SubscribeLet the madness begin
“It starts today in Utah and is covered all over the world,” began a report from the all-news channel on the radio. It was the hometown hype you’d expect for a festival that swells the modest ski town of Park City by something like five times its summer size.
Starting tonight and ending a week from Sunday, Park City, UT, will be crowded. Very crowded. So recharge the cell, fire up the Blackberry. Give the Treo more play than Jame T Kirk ever did his phaser.
No wonder at the first ever press conference to be held on opening day, directof Geoff Gilmore almost sounded defensive. Almost. Yet in the most thoughtful way possible.
So too, his boss and founder of the Sundance Institute, Robert Redford. The festival is in its 22nd year, the Institute is celebrating 25. And you know how 25th birthday bashes can be, a time of reckoning. So this afternoon “getting back to roots” and “diversity” sounded a little like a mantra.
No doubt there will be much more on this theme as the 10 days unspool.
The hottest ticket Thursday afternoon: Albertson’s. You heard right. And it’s free. Sort of.
Talking to the programming honcho for the Los Angeles Film Festival after she’d picked up her credentials: Where you headed? Albertson’s. Tag along, I asked, then remembered the State Liquor Store was right there. First things first.
Back at the shuttle stop where volunteers make the time sweeter, five of the seven of were headed to the supermarket. A couple of years ago, the supermarket that’s right in the center of things, and open 24/7 got a piece in the LA Times, or so counseled one vet to a newbie. If so, can its close-up — by some enterprising pup with a videocam — be far behind?
The other ticket of the night is well the opening night film and party.
Writer-director Nicole Holofcener returns to the fest with “Friends with Money.” She’s good or stuck (you decide) on three-word titles. “Walking and Talking” was her debut. She workshopped it here. Then there was the lovely often understatedly “Lovely and Amazing.” There are two hours before the second public screening, so…
Denver Post film critic Lisa Kennedywill be sending blog reports from the Sundance Film Festival in addition to her coverage in The Denver Post.
