Wednesday morning Hank attempts to use up all of the groceries we bought and make us all a fantastic breakfast of omlettes, toast, coffee and mimosas. What a guy! Brian left the day before to catch a ride to the airport with his co-workers, but the dear man left me a few tabs of Airborne for the trip home. We chit chat as we pack, then take our luggage to the condo office since the taxi won’t take us to the airport until about 2:30 pm.

Matthew and Darren go to see what the $9 million fuss is about Hustle & Flow. Worth every penny, according to them. I head up to Main Street again for my annual cow t-shirt hunt for my niece and nephew. SpongeCow SquareMoo and Finding Nemoo are this year’s winners. I pick up a few more trinkets, talk to Gary Springer on the phone, run into Gill Holland on the street and check my email before getting back to the condo.

The boys arrive from their screening and we head off to the airport and the balmy 60 degree weather of Orlando. I may sleep all weekend…

Tuesday is our last full day of movie watching and I have three on the schedule, but chose to sleep in after a late night with Jerri missing the 8:30 am screening of Between. According to an acquaintance, I didn’t miss anything but the loss of 90 minutes of my life (gaining it back in blissful sleep). Mia left early this morning to go back to LA. I actually woke up at nine and put in a good 2 ½ hours of work before walking over to the Holiday Village for my only screening there.

Only volunteers are milling about the lobby as I enter, except for Joseph Gordon Levitt who is entering the screening by himself in front of me. The volunteer who tore his ticket and the five others guarding the door obviously recognize him and are tickled pink. JGL is smiley and sweet to them and turns to smile at me. I smile back and nod acknowledging his graciousness. I love moments like that.

Swimmers is one of my favorite films of the week. A young girl and her family in crisis are touched by a young woman who returns to their small town after being gone for years since her mother’s suicide. Delicate and utterly charming, look for more from director Doug Sadler and young newcomer Tara Devon Gallagher.

I have to hustle up to the Library for Kevin Bacon’s second feature, Loverboy, starring wife Kyra Sedgwick as a disturbingly overprotective mother. With Bacon, Sandra Bullock, and Marissa Tomei in supporting roles, this adaptation of Victoria Redel’s acclaimed novel is as intriguing and disturbing as Bacon’s last appearance at Sundance, The Woodsman in 2004. Kevin and I (and doubtless half of the audience) were both remembering that screening, also at the Library, as he introduced the film.

So I was done. 19 films in five days. Ok, so I missed one. Sue me. Time to have fun and schmooze. I head back up the hill to the Sundance Channel party at 350 Main where Steve Buscemi, Mario Van Peebles and Yo La Tengo are all holding court. I chat with Kevin Kilbride and Ian Bricke from the Sundance Channel. Find Matthew and meet lots more folks whose names and cards I have somewhere. I can’t process it all until I am safely back in O-town.

We call Hank and friend/producer Holly Mosher and meet at Café Terigo for our first and only nice dinner of the week. Good conversation and good food are still the staple of great societies. Lovely. After dinner we all head back to the Riverhorse for the Kodak party and as always freeze outside in line for about 20 minutes before getting in.

Inside we chat and eat and drink and endure the loud, horrible band for a third year in a row, but as always it is a great event. The indieWIRE gang is there in force including JD from Orlando who just got in today. The lovable Florida Kodak rep Mike Brown is there as well and nice man that he is gets our friend Darren in the door. Matthew and Hank take off to see Me and You and Everyone We Know (and loved it). Darren and I head back to the condo at about 1 am. I start to work, and Darren tries to sleep but is awakened by a tipsy Matthew and Hank as they arrive after the movie. We all finally settle down and go to bed around 2:30.

Ok, so I didn’t make sure the volume was turned up on the clock radio…but I can’t be responsible for other people’s alarms! Matthew and I both woke up late. He missed The Ballad of Jack and Rose and I barely made it to The Dying Gaul after getting ready in record time. A crafty, suspenseful drama that serves as a showcase for the continually mind-blowing talents Peter Sarsgaard and Patricia Clarkson. Campbell Scott is great at playing outwardly normal yet somehow very creepy guys and continues his run here.

Afterward, I had to haul ass to the Racquet Club for Who Killed Cock Robin? I rarely walk out of movies at Sundance, but with the pressure of Monday ads, a tight schedule, and a flat tire on my car at home, I only stayed for an hour. Not a big fan of experimental film in the first place, the filmmaking bothered me, but more than that, I just didn’t care about the characters…even after an hour of this 82 minute film. So I left. There is inevitably one day while we are out of the office where we stress all day about being gone. I went to Starbucks to get online and deal with some issues on the home front before film #3.

Junebug is a touching look at a Southern family through the eyes of a son’s big city wife. The film is an insightful portrait of the modern South, but I had an issue with the fact that the son who serves as the connection between the urban and the rural is the character that we know least about.

Between films I eat a plate of nachos in the tent outside the Racquet Club and chat with a casting director from HBO and the line producer of my next screening The Squid and the Whale. Nice gals. Inside before the film, Michael Silberman from Goldwyn/IDP picks my brain on a few titles for a woman’s perspective as most of his colleagues in Park City are men and statistics show that women usually choose what films couples and families will see. Really? I have sat through some action stinkers in my day to please a man…

The film is a great vehicle for Jeff Daniels with strong supporting performances by Laura Linney, and youngsters Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Cline. Funny and painful at the same time, it is easy to see why this lighter Kramer vs. Kramer was attractive to producer Wes Anderson.

Four films down and one to go. I take the shuttle up to Main Street for the RES party at Mother Urban’s Ratskellar, my favorite bar name to date. I run into condo-mate Brian Younce of Showtime and later Hank arrives. I seek out Talmadge Cooley as we are showing Dimmer at FFF in April. He in turn introduced me to his DP. Both seemed excited about coming to FL.

Hank had an in at the Palm Pictures party and said I could be his plus one, so we headed up to the Riverhorse. Unfortunately, we were three hours early! Instead we went back and found Brian and the three of us ate a light dinner at a little deli and had a great conversation about life, relationships and projects we’d like to produce. What great guys. Brian was off to meet up with some Showtime/Sundance Channel folks and Hank ran to a film before the party. I went back to the condo for some more work time before meeting Matthew at the Library for Strangers with Candy.

Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello are just as hilarious in the flesh as they are on screen. Great fun. Dirty Love? Strangers with Candy? I don’t know when Sundance became a raunchy comedy festival, but thank goodness for the sweet relief…

Sunday was a light day with only four films each. I woke up at 8, did some work and went to Starbucks to get online. MC and I headed out at about 11 am to On a Clear Day and Twist of Faith respectively. Twist of Faith, another amazing doc, follows Tony Comes and his family as he realizes the priest that molested him as a teen lives five houses away. The film is a moving and extremely honest look at a family in crisis. (Two days later it would be nominated for an Oscar.)

I was craving soup again, this time chicken curry, yum! On my way to the Racquet Club for Police Beat, I met the partner of the director of Une Dia en la Vida. Nice chap. Police Beat is a dreary Seattle love story told almost completely through the inner monologue of Z, an African immigrant mystified by his American girlfriend’s lack of commitment.

Back at the Prospector (would I ever get to Main Street again?), the lines for Rize were crazy. This doc about “krumping,” a dance style developed in South Central LA, focuses on the positive dancers who want to change the world. The audience was energized and nearly frenzied when the dancers appeared on stage afterward for the Q&A. I don’t think I have seen kids that happy in a long time. The crowd was enamored with them and so was I.

Back at the condo, I ate some mac and cheese and tried to tame my static mad scientist hair before going to the Eccles for The Jacket, a suspenseful thriller starring Adrien Brody and Keira Knightly. Despite its high intensity, I was fading again. The plot was clever and disturbing, a la 12 Monkeys. Good stuff. Three long days down and three more to go…

My first film began at 8:30 am at the Library, so I was up early. 212 is a feature by Anthony Ng based on his short dot, dot, dot…(FFF 2001). This dark romantic comedy intertwines three NYC love stories was a good start to the day. I took the bus to the Prospector and fell asleep against the wall waiting in line for After Innocence, a powerful documentary about people freed from life sentences and death row through the advent of DNA evidence, some after serving more than 20 years. The film has a big FL angle with one prisoner trying to be the first man in the state to be exonerated. After the film I had a bowl of tomato and gorgonzola soup from the Big City Soup Co. in the Prospector. A little cup o’ heaven!

I met MC in line at the Racquet Club for our next three screenings together. The first, Pretty Persuasion, is a Heathers wanna be with a new millennium political slant starring Evan Rachael Wood as the evil teen and James Woods as possibly the worst parent in human history. During the Q&A, Ms. Wood answered a question and stepped to the back of the stage where she promptly fell off into the curtain. Cudos to her for having the grace to pop back up, yell, “That was great! Tell all your friends!” So I am.

We took the shuttle back to Eccles for #4 of the day, Upside of Anger, also starring Ms. Wood, along with a stunning Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, and Felicity herself, Keri Russell. ERW managed to stay on her feet this time. Yet another really strong performance by the somewhat underrated Joan Allen and writer/director Mike Binder’s best work to date by far.

In Albertson’s we finally got to pick up a few staples for the condo and ran into Darren, Ari, and their friend Jim. Ari sent me on a mission to secretly buy a bottle of Clamato to hide in Jim’s suitcase. An inside joke I never did get the skinny on. But hey, I’m there. Before heading back MC and I stopped for some sushi in the strip mall.

Refreshed, we walked up to the Library for Jenny McCarthy’s Dirty Love, a nixed tv pilot turned into a funny, raunchy comedy. Jenny is hilarious and it was cool to see a woman make a total ass of herself with such fearlessness. MC and I both dug it. The walk back was freezing and we were greeted with a late night chat with Mia (now conscious) and Brian, our other condo-mates. Lovely people all!

Matthew and I head to the airport in a heavy fog (and not just in our heads) at 5:00 am to catch our 7:15 flight to Salt Lake City. Still groggy, we check in and get coffee and make it to the gate as they begin boarding. The fog followed us to SLC, but we land safely and get a taxi up the mountain. Lots of folks are sidetracked by the weather and don’t make it in until later that day or the next. There is no traffic, little snow on the ground, and the sun comes out by the time we get to Park City.

Finally at the condo, we meet Darren and his friend Ari who are sharing the condo. Darren is programming the dMAC in Orlando and it is his second year with us here. Ari plays Darren in his film “Essence of Irwin” and works for the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. Matthew and I drop our stuff in the loft and I blaze into Hank Blumenthal’s room, not realizing that he and his girlfriend Mia are sleeping. Oh, those lumps in the bed are people… Hank woke up and came down to say hello. Sorry, Hank!

They didn’t even notice. Matthew and I are starving so we head over to Sundance HQ at the Marriott to pick up our tickets and grab a bite. In the restaurant, we run into the filmmakers from ??? who will be in Orlando in April. It is nice that they are so excited.

My first film is The Talent Given Us at the Library. The fictional film stars the director’s real life family on a cross-country journey to resuscitate their ailing relationships. A strong film that kicks reality tv’s ass. From there I went to the Egyptian at the top of the hill for Unconscious, a fantastic Spanish farce about Freudian psychology. Loved it.

Meanwhile, Matthew was at Murderball and the party afterward at the Spur Bar before seeing Brick at the new Racquet Club venue. We met Darren and Ari at Main Street Pizza & Noodle for dinner, but MC had to jet before eating if he wanted a good seat at New York Doll. I ate faster than I have since I was a lifeguard on a 15 minute break, and ran back up the hill to see Brothers by the Danish director of Open Hearts. I liked the film, but there were slow points and it was already 1 am to my body so I caught myself nodding once or twice. I ducked out as the film ended and headed back to the condo to crawl up into my top bunk bed and rest up for my five-film day on Saturday. Yet alas, I failed to make it safely back on the first day without having to listen to some tweens high on a Paris sighting for the entire bus ride home. Ah, Sundance…