Sundance 2009 wrap-up

Obama's inauguration was a very emotional Sundance moment for me. Starting Monday afternoon, after I posted my last blog entry and headed into another screening, I started feeling funny about being at Sundance when the inauguration was happening. While every Sundance offers me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of sorts, there'll always be another Sundance next year. I felt like I should be in Charlotte helping my Observer colleagues, or maybe I should have tried to go to D.C., or something else, rather than trying to scope out a place in Park City to watch it on TV. I did sit down in a cafe and watch it with about 30 strangers, which proved to be a nice experience because everyone was clapping and cheering and feeling the history. At the next table, also sitting alone, was an actress from one of the movies I'd seen, "Toe to Toe," and I found myself feeling bad for her - here she was having her first big 'moment' with a Sundance film, and she had nobody to watch the inauguration with.

As soon as the speech ended, everyone went back about their business of selling whatever it is they were there to sell. But there was a difference in the mood, a sense that things had changed and people felt happier and more hopeful. With every interview I had after that, I tried to introduce the subject of the inauguration and how our country's changing of the guard was influencing them in an artistic sense, but I got very few responses along those lines. They were there to talk about their films, not politics. And after all, I was there for the films too.

Later Monday, I saw "Adventureland," starring Kristen Stewart of "Twilight," a coming-of-age love story set in 1987 and featuring much of the hideous music of the 1980s (and some cool tunes too). It offered nothing new on the boy-meets-girl theme, but as someone who graduated from high school in 1988, I was the perfect audience for the film and I enjoyed it. It's getting released in theaters soon, so I recommend it to all members of generation X for nostalgia value.

I did make it to the midnight showing of Chris Rock's "Good Hair," and very much enjoyed it - as a straight-haired white girl, all the information about the things black women (and some men) do to their hair was all news to me. It was a fairly thought-provoking look at a slice of our culture, and thanks to Rock, had its funny moments too. Look for it on HBO, possibly with a theatrical release beforehand if it gets picked up.

Tuesday was a whirlwind consisting mostly of interviews. There were four filmmakers from North Carolina with shorts in the festival, and it took three separate meetings for me to talk to them all. I also had my interviews with the director of the overfishing documentary, which went well, and with Chris Rock. Rock, who I'd been looking forward to the most, certainly gave me plenty of material for an interesting write-up, and there was some rapport because we're both Southerners (turns out he grew up in Georgetown, S.C.). But he was tired, and tired of talking with reporters, and maybe feeling sorry he had missed the inauguration, so there wasn't much "spark" there.

My final screening of the festival was "Adam," a very sweet love story involving a man who has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism that makes it difficult to relate to other people. Since I volunteer for a program for children with autism, much of the film rang true and I was so glad to see it being portrayed sensitively and realistically. This one got picked up by Fox Searchlight, so definitely watch out for it. Star Hugh Dancy, who I developed a small crush on after seeing "The Jane Austen Book Club," was there with girlfriend Claire Danes, who was very blonde, very skinny, very beautiful and never smiled once. After the screening, I managed to strike up conversations with Dancy and two co-stars - Peter Gallagher (who I loved in "While You Were Sleeping") and Frankie Faison (look him up on IMDB - he's a great character actor). We talked a little about autism and filmmaking. On the way out, I saw one of the actors from "Humpday" and had a little talk with him about his film too. Those were far better conversations than any of the formal, scheduled interviews I had, and one of the reasons I love Sundance - the serendipity of it all.

Links to all my Observer coverage so far can be found here:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/312/story/490401.html


So to recap, watch out for these flicks:

Feature films: "Adam" (the autism story), "Humpday" (hi-lar-i-ous comedy about straight guys trying to make gay porn), "Adventureland" (coming of age teen love) - all should end up in theaters.

Documentaries: "Reporter" (shedding light on misery in the Congo), "The End of the Line" (overfishing), "Tyson" (fascinating Mike Tyson profile); "Good Hair" (the Chris Rock one) - all should end up on HBO or in theaters.

Films you may want to Netflix someday: "The Queen and I" (documentary about the exiled Iranian queen), "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" (the nobly failed attempt by John Krasinski of 'The Office,' about a woman interviewing men with issues for anthropological research), "Amreeka" (Palestinian immigrants face U.S. prejudice), and "Toe to Toe" (teenage race relations).