A few weeks ago Dahoud left the BBC America channel on upon leaving the house (was watching Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares no doubt) . I rolled out of bed about 11am and went straight for the couch and caught the beginning of what I later discerned is the greatest show on television: Top Gear. As described on the BBC America website:
Top Gear takes extraordinary and ordinary cars to the limit and beyond to find out if they’re as good as their manufacturers claim. Full of extreme stunts, challenges, and weekly features, Top Gear is exciting, inclusive, and passionate – there are no boring stats and impenetrable conversations about camshafts and tire pressures. But it is the sharp wit of Jeremy, Richard, and James that make it more than just a motor show.
Seriously folks, you need to be watching this show.I promise even if you don’t have a particular interest in cars you will enjoy this show.
My last two days at Sundance were so action-packed that I didn't get a chance to blog at all. I started this entry while sitting in the Salt Lake City airport waiting for my (inevitably delayed) flight to LAX. I then arrived back to L.A. and suddenly "real life" wanted me back. I had to work. I had to unpack. I had to pay attention to my cats. I had to answer all the emails I had put off reading. And I didn't get a chance to blog until now.
I suppose I failed my pledge to blog daily, but I hope you can cut me a little slack. I did see a lot of celebrities in my last day, so that should make up for it a bit. Right? Okay, lets get straight to it.
Day 5: The Best Day
I was awake before dawn on Tuesday. I was determined to get into a screening of Choke before I left, and my only opportunity was to waitlist for an 8:30 a.m. screening at the Racquet Club. This meant getting there around 6:30, which is a half hour before the shuttles begin running. It was a slight problem.
I had considered walking the mile between the Yarrow Hotel and the venue, thinking a little exercise and fresh air would help keep me awake. But when I looked up the current temperature on my iPhone—0° F— and saw that the sun was still below the horizon, I called a cab. It was well worth the $5, as I still had plenty of time to freeze my ass off.
Arriving so early meant that I was twelfth in line, which pretty much guaranteed me a ticket. However, the waiting-list tent had apparently run out of propane for the heating system, and the temperature inside was exactly the same as outside (reports varied from -3° to 2° F), with the added bonus of large fans blowing cold air through the tent. It was so cold that my line-mate, Jeff, had frost on his beard:
After getting our waitlist numbers, many of us attempted to get some coffee from the kindly woman at the Racquet Club concessions stand. However, her bottled water had frozen solid overnight, and this had delayed the making of any warm beverages. After about 20 minutes I finally got some weak coffee, which temporarily warmed my fingertips and esophagus, but was generally unsatisfying. We were finally let into the theatre after nearly two hours of waiting in the frigid tent (which was definitely worse than my U23D waitlist experience, if you'll believe it) and proceeded to get the tingly thawing-of-extremities feeling for the entire length of the film.
Thankfully, Choke was hilarious. Sam Rockwell gives a brilliant comic performance, as usual. The filmmaking was very snappy, and though not as innovative as Fight Club, it certainly lived up to the Chuck Palahniuk aesthetic.
And Chuck Palahniuk was there! Look!
(The picture sucks, I know. But it's proof, isn't it?)
I left Choke during the Q&A so I could go waitlist for A Complete History of My Sexual Failures at the Holiday Theatre.
When I got to the waitlist tent, I was reminded how different Sundance is on a weekday. During opening weekend, waitlist lines spill out of the tents, people scalp tickets for exorbitant prices, and your chances of getting in to a popular film are pretty slim unless you show up three hours early.
On Tuesday, however, the wait-list tent was a ghost town. I ended up with #8 in the waitlist, so I got into the movie and even snagged myself a good seat!
A Complete History of My Sexual Failures turned out to be my favorite film from Sundance. It's a British documentary by Chris Waitt where he decides to interview all his ex-girlfriends to find out why he keeps getting dumped. The premise is kind of "High Fidelity," but it evolves into Waitt's hilarious and sad journey to try and figure out what's gone wrong in his life up to this point. It's shockingly personal and leaves Waitt naked (both emotionally and physically) in front of the camera in ways I haven't seen before. It's not a perfect movie, but it was so surprising, genuine, and laugh-out-loud hilarious that it wins my very prestigious award:
I must also mention that this was the best Q&A I have been to at any Sundance. Because the film is so personal, we all felt like we knew Chris Waitt, and thus the audience asked him some questions you wouldn't feel right asking Ben Kinglsey or Al Gore. For example: "Are you still taking Viagra?"
After the Q&A, I headed straight to Main Street to join the USC Alumni party. I had failed to successfully RSVP, so I had to show my USC student ID at the door before they'd let me in! (Thank goodness I still keep that one in my wallet.) At the soiree, I ran into my new USC friends I had met the night of Paranormal Activity. I also ran into an old friend from my graduate program (Master of Professional Writing, fyi) who was at Sundance with a fancy press pass. Some people have all the luck...
After three drinks and lots of good conversation, I headed over to the Library to see The Black List with my dad and stepmom. The movie is just a series of head-and-shoulders interviews with 20 prominent African-Americans including Toni Morrison, Sean Combs, Colin Powell, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Chris Rock. Elvis Mitchell was behind the camera interviewing each person, but you never see or hear him.
This could have been horribly boring. Instead, it had me sitting on the edge of my seat. The interviews were so well edited, the subjects so eloquent, funny, and fascinating, that I could have sat through 20 more of them without getting tired. It's apparently sold to HBO, so keep an eye out for it. It's a real gem.
After the movie, I headed back to Main Street to meet up with the USC people. I had a few drinks and enjoyed the company of people my own age for a bit (sorry, dad, you know I love ya). Then I returned home to get my requisite four hours of sleep to recharge for my final day at Sundance.
Day 6: The Last Day
Waking up to see Sugar at 8:30 a.m. at the Racquet Club was a tad painful after five days of sleep deprivation. The one saving grace was that we had tickets to screenings all day, so we wouldn't have to waitlist. I was excited about Sugar, because it was directed by the same people who did Half Nelson, a movie I liked quite a bit. This movie is about a young Dominican baseball player trying to make it to the American big leagues. However, the pacing was a bit slow for my taste, and I found myself nodding off more than once. This means I can't really give it a valid review, but I can say I was disappointed.
We stayed for the Q&A afterwards, where people were generally impressed by the accuracy of the baseball scenes. I guess Sugar has got that going for it. I wouldn't know.
We then headed straight to the Library to see Death In Love. This, without a doubt, is the most provocative movie I've seen at Sundance. That's not to say I liked it. I don't think I did. But I've never had as extensive a discussion about a film at Sundance as I did with this one. The basic story is about a 40 year-old guy, played by Josh Lucas, who has major love and trust issues. But the crux of the story is about his mother, who as a young Jewish girl became the lover of a brutal Nazi doctor who performed medical experiments on concentration camp victims. The movie is all about violence and sex and how they're connected.
This movie brought out the vigilant feminist in me. The opening sequence was a montage of sex scenes, usually with women screaming in ecstasy, cut in with very graphic and bloody scenes of surgery and medical experimentation. Over all these scenes, the main character is reciting this very stilted monologue about how being old is horrible, 'cause when you sleep with young women you're jealous of their youth, and when you sleep with old women, well, they seem old. Clearly, nobody wants to sleep with old women, right? I found the movie's attitude toward women offensive and a little scary. The sexualizing of violence against women is so commonplace it's become passe. This poster is a good example of what I'm talking about:
Ooh! Sexy lady with scary demon about to devour her! Are we supposed to be scared or turned on?
Now, juxtaposing sex and violence isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I understand that it's a valid topic for discussion. But altogether, I found this movie condescending and, overall, a bit of a mess. There were too many stories to tell, and thus they all got short shrift. I do have to say that Lukas Haas did an amazing job as Josh Lucas' emotionally-unstable brother. Plus, I've had crush on Lukas Haas since I was a teenager, so I was excited to see him at the Q&A.
Did you just see me go straight from uber-feminist to giggling schoolgirl in one sentence? That's called being flexible.
After Death In Love, we all went to lunch and then spent an hour talking about the movie some more. Then we went off to see A Raisin in the Sun at the Eccles. Unbeknownst to us, this was the movie's world premiere, and thus all of its famous cast was at the screening. I was sitting about fifteen seats away from Sean Combs (a.k.a. P Diddy, Puff Daddy, you know...) and John Stamos (I had to refrain from yelling "uncle Jesse!" at him). Audra MacDonald was also there. She's awesome. And I don't say that just because she's also from Fresno. (Her dad was my high school principal. Yup.) Rent Wit and you'll see what I'm talking about.
The movie was just superb. The screenwriter had adapted the stage play ever-so-slightly, so it kept the integrity of Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 original without it seeming too stage-y. It was just entertaining, well-acted, and an overall good movie.
Of course, my camera battery had died at the last minute, so all I have is this video of Diddy as proof that we were in the same room:
After the Q&A, we headed straight back to the hotel to catch our shuttle back to the SLC airport. And that was the end of Sundance for me!
And I'll end with my obligatory Celebrity Sightings List:
This should be a short post because I'm trying to get to bed soon to catch an 8:30 a.m. screening of Choke tomorrow morning. Plus, I didn't see any celebrities or take any good pictures, But I did see some good films! Lets get right to it, shall we?
Okay, so everything wasn't fantastic today. We had tickets to a screening of Ballast at the Eccles, but walked out after 30 minutes. Yes, I know. It's horrible. The director was sitting really close to us, too. But the combination of bleak subject matter (suicides, poverty, the American South) and nearly incomprehensible dialogue made this film impossible to sit through. Or I thought so, at least. We probably could have given it more time, but we weren't in the mood.
We then went back to the hotel and ate a bit before heading off to see Nerahkoon (The Betrayal) at the Library. Before the feature, they showed a documentary short called My Olympic Summer which was possibly the best short I've seen at the festival so far. It was moving, beautiful to watch, and just so well composed. The feature was also excellent. Filmed over the course of 20 years, it chronicled the effects of war and exile on a Laotian family. Great, moving stuff.
I had to duck out of the Q&A early to try and make it to the Documentary Shorts program over at Prospector Square. Despite bad rush-hour traffic (yes, Pico readers, they do have traffic in Utah occasionally), I made it in time to get a good seat. This shorts program was hands-down the best yet, with three strikingly good films that stood out among the rest. The first was Kids + Money, which consisted entirely of interviews with Los Angeles teenagers on the topic of money. The filmmaker found a great cross-section of L.A. in these kids, and the interviews are hilarious, shocking, and sometimes just sad. It will apparently be on HBO at some point, so keep an eye out. The other doc was called Pilgrimage.
The film is about the annual pilgrimage to the Manzanar Concentration Camp in California. Here's a trailer:
The short film Corona was an eye-opener, if I do say so myself. It's about a beauty pageant held in the largest female prison in Colombia. Each cell block competes, and it's interesting to see convicted murderers, guerillas, and thieves vie so adamantly for the crown. Read more about it on the Sundance site.
Dad and Yvonne stayed for the Q&A at Nerahkoon, so they missed the documentary shorts and went to see Traces of the Trade, about a Rhode Island family descended from slave traders. They both said it was excellent, and dad even got interviewed by PBS afterwards. He's famous now.
I was hoping to squeeze in another screening tonight, but instead I thought I'd eat a leisurely dinner and catch some Zs. Plus, check out my hands:
Each of those marks is a reentry stamp for a screening. When I've racked up that many, I think it's okay to call it a night.
On that note, I'd like to close with my daily celeb sightings list...
Last time I left you, dear readers, I was waiting to see if I would get in to the midnight screening of "U23D" at the Eccles Theatre. I had just endured two hours of 19-degree weather, and I was determined to get inside the theatre.
After blogging, I took the shuttle back to the theatre to take my coveted #1 place in line.
As you can see, I was prepared. I was also envied. Take a look at the crowd hoping to get into the screening:
And that's about half of the people waiting—the lucky half, since the others were suffering outside in the cold.
Just before they started letting the ticketed folks in, a kind soul came up and gave me a hard ticket for the same $10 I would have paid to get in on the waitlist. So I trudged outside and joined the ticket-holders line, which gave me a slightly better advantage of getting a good seat.
I purposefully sat near the podium because I knew U2 was in the building. I also knew any celebrities to be seen would be in that vicinity. Apparently Oprah and Al Gore had attended the 9:45 show, so I was holding out for a good sighting. I didn't see Oprah, but tell me if you can find Glenn Close in this picture:
For the 3-d effects, you had to don some really sexy glasses:
The director of Sundance personally threatened us all with bodily harm if we didn't return the glasses at the end of the screening, or else I would have taken them home and worn them on a daily basis.
And, of course, U2 was there! (Well, U2 minus the drummer, Larry.) Check this out:
And, hey, they actually showed the movie at the end of it all! Howdya like that? The movie is just 3-d footage of a 2006 concert in Buenos Aires, but it's cut together very well and the 3-d effects are just plain cool. It alternately feels like you're at the concert and that you're on stage with U2... and that you're 40-feet tall. They play all the good standbys: "One," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "With or Without You." You get the gist. If you're a huge U2 fan, this is a must-see. Luckily, it should be getting limited release on January 23, so go buy your tickets now!
Part 2: The Morning After
Freezing your ass off for hours and then watching a virtual U2 concert until 3 a.m. does not make a body good. Especially the next morning, when you have tickets to the 9:15 Shorts II program. I was only able to roll off my aerobed out of a sense of obligation. Obligation to my dad and Yvonne, who were off seeing another screening and had entrusted me to sell their two tickets to waitlisters. Obligation to you, my blog readers, to not slack off and try and see as many films as possible. And Obligation to myself to not be a lazy bum.
Luckily, the shorts program was quite good. I met fellow Sundance blogger Dana at the screening, and we discussed previous Sundance hits and misses. I definitely recommend the Danish short "Dennis" (about a weightlifter with a some Freudian issues) and "Aquarium" (about a fish-obsessed kid looking for love) in the "normal filmmaking" category. This shorts program also had two animated films that both were a bit explicit, but both hilarious. If you're not a prude or easily offended by sexual material, go check out "Teat Beat of Sex." It's amazingly innovative.
"Bend It" won my daily prize of "what were the programmers thinking?!?" The whole film was of two gender-ambiguous women dancing to an eponymous song. Then it was over. Performance art? Sure. Sundance-worthy short film? I think not. Steve, keep your chin up. If stuff like "Bend It" can make it to Sundance, your films surely can. You just have to pray to the right programming gods...
After the shorts, I joined dad and Yvonne for lunch and they told me that Megane, the film I had opted to skip, was the best thing they had seen so far. Dad said it was like a symphony. Oh well.
After lunch, we went to use our tickets for the 1pm screening of Yasukuni. It was a documentary about a controversial shrine for war heroes in Japan. Or so I gathered. The combination of 4 hours' sleep, reading subtitles, and the low-key soundtrack put me straight to sleep for most of the film. Asking dad and Yvonne after the screening, I gathered it wasn't the most well-made film, anyway, so my snoozing wasn't totally uncalled for. The consensus seems to be that the director took a very interesting topic and made it uninteresting through amateurish filmmaking. Oh well.
I then went and took a nap in the room before joining the team for Shorts Program V at the Prospector Theatre. We had tickets, which was a good thing since it was a completely full screening. I couldn't figure out why there was such an unusual demand for a shorts program until the programmer introduced Isabella Rossellini as one of the directors. She made a series of shorts intended for web/mobile called "Green Porno," in which she described the sexual behaviors of various insects. They were hilarious. Keep an eye out for them. The others were good, too, but nothing sticks out in my mind quite as much as the insect porn. Silly me.
I ducked out of the Q&A for the shorts to try and catch a 9:45 screening of The Wave at the Holiday Theatre. When I arrived, I got #74 in the wait list (for a theatre that seats 156), so I decided to head over to the Library to get an early start on the Great Buck Howard screening. However, a reliable-looking volunteer at the Library informed me that he didn't like the movie, and he thought my time might be better spent elsewhere. I thanked him and headed back to the Holiday to try my luck at The Wave.
In line for The Wave, I got to talking with the small group of other hopeless waitlisters nearby. In due time, we realized that we all were USC students or alumni, and we bonded over our Trojan pride. The Wave was sold out way before our lousy numbers, so we got to talking about a different plan of attack. We contemplated seeing Strangers at midnight, but then someone whipped out a Slamdance schedule and saw that the movie Paranormal Activity was about to get started on Main Street. I tagged along with my new USC buddies, and through the rush line I was able to get in to my very first Slamdance screening. It was a completely different feel—smaller theatre, fewer people, more accessible. I could get used to this.
The film was basically "Blair Witch Project" indoors. And I say this with the utmost of respect, because Paranormal Activity scared the CRAP out of me. It was about a young couple trying to document the weird hauntings they experience in their San Diego home. As the hauntings intensify, we get to see everything from a home-video perspective. It was creepy. It was great. I'm still kind of freaked out, so it must have been a good scary movie. Here's a preview:
I then walked down Main Street with an ever-growing group of USC people trying to find somewhere to grab a drink. We needed to calm our nerves, and beer sounded like the right medicine. However, all the bars either were invite-only or had outrageous covers, so we simply walked around in the snow for a bit. Just as we were commenting on how slippery the sidewalks were, we watched a girl in high-heeled boots bite it HARD on the pavement. There was a broken cell phone and blood involved. This didn't help us feel calmer. After a while, we realized the bars were closing and hailed a taxi home.
And now I'm going to bed. I don't have a screening until noon tomorrow, so I can sleep in and, hopefully, not fall asleep in a movie theatre. And now, my short-but-sweet Celebrity-Sightings List!
Well, folks, it hasn't been the most productive day at Sundance. So far, I've only been to one screening today, but I'm hoping to get into a midnight screening of "U2 3D" in an hour. I just waited outside in the 19-degree weather for two hours to see this movie, so it better be worth it. Check back tomorrow for a review.
This morning, I decided to skip the 8:30 a.m. screening of "Secrecy" in favor of sleep, which I'm now very happy about since I'm going to be up until 2 a.m. watching a three-dimensional U2 concert at the Eccles Theatre.
I saw Shorts Program I at 1 p.m. today at the Holiday Village Theatre. We had 2 tickets among the three of us, so I got in the wait list at 11 a.m. and was given #15, which was pretty solid. During my 90-minute break between getting my number and having to return to line, I ate an enormous lunch at the Chinese buffet and chilled. Dad and Yvonne went in with their tickets and saved me a seat next to them, and I got in with plenty of time to spare.
Steve, you wanted to know if any of the shorts were worse than Helmet. In the Shorts I program, I can give you an undeniable "yes" to that question. Let me first mention the two good shorts. The first film, "Chief," was excellent.
The last film, "A Relationship in Four Days," was pretty good. Here's the trailer:
The rest ranged from just-okay to are-you-freakin'-kidding-me? There was one film called "Motion Studies" that was literally just a guy running as fast as he can in full armor until he falls down. It lasted approximately 30 seconds. It would make a funny YouTube video, but a Sundance short? Give me a break.
I could go on about my distaste for a number of the shorts, but I'm trying to stay positive and I do have to run to catch the U2 movie.
I also waited in line for "I.O.U.S.A" but didn't get in. Such is Sundance on the opening weekend. Oh well.
On that note, here's my sad list of celeb sightings for today:
-The Edge -Oh, and the back of Bono's head
At least those are good ones. Hopefully I can rack up some more at this next screening!
According to weather.com it's currently 11° F in Park City but it feels like 0° F with the wind chill. That's nearly 50° lower than Los Angeles, but I'm braving the cold to watch independent film and hobnob with celebrities! Poor me!
(Quick sidenote: being a knitter comes in handy in this absolutely frigid weather. Sundance may be the only place I get to wear all my hand-knit garments.)
I was able to fit in four screenings today. Let me tell you a bit about them:
Shorts Program III
(8:30 a.m. - Library Theatre - had tickets, no waiting in line necessary)
We met the shorts programmer on the bus to this screening, and she informed us that over 4000 films were submitted this year. That's a hell of a lot of films. Of course, my first thought was "Well, they better be damn good." Luckily, they were all pretty well done. Only one film was a bit disappointing in the bunch. It was called "Welcome" that starred Winona Ryder and was written and directed by Kirsten Dunst. Honestly, the short was decent, but I can guarantee that if those names weren't attached there's no way it would have been picked for the festival, so that really rubs me the wrong way.
I highly recommend the following shorts: "Spider," "Crossbow," and "Sikumi." I believe they'll be available on iTunes soon. When they are, I'll post a link.
Slingshot Hip Hop
(11:30 a.m. - Prospector Square Theatre - had tickets)
In the interest of full disclosure, I need to tell you that I'm friends with Nizar Wattad, a.k.a. Ragtop whose album helped fund this film.
Conflict of interest aside, this was still a great documentary about Palestinian rappers. The film was engaging, exciting, and left you hopeful for peace. That and rap is fun to dance to.
A bunch of the hip hop artists featured in the film were at the screening. They performed for us, and I got some fuzzy video of it:
(There are 3 more videos on my youtube page if you're interested. Don't be distracted by the silly cat videos.)
I got me a picture with a bunch of the rappers, too.
American Soldier, a.k.a. The Recruiter
(2:30 p.m. - Prospector Square Theatre - wait list #56)
This movie has many names. Well, just two, but that's more than most movies. In the program, it's listed as "American Solider," but the director of programming announced that the name had been changed to "The Recruiter" before the screening began. If anyone wants to know my two cents, I think "American Soldier" was better. Anywho...
This was a documentary about Sergeant First Class Clay Usie, one of most successful Army recruiters in America. It follows him and four recruits in Houma, Lousiana as they graduate from high school, go through basic training, and get deployed to Iraq. It was undeniably disturbing to watch pimply-faced 17 and 18 year-olds enlist in the U.S. Army. It was very sad to listen to the parents discuss the possibility of their children dying in the war. All in all, a good film.
Transsiberian
(6:15 p.m. - Eccles Theatre - wait list #136 then #86)
We went to wait list for Transsiberian, a film in the premiere category that starred Woody Harrelson, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, and others. We arrived as they were giving out the wait list numbers, and we scored numbers 136-138. This wasn't very promising. After getting our numbers, we had 90 minutes to kill before having to get back in line, so I went back to the hotel and my dad and stepmom decided to head to Main Street.
Apparently, they were selling cool electric motorcycles on Main Street and my dad got all caught up checking out all their zero-emissions glory. They lost track of time, and I found myself alone in the wait-list line at the Eccles. After calling them, it became clear that they wouldn't make it back in time, so I decided to see the movie alone. Chatting up my fellow line-waiters, I found out that someone had an extra wait list number and since I was the only person flying solo, I got to jump ahead in line to #86. Then a guy came by trying to sell a single ticket, so I thought I'd buy it from him until I discovered he wanted to charge $50. Fifty bucks! Wait list tickets are $10. I declined, and got in to the screening from the wait list with no problems. Ha! Take that, Sundance ticket scalper!
Oh yeah, the film. It was great, a real nail-biter. The director, Brad Anderson, pulled off the suspense very well. Woody Harrelson was pretty hilarious, and Ben Kingsley was amazing, as usual. Emily Mortimer also pulled off a brilliant performance.
Here's a very bad picture of the director and Ben Kingsley:
And I'll end today's post with my.... Daily Celebrity-Sighting List
Ben Kingsley
Emily Mortimer
Kate Mara
Woody Harrelson
Eduardo Noriega
David Blue
Magic Johnson (in the Burbank airport... kind of counts!)
Pico readers: stay tuned for daily blogs from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival!
Sure, Sundance isn't technically in Los Angeles, and this is an L.A. blog. But Park City does turn into a little suburb of Los Angeles for the ten days of Sundance, so it kind of counts. Plus, what's more L.A. than movies? Correct answer: nothing!
I will be there from January 18th to the 23rd, and if I don't let my laziness overcome me, I'll be posting mini reviews here each day I'm at the festival. In the meantime, you can read my review of last year's festival at Flak Magazine.
We here at Pico strive to bring you nothing of substance. If you find that we have fallen short of this goal please take it up with your mom (as we have). Have a nice day.
