Here.

And.. to randomly end all things Sundance on a note that doesn't contain a long, ranty and self-reflexive monologue.. Sundance itself ended with a moment that was not at all virginal: By me vomiting on the side of a Park City road after letting my "switch to water at midnight" rule vanish in the closing night excitement.. Luckily, it was all captured by a colleague (NSFW):

A day or two has passed as I transition comfortably from the dry, snowy cold of Utah to the wet, not-quite-as-snowy cold of Ontario (and on Saturday, the wet, not-quite-as-snowy, but definitely more cold Quebec), and I figure its time to consider the past two weeks...

Its kinda perfect that my Sundance soundtrack consisted of a never-turned-to-another satellite radio station playing 80s new wave in the SUV rented my colleagues. Because the kind of false nostalgia I always got when I listened to The Smiths or The Cure or watched Heathers... I knew where it came from, I knew what it all meant, but I was never there to experience it and thus was sort of at a loss in comparison to those who did... was the same false nostalgia I felt when listening to - or worse, attempting to engage in - the constant reflective thought expressed by pretty much everyone I was around. As a Sundance virgin, my only real nostalgia was for what had happened in the days prior to that one.

This reflection was usually surrounding two topics: The first, and less personally interesting, involved Sundance as a new-found clusterfuck. My colleague Eugene sent me a random post-Sundance article from a blogger I'd never heard of that kinda summed up all the talk exactly:


There are two Sundance Film Festivals. One hosts several thousand film enthusiasts, movie industry professionals and others with passion for and/or professional interest in independent films. The other Sundance plays hosts to thousands of guests who have marginal interest in films or even relevance to the independent film community. While hundreds of stars turn out for Sundance, only a handful actually attend the screenings, and then it's usually only for the films they have direct involvement in. Several dozen corporations host clients for skiing the Deer Valley slopes, drinking at hospitality suites, expensive dinners and overly-hyped parties featuring "B" list talent.

To me and my experiences, this has always been any major festival. Toronto, Cannes.. in their own way, present that same dichotomy in their own unique and varying formations. Smaller fests, of which I would have never considered Sundance anyway (I who was 8 when Reservoir Dogs played there), have always fulfilled that first notion (almost) solely, and I've enjoyed them for what they were. Personally, for someone sorta new to all of this, the second "Sundance" presents a really interesting study in the state of celebrity culture; the state of humanity; and the state of those with a bit of money. I found it fun to attend Paris Hilton's publicity dinner or watch as hundreds of Utahians desperately roamed Main Street in search of celebrity. Maybe in five years, I'll sing a more bitter tune... But it seems to me that the first Sundance needs the second Sundance to thrive financially, and that they both exist just fine as long as people from either side mind the other's motiviations?

Either way... the second nostalgia was a bit more specific. I'm currently doing my thesis on queer film marketing campaigns post-2000... so I obviously made a point to take in all the GLBT festivities, whether panels, films or etc. I won't go into the specifics of the queer festivities (because I wrote about it here), but in general: There were a lot of queer films at Sundance this year, many of them by directors who were present during Sundance's "new queer cinema" moment in the early 1990s, and thus a "reunion" was sort of make-shiftingly created and there was a lot of talk of the past.

Tom Kalin spoke at one of the panels and pinpointed my position:

I can only see the early 90s and that first wave really coming out of a very specific historical moment.. the movies coming out of a specific moment. Its difficult to conjure for people that weren't alive or around during the time what it was like without AIDS medication and that kind of atmosphere of despair and frustration that people had politically and socially in their lives.

Christine Vachon, a the same panel, seconded it:

I mean I do think that term did come out of a sense of urgency that's very hard to reconstruct for people that weren't there and Im not trying to be like one of those people who was at Woodstock...

Its amazing to me that I can even say it with a smile now cause honestly at the time it really felt like it was such an atmosphere of death and despair.

Honestly, be around all this talk gave me a twofold emotional high: One of extreme amazement in watching these people - Kalin, Vachon, Gregg Araki, Bruce LaBruce, Isaac Julien, etc - in action.. These people whose early 90s films were my adolescent homosexual education and occasionally even brought on seminal autoerotic experiences (LaBruce...). These people - these artists - played a considerable role in assisting in my own identity, as well as the identity politics of the world I eventually came to exist in as an young, queer adult.

This was most notable during a screening of my "favourite" Sundance film (though, I must admit, there only were seven - and before you hiss, please note my actual job did not require me to see films and thus this is understandable)... Isaac Julien's Derek. At its core a poignant documentary about an artist whose life was cut too short.. the film intertwines archival interviews Derek Jarman with thought provoking prose written and performed by the goddess Tilda Swinton. Swinton was just as reflective in her words as anyone at Sundance: She spoke of today as a time of too much talk and not enough action. She spoke of too much focus on numbers and not enough films. She spoke of how Jarman wanted to evaporate with his work and how paradoxically this didn't happen - and given today's societal state - also did.

Though during the screening I was pretty much engulfed in Julien's artful representation of an endlessly charming, interesting and unpretentious man.. After I wiped away my supergay tears and left the Q & A, I was left feeling a bit like Kalin and Vachon suggested in that panel - clueless and ignornat. Just like 80s new wave or the Sundances where Paris Hilton wasnt running amuck, I never got to experience any of this firsthand. I never saw what Derek saw. I was never there to see the beginnings of AIDS or Reagan or riots or emotional despair I personally can't even fathom. What was I really the survivor of? What story did I really have to tell? I can get gay married. I could come out in high school to minimal fanfare. My parents wouldn't even flinch at the sight of me kissing another man. AIDS, though present, is something I'm educated on to the point that I can resite the components of an HIV replication cell. And while I realize I'm uniquely privileged, even in Western society... And thank god for that.. but lets accept: "We" don't have that urgency, and as Kalin & Vachon suggested, we will (hopefully) never know its horrors. But many of us seem to be ready to sit down an accept that this is as good as it may get. And thats maybe why the nominees for the GLAAD Media Award for best feature film this year were Stardust, Across The Universe and The Jane Austen Book Club.

I just wonder if this relative spoil is to blame for my potentially lesser generation of queer artists. Maybe its time that "we" just step out from under some queer niche and realize "we" have less sexual-identity specific stories to offer? Or maybe its not? Maybe "we" need to find our own voices, our own less urgent, but still necessary, voices.

Now I know I'm generalizing a generation, and especially generalizing a generation that hasn't even been given a chance yet.. and really all I'm saying despite my longwinded rantiness is that all this nostalgia just left me wondering..

I'm not going to go any farther in that regard (I have four months of thesis writing for that), but essentially, thats where my Sundance mind wandered.

Though my back and shoulders kill as a result, I managed to bring buckets of useless but entertaining items back from Utah. So if you are a family member, friend or warm acquaintance that I'm seeing in the next week or so, one (or three!) of these items could be yours! Call me Sundance Santa Claus.

So after 14 nights in Utah, I am finally back amongst the gunless and free health cared.

I almost didn't make it, and the past 24 hours are a blur of planes, trains and automobiles. Yesterday morning I got up at 6am to await my 6:45 Park City shuttle to take me to the airport. Reports of a storm almost made me switch my flight, but later news suggested the storm wouldnt hit Salt Lake City until later in the day so I took a chance. The shuttle was 45 minutes late, which left me with 2 hours and 30 minutes until my flight left. Which I figured would be fine. But the snow was very intense, and the driver still had 3 more pickups, all of which result in spinning nearly out of control on side roads. Everyone that was picked up was a party of one, and I luckily sat in the front seat. After 14 days of this (and 3 hours sleep), I wasn't in the mood for socializing. They tried anyway.. each of them with their business cards and their choices for favourite Sundance films and thoughts on whether Paris Hilton-esque celebs should be banned from Park City. Excessive and loud rants of self-promotion eventually led them to ask me what my thoughts on Sundance were to which I... tired, without coffee, and anxious that I might miss my flight.. bitchily replied I didn't attend. "Why were you here then," the budding filmmaker who talked up a horrendous sounding short film about the ghosts of Osama Bin Laden and George W meeting 50 years from now, asked me. "I like to ski."

I finally got into the terminal at 9:00. The shuttle driver warned me the storm was about to hit and I'd be lucky if my flight wasn't delayed. I checked inside and so far, so good, though I could have used some time at this point as my flight was at 9:45. First, checked in. 9:10. I walk upstairs to go through security and see the longest fucking line I've ever seen in an airport. Honestly hundreds of anxious people in a line that looped around hallways that weren't intended for lines. I overheard an angry man ask an employee: "Is this usual?" She said it was very unusual and they didn't staff thinking this would happen. "How long is the wait?" She said at least an hour. My flight, at this point, left in half an hour. I hate people that do this and I swear its my one get-out-of-jail-free card, but I butted. I went to near the front of the line and said I needed to get home as there was a death in the family. And played up my Canadian-naive-young thing with the saddest eyes I could mount. I know. I'm horrible. But I'm also an idiot because I realized then and there, with 10 people in front of me, I had not checked my toiletry case and that an expensive array of aerosol cans and face gels would soon either go in the garbage or lead me to a security room where some Mormon security officer would strip search me. I put the small ones in a plastic bag and threw out about $100 worth of vanity. I made it through (and realized I still had cologne in my bag and nothing had happened). 9:38. I'm the last person they board. I'm magazineless and coffeeless and gumless and the storm is starting and I fucking hate flying. The plane starts moving and I ask the woman next to me to shut the window because I'm afraid of flying. "I like to look, thats why I got a window seat," says the bitch. I take a sedative and read that stupid "Air Store" catalogue thing and think of meadows and babies as the plane has a turbulent time getting to 40,000 feet.

But I made it back. And actually had a much easier time than others.

I'll do the whole reflections-on-a-sundance thing by day's end. But for now I'm just happy to be home.

Heres some of the aforementioned videos from Saturday night's Sundance awards ceremony... William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman, Quentin Tarantino, Diego Luna, Tony Hale.. Excuse the quality.. i just set down my flip and hit record at what seemed like interesting moments while I helped released the winners on the main site.

Last night Sundance shut down with their closing night awards ceremony and party (indieWIRE has all the winners here). The winners ranged from well-deserved to questionable (I had been personally rooting for Derek, and felt the cast of Sunshine Cleaning kicked the ensemble cast winner Choke's acting ass), and the Western themed proved campy fun (bartenders in western shirts; giant cactus balloons everywhere; silhouettes of dancing cowgirls inside wagons). The crowd (which included dreamy Diego Luna) stayed until they turned the lights. YouTubes being constructiony so I'll delay posting videos of some of the ceremony (which includes a funny rant by MC William H. Macy and the ramblings of presenter Quentin Tarantino), so I'll just leave with an indieWIRE pic of Diego Luna being the dreamboat that he is:

Look closely at the spelling of "FESTIVAL" in the upper right corner (and excuse the poor quality... with a scanner I am not)

Check out indieWIRE's dispatch, in honor of me being hungover from Sundance's "Homos Away From Home" party last night.

Yes, I'm still here (for 4 more days), but have been actually partaking in quite a bit of moviegoing (more on that another day) and have devoted all of my half-assed blogging to Heath Ledger-related disgust like John Gibson and Fred Phelps. So now I'm half-assed blogging again, but this time with actual Sundance content.. that being some photos from the past 10 days of the so-beautiful-a-monkey-could-take-a-pretty-picture Utah scenery. After the jump.

Pictured above is the majority of Canadian filmmakers here in Park City, including this morning's animated short Oscar nominees Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (for "Madame Tutli-Putli") and Josh Raskin (for "I Met The Walrus"). They all met up at the Canadian party, which also include a wink to Douglas Coupland with these murals posted up on the walls:

By the party's end, not too many people had attempted it.

I had the admittedly enjoyable experience of witnessing the two sides of the Sundance coin Saturday and Sunday nights. While Saturday I got to witness a Sundance reunion that epitomizes the importance of this festival past and present, last night I witnessed something representative of what Sundance has unfortunately become: Paris Hilton.

indieWIRE was asked to cover Regent Releasing's party for Paris' "independent" film, "The Hottie and the Nottie". Paris herself gave a nice little speech before I dined on eggplant soup and lamb. It was honestly a laugh riot, and my table seating allowed for some candid cameraing. More after the jump (I realize I've lost all credibility by posting this).

Perhaps my bitchy feelings about the Queer Brunch was more a result of relativity to the night prior. The photo above, taken by my colleague Brian, is Bruce LaBruce, Tom Kalin, Gregg Araki and Isaac Julien, who I had the indescribable experience of watching gather together to celebrate their new films (each have one playing at Sundance), and reflect on the old. B. Ruby Rich, Tilda Swinton, and Christine Vachon were also in attendance... I came late so I missed on what I was told were some remarkable and reflective speeches, particularly by Ms. Rich, though did have the terrifying honor of being sat down next to Isaac Julien (by his drunken and lovely publicist, who was determined to get Julien to talk to me about my thesis topic even though I made it clear I would not be able to form clear sentences). I did my best, but when Ms. Tilda Swinton interrupted us to say goodbye to Julien (she produced his Derek doc, which I'm seeing tomorrow) and I nearly lapsed into a coma.

The feeling of being in that room and witnessing all of that is something I have a hard time articulating, but it certainly made my Sundance.

My maiden voyage on the Sundance Shuttle form Main Street back to my condo at the Racquet Club was met with a bit of drama... The bus drivers switched at Sundance Headquarters (after a 20 minute wait), and the replacement appeared to be some sort of trainee, as another driver was standing beside him giving instructions. After running over half a dozen curbs, the driver finally climaxed his poor driving by running into a parked car, and then continuing to drive before some angry ladies at the back of the bus started screaming: "You hit a car!" When we finally pulled over, I couldn't deal with the shuttle anymore and walked the rest of the way. I was exhausted from a day of walking around and from this:

The Sundance Queer Brunch, which I had been kinda looking forward to all week. An email from a publicist went out a few days back, stating:

Just reminding you about the 12th annual Outfest Queer Brunch this Sunday in Sundance at 11am at the Grub Steak Restaurant, presented by here! Networks. Attending the brunch will be a wide range of stars attending Sundance, including Paris Hilton, Sharon Stone, Winona Ryder, Quentin Tarantino, Kirsten Dunst, Sean (P. Diddy) Combs, Dennis Quaid, Ginnifer Goodwin, Ellen Page, Hugh Dancy, Wes Bentley, Nick Cannon, and many others.

Hoping to realize my lifelong dream of befriending Winona Ryder, I was pleased to see the only "celebrity" I saw there was the gay mormon who won the latest Survivor. In fact, the whole ordeal was sorta like a bad gay bar with bacon and eggs, set to the tune of Britney and Beyonce. The grab bags were the kicker, filled with condoms, lube, bad gay DVDs and a copy of "Instinct"

Mary-Kate Olsen stalking was not the highlight of my first Friday night in Park City...

indieWIRE has posted the first of dozens of Sundance reviews, Christine Jeff's Sunshine Cleaning (which I'm seeing on Monday - the insanity of the first weekend will likely keep me out of the movie theatre). Our Anthony Kaufman was quite impressing with Cleaning, saying:

What could have been merely an exercise in quirky indie comedy, however, becomes a more serious dramedy about strained family relationships and overcoming the loss of loved ones.

Last night on Main Street, shortly before the power went out, an alcohol influenced attempt at sleezedom went down as I made some clips of Mary-Kate Olsen dancing to "Stronger" at the party for her film, The Wackness. I would have been too embarrassed to even post them, but they are so poorly made that I think this qualifies me more as a shitty cinematographer than as a paparazzi. Which for some reason is less embarrassing. Either way, try your best to make out half of Michelle Tanner:

My home and native land is in full force here in Park City, and not just because Ellen Page and Ryan Reynolds both are in movies here. 13 Canadian films are being showcased at Sundance, and another 4 are screening at Slamdance. Telefilm head honcho Wayne Clarkson said of this presence: "Programmers at prestigious international festivals, such as Sundance, continue to recognize that Canadian independent filmmakers stand with the best in world cinema. In addition to extensive visibility in national and foreign media, Canadian players will be able to take advantage of Park City's vibrant market, where we have a solid record of attracting buyers and garnering awards."

Among the notable Canadiana is Be Like Others, a Canadian produced look at a generation of Iranian men who undergo sex change surgery; Yung Chang's (a graduate of my Concordia University) debut, Up The Yangtze; Bruce LaBruce's Canada-Germany co-prod, Otto or Up With Dead People (aforementioned a few entries down as a gay zombie love story); and a Canada-US co-prod, Steven Schachter's The Deal, starring Meg Ryan and William H. Macy. A Canadian film is opening Slamdance for the second year in a row (last year was Weirdsville) with Real Time, starring Randy Quaid and Jay Baruchel.

But perhaps Canada's most interesting presence is in the shorts section, where they occupy 6 of the 84 slots...

Utah
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

During the 1870s and 1880s, laws were passed to punish polygamists, and in the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church banned polygamy. When Utah applied for statehood again, it was accepted. One of the conditions for granting Utah statehood was that a ban on polygamy be written into the state constitution. This was a condition required of other western states that were admitted into the Union later. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896. Utah was the last state admitted in the Nineteenth century.

Jell-O is the official snack food of Utah, giving rise to the term the Jell-O Belt.

In lieu of attending opening night festivities, indieWIRE made some chili at our Racquet Club condo, and as the above shoes (photo by EH) suggest, the idea ended up being quite popular. The crew from SpoutBlog showed up and even gave our chili fest an appearance toward the end of their daily Sundance clip

Sundance 2: Opening Night

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Folks on Main Street in Park City getting ready to bring in some real beer for Sundance's opening night festivities tonight. Utah's bizarre booze laws include serving 3.2% beer, but for Sundance, they are importing in the real deal.

For the CBC no less, queer director-artist-smutmaster Bruce LaBruce is blogging on his Sundance '08 experience here. LaBruce is here promoting his Sundance film "Otto; Or Up With Dead People,"which is a midnight at Park City entry that follows a gay zombie lookin' for love in Berlin. Bruce's blog had its first entry today, where he gets nostalgic for Sundance past:

I can’t remember much about my screening in 1995, but I do vividly recall attending Larry Clark’s Kids, the sensation of the festival, as the guest of its executive producer, Gus Van Sant, and its writer, Harmony Korine. I remember because Gus and his then-boyfriend, D-J, and I smuggled a bottle of tequila into the screening and kept slipping it to Harmony, who was under the legal drinking age. Fun times!

I ain't got nothing on that.

My first full day in Park City (and the first time seeing it in the light) was remarkably calm. But you can totally feel this anxiety in the town as if something is about to explode (which it sorta is). I still can't get over how much snow there is. Its been many years since I've seen snowbanks so high.

Some more photos from the day after the jump. Mostly from shopping excursion (where I was de-virginized from the world of "Ruby Tuesdays").

We turned on ABC expecting The View this morning but instead got this bizarre Utah-version of that show, complete with hideous sound, a hysterical theme song and hot topics such as "its cold outside." This is a clip (which works now) I found from last year, but it gives the jist.

I didn't take that picture (its from the mainsite). But its what it looked like here this afternoon, when I was somewhere over middle America trying to calm my nerves by reading People magazine while the mormons behind me kept randomly switching seats for no apparent reason. When I arrived, it was 7pm, and I took a chartered minivan from Salt Lake City to Park City, and everything was pretty dark so all I could see was faint suggestions of what I assume is an incredible landscape. Now Im at the Racquet Club, catching up on a depressing amount of emails and the day's news (Brad Renfro dead! Academy snubs 4 Months and Persepolis! Grammys and Oscar aren't looking good!). I'm too tired to go into anything and need to get myself situated. Check out the main site for where my more energetic efforts will go here. But I'll leave with this, in honor of Andrew Morton's skeezography being released on Tom Cruise. Show me the crazy...

This is just part one.. other parts after the jump. Hurry before Xenu takes it off again.