Sundance 2010 Day Two

Get Low. A really good movie starring Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray and Lucas Black (I took this photo before Robert Duvall walked out on stage). Left to right in the photo above: Sissy Spacek, Bill Murray and his crutch, Lucas Black, and Lori Beth Edgeman. The movie was amazingly well acted, I truly expect an Oscar nod for Duvall in 2011. Duvall plays a recluse who wants to plan a "funeral party" for himself while he's still alive. But he's the scary old hermit who everyone in town has a story about, a mysterious past haunts him and it's a slow reveal to find out why he shut himself away forty years ago. Fantastic supporting performances by Spacek, Murray, and Black.

When the Q&A for Get Low was over and we fought our way out of the claustrophobically full lobby, we boarded a bus to Main Street. I wanted to check out the hitRECord.org REC Room at the New Frontier on Main. I have been so antsy to get over there, but when I got there it was closed. They had it closed from 5-8 for closed recording. I wasn't aware this was going to be happening and I'm hoping it was a last minute thing. I'll be over there probably all day after I go see one of the short film programs, number IV with the new Don Hertzfeldt (!!!!!!!).

Sundance 2010 Day One

Last night, Thursday night, we stayed in but watched two Slamdance films. One was really good, one sucked. How did we do this? One of the house guests brought screener DVDs to review since he's press. The good one was The Scenesters. If you liked Brick, you'll dig The Scenesters. The sucky one was Yellowbrickroad. I was actually going to try to get a ticket to see this on Monday, but thank goodness I didn't have to waste time & money, it was awful.

Today, Friday 1/22/10, my official Day One. Got off to a lazy, sleepy start and didn't get to the theater as early as I had planned to waitlist for Hesher. When I got my number, it was 114 and my friend couldn't even get a number since they only hand out so many. We decided to try to see Hesher next week and head over to a different theater to waitlist for Teenage Paparazzo. We got in and we loved it. Teenage Paparazzo is a documentary by Adrian Grenier about paparazzi and celebrity culture in our society. The film focusses on a boy named Austin, the blonde in the picture above, who was a professional paparazzi at the age of 13. It showed a fascinating insight into many sides of the whole "fame" fiasco. I highly recommend trying to track this one down when it gets released either in theaters or on DVD. Oh, and I didn't get a chance to ask Adrian Grenier if he knows about hitRECord.org, he made a comment saying that he welcomes us to take this film and remix it and put our own spin on it, he said that it wasn't finished because he welcomes people to add to it. Sounds a bit like hitRECord speak to me. Unfortunately, after the Q&A he was mobbed by people and their cameras which I found terribly ironic considering the film he just presented to us.

Sundance Days 6, 7, & 8

Thursday:
I started off the day by going to see "Arlen Faber". I loved this movie! Jeff Daniels, Lauren Graham, and Lou Taylor Pucci starred in this nontraditional romantic comedy. Daniels plays a reclusive author, Graham plays a protective mom/chiropractor, and Pucci plays an owner of an independent bookstore (I happen to work in one). I like movies with a cast full of great actors because they all seem to compete for the best performance, which means that the whole film is full of amazing performances. This was definitely one of my favorites. Then I wasted time until I went to the Animation Spotlight. I was rather excited for this one, new Bill Plympton, new PES, AND new Don Hertzfeldt! Not to mention that one of them was just nominated for an Oscar, "This Way Up". The set was dark, one was like a "28 Days Later" type film, and quite a few were underwhelming. The ones I wanted to see, plus the Oscar nominated one, were fantastic. While in line for it, I met a man named Tony Donoghue, who has done some amazing animations himself, he once worked for Aardman Studios (Wallace & Gromit) and now teaches animation in England. We sat together and critiqued each one as they finished. Then I got to meet Don Hertzfeldt, who was super nice and I think I have a bit of a crush on him.

Friday:
This day was almost as busy as Wednesday, almost. I went to three movies, "Dare", "Peter and Vandy", and "The Glass House", in that order.
"Dare" was a high school movie that wasn't completely lame. I loved it, in fact. There were three main characters that got involved in a menage a trois, the girl-an uptight goody-goody, the popular boy-that guy in high school who was to good to be nice to you, and the girl's loner friend-a guy who runs the sound booth for the plays. It was great to see a boy questioning his sexuality, a girl who wanted to let go, and a boy who just wanted connection, all in a high school movie.
"Peter and Vandy" was the story of a couple, played by Jess Weixler (Teeth), and Jason Ritter (Happy Endings).The style of this movie is what made it really interesting, it was told completely nonlinear with color schemes that popped. The acting was fantastic as well.
"The Glass House" was a documentary-the only documentary I saw this year-about a center in Iran that helps young women be independent and strong against their difficult home situations. My friend Shari drove up to see this with me, and we both were floored by how fantastic it was. I couldn't believe what some of those girls have been through, and what they're going through still. They are much stronger than I am, of that, I am sure.

Saturday:
In the year's past, I've never seen a movie on the last Saturday. I'm usually traveling. But this year, I decided to go to a 12:15 added showing of "500 Days of Summer". My goodness, you guys, this is going to be a hit. Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt star in another unconventional romantic comedy. In "500 Days of Summer", boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy doesn't get girl. Now, don't get mad, they tell you five minutes into the film that this is how it will turn out. It's told like a fairy tale, narrator and all. I truly loved this one, and mark my words, it will be huge.

And it was over. Never does a week fly by so quickly as it does during Sundance.

Sundance Day 4 and 5

Tuesday:

Not much went on on Tuesday, oh except getting a brand spanking new and shiny President. I went to a Slamdance Fireside Chat, a panel discussion/seminar type thing, about screenwriting. It was so informative and kind of inspiring. I was definitely in the mood to write after the Chat. Then I hung around on Main Street until I decided to just go back to my room and relax for the night because Wednesday was going to be very busy.

Wednesday:

The day began with going to the Eccles to waitlist for "Cold Souls". While waiting in the waitlist room, someone came in and sold me a ticket-surprisingly at the very moment I came up with an idea for a short film. "Cold Souls" stars Paul Giamatti as himself. It's a comedy about soul storage and what happens to someone once their soul is removed, and when their soul goes missing from the storage facility! It was my favorite thing I've seen this year, hands down. Then I hauled ass over to the Prospector to see "Bronson". This film wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It was hyped up as being super violent, but I've seen much more violent films. It also seemed to be influenced by several other films, Hardy's performance as Bronson seemed a bit similar to Daniel Day Lewis in "There Will Be Blood", and overall the film seemed influenced by Kubric's masterpiece "A Clockwork Orange", mixing classical music with violence. Not much story, but Hardy does do a great job in the vaudeville scenes. After that, I hauled ass over to the Raquet Club to see "The Missing Person" starring one of my favorites, Michael Shannon. This was a modern day noir which was pretty good, Shannon was fantastic. It could use a little polish, but overall, pretty damn good. Then I got to Main Street to the OC Tanner venue to see Eliza Wren's Return to Oz show. Eliza Wren, inspired by the 1985 film "Return to Oz" starring Fairuza Balk, performed an entirely new soundtrack of original songs while the movie played on TVs. It was fun to watch it again, even though I couldn't hear the dialogue. The absolute best part was being able to talk with Fairuza Balk. I've been a fan of hers since I was little with "Return to Oz" and "The Worst Witch". She even took a picture of my Oz tattoo for her myspace page! She is super nice and I think I spoke with her for nearly ten minutes. I'm a little excited about it, if you couldn't tell.

I am never going to do that many things in one day ever again. I'm exhausted, didn't eat very much, and I didn't get to stay for the Q&As-which are part of the reason I love seeing the movies at Sundance. The day did go by super fast though, I can't believe it's over already. I only have two days left up here to see movies. Bummer.

Sundance Day 2 and 3

Sunday:
After getting to sleep around 4:15, I woke up at 9:00 surprisingly not too sleepy. I decided to check out Main Street starting with the Queer Lounge. There, I met a cameraman from E! and saw two of the guys from Super Troopers who came in for an interview. Walking down Main Street toward the Sundance House, I found myself walking behind Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who ran into one of his costars from Brick. I diddn't get to talk to Zooey, I just saw her from behind, but girls would pass her and turn around to follow her. That must get so annoying and be incredibly weird. Yes she's gorgeous, yes she's a great actress, but she's just a girl who happens to make movies. I went back to the QueerLounge to hang out and attens a panel on Prop 8 and film activism. When I was going up the stairs, Kevin Bacon was being interviewed and I think I'm in the back of the shot, but I don't know what channel it was, so oh well. The panel was fantastic, and when it was over I headed up to Slamdance headquarters to get a ticket for a documentary called Graphic Sexual Horror. I had met some of the people from the film at QueerLounge and they convinced me to go. Wow. The documentary is about a website called Insex, an extreme bondage/S&M site. My mind was sufficiently warped for a little bit afterward, it was really good. I ran into them after the screening and was able to talk to them some more. Before I went to Graphic Sexual Horror, I checked out New Frontier. The art pieces were really neat, but the red lighting and the constant sound of birds gave me a bit of a headache. By the end of that day, my little bit of sleep caught up to me big time. I totally hit the wall and was ready to go to bed-which is why I didn't update that night.

Monday:
I arrived at Eccles at around 10:15 or so to waitlist for the premier of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. After about an hour of one or two other crazies showing up to join me, the "unofficial" line quickly grew. I'm happy to say that the waitlist room is back and so are the policies. They cleared the room out then led our line down. We got our numbers about a half hour later, #1 for me, and I went in search of food as it was 1:15. I ended up at the sit down Pizza Hut and tried one of their new pastas. It was so damn good. I only got to eat a little bit of it before I had to run it to the fridge in my room and haul ass back to the waitlist room to get back in line. I don't know how many waitlisters actually got in, but I did. I loved it. It's nonlinear format was put together well. I haven't read the book, but I'd be curious to. John Krasinski is more than an actor, he adapted and directed this, and I think he did a fantastic job for a first effort. After that movie, I headed over to the Holiday Village theatre to waitlist for the Shorts Program III. Those were really good. They all varied in style and subject. Hopefully I'll update tonight about today's events.

Sundance Day One: Saturday

My first day started late, but ended great! I arrived to my resort at around 9pm, dropped my stuff in my room-which is right in front of the elevator on the third floor-then headed to waitlist for the Shorts Program IV. I got to the tent mere minutes before the numbers were passed out. After I got my number, 27 if you're curious, I hung around the tent to warm up until I decided to eat. My choices were sushi, China Panda Buffet, or something from Albertsons. I chose China Panda Buffet. I ordered pot stickers and egg rolls. They were both delicious, but that place was begging to be dine&ditched. You are taught patience there. It was quirky though. I sat in a booth with a wobbly back rest and the table seemed two feet from me if I sat all the way back. The salt shaker had a gold top on it, and I could hear Pink's new song blaring in the kitchen. My fortune cookie should have been called a proverb cookie, as my "fortune" wasn't a fortune, but some wise advice.

I got back to the tent and hoped to get in. I did. I'll start by saying that every short was fantastic, but a few stood out.

"Sparks" adapted and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt was based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. It was visually very creative, I hope Joe, as he introduced himself to me, goes on to a feature length film.

"James" was about a boy who questions his sexuality, and without anyone to turn to gets himself into a dangerous situation. This was really well done, I was so happy to see a movie about a kid trying to figure himself out, accepting his homosexuality. It was rather heartbreaking though.

"Short Term 12" is about a short term detention center for kids. This reminded me a little of "Manic"(coincidentally starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel-who are in a new film this year called "500 Days of Summer) But this isn't a bad thing. It was really well done. The acting was spot on and the story was great.

"Our Neck of the Woods" is a sweet film about a guy who daydreams while working his monotonous job at a factory where they paint plastic deer that occasionally catch fire. He is swept away by a new girl from Georgia(the country). It was whimsical and funny.

And, possibly my favorite of the bunch, "Next Floor". I don't even want to give this one away, the surprise of why it's called Next Floor is amazing. I found myself saying "wow" and felt a grin on my face the whole time. Visually, it resembled the dark, dreamy quality of "Delicatessen", a fantastic french film.

And to top it off, when the Q&A was done after watching so many great shorts, I got to meet Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I will be honest with you, I have had a cruch on him since I saw "Angels in the Outfield" when I was a kid. Then I watched everything he did after. Hell, even today before Darcy and Jason came to drive me up here, I was watching "3rd Rock from the Sun" for a few hours on TVLand. And don't even get me started on "Brick" and "Mysterious Skin".

I would put the picture on here, but I just realized that I failed to pack the camera's usb cord. Damnit. I'll just have to do one when I get home with all the pictures.

I want your opinion. I was trying to come up with some kind of witty name for my Sundance blogs, I thought about The Waitlist Chronicles, but since I came up here with 6 tickets this year, I can't feel honest using that one. I would like to avoid using "Sundance" in the title. If you want to leave your ideas as comments, I would love to see what all of your brains come up with. 

Sundance Preparations

This will be my fifth year going to the Sundance Film Festival, and my first going with tickets. All the years past, I've just waitlisted and have been pretty successful in seeing what I wanted to. I went to the box office at Trolley Square today to try and purchase some tickets. I was able to get five. And with the one Darcy got for me about a week ago, I've got six total. They all seemed to land on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Here's what I've got:

Wed. 1/21 - "Bronson" 2:30 at Prospector Square

                     "The Missing Person" 5:15 at The Raquet Club

Thu. 1/22 - "Arlen Faber" 12:15 at Eccles

                     "Animation Spotlight" 9:00 at The Egyptian

Fri. 1/23 - "Dare" 12:15 at Eccles

                   "Peter and Vandy" 3:15 at Eccles

To read about these films, check out the Sundance Film Festival film guide HERE.

It looks like anything at the beginning of the week, I'm going to have to waitlist. There are a couple of Slamdance things I'm interested in on Monday and Tuesday. Monday night, there's a movie called "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead", and Tuesday at noon there's what's called a "fireside chat" about screenwriting. I assume it's like a panel or seminar.

When I go up, I'll do my very best to blog nightly about the day's events and give you my review of the films I saw each day.