2006-01-19T19:25:00.000-08:00

I. The Drive

U.S. Highway 70’s long stretch from Vail, Colorado to the Utah border is nearly absurd in its beauty. Mountains give way to hills give way to plateaus, some covered with a deep virgin snow, some obscured with an almost oceanic fog. This is the stuff of oil paintings and dreams. Or, as one of my travelmates remarked on seeing a particularly beautiful range with sparkling rivulets of snow, “it doesn’t even look real. It’s, like, not in 3-D.” Being three city boys in the midst of this unexpected scene has caused more than just awe in us; we actually doubt nature’s veracity.

What brings us through this bit of heaven is the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where we hope to find some beauty of the man-made, filmic variety. We’re hoping to see that movie that changes our lives, that makes our jaws drop the way a rocky peak 9,000 feet above sea level can.

Or that’s what we say to others, at least. And yes, at heart it’s true. But I suspect all of us have ulterior motives that are more immediate and mostly more attainable. For one, we’d like to feel that the movie our small production company filmed over the summer and are in the final throes of completing is something special. Therefore, in competition with our first goal, a part of each of us hopes that every Sundance-approved movie we sit through is unbelievable, awful trash.

In addition, each of us has our own secret goals for this trip, the specifics admittedly as much guesses on my part as stated fact.

At least one of us, Cellphone (all names have been changed, if that isn’t obvious), hopes to get laid as many times as possible during our eight day stay. Cellphone also plans on making the most of any parties taking place in Park City and hopes to get drunk at least once daily. These last two are simply tools to get to the first objective, of course, but on their own are still not a bad day’s work. Oddly (or humorously, at least), Cellphone’s goals have nothing at all to do with being on vacation. Achieving these objectives is simply a way to continue the course of living he’s managed to attain back home in Chicago.

Dilly Bar is a mystery, not just in his Sundance goals, but in his social skillset as well. I suspect that even those who know Dilly Bar best don’t feel that they truly “know” him. This can be alternately fascinating and frustrating. As for his individual Sundance hopes, I can only guess that Dilly Bar sees this trip as he sees any other undertaking in his life: a chance to ride another wave of experience and see where it takes him. Possibly the best way to describe Dilly’s specific goals is to say that his are by far the least specific.

And I have my own set of wishes for this extended trip. There’s a certain celebrity I’d like to meet (and sleep with, to be honest, but lacking an official note of permission from my girlfriend back home – which I did try to wrangle –condemns my dream to coffee and a heartfelt chat), though I hold out no real hope that our paths will cross. I’d like to meet people, not because I’m particularly needy for new friends, but because it would be nice to turn myself from a permanently grouchy wallflower into the type of person who actually meets people. The twelve day excursion to Sundance was also to be a test of sorts. Having not been away from my girlfriend for so long in years would be a test to see whether I would truly miss her. As awful as that sounds, I don’t think this type of curiosity is uncommon (though admitting it may be). I write with happiness, great relief, and a little embarrassment to my machismo that it took roughly nineteen hours to feel the pangs in my mind badly wishing she were with me, or me with her.

Cellphone, Dilly Bar, and I drive along at a steady 85 mph, trying to find music on our iPods to fit the scenery, trying to read magazines despite the bumps on the road, trying not to urinate our pants before the next pit stop (okay, that one may be me alone). And we try to imagine what the 2006 Sundance Film Festival will really be like. Though we have an inkling from media coverage, online searches, and our own probably twisted fantasies, we will soon find out for sure. The mountains are beginning to flatten. We approach Park City.

II. Apologies in Advance

Reading the first part of this essay, it occurs to me that those I’m traveling with will most likely take offense to portrayals of themselves or events, if not in what has already been written then in what is to come. To them I can only say that if they take something I’ve written the wrong way, they’re taking it the wrong way. I will embellish. I will write when I’m temporarily annoyed. I will most likely flat-out lie if it serves the story better. And yes, I will change sentences if they ask nicely. But I hope that they don’t.

III. Who’s Steering this Thing?

Something needs to be understood. There is a Captain on this ship. Let’s call him Captain. He is the President, Founder, CEO, and Dictator of our fledgling movie production company, and he is traveling in a car approximately 20 miles ahead of our own.

Captain makes the mystery that is Dilly Bar seem like a puzzle with only one piece. To give an accurate description of him would take more space and time than I can possibly spend. However, the following will paint an inadequate but helpful sketch:

1. Captain has spent a ridiculous amount of his own money to start a movie production company solely because it is his dream to make movies. Making a profit is important only inasmuch as it will allow for more movies to be made (this is wishful theorizing - we have yet to turn a cent of profit). It is entirely possible, given spending on the first film, that he will lose a good portion of what he’s spent 20 years working to attain if this company does not succeed, and soon. He knows this well. We begin shooting a second film in three months.

2. Captain lies needlessly. A true lie from a balcony in Vail:
“Captain, do you have shoes on?”
“Yes, I have shoes on. Why?”

And five minutes later, when confronted with the fact that he does not, in fact, have shoes on, but only a flimsy pair of socks:
“Captain, why in the world would you lie about that, of all things?”
“These are sort of shoes, kind of.”
Which is a lie.

3. Captain will not speak directly to you upon first meeting you. He will not make eye contact. He will ask questions about you to others while you are sitting right there. With Captain, it’s a sign of his approval and comfort when he suddenly seems to notice that you are in his house.

4. Captain is drawn to an odd (to be gracious) cast of characters. These people often take advantage of him, mainly because they can. For once you earn his approval, you have it in toto. To paraphrase an actual discussion on Captain’s theory on trust:
“If someone kicks me in the balls, I’m going to be like ‘okay….’
If they do it again, I’m going to think ‘Did they mean to do that?’
If they do it again, I think ‘I think they may have meant to do that.’
Then, if they do it again, I might try to, you know, block it a little.
Then, if they do it again….”

5. There are times, and you never know when they are coming, when Captain turns from a forty year old grown man into a hyperactive seven year old child. He giggles and literally bounces off walls and is the funniest man on earth. These are the good times.

6. There are other times when Captain becomes scarily worried, paranoid, or depressed. These are the bad times - not only because they are uncomfortable for you but also because you know there’s a seven year old in there just getting killed.

All of this is important to you, dear reader, because Captain will inevitably have a great part in shaping our Sundance experience. As our leader (financially, experientially, etc.), he is if not the canvas on which our trip will be painted, then at least the one handing us the brushes.

IV. The Arrival

We’re told by multiple red signs along the street that Festival Headquarters is located in the Marriott hotel. There are swarms of cars circling the place, all the drivers navigating as if they’re blind, drunk, and being attacked by bees. Inside the hotel, things aren’t much better. Festival workers, self-important shlubs wearing their passes like badges of honor, and multiple old men shouting into cell phones are everywhere. Dilly Bar needs to pick up his festival pass, and Cellphone and I would like to get our festival catalogs. We enter and ask a bewildered girl at the information desk where we need to head. She has some type of physical deformity which causes one half of her face to sag a bit, one eyelid to remain forever closed. This makes me immediately suicidal (which is both too sensitive of me and completely condescending, I know). Cellphone will later make a joke about her just to annoy me. It works.

Things are strange further inside, in that all my worst fears about what ‘Hollywood types’ will act like around mere mortals are, if possible, proven to be understated. We are looked down upon by every person who deigns to notice us in the Industry Room and are given the runaround by every person of whom we ask directions.

After much trouble, we are successful. Dilly gets his pass. We get our catalogs. We get a few beers in the surprisingly empty Marriott bar, and then we head back into the demolition derby that is Park City traffic.

My mood after all this is horrendous, to say the least. I dream of catching an immediate flight home and plan on checking airline rates as soon as we get to the townhouse.

And then I see the townhouse.

Captain has paid a ridiculous sum to rent the place for the week, and my first thought through the door is “My God, it’s worth it.” Murals on the walls depict trees, mountains, and a cowboy on horseback about to be attacked by a baby bear. There are bunk beds, leather couches, a fireplace, a stereo system with speakers in the ceiling, a Jacuzzi tub, a hot tub on the back deck, stainless steel appliances, and a television that dwarfs a dwarf. The place, in a word, is awesome, and instead of checking rates for flights home I decide to write this to capture the wonder as it’s fresh. Because of my literary dedication, I miss calling dibs on the top bunk. Dilly Bar beats everyone to the punch, and we have to hold ourselves back from punching him.

Minutes later, Captain walks over to the kitchen cabinets and, using an industrial staple gun, hangs two of our promotional handbills into the wood. He then visibly struggles to understand what we find so funny.

V. The Film Festival Without the Bother of Actual, you know, Films (aka The First Night)

Instead of battling the crowds to see the opening night's film on opening night, we have all decided to see it tomorrow morning instead. This means that we have a free night, our first and possibly last of the festival. Captain decides that this is a great time to begin stapling our promotional postcards to the kiosks spread about Park City for this very purpose. The five of us - me, Cellphone, Dilly Bar, Captain, and an as yet unmentioned Nacho (Captain's childhood friend) head out on foot in the bitter cold.

Downtown Park City is quaint, the way vacation towns seemingly always are. There are easily more art galleries than coffee shops, most selling the type of Western art that relies heavily on primary colors, horses, and cacti. There are local shops and restaurants named after their owners and relatively few chain stores. The sidewalks and streets are cute for no apparent reason.

Tonight the streets are crowded with festivalgoers, and you can almost feel the town shudder at the sudden influx of city types cracking jokes about Mormons, knocking garbage cans down so that the trash becomes one with the slushy snow, and mistaking its quaintness for simplemindedness. You can imagine that the streets will open up and swallow the next girl who begins a sentence with "so I'm like," though you hear it for the fifteenth time and the streets only wriggle a bit.

Today is only the first day of the festival, but the kiosks are already crowded with posters. These range from one by two foot glossies to torn off scraps of paper with scribbled marker doodles. We are here to promote, and we are not the only ones. It's easy to feel like the small fish we are in the large pond that is. But still we staple until our stack runs out, hundreds of postcards that will be gone by sunrise tomorrow. One man asks for a postcard, and it's all I can do not to hug him.

On our trek, we pass two bars in a row with lines out the door. These are for private parties, most likely thrown by production companies promoting a festival film. They offer free drinks, the possibility of celebrity appearances, and schwag bags, totes filled with free gifts of value in direct proportion to the depth of pocket of the film's backers. We will be attending exactly zero private parties while at Sundance. And while I feel no need to actually attend a party of any kind, the fact that I couldn't get in if I wanted to feels like yet another invisible line separating the 'us' from the 'them.'

We do get a drink, more to duck out of the icy air than anything else, at the Star Bar. Cellphone is extremely pleased to see that there are numerous attractive women bouncing and giggling and drinking within. The men inside depress me because a) what doesn't? and b) they all look strikingly similar to either me, Cellphone, or Dilly. I once again feel like a small fish, bait really, in a pond that gets bigger every time I blink.

VI. Two Hours in the Dark

I rarely dream at home, but on the first night in Park City the dreams are vivid enough to wake me up constantly throughout the night. In one, I am in line for a Sundance film and suddenly cannot find my pass. In another, I’m letting a friend down easy by telling her that I do not love her. Others are random images of stuffed animals, carnivals, and chases through snow. Between the dreams I lie awake in a strange bed, staring at the digital clock on the bedside table, waiting until it’s time to leave for our first film.

Time finally grants me 7:25, and after a quick shower and a little waiting for the others to get themselves ready, we head off to the Eccles Theater to see Nicole Holofcener’s ‘Friends With Money.’ I am excited mainly because the celebrity who I’ve convinced myself I’m going to smooch on is one of the stars, but also because we are all more than curious to check out the quality of the films.

The Eccles Theater is housed in a large, brick performing arts center, which the five of us walk to from Captain’s ‘secret’ parking place (a side street a block away). We see a long line already formed outside the theater and, running our fingers over the passes that hang from our necks, we bypass the line and head into the lobby. I can’t help but feel a little cooler than the suckers left out in the snow, and when I catch myself playing into this elitist mentality I promise to whip myself harshly when we get back home.

The lobby is filled to maximum capacity, and I’m taken aback by how old the crowd skews. The average age of the festivalgoers seems to be around 43, with the gray-haired beating out the pierced by a healthy ratio. It seems there are just as many women, if not more, than men in the crowd. This is an affront to my assumption that pimply thirty year olds with glasses and scraggly facial hair (in a word: me) will comprise the majority of Sundance attendees.

We are finally let into the theater, where we make our way down to the third row. Before long, there isn’t an empty seat in the largest movie theater I have ever seen, and once the players get off their cell phones, the lights finally dim.

‘Friends With Money’ is solid if unremarkable, but from the audience’s reaction you’d think the filmmakers had cured cancer, AIDS, scoliosis, and the gout in one fell swoop. Every joke, no matter how clichéd or subtle, gets a round of uproarious laughter. Even more oddly, the touching moments get the exact same response. I’m certain the director, watching from the sidelines somewhere, is equally pleased and perplexed.

After both the credits and the thunderous applause die down, the director and several of the major cast members bound onto the stage for a question and answer session. Instantly I get the answer to something I’ve been wondering about for a few days now: what would it be like to be so close to celebrity? The answer, for me at least, is that it’s strange for about five seconds before I forget that it’s supposed to be strange.

The questions from audience members are at the very best forgettable. For instance, an elderly woman asks if handheld camera work is “from the future.”At worst, the questions are borderline offensive. Take for example the young man a row behind us who raises his hand to ask director Nicole Holofcener the difference between male and female directors. When she offers that there is no general difference, only variances among individuals, the young man proceeds to argue with her, actually raising his voice at one point.

I’m embarrassed enough by the conversations to hide my face in my hands. When I dare to peek again, the star - the star, the only actress on Earth who I feel both ravenous and protective toward – is looking directly into my eyes. This happens three times within the next ten minutes, and on the last look, she shoots me a grin across the twenty feet that separates us. A bluebird lands on my shoulder and sings a gentle tune. Fireworks blossom above my head in sparks of joy. My heart escapes my chest, stretching my shirt near the tearing point before I cram it back into its cavity with both hands. And then Cellphone, Dilly, Nacho, and Captain are standing and I realize that the discussion is over.

We argue about the merits of the film both in the car and once we arrive back at the townhouse. I seem to disagree with nearly everyone, and on nearly everything. The argument gets moderately heated and I try to plead my case, but what I’m really thinking is she smiled at me she smiled at me she smiled at me.

VII. Acting! Thank you! Thank you!

Nick Nolte plays an alcoholic in the so-so ‘Off the Black,’ slurring his speech and grumbling every syllable unintelligibly.

In the question and answer session after the film’s world premiere, it becomes immediately apparent that these are not merely interpretations of character. What in God’s name is Nick Nolte saying?

VIII. And Now is the Time at Sundance when we Dahnce

It is nearing 9:00 Friday night, and I am left alone in the townhouse while the rest of the wolf pack are enjoying free wine and beer at some festival site. They’ve been gone for quite a while, and though I was under the impression that they would be coming back for a rest before our 11:30 film, it appears I may be mistaken.

The townhouse is luxurious, but I feel so much like the boy left to practice violin while watching the real, exciting world blip by out his window that I decide to go explore downtown. Slushing my way down the sidewalk in my new boots, tears running down my face from the headwind, I get a call from Cellphone.

“Where are you?”
“Walking. Where are you guys?”
“Wasatch. Like ‘Sasquatch,’ but Wasatch. It’s a bar. Top of the hill. Red awning. Get here. Like ‘Sasquatch.”

My calves are burning by the time I’ve trekked the mile or so to the bar, really a brewpub, and I’m glistening with sweat. I find our entire group – Captain, Nacho, Dilly Bar, Cellphone, and the newly arrived The Doctor and his girlfriend, The Nurse – in a small room surrounding the beer. A few of them are also glistening from sweat, and it doesn’t take long to deduce that theirs is more from four hours of free alcohol than any form of exercise.

Cellphone and Dilly are in especially rare form tonight (where rare = ‘interesting,’ not ‘infrequently occurring’). When we all leave the Wasatch after a few appetizer plates, the two of them stop nearly every girl walking down the street to offer a promotional postcard for our film. Cellphone employs a technique he names ‘The Lobster Claw,’ which describes either the way he shoves the postcard directly into the hand or the way, as is his habit, he clutches a stranger’s bicep when he first speaks to them. Dilly, truth be told, bobbles alongside Cellphone lending a giggly moral support but following his mother’s advice and speaking to nary a stranger.

The seven of us arrive at the Park City Library, where we will see the world premiere of ‘Destricted.’ At least the three youngest of us have been looking forward to this one with great excitement, as we have read that ‘Destricted’ contains full-on, graphic sex. Cellphone plans on following any nubile lovelies to the nearest bar after the showing, counting on the film’s libidinal effect. I plan to join him, though only as the serious and dedicated chronicler of events I’ve decided to become, of course. As our gang sits and the young crowd fills the theater to capacity, we all make jokes about orgies, penises, moans and groans.

The lights begin to dim, and there is Kelly Osbourne three rows up, looking exceedingly happy. Given that we are about to watch hardcore pornography, it’s a little disconcerting to see her brother, Jack, hurriedly sit next to her. We twist back to point the couple out to Dilly, but we find that he has snuck out of the theater and headed home. Though we all assume this is caused by the mass amounts of alcohol he has consumed, Dilly will later rub his temples and croak that he was “just really tired.”

‘Destricted’ is not a narrative feature, we are told by a festival programmer at a small podium up front. We are about to see six shorts from six cutting edge directors, we are told. The directors were given instructions to give their take on pornography in twenty minutes or fewer, we are told. What we are not told, but which becomes apparent only a few minutes into ‘Destricted,’ is that we have all willingly seated ourselves for the worst film any of us has ever seen.

Mike Meyers used to perform a very funny, recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live about a television show titled ‘Sprockets.’ Meyers, as host of that show, was hilarious in spoofing a foreigner with a pet monkey whose pretension led him to both wear black turtleneck shirts at all times and to enjoy the most avant-garde, off-putting, terrible artwork known to man. If Meyers ever wants to revisit the satire, one viewing of ‘Destricted’ will give him more than enough material for a trilogy of feature films.

Among its many offenses:

- Opening on an extreme close-up of a flaccid penis and staying there for five minutes straight
- Showcasing a man having sex with a truck while some oversized type of turnip bulb is inserted into his anus
- Laying new music over existing porn footage and presenting the work as something new
- Using a strobe light effect for nearly half an hour straight
- Finding humor in almost none of its many unintentionally funny moments.

Unfortunately, my writing skills are nowhere near accomplished enough to truly capture the travesty that is ‘Destricted.’ Possibly the fact that at least a third of the audience leaves before the film is over gives some clue as to the depths the film sinks, but I think a better symbol is the girl sitting in front of Captain who covers her entire face and head with her coat half an hour in and remains that way until she hears lightly speckled applause at the end.

The film leaves us shouting on the walk home. We all agree, but we’ve been so upset by the monumental waste of time that we gesture as if we’re at war with one another. To my utter shock, the film is so stunningly awful that I almost immediately want to see it again. I can explain this only by analogizing it to a desire to visit a Holocaust museum. Sometimes we can only truly grasp the horrors by making ourselves confront them. Never forget.

IX. Don't Drink, Don't Smoke - What Do You Do?

Of the eight films I've seen by my third day of movie-watching, seven of them feature drug use. I have seen near-ubiquitous smoking of joints, as well as crystal meth smoking, paint huffing, and heroin snorting. I have seen bestiality, masturbation, and a man having sex with a truck.

I feel like a prude, but these things offend me more as a storyteller than a moralist. If Hollywood is derided for relying on explosions and car chases, why do small films get away with cliches of their own? Granted, attempting to shock is a broader cliche, but it seems to me that possibly the most shocking thing you can do in independent film these days is to avoid shocking topics altogether.

Update: Make that eight out of nine. The girls of 'Dreamland' must have their pot!

Update: We're nine of ten, Sundancers. The girls of 'The Descent' must have their pot to, you know, battle the scary monsters.

Update: Color me impressed. The four year-olds in 'Little Red Flowers' abstained from drug use of any sort (though they sure touched each others' butts a lot).

X. You Want Celebrity Sightings? I'll Give You Celebrity Sightings.

Dilly Bar saw Maggie Gyllenhall walking down Main Street and said she looked "pretty normal." The Doctor and The Nurse caught a quick sight of Robert "Bob" Redford, which prompted the ultra-heterosexual The Doctor to giggle "Good God, that's a handsome man!" We've all sat a stone's throw from various stars and directors of various movies, and often have had to restrain ourselves from throwing stones.

But I believe I top them all with my run-in as I walk quickly through a side street off the main drag and speak very briefly with Al Gore. It goes as follows:

Me: Gore in '08!! (because what else do you say to Al Gore?)
Gore: Oh, ha ha ha, I don't know about that.
Me: Well, we love you, Mr. Gore.
Gore: Hey, thank you.

And I wish I could report that our former Vice President is nowhere near as wooden and lifeless as he was portrayed by enemies and comedians during his Presidential campaign, but the man is actually more so. Even his laugh (that 'ha ha ha' above) is stiff and forced, as if he is reading a cue card in a foreign language. Looking back at the man once I pass, I half expect to see his chest plate open to reveal a misaligned fuse.

Still, though: Al Gore.

Seven Days in the Beehive State