Sundance, the last, a week late

Having been out of Utah for a week, I feel the wave of enthusiasm for anything I may have to say about Sundance may have crashed and receded.

Being habitually disinterested in whether others have an interest in what I'm saying, however, I press on (as is my way).

When last we spoke, I had soothed my aching knees with some freely-applied general anaesthetic at a random sponsor party on the way home from snowboarding. It was held a ski shop just across the lot from our accomodations. The couch made of solid ice and covered by a fur throw caught my eye, as did the buckboard full of rye whisky, campfire, and martinis filled via ice luge. Inside, they had beer, models in ski togs, stacks of food -- and not crappy Costco heat-em-ups either -- and an acoustic band. There was a raffle with a bajillion prizes, but sadly, the gods of good fortune smiled only enough to grant me the cocktails and sammiches. I really wanted those Skullcandy headphones, you know, for my DJ'in' and such. The band, incidentally, did a version of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" that was somewhere between smoky and folksy; and while my appreciation may have been fueled by free Steinlager, handfuls of gratis canapes, and the fact the two lead singers were hot girls, it really did stop me in my tracks. We'll file that event under S for Serendipity.

Friday morning required more coffee, so we hit Starbucks because we (a) embrace their version of accessible consumerism and (b) still have some gift cards to use. This gave us the last celebrity sighting of the week: Paul Mitchell, the hirsute hair styling guy. I gave his wife some Splenda, so I'm pretty sure he owes me a wash-n-cut.

We saw "Big Fan" at 8:30 am. If you are a Giants fan, it's a must-see. If you are a football fan, it's a must-see. If you have ever called into a sports radio station at midnight to bust balls, you might be a Yankee, and it's a must see. I liked it, but I was conflicted by the representation of the protagonist as a loser because he watched the home games on TV in the tailgate parking lot instead of going to the game. One member of the audience commented to the director how shockingly unbelievably funny this was, and we slunk a little further down in our seats. We smirked, but we slunk.

After that, we saw "The Yes Men Fix The World". Merry pranksters with deep pockets, they mock the raging injustices and stupidity of the Powerful. I can't believe they aren't in jail. They create opportunities for themselves to be invited to speak to conferences or on TV as representatives of corporations or government, then perpetrate hoaxes that are as shocking as they are poignant. They were live on the BBC pretending to represent Dow Chemical, promising to pay off all the victims of the Bhopal disaster of 1984 -- something Dow has conspicuously ignored. They made a presentation in New Orleans, purporting to be from HUD, rolling out a new program to reopen existing housing developments for immediate occupancy -- something that is necessary, but not done because there's more money in tearing them down and building new ones. It's eye-opening and invigorating to watch, but... Well, I didn't ask, but had the question, "Does this ever result in change?"

We waitlisted for "Peter & Vandy", which is a perfect combination of "About Last Night" and "Go". That is to say, it's a basic boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl-because-of-tirade-about-sandwich-making-protocol, boy-gets-another-chance-with-girl kind of story; but it's told out of order. You get to see them live together before you see their first date, which is kind of cool because you already know how they interact when you see them first tentatively begin to bond. Also, I learned if your Pad Thai smells funny, you should call it Poon Thai.

Afterwards, actor Jason Ritter was on stage with the writer/director and other cast members doing Q&A. One member of the audience asked, "What's your background?" He stepped up to the podium and said, "What's my background? Well, bricks, wood, a really huge screen..." Everybody looked at him like he'd just quoted a Pakistani poet in the original language. He paused and gestured behind him -- brick wall, wood trim, and the huge movie screen we'd just watched. His timing was impeccable, and totally juxtaposed the pretensiousness of the moment with pure corn. I thought that was perfect, and an indication of really good sense of humor.

We considered trying to waitlist into "Dead Snow", a midnight showing of a movie about Nazi zombies in the Alps. I was willing to risk the nightmares, but the decision was made for us by the guy handing out the waitlist numbers. "No way." he said. "I've already given out all 150 waitlist numbers. That, and you'd look like the babysitters in that crowd." Ouch.

For dinner, we went to Pizza Beer Taco. That's not the name of the place, but it is the three neon signs in the windows. I had all three. We sat next to a guy from San Francisco in town to represent his company, Scenechronize. I checked it out online later -- pretty cool.

Why can't every day be filled with pizza beer taco conversations with people doing cool movie things?