Results tagged “sundancefilmfestival”

       

Every January the quaint Mormon hamlet of Park City, Utah is overrun by tens of thousands of people eager to attend the films (and parties) of the Sundance Film Festival. Having attended the festival for the last three years, I can highly recommend the experience. In fact, I'd say that everyone should try to attend at least once. From the freezing weather to the immense crowds to the abundance of cinema, alcohol and sleeplessness, it is a film festival that is unique to the world, and tomorrow night a little bit of Sundance comes to Los Angeles.

                                   

LAist has been fortunate to run into pornstar and mainstream crossover artist Sasha Grey (MySpace) already a few times this year -- at AVN's Adult Entertainment Expo and Adult Movie Awards as well as Vivid-Alt's release party.

The first time I attended the Sundance Film Festival in 2007, I stayed until the festival's conclusion on Sunday. Never will I make that mistake again. While it did allow for a more leisurely pace, all the excitement (and most of the people) had left Park City by mid-week. So this year I once again planned an early Friday morning arrival and a late Tuesday night departure. I was able to see thirteen films, party three nights out of four and sit five feet away from Damien Rice during his amazingly casual concert at the ASCAP Music Cafe.

The first day at the Sundance Film Festival is always a frantic rush. We arrive in Salt Lake City at the reasonable hour of noon and are on our way to Park City in our rental car within 30 minutes. Once we reach town, we decide to quickly shoot down to Main Street and grab a bite at one of my favorite restaurants in the city, Bandits Grill & Bar. The BBQ is good and, more importantly, the Wasatch beer is served in 25 oz. mugs (trust me, you need to drink that much since the alcohol content is watered-down by government fiat.

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For me, the Sundance Film Festival officially ended at the airport in Salt Lake City when I was waiting in line behind Bijou Phillips at the Quizno's in Terminal 1. She was politely arguing with the counter guy about why she couldn't get fresh mustard from behind the counter instead of having to use the the mustard packets by the napkin stand. In a heavy accent, he kept saying that all they had was "runny mustard" and she kept asking, "What is runny mustard?" before finally realizing he was saying "honey mustard" and asking him to give her some. Somehow, that moment perfectly captured the surreality of Sundance.

We just received an unbelievable e-mail from friend-of-LAist and local indie troubadour Matthew Moon and wanted to share. Some amazing and surprising things really do happen at Sundance. Read on:

Two days ago I was performing at a Sundance Film Festival event in Salt Lake City, UT. After my performance at Rose Wagner Theater, I began driving the 25 minutes it takes to get back up to Park City.

Continue reading "Dear LAist, I Unexpectedly Rocked Out at Sundance with Velvet Revolver"

As one of my favorite bloggers Jeffrey Wells recently wrote, "The Sundance Film Festival is a 10-day event, but it's always over as of Wednesday morning...the voltage turns down, there are fewer people on Main Street, all the presumably hot titles (i.e., name casts, advance-hyped) have been screened." Park City actually becomes a manageable town again and tickets that were impossible to get a few days ago can usually be had for less than face value. With that in mind, I decided to blow off the morning's press screenings and head out with a group of friends to see a film I'd been closed out of earlier, .

Even on the best days, the Sundance Film Festival is an extremely hectic place to be. Screenings and events often overlap and are spread all over town, and even though the public transportation is good (and free!), it can still be a nightmare to get someplace quickly. Cabs can be hard to come by and parking (when available) is expensive. Furthermore, there are always going to be lines waiting for you so you have to plan to get everywhere fairly early. Sometimes, you get bit in the ass like I did (twice) yesterday.

LAist caught up with Ben Lyons from E! to tell us what Park City is really like during the Sundance Film Festival. From Charlize Theron to Diddy, Ben's time at the festival is jam packed with screenings, interviews, and parties. We asked him to fill us in on his favorite films, his obsession with "Beverly Hills 90210", and going bobsledding with Ivan Radcliff.

In 1992, Quentin Tarantino made a huge splash at the Sundance Film Festival with his directorial debut, . He didn't return to Park City until this year to serve as a member of the Festival's Jury. Last night, he was honored with the Ray-Ban Visionary Award and LAist was there. Following a short introduction by Dennis Hopper, Quentin took the stage and riffed about his first Sundance experience for about twenty minutes. Following that, The Bravery took the stage for a short concert. Videos and photos of all of it are after the jump.

Saturday is invariably both the best and worst day of the entire festival. It's the best in the sense that there is no shortage of high-profile movies, events and parties to attend. It's the worst in the sense that everyone--and I include the entire under-25 population of Salt Lake City--knows this. Saturday simply has the most intense crowds of the entire festival. It's the perfect day to avoid Main Street and hole up in press screenings. This is what I had planned to do, but fate decided otherwise. That, however, is a story for later in this column.

There are usually only two things to talk about at the Sundance Film Festival: the movies and the parties. Last night was unique, though, because everybody was talking about...the blackout! That's right. Around 9:30 last night the whole town just went completely dark for at least half on hour. Periodic blackouts continued for the next hour or so before everything finally returned to normal. It was a surreal scene. Thousands of people were just standing out in the cold on Main Street in utter darkness.

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Starting tomorrow and continuing through next week, LAist will be reporting live from the Sundance Film Festival. We'll be covering the films, the parties, the people and the various surreal and pointless events that comprise the most important film festival in the country. With the WGA strike still in full bloom, most are expecting a buying frenzy up in Park City as distributors stock up on films just in case the strike continues to paralyze the industry. It should be a fun week of long days and even longer nights.

The festival kicks off this morning with a director's coffee talk at the Landmark. Scheduled panelists include moderator James Mangold, Paul Haggis and the next Bond director Marc Forster. Tickets are $11. The big event today (and it's free!) starts at noon and runs until 6:00 p.m. at the Landmark Regent Theater. It's Live Earth Day: A Celebration of Earth and includes 50 short films commissioned by SOS-Live Earth. Some of the filmmakers who've contributed are Roman Coppola, Rob Reiner, Chad Lowe, Casey Affleck and Madonna (Madonna?). If you can't attend the afternoon showings, another free Live Earth program kicks off at 8:30 p.m. at the Festival Promenade on Broxton.

By now most Americans understand that something awful is happening to the people of Darfur. Relatively few, though, could clearly explain exactly what that is. With an artful simplicity, reveals the true scope and horror of the continuing genocide in Darfur. Widely lauded since its debut at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, this fantastic documentary deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.

Rumor has it that Kirsten Dunst briefly considered but then passed on the role that ultimately went to Ricci.

Tomorrow night (Thursday) at the Egyptian Theater's Alternative Screen at 8:00 p.m., running late will do you no good. The Tribe: An Unorthodox, Unauthorized History of the Jewish People and the Barbie Doll ... in About Fifteen Minutes, which was an official selection at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, only runs... about 15 minutes. But in 15 minutes you can learn a lot of history (and retain it), maybe even more than you will with this Saturday's premiere of Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl on HBO.

Kiino’s own work is on display at Peel Studios until December 28th. His show, called “First in Flight,” is an exhibition of photographs, featuring society fixture (and Danielle Steele offspring) Vanessa Traina, that appeared in Anthem Magazine’s winter issue. Kiino’s upcoming projects include shoots for Emmy Magazine, Stiil, an Estonian magazine, and an assignment in post-disaster New Orleans for Fit Pregnancy, creating images to accompany a woman who delivered her infant in one of the hospitals abandoned in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

At the Hammer Museum show up at 7:00 PM to see In the Realms of the Unreal, filmmaker Jessica Yu's 2004 documentary on outsider artists Henry Darger. The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and Ms Yu will be on hand after the film for a Q&A session.

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