A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy."

For the second year in a row, I've opted out of covering the Sundance Film Festival for Film Threat. Last year, Mark and company decided not to get a condo in Park City, and ended up staying in Salt Lake City and driving the 30-45 minutes back and forth to the fest each day. Not my kettle of fish, and things here at home were such that I was a little hesitant about taking off for a week. Also, I'd spent the two previous festivals 1) catching Ebola and 2) slogging through 4 or 5 movies a day, so I decided to take a breather.

This year, the FT team is back in Park City (intermittent webcam coverage can be had on the main site), yet here I am. I fully intend to get back up there one day, but for now I prefer spending a week in Austin for South by Southwest, and having an option on a long weekend for something like deadCENTER or CineVegas. Shorter trips, smaller fests (a relative term, WRT to SXSW), and normal strength beer temporarily win out over Paris Hilton and waiting for the bus in 10 degree weather, I'm afraid.

And I was going to say I had no regrets, until I saw that Cinematical's James Rocchi got to meet Wendell "Bunk" Pierce in Park City. Bunk! God damn it.

Sorry Don...but Bunk trumps Snape. But only just.

"Butch and me have been talking it all over. Wherever the hell Bolivia is, that's where we're off to."

Well, duh:

Hollywood veteran Robert Redford fears his Sundance Film Festival is growing too big, after seeing celebrities like Paris Hilton attend the event. Redford hosted his 25th annual festival in Park City, Utah, last month, which was started in 1979 to showcase low-budget, independent films and talent. However, as the festival grows larger and larger every year, some celebrities have begun turning up just for parties, even though they have nothing to do with the films on show. Redford tells Newsweek magazine, "To the outside world, it's a big fat market where you have people like Paris Hilton going to parties. Now, she doesn't have anything to do with anything. I think the festival is close to being out of control." Despite Redford's disdain for the socialite, Hilton has attended the parties of Sundance every year since 2004.

I'm not sure I buy this. The festival's "close to being out of control" because a few amateur porn stars like Hilton and Bai Ling show up to get their pictures taken and take home some free swag? Sorry Robert, but a handful of attention whores aren't the reason I have to walk in the middle of the street when I'm heading up Main to grab a beer at O'Shucks.

Is Sundance getting too big? I don't know...probably. It does seems like it's straining the limits of Park City's resources. Then again, I've only been attending for a few years. I have no fond recollection of the festival's glory days when, I guess, the only people who showed up were those serious about their love of independent film. 1983, in other words.

But the reason for the overcrowded shuttles and the wall-to-wall humanity in every public space isn't because Ms. Hilton and her entourage are in town (at least, not entirely), it's because Sundance itself has become less discriminating in what it screens. I'm not referring to film quality, necessarily (though that would certainly be argued by a couple of the guys I went with this year), but the number of premieres that have no business being there. Friends with Money? Your opening night film was a Jennifer Aniston movie that already had a Sony Pictures distribution arrangement in place? All Aboard!? Rosie's gay cruise documentary already had a deal with HBO, so why is it taking up screening time?

Hilton's home video, shot on a crappy camera with poor lighting and no budget, was more "indie" than either of these anyway.

And then there were the movies that got deals during the festival, but before they even screened, like Little Miss Sunshine and The Darwin Awards. Both were films with major stars and major studio backing, yet they're being screened alongside film funded with credit cards and money borrowed from parents.

I'm not here to argue that these films have no place at the festival, because the alternative - sitting through 90 minutes of a tortured artist's navel gazing - is pretty bad, but Redford and the Sundance folks need to rethink both the kinds of movies they screen and also how many they allow in. I think there were something on the order of 200 films this year, with all their attendant personnel and marketing folks, to say nothing of all the goddamn press required ro cover everything.

Press being so desperately critical to the whole process after all.

Fly the Brenly skies

Me and planes.

To start with, the schedule at this year's Sundance Film Festival was pretty grueling. I saw 21 movies and a shorts festival over the course of six days, most of the reviews currently residing over at Film Threat (I haven't been able to will myself to sit down in front of a computer to bang out the last two yet). Combine that with having to actually try and come up with something remotely interesting and unique to say about all of them in a timely manner, and you come up with little time to blog or do much of anything else.

This applies to everyone, by the way. Don and Mike shared equivalent burdens, while Eric and Mark not only saw movies but conducted interviews and edited the site to keep the coverage lively. We would've loved to have partied more, believe me, but we just plain ran out of time.

Which brings me to Friday. My flight left SLC at 10:30, taking me to Phoenix to pick up my eventual connection back to Houston. A good idea in theory, except for some reason my Houston flight was cancelled, apparently while I was in the air. Not that anyone at America West bothered to tell me, of course, I had to hear it from The Wife after landing. Sure enough, the 1:15 to IAH was scuttled, leaving me to scramble to get on the next available flight, which left at 7:15. This was, of course, delayed until 8 PM.

Sky Harbor isn't a bad place to spend 7 or so hours. There are several bars, and ample places to plug in a laptop with a DVD player to watch movies (Return of the Living Dead and several Season 5 Simpsons episodes). You also get to meet interesting people, like the guy going to Portland with his girlfriend to take a state trooper exam, or the German gentleman who timed his layover so he could watch the semifinals of the Australian Open.

When you want to get home as badly as I did, however, it sucks ass. One of the last times I was on a plane, I got held over in San Diego for about six hours after being unceremoniously yanked off an overbooked flight (documented here). I'm not sure if this is some kind of sign, but I'm glad I won't even have to think about flying for another six months or so.

Still, this was my best Sundance. Out of three, this is the first one in which I returned relatively healthy and hangover-free. Saw lots of celebrities, including the aforementioned Roger Ebert, Liz Phair (Don almost fainted when she brushed against him at the Sundance Lounge), Josh Rouse, Michael Rappaport (twice), and Jake Busey. Quite the A-list, I know, and I missed Corey fucking Feldman by a matter of minutes. Even so, I came home like I always do...drained as if Stormbringer had been inserted into my thorax and about two years older. Good times.

Less than two months until South by Southwest, which - compared to Sundance - is like three days in an opium den. Actually, it's like that anyway. Plus I can drive and stay with a friend who lives near downtown.

Oh, and the title of this heading is hilarious if you know anything about Arizona's MLB team. Honest.

The grass is always greener

On the other side of the velvet rope.

Well, that was humiliating. After being told I had an RSVP+1 to the Tommy Lee party tonight, I went on to discover that neither of the publicists or the press person had my name on any of their lists. After spending a good 45 minutes trying to determine what the hell was going on, we gave up. My sincere apologies once again to my friend Joy for making her drag her ass all the way down from Park City Mountain Resort for nothing.

Maybe she'll have better luck at the MySpace party, which is going on up there. It's the party this year, featuring the Beastie Boys. FT's own Mark Bell will be doing the press line thing.

Which reminds me, Mark has been doing a hell of a job getting video coverage up this time around. Go check out the daily updates here (the latest of which shows IFC's Evan Sha-PIE-ro responding to his inclusion on our annual Frigid 50 list).

Anyway, the party. I guess I've been spoiled up here, because I've never faced the uniquely humiliating experience of waiting on the other side of a barricade while others of your unfortunate ilk surge against the obstacle like kids at a Who concert, desperate to gain access to a hot, smoky room where they will be forced to stand, four people deep around a bar, screaming their drink order while shitty dance music plays at 140 decibels. If I hadn't been with somebody, I would've bailed after five minutes and gone to the brewery.

But then I wouldn't be here talking to you nice people. So there you go.

"You're gonna need a bigger coat."

Sage words spoken by the master of movie reviewing, Mr. Roger Ebert, whom I met (where else?) at a Chinese buffet. A very nice guy, who mentioned how much he liked Film Threat. I wonder what he would've said if I lied and told him I was with AICN.

The schedule's been pretty hairy, going to 3 or 4 movies a day and trying to bang out reviews in a somewhat timely manner. I still had time to attend one of the Blender parties last night, where we enjoyed free vodka and danced the night away to the musical stylings of Metal School, possibly the only post-modern hair metal cover band.

I'm about to head over to Main with Don "Brigham" Lewis and see Todd Snider. I need to confirm a bet I made concerning whether or not he's still on smack. Tonight, the inestimable Tommy Lee is throwing a party, and I may have an in for that as well.

Jesus, it's like 1987 all over again. Only this time I can legally drink.

I didn't bring my digital camera, so any pics I take with these crappy disposable jobs won't be up for a while. And I'm sure many of you were waiting to see how much taller I am than Ebert (about a foot).

Toodles.

Doc doc goose

I overheard somebody say there are something like 120 documentaries showing at this year's Sundance Film Festival, and since I'm too lazy to actually look it up someplace, I'll go ahead and present it here as fact.

And I think I'm seeing half of them.

Rolled into Park City yesterday, endured a shuttle ride from SLC with a guy who must have been enjoying his first day on the job. We were in the van for almost 2 hours, meaning I had somewhat less time to decompress before hitting the first screening of the day.

Last night: Black Gold - about the plight of Ethiopian coffee growers, Wrestling with Angels - about playwright Tony Kushner, and Clearcut - about the town in Oregon that, until recently, provided college scholarships to all graduating high school students.

Sharing a condo with most of the same folk this time around. In addition to myself, there's Don Lewis, Mike Ferraro, Mark Bell, Eric Campos, and TV's Chris Gore. Don, Mike, and myself are situated in what is affectionately known as "Brokeback Bedroom."

They made the joke only about a dozen times yesterday, and it's still funny, by gum.

We're busy as hell this year, seeing four movies a day. I'll post when I can, if only to remind you how much fun bopping around Park City with a few thousand black-clad douchebags in Von Dutch hats really is.

One other thing

They play a humorous "short" before any feature screening at Sundance. Last year, you had little skits featuring puppets caught in typical festival scenarios (waiting in the freezing cold for public tickets in front of the Egyptian, for example). These were cute and usually drew a guffaw or two.

This year, the festival organizers got the guys from JibJab to do the shorts. Now, people assured me their pre-election animated clip "This Land" was quite the gas, as you hep cats say, but I never really found it all that funny. Whatever. I'm a crank. So I was certainly willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt.

Gah, they were awful. On top of creating only three shorts for the whole festival - thereby ensuring most festivalgoers would see the same one repeated endlessly (I sat through one particular segment eight times) - they seemed to miss the point of the whole thing.

Each short would take the word "independent" and slowly fade several of the letters out until it read "inept." We were then treated to someone calling themself an "independent demolition specialist" or the like who demonstrated their disdain of playing by "the Man's" rules by causing general death and mayhem.

Don't get me wrong, Sundance can be - if you allow yourself to swallow the hype - one of the most overblown instances of self-congratulatory wankitude you will ever experience. These weren't sticking a welcome pin in the audience's sense of ego, however, but weak gags that weren't even mildly amusing upon initial exposure, much less a half dozen times.

I suppose it's possible they were being deliberately antagonistic. If so, more power to them, though biting the hand that feeds you isn't exactly the way to get invited back.

Depravities of scale

I live.

Oh, there was a while there that I didn't really care one way or the other. Thursday and Friday were about the worst days of illness I can remember: didn't eat, could barely walk, throat and chest hurt so badly from coughing I could just rasp out a few words before collapsing into a whimpering blob of self-pity. I flew back to Houston Saturday, hopefully managing to share some of my germ love with the asshole in front of me who guffawed so loudly at the screening of Without A Paddle I was unable to sleep. The last couple days have been pretty useless as well, since I've done little besides overload myself with vitamins and TheraFlu. So one hopes you can forgive the lack of updates.

What follows will obviously be somewhat abbreviated, as the passage of time and megadoses of B12 have dulled my recollections.

Sunday (1/23) was Football Day at the condo. It's become something of a tradition to watch the conference championships while we're at Sundance, which would seem to make little sense. Tell that to our patron, TV's Chris Gore, however:

He's the boss, as you can tell by the company he keeps.

Here's a shot of the view from our pad on Deer Valley Dr.

After cheering the Eagles and booing the Patriots, I checked out Inside Deep Throat, a documentary that - aside from some revealing interviews regarding the mob's connections with porn, didn't offer a whole lot of new insight. Nothing like sitting through another rehash of the sexual revolution, for those of us who weren't there.

Monday, if I recall correctly, meant viewings of Grizzly Man - the Werner Herzog documentary about an idiot with a death wish - and Monsterthrusday - a Norwegian movie about love lost and...surfing. Did I mention it was Norwegian?

Monday night was also the Screamfest party:

Eric Campos and friend:

Screamfest had some great shwag, most notably the 12" figure of Jason from Friday the 13th, Pt. 2.

After that, we toddled over to the VW Lounge:

Mitchell Baird finds out that bathroom space is, as always, at a premium in Park City:

Monday night ended with a beer run to Albertson's, where they can apparently sell it 24 hours a day. Of course, at that concentration, you'd be better off buying Listerine.

I squeezed a viewing of the horror short films collection in there somewhere as well. I only mention this because one of the shorts, Fuel, ended up being the scariest thing I've seen in a decade. I literally haven't jumped in my seat in quite some time. And all for a gag straight out of Twilight Zone: The Movie.

Tuesday was the day most of us has afternoon screenings (including Wolf Creek, The Squid and the Whale, and Reefer Madness), as the IFC Ultimate Film Fanatic challenge was taking place that night, and all were eager to test their wits against each other for the possibility of winning a 42" plasma TV. To make a long story short, I lost in the first round. However, I did end up losing to the guy who won it all, so there was a salve of sorts for my damaged ego.

Eric, Film Threat DVD's Mark Bell, and Dan Wible relaxing before the competition in the Heineken Lounge:

Mark and Dan flanking the lovely and talented Megan from UFF:

As you can see, she's been taking pictures with goofballs like us all night.

Judah Friedlander (as seen in American Splendor) and Mark:

All agreed that Dan might've had a better shot at the title had he put the beer down:

Megan has just about had it with the technical difficulties:

Couldn't tell you much about what happened after the competition. A group of us made our way around a few of the bars on Main Street before somehow getting back to the condo without dying of hypothermia.

Wednesday afternoon was when I started feeling a little under the weather. The sore throat started in, which is always the harbinger of doom for yours truly. I stuck out my evening screenings (Snowland and Salon, reviews pending), and headed straight back to the condo to get some sleep. Woke up Thursday feeling about as bad as I can remember, which brings us back up to the present, more or less.

I had to bail on my Thursday and Friday screenings, which a couple of the other guys were able to cover for me. My biggest regrest is missing ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, who played Thursday night and - according to Mark - tore the shit out of the place. Me, I was watching The Surreal Life or some such shit and trying to swallow water without crying.

Anyway, I'm back. Thanks for the e-mails and comments from those of you who sent them, and sorry I couldn't give you more dirt.

In Utah there is no beer

Sorry to obsess so much on one topic, but free beer (as offered at last night's Femme Fatale party) doesn't mean a lot when it takes 25 to have a noticeable effect. Because if Sundance is about anything, it's numbing yourself against the deluge of shmoozing going on.

Hey there, hi there, ho there, little campers. Coming to you live from Park City on Eric Campos' shitty dial-up connection, so no pics as of yet, not that I've taken any worth showing. All nakedness has taken place off camera.

Let me just say that an indoor jacuzzi on the second floor of a condo is a recipe for disaster. No one's actually braved the hot tub yet...a houseful of dudes doesn't really make the prospect all that appetizing, but someone will get stupid before too long, I predict, and all cameras will be at the ready.

Don't know what else to report. Weather's great (warmer than in Houston, I suspect), everybody's getting along pretty well (not much of a claim, given that the first weekend isn't even over), and much hand-wringing is taking place over how best to increase our BAC without driving to Colorado.

Oh right, movies. Saw Brothers last night, a Danish film about...uh, two brothers, and New York Doll, a documentary on the post-music career of New York Dolls bassist Arthur "Killer" Kane. Both were refreshingly decent. Seeing Inside Deep Throat tonight and then, hopefully, hitting the GenArts party.

Hope everyone's enjoying their non-fabulous showbiz lives. More tomorrow.

You gotta lose your mind in Utah, Park City.

The honchos at Film Threat obviously didn't learn their lesson following my near-constant drunkenness and annoying habit of prank calling Minnie Driver last year, because they're sending me to the Sundance Film Festival once again. In less than 24 hours I'll be traveling to the chilly confines of Park City to rub elbows with bored celebrities and the self-important media assholes who love them.

Tomorrow's a travel day, but all during next week you'll be able to find pithy commentary, out-of-focus photographs, and bitter diatribes from the festival right here in this very spot.

Will your intrepid reporter be able to snap a picture of Crispin Glover before getting a boot to the head? Will he remember to bring enough liquor to counter the annoying ineffectiveness of 3.2 beer? Will Monica Bellucci inexplicably fly to Utah to profess her undying love for him? Stay tuned.

Finis

Got back into Houston yesterday around 1 pm. Didn't get home from Friday night's Slamdance party until almost 3 AM Saturday morning, then had to catch my shuttle to SLC airport at 6. Needless to say, yesterday morning was one in which I was keenly aware of every minute of my 52 years.

That's what it felt like, anyway.

So Sundance 2004 has come and gone. I can best describe it as a whirlwind of (mostly) good movies, cold feet, and 3.2 beer. I saw a shitload of documentaries, the best of which were: Riding Giants, the big wave surfing film from Stacy Peralta; Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock's month-long ordeal of eating nothing but McDonald's food; and The Corporation, an amusing look at the corporation as psychopath. I can also recommend Stander, the true story of a South African police detective who became a cult hero in the 1970's after a committing a series of bank robberies, then returning as the investigating officer to the extreme confusion of the bank's employees.

No, I didn't see Napoleon Dynamite. Quit asking.

I found, for the most part, that people were pretty friendly in Park City. Obviously the locals have weighed their annoyance with the innundation of industry assholes every year against the mountains of cash they bring, and sided with the forces of commerce. Still, exchanges like the following didn't hurt:

The setting: The Timbers lounge in the Park City Marriott (HQ of the Sundance Film Festival)

Bartender: What can I get for you?
Pete: Uh, a Bud Light, I guess.
Bartender: You staying at the hotel?
Pete: No.
Bartender: Gee, really? Did you know you need a membership to drink in most places in Park City?
Pete: No kidding.
Bartender: Yeah. The hotel gives people memberships to the Timbers for free just for staying here. So...are you staying at the hotel?
Pete: I sure am.
Bartender: Bud Light it is.

He got a good tip.

Pic fat fun

Pictures from last night's FT party, and other places.

Jeff "The Dude" Dowd in front of the Holiday Cinema.

Our party was so exclusive we got Fred Durst to tend bar:

Spike and Mike of "Spike and Mike's Twisted Festival of Animation" fame:

Andy Richter's Paget Brewster (in hat) with assorted others of the My Big Fat Independent Movie cast:

Actress Shawnee Smith, et. al:

The FT crew decompressing at a Park City bar:

The party went well, as any party with free beer and wine generally will. I took quite a few more pictures, but don't want to clog up anyone's browser more than absolutely necessary.

I've acquired a sort of paranoia regarding celebrity sightings since the first couple days. At first, I was just sort of walking around with my head down, trying to find a shuttle before my ass froze off. Now, I find myself slowing down when I come up on a cluster of people, or see a TV crew interviewing someone, or see a trucker cap.

Seriously people, trucker hats? I saw the guy-who-headbutted-a-goat from the Mountain Dew commerical in one, along with countless other young wannabe starlets. Surely they've heard how so 2003 those things are.

As a non-industry type, I think the hardest thing to get used to is the schmooze factor. I loathe networking in general, even when it means getting myself a job, and the sheer enormity of the flesh-pressing is a mite dizzying. Fortunately, I can drink. A lot.

Riding Giants, Stacy Peralta's surfing documentary, is the best movie I've seen so far.

Tonight's an off night for me, as I try to catch up on the mountain of reviews I need to write. There's a screening of My Big Fat Independent Movie tomorrow night, and the Slamdance party Friday.

Work, work, work.

Film Threat party tonight

If I had more time, I'd do a version of the whole Black Flag song, but as most of you have probably noticed, time ain't something I have a lot of lately.

About to head out to the party. Saw some decent films yesterday, but got frozen out of the Super Size Me press screening, this morning. They're probably scheduling another one for later in the week, so that's cool.

Witnessing a fair amount of asshole behavior, which isn't that surprising. Except a lot of it's coming from the press, which makes no sense until you realize that all of us covering the festival are failed industry wannabes who have nothing better to do that snipe at the work of others.

Yesterday's celebrity sightings: Maggie Gyllenhal (stodd behind her in line for the Down to the Bone screening...no dirty jokes please), Xander Berekely at the Yarrow Hotel, and Danny Glover. I even got a pic with Glover, which I will post as soon as I figure out how to edit the movie that the parking lot guy actually shot when he accidentally switched my digital camera from 'photo' to 'movie.'

It's a pretty hilarious little clip, though.

Fest pics

As promised, here are some rather weak pictures from the first day at Sundance:

View of Main Street, Park City. Sunday morning...

My boffo sleeping arrangements...

Eric and Jim, rockin' out...(photo courtesy of Brad Slager)

Stay tuned. The Film Threat party is Tuesday night, and I hope to nab some highly incriminating shots.

Feelin' sick on Sunday morning

Not really. Tired, though. Being the last guy to show up means I get the couch, meaning I get to wake up at 2:30 AM when the guys come back from the Slamdance party to tell me about the NYC punk band composed entirely of half naked ladies.

Or something like that. Like I said, I was tired.

My 9:00 AM screening of The Motorcycle Diaries crapped out. Press credentials only carry you so far, apparently. So I'm wasting time here before trying to check out a screener...which would seem to eliminate the need to go to the theater at all. But then I'd be missing that theater experience. Or something.

Saw a great documentary on the history and future of corporations called, wittily enough, The Corporation, and a German comedy called Good Bye Lenin!. With a name like that, and being German, how can it not be funny? Reviews will be posted on the Film Threat web site presently.

Park City on a Saturday night is a madhouse. I would've tried to duck into a bar for a quick drink before heading back, except all of them had such lines I half expected Steve Rubell to come out and tell me to go back to Jersey.

Oh (and this one's for you, HWRNMNBSOL), and I got held back from walking on the sidewalk by big, beefy security guys so Minnie Driver and her entourage/groupies could go into the Ghostbar. Only 15 feet away! No time to snap a picture, but I did manage to tell her she was the bomb in Goldeneye, yo.

Speaking of pics, as soon as I can log some time on the phone line at the condo, I'll try to get some posted.

Live from the Press Lounge

Park City has a Wal-Mart.

Just picked up my credentials, with a full slate of films for the rest of the afternoon (and the rest of the week). My first brush with celebrity? The bus driver told me one of the Baldwins was on the shuttle ahead of me. Queries of "Was it one of the fat ones?" went unappreciated.

More later.

The Sundance Kid

I fly out tomorrow morning for scenic Park City, UT, where I will be spending the next week helping cover the 2004 Sundance Film Festival for Film Threat. Blog activity will likely be sparse for the next day or so as I get settled in, but I hope to semi-regularly post pics and pithy commentary on my experiences there as time allows.

Feel free to let me know if there are any celebrities you'd like pelted with snowballs.