Reflections from Sundance

The Sundance Film Festival is a lot like a Burning Man for Hollywood. Bound by a common vision, you can talk to anyone, anytime. Like, for example, on the bus or in a restaurant, just ask the person next to you, "So, are you a filmmaker?" That'll usually start things off nicely. And also, like Burning Man, it's just as inhospitable environmentally, but instead of the oppressive heat of the Playa, the temperature is sub-zero and so cold I can't go out without gloves, cap and several layers of clothes. Nevertheless, many determined actresses are willing to walk around virtually naked. I commented about this to one wannabe starlet, wearing nothing more than an LBD and spike heeled pumps in the snow (LBD is short for "little black dress", de rigeur for cocktail parties). Impressed, I say to this one particularly determined gal, "Wow, now THAT'S commitment!", pointing to her lack of attire. She looks directly at me, both forefingers pointed to her temples... "Mind over matter. Mind over matter!" It's almost like she's advertising just how far she's willing to go, if some director would simply give her a shot. Every ounce of her being shouts to the world, "do you see what I'm willing to go through to get a role in your next film? Dammit, gimme a screen test already!"

On the other hand, whereas Burning Man is an open party where anyone is welcome, Sundance is all about exclusion, about not letting you in. But the reality is that once you DO get into one of the exclusive parties, it's so loud you can't talk to anyone. So you have to get into the even more exclusive back room at said party, where the really cool people are chilling, and hopefully, it's quiet enough to actually hold a conversation. Anyway, I found that it helps for a first timer to crash the cool parties, when my posse includes a major director (Scott Rosenfelt, who produced hits like Mystic Pizza and Smoke Signals) and the former head of a very large television distribution company who is setting up a global film distribution network. So my pals are spouting off stuff like, "Yeah, we're about to close a $40 million P&A fund out of New York," to the indie producer guy who gives 100% concentration because, well, distribution is actually more important than sex at Sundance. The fortunate side effect of this is that it lets me chat up the pretty actress who is sort of abandoned temporarily by the indie producer wannabe. Sad to say, but pretty actresses are a dime a dozen, and any indie producer would probably give up his left nut for a really fair and honest distribution deal. Anyway, this gives me the space to talk to more interesting people. (Actually, the prettiest girl I met at Sundance wasn't an actress, but rather, a snowbunny who crashed the party; she's a math professor back east and is pretty enough to walk past any party barricade manned by fierce Samoans. We nerd out talking about bipartite analysis and eigenvectors in search space. I'm in love. A brief respite from the insanity that is Hollywood.)

The other thing that's odd is that I hear from the bouncer that Bono, Justin Timberlake and Sharon Stone are supposedly here, but I can't seem to see any celebrities at all. It turns out that I fail to recognize celebrities even when I'm looking straight at 'em. Everyone looks so... well, normal. "Who? Who's that?" I'm asking a pal, about this guy in the corner that's causing a spontaneous crowd to gather around him. Everyone wants to be photographed with this guy, and I simply can't recognize him. My pal shouts to me (remember, it's a loud party), "It's Marty! Marty McFly!" Oh, I see it now. It's Michael J. Fox's dad in Back to the Future. Crispin something. Anyway, it slowly dawns on me that I'm missing the part of the visual cortex that recognizes celebrities. Sundance is something like bird watching, where you collect celebrity sightings, and I am, sadly, celebrity impaired.

The movies. Yeah. That's why we're there, right? Well, I have to tell you that it actually hurts to watch three movies a day. The reviewers are watching as many as seven a day, which is something that would turn my favorite pastime into... well, into a stint at Guantanamo. Can you imagine being kept awake by being forced to watch a continuous stream of foreign art films? It would be the cruelest form of psychological torture. At Sundance, they're fucking serious about movies, because they start showing movies at 8:30 am, and end after the midnight showing. And I have to tell you, some of these movies are painful, like the five minute fish eating scene - absolutely dialogueless and spare - in "How is Your Fish Today?" It's by a Chinese director intent on becoming the Marcel Proust of film. All I can think while watching this scene is, "I could swallow a can of film and shit a better film than this."

Anyway, my fave flick at Sundance was "Angel-a", by Luc Besson, who directed "The Fifth Element". It's about a man walking around Paris with his angel, who is a 6'4" sexy blonde bitch-goddess with impossibly long legs, and is entirely shot in B&W. It's gorgeous, impactful, funny. Everything that movies should be. Two others that I found notable were "Adrift in Manhattan" and "Starting out in the Evening". Adrift in Manhattan offers us Heather Graham in a remarkable role, as a woman who's lost her baby and struggles for redemption. It also provides us with one of the hottest sex scenes I've ever seen, when Heather begs to be spanked. The other film features Frank Langella as a 70 year old writer who has an affair with a 25 year old grad student who is writing a thesis about his work. His performance was so good it gave me shivers. Both of these amazing films were shot in only 18 days, which seems to be the new magic number for film production.

The two most talked about movies were Zoo and Hound Dog. Zoo is a documentary on bestiality, and in Hound Dog... eleven year old Dakota Fanning gets raped. So apparently, shock value still gets attention. However, neither film was sold at the festival. The first movie to get sold is John Cusack's comfortable anti-war film, "Grace is Gone", about a man whose wife is killed in Iraq, and has to find a way to tell his kids, and ends up taking them to an amusement park in Florida to buy time before breaking his kids' hearts. It's a road film, similar to Little Miss Sunshine which was the darling at last year's festival. Anyway, Grace is Gone gets picked up by the Harvey Weinstein Company for $4.1 million plus a piece of the box office take, at some party at 3:01 AM, proving that Park City during Sundance is a city that never sleeps. I did see Harvey at a party, trailed by several assistants and a personal photographer.

The very last day of Sundance, I had this amazing breakfast at the Morning Ray cafe on Main Street in Park City. The Morning Ray Special was a plate of hash browns, covered with sauteed mushrooms, onions, sour cream, guacamole and two eggs, any way you want them. This was the high point of the week for me, something as real and as simple as a decent breakfast with chai latte. Anyway, it was here that I learned that Park City's elevation is 6900 feet, which explains why walking up Main Street takes the breath out of you, and this cafe is at the very top of Main Street. On my last walk down Main Street, I finally see a celebrity I recognize. It's Queen Latifah, holding a pair of drumsticks and being interviewed on a balcony. Her loyal subjects are below her, snapping photographs like birds begging for visual crumbs. She looks down toward me, so I wave and shout "We love you!" She shoots me a big smile and it sends a little thrill up my spine. She saw me! She saw me! I exist! I matter!

Yes, I somehow feel validated by a celebrity acknowledging my existence. Yeah, I'm getting it. Welcome to Hollywood.