Friday is Dubbed "Operation Get Movie Tickets."

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


First Plan A:

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

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

On to Plan B:

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

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

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

Highlights of the Day:

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

This is what we love about Sundance.

Old Cats Directors Pedro Peirano and Sebastian Silva

The Saturday Line-Up

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

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!

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

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

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"

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.