is a recluse, very much an emotional mess and makes it clear she is not interested in him. Undaunted, the young man proceeds to "woo" her (in an almost stalker-like manner.)

This film was impressive for two reasons. First, Marianna Palka not only wrote and directed it, but she also stars in it as Anna (the love interest). Apparently she went through the line a few times when they were dishing out talent. And, second, Jason Ritter (John Ritter's son) gives an outstanding performance as the video store clerk. His nuanced expressions, comedic timing and energy are just what the story needs to catapult it from a story about two messed up people to a romantic comedy (albeit with a seedier side.)

We then had a break, so Jois and I headed over to our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Chubasca -- or, as Jenn calls it, El Chubbies. It is fast, fresh, inexpensive and authentic, plus it has the most amazing salsa bar. It's also in walking distance of both Eccles and Prospector Square Theaters.

We ran into The Oregonian Film Critic, Shawn Levy, there and I actually stopped and introduced myself. I didn't mention that I too am a film critic (hah!) or that each year I have a completely different take on Sundance then he does. I did let him know that I read his column and check out his top five picks each week, and asked what he liked at Sundance so far. (The press have separate screenings and he said he typically goes to 4-5 movies each day.) He saw The Wackness which he said was "a little long" and several others, but he didn't really comment on those. He did seem fairly impressed that we are going to see 20 movies, but here's the kicker. I sort of love to hate him, because he is always so unimpressed with Sundance each year (or at least his reporting makes it seem that way), but he was really nice. Now my whole perspective has to change.

At 5:30 we hooked up with Jenn again to see It's a Good Day to be Black and Sexy. Even during the opening credits, it became clear that a white, 40-something, stay-at-home mom is probably not the right demographic to screen this film. But beyond that, it also became clear that it just wasn't a well-made film. In a nutshell it consisted of six "vignettes" or short stories about various black couples in a variety of types of relationships. Supposedly they all tied together, but that link was weak for us. It was explicit, choppy and very random both stylistically and in its story-telling.

Some viewers walked out in the middle. I'm glad we stuck around though, because the last vignette, involving a Chinese girl trying to keep her black boyfriend a secret from her traditional parents, was my favorite. We also got to see and hear from many of the cast, who are all not only talented, but beautiful (see photo below.) The director, cinematographer and producer (who are all frightfully young) were also there.

Tomorrow we have four movies, starting at 9:15 AM. We have no breaks, which means we will either pack food or pay for overpriced bagels and pizza at Eccles. We have some terrific films, however, and should see some stars (Sarah Jessica Parker, Dennis Quaid and Thomas Hayden Church are all in one of the films we are seeing.) Stayed tuned ...

Day 1 - Round 2

2008-01-18T21:48:00.000-08:00

We just got back from Salt Lake where we saw Young@Heart another documentary about performers. This time, they were a group from Massachusetts who have an average member age of 80 and sing contemporary music (Talking Heads, Cold Play and Sonic Youth, to name a few.) The film followed the group for six weeks as they prepared for an upcoming concert. During that time it manages to touch on many issues related to aging. It's no downer, however, as the members of this choir are so full of life and optimism. The best part in my mind are the clever music videos they produced with the chorus and interjected throughout the film.

Young@Heart has been "picked-up" (that's movie lingo) by Fox Searchlight Productions, so look for it in the theaters some time this year. Here's a photo of the husband and wife filmmaking team (on the left), the director of the young@heart chorus (the guy with the mic) and the cinematographer. Members of the chorus were going to be at the Park City Screenings, but most of those happened after we were gone, so we missed out.

Day 1 - 2008

2008-01-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

Had a great flight out. Spent the whole time chatting with Jonathon from Philadelphia. He is a Chemist who was headed to the Festival and then a big outdoor recreation trade show in Salt Lake next weekend (apparently he's not required to work much.) He had just spent a week in Portland and seems much more Oregonian than East Coast. I lobbied hard for a move.

Jenn and I raced to the box office this morning to pick up all 54 of our movie tickets. We sold the tickets for a 10:00am Shorts Program and headed to Starbucks, where we had our first celebrity siting: Kevin Sorbo of Hercules fame. I've never seen it or heard of him (although he did look familiar) and had to trust Jenn on this one.

The Sundance folks are pushing a text messaging information line called "Cha Cha", so we texted them and asked if they knew if he was here. They replied that no Sorbo-sitings had been reported, but Mary Kate Olsen was seen leaving the high school performing arts center smoking a cigarette. Apparently celebrities don't have to follow the rules.

After a few quick errands, we headed to Prospector Theater for a documentary called Slingshot Hip Hop. The film is about the emerging hip hip culture of occupied Palestine. It was story about some kids needing a voice and finding it through hip hop and how that voice is giving new hope to future generations. The best part, and why I truly love Sundance, was that the rappers were there. They gave a brief live performance after the show and answered questions.

It was no small feat to get them to the United States. In fact of the three-member group from Gaza only one was able to get a VISA and it sounds like that involved a bunch of red tape and almost didn't happen. Four of the rappers sat behind us during the film, so before it started I asked if I could take their picture ("yes" -- see right.) I also asked them if they had seen the film yet ("no") and if they were nervous ("mostly excited.") Can you imagine, not being allowed to leave Gaza (a 26 x 4-mile area) and then suddenly finding yourself in Park City, Utah?

You can check out one of the groups on their website: www.dampalestine.com. They don't have any radio or TV where they live, so they use the Internet to promote themselves and sell albums.

We're picking up Jois at the airport late this afternoon and seeing another documentary in Salt Lake tonight. We'll get home late, so I will write about it tomorrow.

It's Finally Time to Go

2008-01-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

This is a typical view of Park City. We can see the Mountain range and often see hot air balloons from my sister's living room windows. I checked the weather in Park City and it's a balmy 4-degrees.

If you ever get the chance to got to Sundance, here are some of the essentials to pack:

Warm clothes, especially socks (Save the sequined ball gown for the Academy Awards, at Sundance it's all about the turtleneck and parka.

Warm and comfortable boots or shoes with traction

Hat, scarf, gloves

Camera, Cell phone and Chargers for both

A refillable water bottle

Chapstick , Hand lotion, Eye drops (Have I mentioned yet how dry it is in Park City?)

Sunglasses (there's nothing like coming out of a dark movie theater into the sunlight and snow glare outside -- especially for us Oregonians who have mole eyes.)

Kleenex

Power Bars or some type of portable food (We often don't have time to eat, but you just need enough calories to get you to the next theater.)

That's it for now. Better finish packing. Checked my flight and it's on time, so it looks like it's all systems go.

A Brief Recap of 2007

2008-01-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

Sundance 2007 will forever go down in my mind as the “year of the tear-jerker.” I cried at more movies this year, then ever before. Of course, you have to understand, I cry at the slightest sentimentality – children singing, professions of love and even (I can’t believe I’m confessing this) A Very Brady Christmas. Hillary Clinton’s got nothin’ on me.

I bet you can figure out which of the 12 films we saw made me cry. Those films are:

Away from Her

Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent and Olympia Dukakis in a film adapted from a short story that illustrates the struggles of Alzheimers. Yup, it’s another uplifting Sundance film. Actually, in the hands of three such seasoned and respected actors, and a young, risk-taking director (Sarah Polley), the film becomes a love story, rather than a film about dementia. (You guessed it –I cried.)

Hear and Now

This was another love story – within a documentary. Irene Taylor Brodsky (A Portland filmmaker – yay!) turns the camera on her childhood, her family, and most importantly her deaf parents. Not only did they raise three hearing children, but they decide in their 60’s that they want to get cochlear implants and join the hearing world. The result is a deeply moving and personal account of these two remarkable people. The only nod to Portland is a brief sound clip of Pink Martini (totally fun Portland band) when Brodsky brings her now-hearing parents the CD to listen too. After the film, her whole family came to the stage and her parents received a standing ovation. Ok, got to go, I’m starting to tear-up all over again.

War Dance

See this movie if you have the chance! This documentary tells the story of three children in Northern Uganda who have experienced unimaginable atrocities at the hands of the rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army. They live and go to school in a refugee camp and their school is the first in the war zone to qualify to compete in a national music and dance competition. The documentary weaves their horrific stories in with joyful singing and dancing, and follows their preparation for and performance in this contest.

Children witnessing the violent deaths of their parents, children recruited as child soldiers and children singing – I was a mess. Then, to make matters worse, the filmmakers came out and took a picture of us to send back to the children, as we were the first audience to see the finished film. We gave those kids a standing ovation and the waterworks started all over again. I still get “misty” just thinking about it.

Four Sheets to the Wind

Although this movie starts with a suicide and an unceremonious dumping of the body into a pond, it was actually a warm story about family, tradition and the struggle to find oneself in a small, rural community. The mostly Native-American cast, an unseen ancestor who interjects words of wisdom throughout, and the rural Oklahoma scenery gave this film a simple charm, while telling a contemporary story.

Rocket Science

Jeffrey Blitz was at Sundance several years ago (before my time) with his film, Spellbound, a documentary about children competing in the National Spelling Bee. If I remember right, Rocket Science is his first fictional work and he also wrote the screenplay. Drawing somewhat on his experience as a stutterer, he casts Reece Daniel Thompson as a high school boy who stutters, yet somehow gets talked into joining the debate team. As painful as it is to watch him struggle to get his words out and be teased mercilessly, the film is chock full of humor and heart.

Snow Angels

I probably put this on my ticket-buying list because Amy Sedaris is in it (along with Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale). I typically think of Sedaris as a comedic actress, but it seeems she can be a serious, dramatic actress as well. This was no comedy. It’s about a divorced couple who, while still trying to cope with that change, experience a tragedy that rocks their world even further. Let’s just say children in peril (not my favorite) and a tragic ending (also not a fan.)

Starting Out in the Evening

Frank Langella plays an out-of-print novelist who has sheltered himself away from the world while he tries to complete a book he’s been working on for 10 years. His sheltered life is disrupted when an overly ambitious graduate student shows up on his doorstep and decides to make him the subject of her thesis. At the same time, his daughter (played by Lili Taylor) is having a mid-life crisis of her own. This is a quiet movie – there’s not much action when the main characters are writers and researchers – but it touched on the real-world issues of aging, family and living an examined life.

On a Tightrope

Like War Dance, this film followed the story of four orphaned children. In this documentary, the children are Uigher, which is China’s largest Muslim minority. They live in Northern China under the strict control of the Chinese government. The children featured in the film are training to be tightrope walkers, a Uigher tradition. During production, the Director was under ongoing scrutiny by the Chinese government. I believe they also reviewed and edited all his film footage. It’s a fascinating story about a population I know little about. Unfortunately, we saw War Dance, with its stunning cinematography and gripping story, first, so this film paled in comparison.

Driving with My Wife’s Lover

This Korean film (with English subtitles) just didn’t translate for us. We had a hard time following the story and keeping the characters straight. At 9:00 at night, after a day of great movies, it definitely wasn’t worth the effort.

Clubland

This very fun Australian flick was released in the U.S. under the title: “Introducing the Dwight Family.” What a watered down name! It sounds way too much like other recent American movies (i.e. Meet the Fockers.) It stars Brenda Blethlyn (I had never heard of her, turns out she is an extremely well-respected British actress) as an aging performer who is trying to keep her career afloat while juggling a day job, resenting her contentious ex-husband, and caring for a disabled son. She really relies of the help of her other son, so when he falls in love, it throws their life into turmoil. Full of wacky characters, energy and life – we thoroughly enjoyed this film.

Dedication

Billy Crudup is absolutely gorgeous in this movie, even though he plays a fairly unlikable character – a psychologically unstable author of children’s books. (He and his illustrator/friend are inspired to write "Marty the Beaver" after seeing a porn movie -- how warped is that?) I think this was my favorite movie of this trip. (Although the fact that I haven’t seen any sign of it since, indicates that I may not be the best judge of movies.) Oh well, it had a great cast (Mandy Moore as the love interest, Dianne Weist as her mom, and Bob Balaban as his agent); a quirky, root-for-the-underdog story, and just enough comedy.

The cast was there for the Q & A. My palpitations for Billy cooled off a bit when I saw him in person – I’m hoping the facial hair was for a role. And, in a bid for stupidest Sundance question of all time, a guy in the audience asked Mandy Moore if she would marry him.

Delirious

This film did make it into theaters and I didn't like it nearly as much as Dedication. It may be because the story revolves around a Brittany-, Paris-, Lindsey-type and they seem to be the newsmakers these days. It tells the story of a homeless kid who befriends a slimy freelance photographer and together they get tangled up with the “pop-starlet-of-the-month.” Steve Buscemi (who looks like he hasn’t been outside in the past 10 years), Michael Pitt and Alison Lohman star in it. It has some funny moments, but much of the premise is too unbelievable for my taste.

Shorts Program III
(Just an aside, there are usually 5 Shorts programs, plus a documentary shorts collection to choose from -- thus the numerical titles.)

Cubs: a 10-minute, intense film about kids chasing and abusing a fox. The Tube with a Hat: 23 minutes of a boy and his father struggling to carry their broken TV (also their most prized possession) through the bogs of Romania to the repair shop. BITCH, it barely takes any time at all to realize the main character is one -- truly wicked. The Grass Grows Green: A look at the military through the eyes of a Marine recruiter. Bomb: I don’t remember this flick at all. The Substitute: this was a charming 15-minute Italian film about a business man who ducks out of his day job and pretends to be a substitute teacher for awhile.

Movies we could have seen in 2007, but didn't: Black Snake Moan, Once (excellent soundtrack), and Waitress (a breath of fresh air with a tragic real life backstory.)

A Brief Recap of 2006

2008-01-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

It dawned on me this morning that I should probably preface these little film reviews with a disclaimer. First, I am no expert and don’t profess to be one (I just get a little full of myself during Sundance.) I tend to prefer Independent Films in general, plus we tend to experience what we call the “Sundance Factor.” You’re in Park City, freezing your buns off, but unlike Oregon, the sun is shining; the City is packed: buzzing with adrenaline and excitement; you’re hearing from the directors and actors after each film; when you are not watching a movie, you are talking about movies; etc. It all adds up to a unique experience that puts a positive spin on just about everything.

Also, many Sundance movies are very heavy, so when you do happen to see one of the few comedies – they are way more funny and appreciated than they would be at home. Case in point, this first movie from 2006:

Kinky Boots

This is a British film in a similar vein as The Full Monty. Only this time it is a son trying to save his family’s shoe factory and teaming with a cross-dressing, cabaret singer to do it. It’s the stodgy and the flamboyant thrown into a work environment together. It’s got the usual understated British humor and a lot of heart.

Thin

This documentary followed four girls with eating disorders through 6 months at a residential treatment center. Full of alarming facts and difficult to watch, it puts faces to this illness and really illustrates what a struggle it is for these girls. A few of the girls were there to answer questions and talk about their continuing struggles.

Sherrybaby

Maggie Gyllenhaal (a Sundance regular) stars as a drug addict just released from prison. She is trying to get her life back on track, but really doesn’t know how. She tries to reunite with her 5-year old daughter, only to discover her sister and her husband want to continue raising the child. Gyllenhaal gives an amazing performance in this painful and emotional movie.

Somebodies

Not a movie we discussed much after the fact. It is a quirky tale of a couple of college-age guys who are pretty typical: totally nonchalant bout life and its responsibilities, just looking for the next good time. It takes place in Athens Georgia and the best part is the off-the-wall church the lead character attends. I’m thinking a couple of 40-something white Moms are just the wrong demographic for this movie, either that or it really wasn’t that good.

Steel City

This was a movie about a dysfunctional family (a Dad, his brother and his two adult sons) trying to survive in a depressed steel town. Dad is incarcerated, the youngest son is drifting aimlessly, the oldest son is married and having an affair and the uncle wants everyone to be more responsible for their actions. There aren’t many movies that focus on male relationships and maybe it’s because they are difficult to watch. This one was that, but was also suspenseful in a way that kept you engaged.

Eve and the Fire Horse

This delightful film, directed and written by first-timer Julia Kwan (A Chinese-Canadian) was about a Chinese immigrant family and centered on their two young daughters. This is what I love about Sundance … this was the first feature film for the director, the two young girls had never acted before, the story was completely unique and it all came together in this quiet gem of a film.

Little Miss Sunshine

This film made it to the box office and so probably most of you have seen or heard of it. We absolutely loved it, partly due to the “Sundance Factor” and partly due to the fact that the cast was there afterward and they were clearly having a good time. Whether you liked it or not, you have to admit that starting with a Dad who is motivational speaker (and a bad one at that) is a hysterical premise. Have I mentioned yet how much I like Greg Kinnear?!

Adam’s Apples

This Danish flick was way out there, a dark comedy that takes place almost entirely at a small country church. A wacky cast of characters is thrown together, and what results is an exploration of the struggle between good and evil. This is definitely not a mainstream movie, but it had its funny moments.

Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon

Peter Richardson, A Philomath High School graduate, turns the camera on a controversy that took over his home town. For more than 40 years, a local timber family has given college scholarships (no strings attached) to every Philomath student who graduates from high school. Unfortunately, the foundation is now up in arms about the liberal bias (read: “anti-logging”) being taught at the high school and further perpetuated in college. What resulted was an intense fight (that even caught the attention of the national media) involving the school board, the foundation and the students. For those of us who live in Oregon it clearly illustrated the dichotomy between our urban and rural areas, and underscores the challenge of having an economy based on an out-moded industry.

Factotum

This film was a huge undertaking. The director and screenwriters attempted to translate Charles Bukowski’s second novel and several short stories into a movie. I read some of Bukowski’s work after the fact, and it turns out his writing is as dark and anguished as the movie was, so I guess they did a pretty good job. Matt Dillon starred and I have a whole new perspective on him after seeing him in the Q & A – A) he’s beautiful (already knew that) and B) he’s smart and articulate (apparently he reads heavy duty stuff like Bukowski regularly.) Lili Taylor (I’ve loved her since Mystic Pizza) and Marisa Tomei were also in it. I’m always amazed that those actors can watch themselves frolicking naked on the screen and then come out and answer questions from the 200 people who just saw them naked.

Off the Black

Nick Nolte plays Ray, an alcoholic high school umpire who has failed in almost every aspect of his life. When a troubled teen vandalizes his house, Ray gets even by forcing him to pose as his son at his high school reunion. Nick Nolte gives a stunning performance and Trevor Morgan is excellent as the teen.

Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner

As the title states, this is a documentary about playwright Tony Kushner who wrote Angels in America. The film covers three years from 9/11 to 2004 and shows his work as a political activist and outspoken voice for tolerance (he is Jewish and gay) and social justice. After the film, you are left with a deep respect for Mr. Kushner and his passion. You are also appreciative to the director for doing her subject justice and letting us in on his life.

Shorts Program 1

Six films ranging from 3 to 30 minutes that include a metaphorical tale about drug use using bugs (way creepy), a story of a 14-year-old’s wedding to a polygamist (creepy for different reasons), and a hysterical film about a guy who takes a girl to the Holocaust Museum for a first date (turns out this is not such a good idea.)

A Brief Recap of 2005

2008-01-14T19:25:00.000-08:00

In 2005 Jois and I decided to share the fun and invited friends to join us. So, Jois; her friend, Mara; Mara’s brother, Josh; and my friend, Eileen all headed to Park City. While there is plenty of room at Jenn’s house, the fact that we are limited to four tickets to any one movie, made ticket buying a challenge.

Everyone was very flexible and some people actually wanted to go skiing instead of see movies (what’s up with that?), so it all worked out. We decided if we were to have a big group again, I would resign as the event planner and everyone would be on their own to buy tickets and arrange transportation.

I won’t go into the cancelled flight, and constant buying and selling of tickets. Instead, here’s a recap of the movies we did see:

The Matador

This comedy pairs Pierce Brosnan, a hit man, and Greg Kinnear, a traveling salesman, as “buddies” (although Kinnear’s character is a very unwilling buddy.) It was smart, funny and original, plus Greg Kinnear is the actor I most want to invite to dinner sometime. As if seeing Pierce Brosnan onscreen wearing only a Speedo and cowboy boots wasn’t enough, the entire cast was there to answer questions afterward. They were somewhat hung over as the film had premiered the night before, a party had followed (we weren’t invited) and this was all happening at an 8:30 AM screening the next day.

Inside Deep Throat

This documentary about the cultural impact of the 1972 film, Deep Throat was titillating and fascinating at the same time -- think documentary interjected with porn. Despite the clips from the movie and erotic graphics, the filmmakers used archival footage that captured the controversy around the film 30 years ago, interviewed just about everyone from the film who is still alive, and weren’t afraid to tackle the societal implications of the time.

From an interview with the cheesy director, now living in a trailer park, to the mob-affiliated and very shady distribution system, the back story on this movie was fascinating. Harry Reams (it's spelled differently!), who starred in Deep Throat is now a Realtor in Park City, so he came to the screening and answered questions. It was one of those “only at Sundance” experiences!

Upside of Anger

Kevin Costner (not a fan – his new wife came to the screening with big glasses and fur – yuck!) and Joan Allen (love her!) both play very angry people, who don’t really like each other, but somehow need each other. Allen also plays the mom of four teenage daughters, who were all brilliantly portrayed. This flick made it into distribution, so I’m sure you can rent it. Romance, drama (there are teenage girls in it after all), fine acting and a surprise ending all add up to a worthwhile rental.

Brick

One of the many films we saw this year which revolved around high schoolers, this definitely showed the dark side of the high school years. It starts with a murder and quickly becomes all about an underground world involving drugs, gangs and acceptance. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the lead so solemnly that it takes a while to realize he is the same kid who played Tommy in Third Rock from the Sun. It was a well-crafted film, but a little too violent for my taste. (I may be naïve, but I still like to think of high school kids as somewhat innocent.)

Forty Shades of Blue

I don’t even know how to describe this film. It was a moody, story about a young Russian woman living with a legendary (but washed-up) old music producer (Rip Torn).The music producer’s son enters the picture and the story becomes downright brooding. It’s a difficult film, but engaging nonetheless and Rip Torn’s (Jois didn’t believe that was his real name) performance is remarkable. I also loved the set, which was a mid-century modern home that was obviously stuck in 1962. In the flashback scenes, it looked exactly the same. We attended a noon screening and got the strong impression that Rip Torn was drunk for the Q & A. He didn’t make any sense at all!

Loggerheads

This was a quiet film, similar to Evergreen from last year. It was very regional in focus (taking part in the Southeast), it had very believable characters and it was beautifully filmed. It tells three stories (one about adoption rights, one about saving Loggerhead Turtles and one about racism), each in a different year on Mother’s Day. I suppose the three stories related to each other somehow, but three years later, I don’t remember how.

Pretty Persuasion

Back to high school for a wicked romp of a flick -- think Legally Blond meets Fatal Attraction. Evan Rachel Wood (who we also saw in Upside of Anger) plays a rich, conniving sophomore at a private Beverly Hills high school. This satire is full of talent (James Woods, Jane Krakowski and Selma Blair are also in it), but it is the writing that really takes you for a ride. Our last screening in 2005, it was a great movie to end with.

The Emperor’s Journey

The start of the penguin craze. This was the original, French version of March of the Penguins. The script and music were completely different from the American version. If the original is on the DVD, be sure to check it out. It was told from the penguin’s perspective and was very poetic. The music can only be described as icy and, if I remember right, was provided by a Canadian singer.

Unfortunately, this was the first movie we saw after a terrible night trying to get to Utah after our flight was cancelled, so I kept doing the head-bob. Fortunately, after the lights came up, the charming French director and cinematographer were there to answer all our questions and talk about the 13 months they spent in Antarctica.

Saving Face

This is a terrific movie about familial clashes. Specifically, a well-educated, successful, closeted- lesbian, Chinese-American woman is an anomaly to her traditional Chinese relatives. Her life is completely disrupted when her 48-year-old mom shows up on her doorstep … pregnant. One of the few female directors we have seen, Alice Wu, creates a film that is funny, smart, warm and honest.

Steal Me

Another film directed by a woman, this was a simple tale of a decent family taking in a loner/thief who befriends their son. While you wait for something to go horribly wrong, you start to realize this story isn’t going that way at all. It’s a movie about decency, acceptance and family love. It’s not at all gushy though. I think this is due to the strength of the cast, who are all unknowns (at least to me) and the realism of the characters.

The Joy of Life

A lesbian reading from her sex journals, still shots of deserted street corners in San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge as the number-one suicide landmark in the world … hated it.

Shorts Program IV

Seven films ranging from 4 to 25 minutes each: America’s Biggest Dick (I’ll give you a hint, his last name is Cheney), Berocca (stars a disabled man and all 13 minutes are very hard to watch), Eating (don’t remember it), Everything’s Gone Green (directed by Aaron Ruell who played Kip in Napoleon Dynamite), Goodnight Irene (directed by a Native American and takes place in a medical clinic on a reservation), Stronger (a nasty girl fight in a beauty salon) and Wasp. Wasp won the 2005 Academy Award for the best live action short. It was only 25 minutes long, but it brilliantly told a heartbreaking story of poverty, desperation and parenting.

Jois and I are the only ones who care about the shorts category during the Academy Awards (we also care about the documentaries), as we are the only ones who have seen any of them. They range from baffling (think robots having sex) to brilliant (see Wasp above), but we always try to get at least one shorts program in our line-up.

They also sometimes show shorts before the feature-length films. Last year our favorite short was Water, a startling 15 minute flick from New Zealand that played before Evergreen. The entire film is a metaphor for “band-aid” solutions rather than getting to the source of the problem. It was a simple concept, but must have been insanely difficult to film. I don’t know where you can see this short film, and it’s a shame.

A sampling of this year’s shorts will be available for free on the Sundance Website: sundance.org/festival/. It is definitely worth checking out.

Films we missed out on in 2005 (we did see many of them later) include: Layer Cake, Kung Fu Hustle, Thumbsucker (filmed in Portland), The Aristocrats (nasty, nasty, nasty), Murderball (must see), Me and You and Everyone We Know (written by and starring Miranda July who lived in Portland for awhile), The Puffy Chair (blech), and The Squid and the Whale.

A Brief Recap of 2004

2008-01-13T19:37:00.000-08:00

In 2004, we had 200 movies to chose from, including a few that are now household names: Napoleon Dynamite, Supersize Me, Garden State and SAW. We didn't see any of those. The closest we came was when we boarded a shuttle full of members of the press who had just seen Supersize Me. They were very quiet and noticeably queasy.

Here's what I remember about the 13 movies we did see:

The Saddest Music in the World

A nice midwestern couple we met at one of the shuttle stops had warned us not to see this movie -- they thought it was terrible. Too late, we already had tickets. This movie will forever go down in Sundance history as the only movie we have seen where the Director came out before the movie and gave a brief explanation. Apparently the audience just didn't get it at the first showing, so he explained that it is meant to be a comedy that makes fun of the melodrama genre. Ohhhhh.

So, this movie is shot entirely in black and white and stars Isabella Rosselini as a legless (don't worry, her love makes her glass prosthetic legs filled with beer), Canadian beer baron who sponsors a contest for the saddest music in the world. This opens the film to a whole cast of deviant characters and the plot to lots of manipulative backstage dealings. There is also a deep family secret and and a huge vat of beer. I didn't love it, but we did get to see and hear from the charming Isabella Rosselini after the show. My sister still claims it as one of her all-time favorites.

Marie and Bruce

Wallace Shawn wrote this as a play in the 1960s. Fast forward 40 years when he co-wrote the screenplay to bring the story to film. It starred Mathew Broderick and Juliane Moore and, in our opinion, stunk. The characters were unlovable and their relationship was toxic. The best part was hearing Wallace Shawn during the Q & A. He was very real, didn't have tedious "I'm trying to impress you" answers, and put the know-it-alls in the audience in their place. I was somewhat disappointed, however, that he never once said "Inconceivable." We did bump into him later that day at another screening and he is the only celebrity that I have had the nerve to talk to --I lied and told him I enjoyed his film.

Touch of Pink

One of the few comedies we have seen at Sundance, it's basically a gay Monsoon Wedding, but it takes place in London and Canada. The main character is a gay Indian man living in London, who is forced to confront his family and his sexuality when his mother sets out to find him a Muslim wife. It has a host of outlandish and sympathetic characters who are played with great comedic timing. As an added bonus, Kyle McLachlan has a small role as Cary Grant's ghost (he advises on how to live a "closeted life".) What's not to like?

Citizen King

This is an awesome and very thorough documentary on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For us, it was huge slice of history as we saw it on MLK Day and Al and Tipper Gore sat right behind us. I enjoyed all the archival footage, interviews with those close to him and the fact that it didn't brush his shortcomings under a rug. I was somewhat distracted throughout the film -- trying to think of something positive to say to Mr. Gore. Jois came up with: "I'm still not over the election, how 'bout you?", but we decided against that.

Book of Love

This is one case where the catalog description and what we saw really don't match-up. This was a rather disturbing story about a relationship and how it changes when a 15-year-old boy enters the couple's life. I don't remember much about the movie other than one particularly violent scene and the false calm that takes over the characters right after it. If you see it on your Netflix list, I would skip it.

Brother to Brother

I think this was the very first Sundance movie we saw. It tells the story of a young gay, African-American artist in New York. He befriends a poet and painter who was part of the Harlem Renaissance and after that, the movie switches back and forth between the 1930's and today. The Harlem Renaissance scenes were excellent and really seemed to capture the mood and flavor of that time. In the end, a better understanding of history helps the young artist to come to terms with his place in the world. Entertaining and a social message -- bonus!

Evergreen

This was an exciting movie to see at Sundance for two reasons. First, it was directed by a young woman from the Pacific Northwest and filmed entirely in Washington. Second, Robert Redford was there. We haven't seen him since, but I thought it must have made that young director so nervous to have him in the audience. The movie dealt with very real issues (poverty, envy, fear)in a real way and was beautifully filmed. I hope it was eventually shown outside the festival. I always root for the underdog.

November

This was the absolutely terrible movie that Courtney Cox starred in that I referred to earlier. Although, her acting was fine, it was just a jumbled up mess of a plot. It told three different versions of the same story, but not in a linear way and not so we could ever figure out why. In the Q and A an audience member asked the question we all wanted to ask: "This is what I thought was happening, am I right?" No, she wasn't and neither were any of the rest of us. If the movie has to be explained to an audience (and a pretty sophisticated one at that) it's no good. It turns out the film's big claim to fame is it was shot entirely on a Sony HD Cam (the techno-geeks in the audience had lots of questions about that). It was also made in 8 weeks time and had a teeny tiny budget. No big surprise there. Even an amusing and somewhat pregnant Courtney Cox there to answer questions couldn't make up for all that the film lacked.

Open Water

This film did make it into distribution, so many people know about it. It is based on a true story of a couple who disappeared while scuba diving. I don't typically like suspenseful movies like this, but it was done in a very quiet, realistic way. No thumping Jaws music to get your heart beating. Our only disappointment was we saw it in Salt Lake and there wasn't any Q & A.

Second Best

This is a story about three men from New Jersey who have been friends forever and are now approaching middle age. One wildly successful friend returns home for a visit and throws them all into fits of jealousy and feelings of inadequacy. It had a terrific cast, including Joe Pantoliano, Boyd Gaines, Jennifer Tilly and Polly Draper; and was very well written. The director/ screenwriter was there to answer questions (yes, he pulled a great deal from his own life and experiences) and his teenage son gave us all a free t-shirt.

Indigenous Shorts

Short films are grouped somewhat thematically into a feature length screening. This particular group of short films were all done by Native filmmakers from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. These films ranged in length from 6-14 minutes, and from very dark and violent to utterly charming. In the charming category was our favorite of the six: Two Cars, One Night from New Zealand. It featured a young boy and a young girl who strike up a brief friendship in a pub parking lot, where they are waiting for their partying parents.

We saw the Native American director of the violent film, Shush, at Starbucks after the screening. When we recognized him and told him we had just seen his film he beamed like he had won an Academy Award.

Our Neighborhood

This was Native documentary about a battle for logging rights between the Listuguj Mi'gmaq people and the Quebec government. The filmmaker had done another documentary in 1981 about this same tribe and their conflict with the government over fishing rights. It felt a little like a sequel, but having the cameras turned on the tribe's internal conversations was interesting nonetheless.

Raspberry Reich

This is when we learned: "if it says 'porn' in the catalog, it is porn." In fact, the exact words in the catalog were: "porno-political-palooza." It was porn in every sense of the word. It had a weak plot that existed only to put the characters into sexual situations, bad dialog and terrible acting. To make matters worse, it was mostly gay sex and written in German, so the English dialog was dubbed. Our favorite quote from the movie: "The Revolution is my boyfriend!" said in gestapo-like manner.

People were falling down the steps of the theater as they tried to discretely exit during the movie. Us, oh no, we stayed. Jois cackled loudly and I decided it would make good Sundance folklore. (Jenn brilliantly decided to skip it and left her ticket as a tip for our dinner waiter -- I prayed not to run into him after the movie.) I was also very uncomfortable when the director and lead actress came out to answer questions afterwards -- I had no questions and I couldn't look the actress in the eye.

Afterward, we went to another theater to try to wait list in for a movie and while in line we met a woman who was scouting movies for the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. She had seen Raspberry Reich and when we asked her if that was a movie they would show there, she gave us our all-time favorite Sundance quote: " Oh yes, it's totally programmable."

The Film Categories Defined

2008-01-12T15:08:00.000-08:00

Before I recap previous years, it is helpful to understand how Sundance movies are defined. Thousands of movies are submitted each year and a jury picks those that are actually screened at the festival. The films are placed in one of nine categories. The films in the competition categories are judged again during the festival and a Grand Prize Winner is awarded in each category. These are fun to attend because there is also an audience award, so we get to vote for our favorite.

The competition categories are pretty self-explanatory. They are:
· Independent Film Competition: Documentary
· Independent Film Competition: Dramatic
· World Cinema Competition: Documentary
· World Cinema Competition: Dramatic
· Shorts Programs

The other categories require a little clarification. They are:

Premieres
These films offer a selection of the latest work from established directors and world premieres of highly anticipated films. (These films are usually already slated for distribution and many of them make it to Portland.) This category has featured movies like Motorcycle Diaries, Little Miss Sunshine, Thank you for Smoking and Riding Giants. Truth be told, we have seen some stinkers in this category.

Spectrum
The Spectrum program presents dramatic and documentary films from both established and new filmmakers from the U.S. and around the world. (These are not judged.) We have seen some excellent films in this category.

Park City at Midnight
Park City at Midnight films typically push the envelope and can even be thought of a irreverent. This category may include horror films, over-the-top comedies, surreal tales, explicit material, and bizarre stories that defy categorization. This is where we stumbled into (and many people stumbled out of) a porn movie. Lesson learned: if it says "porn" in the catalog, it is porn.

New Frontier
New Frontier celebrates experimentation and cinematic innovation. In this category, we saw one such experimental work. The name of the film was The joy of Life. The first half of the movie was deserted shots of very non-picturesque parts of San Francisco (why these perfectly still images were recorded on a movie camera alluded us). While viewing what basically amounted to a very uninteresting slide show, the voice over was a Lesbian reading from her sex diary. Then, halfway through it, the movie became a documentary about the Golden Gate bridge being the number one suicide landmark in the country. Let's just say, we didn't get it and, therefore now avoid this category.

Despite the fact that at first we didn't really know what we were doing, we did manage to see some excellent movies. A recap of 2004 is coming up next.

Ticket Buying Fall-Out

2008-01-12T08:28:00.000-08:00

I went to purchase something at a clothing store (Paloma Clothing in the Hillsdale shopping center -- it rocks!) and my card wouldn't go through and was flagged with a "call the bank" message. My husband called the bank to see what was going on and they had noticed some unusual activity on the card -- $700 worth of movie tickets in two days! He explained the situation and all is working as it should. Sometimes that "Big Brother" thing is not so bad.

I was struggling with what to write between now and my departure. My husband (he also rocks!) suggested I write recaps of the our past trips. So, look for those entries soon -- "The Good, Bad and Ugly of the 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 Festivals. And just to pique your interest, past years include Courtney Cox in a movie no one understood, a melodrama spoof starring Isabella Rosselini as an amputee, Al Gore before an Inconvenient Truth, and Gay German Porn.

Ticket Buying

2008-01-09T13:58:00.000-08:00

Buying tickets to Sundance movies is no easy feat. Unless you have oodles of money and/or connections, you have to jump through a series of hoops.

First you must register your intent to buy tickets with the festival box office. This enters you into a lottery for a time slot in which you can try to buy tickets. If you do get a time slot, you may log-on at any time after your appointed time and date (remembering that everything is based on Mountain Time) and you have 30 minutes to buy your quota of tickets. Each purchaser is allowed no more than 20 tickets and no more than 4 tickets for each movie.

We had five people register to buy on-line tickets and got four time slots. I do all the ticket buying because I have the time and it's easier if one person manages the schedule. Our first time slot was yesterday at 10:30AM. Yesterday was also the first day of on-line ticket sales. Woo Hoo!

Because all Sundance movies are being shown for the first time ever, we rely on the on-line film guide (sundance.org/festival) to figure out what movies we are interested in seeing. We also need to take into account when and where they are playing. We are not there for the entire 10-day festival and we really hate 8:30AM movies after an 11:30PM movie the night before (that's right, they show movies from 8:30 in the morning until after midnight.) The theater location is also an issue. Park City gets extremely congested during the festival and while the shuttle system is always running, it can still only go as fast as traffic allows.

So, yesterday I sat down at my computer right at my appointed time of 10:30AM with a seven- page typed document outlining the movie/scheduling possibilities during our stay. There are a total of 205 films playing in multiple time slots and theaters in this year's festival. Thank God some are not playing while we are there, as I need some system for narrowing the field.

Unlike in years past, the computer system worked quickly and as it was supposed to, so I was able to get 20 tickets to 7 different movies in about 6 minutes. And, because it was early in the on-line ticket buying week, I got what I think will be some excellent movies.

Today we had three different times to buy tickets, beginning at 9:30 AM. From yesterday to today, however, lots of showings sold out. Even with my revised document outlining the time slots where we could add movies, I had to do a lot more searching for available films. I filled in the holes and bought another allotment of 20 tickets. During my 1:00PM time slot availability was not the problem, fitting anything more into our schedule was. For this reason, I only bought 14 more tickets for a total of 54 tickets to 21 movies. I don't think I will even bother with our 4:00PM time slot.

I'm not even sure if I can handle 21 movies in six days. We have learned, however, that it is easy to sell tickets once you are there, so I would rather overbuy than purchase too few. Last year, we talked to people who came to the festival with no tickets in hand. We have also met people who had a small role in a film and were not able to get tickets to their own movie. It's a bummer that you have to book your flight before you know if you will get tickets or not.

So, the research, experience and planning paid off and we are going to Sundance to see movies, not stand in line!

Here's our schedule:

You can read a brief description of each movie on the on-line film guide on the Sundance web site (sundance.org/festival.)

Friday, 1/18
Shorts Program I
Slingshot Hip Hop
Young@Heart
Saturday, 1/19
Frozen River
Good Dick
It’s a Good Day to be Black and Sexy
Sunday, 1/20
Shorts Program I
Sunshine Cleaning
Be Kind Rewind
Smart People
Monday, 1/21
The Last Word
Ballast
Diminished Capacity
Tuesday, 1/22
Choke
Anywhere, USA
Death in Love
Wednesday 1/23
Pretty Bird
Alone in Four Walls
The Wackness
Thursday, 1/24
Phoebe in Wonderland
North Starr

A Sundance Blog: Who, What and Why

2008-01-08T21:10:00.000-08:00

It's a little over a week until I leave for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and things are already buzzing. My friend Jois, a fanatical film lover, my sister Jenn and I have gone to the festival for the past four years and as we prepare for our fifth, the e-mails are flying!

Over the years we have learned a great deal about ticket buying (ask everyone you know to enter the lottery for on-line ticket-buying time slots), interpreting the film guide's movie descriptions (if there's no cast listed, there are no people in the movie), which theatres are the best and in walking distance of each other (Ogden theatres are, in fact, in Ogden which is a long way from Park City) and which film categories to avoid ("Park City at Midnight" movies are not shown during daylight hours for a reason.)

We don't go to the parties. We don't go to see celebrities. We go because we love independent film and because it is the best damn Mom's week away you will ever have. Never once do I think "I wish the kids were here" and we barely have time to eat, let alone miss our families.

So, as we embark on yet another Sundance journey, I decided to share some of our insight (notice I didn't say wisdom); experiences; film reviews; celebrity sightings (not that we care); Ug Boot, fur coat and other winter fashion atrocities along the way. I will also include the funny things we see and hear in wait list lines, on the streets and in jam-packed shuttle buses.

I hope you find the experience as exciting, thought-provoking and, at times, ridiculous as we do.