11:45 AM
Goddamn need for sleep! After agonizing over which film to see this morning - "Skins," an American Indian film rumored to posess an abundance of power, or "Love Liza," which was the first film I picked out to see and haven't yet managed to see - I slept too late and missed 'em both. Fuck my eyelids!

Disappointed in yesterday's movies - Cherish was rather lame and "Storytelling" was underwhelming, although I suppose I should be thankful I didn't leave the latter with an unquenchable need to clean and purge myself, what with it being a Todd Solondz movie and all. However, I did lay eyes upon Parker Posey, Christina Ricci, Kyle MacLachlan, the long-haired Lone Gunman from "X-Files" and even exchanged pleasantries with Robin Williams. Nothing mortifying yet.

Saw Ebert this morning. And Rhys Ifans.

Everyone everywhere is always on a cellular telephone.

Everyone also insists that I see "Amelie."

I feel I should be having more biting commentary and droll observations, but I'm still somewhat in awe of the whole experience, running around and seeing movies all day, working at night, doing my real job even later at night, going to bed around 4 AM and waking up at 7-9ish and starting all over again. It's pretty cool. Although I suppose the more I say that, the more it sounds like I'm rubbing it in the faces of all who cannot attend.

I'm sitting in the theater, waiting for "The Man From Elysian Fields" to start, featuring Andy Garcia, Mick Jagger and the lovely and talented James Coburn. Must be off.

DAY 8 - 1/16/2002

2:08 AM
What could be worse than a shit-ass rich-white-kid-boring-ass-murder-mystery-party movie? TWO of them. After I saw that Mick Jagger movie, that was the rest of my evening on Tuesday. Elysian Fields was pretty good, but then, instead of seeing one of the three cool movies I had planned to see, I was suckered by my own lame priorities into seeing an "alternative to Sundance" movie called R.S.V.P. My rationale was that it was easier to get to and it featured Jason Mewes in what has to be his first non-Jay-and-Silent-Bob role (don't be fooled, he's still Jay - they just call him 'Terry'). It was apparently supposed to be a black comedy, but it turned out that they hadn't added the humor yet. To be fair, they said they still had a month of work to do on it and the sound was a rough mix, but you'd think if they hadn't put the comedy into their comedy yet, they wouldn't really want to show it to people. We were supposed to "laugh" our "asses off." They called it "rock and roll Hitchcock." There was nothing rock and/or roll about this shitty re-make of "Rope."

Then I saw "Taboo" during my workshift, which also sucked quite a copious amount of ass, despite featuring Shitbreak in it. It was the same kind of shit as the first one - boring rich white "young adults" gather for drinks and impossibly stupid self-important-attempts-at-clever conversations and for some reason wind up killing each other. Although I must be fair - "R.S.V.P." featured a black man and an Asian woman at the party, too. Both God Awful.

Tomorrow, I'm trying for "Human Nature" - the writer of Being John Malkovich strikes again. But time for bed now.

1:58 PM
I apparently needed more sleep today, so I missed everything. I'm going to try to make my way 'cross town to check out a documentary called "The Two Towns of Jasper," but until then, I'm gonna catch up as much as I can on writing the reviews. I don't want to have all my film memories muddled together. I'm also way behind on my review of "Orange County," which I saw before I left. Jack Black and Harold Ramis are the only things worthwhile in that movie, by the way. More to come.

DAY 10 - 1/18/2002

3:08 AM
I haven't slept yet, so technically I didn't really skip a day. So don't get pissy with me.

I got up at 7:30 this morning to go see a lame hunk of lame called Killing Time. Then I saw a pretty good upbeat "Harold and Maude" sorta flick called "Tadpole" that was fun enough, despite having a somewhat sitcommish feel to it. Then I hung out with some friends that blew into town in some absurdly humungous house that someone I know is remodeling or something. It's just ludicrously enormous - the kind of house you can play paintball in. But that's not important right now.

So I've seen 15.5 movies in my tenure here - I didn't really pay full attention to what I saw of "Hiphopbattle.com: Hiphop For Life," even though it was filmed in Ohio (keepin' it real) and featured some decent freestylin' MC battles. But any movie ending with a plug for their website can just bite it. I was also a little disappointed because the rumors that Busta Rhymes might show up to check the film out turned out to be untrue. Mr. Rhymes is "my dog."

The schedule is starting to wear me down a bit. I'm not burnt out on seeing movies, but I'm just starting to lean towards choosing a few hours of sleep over watching another flick - this "Killing Time" issue sealed that one. But I think I'll finally see "Love Liza" tomorrow, and I'll try to see the Jodie Foster flick "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys." I've also got to start eating food that isn't sold at concession stands. I wonder if it's possible to overdose on hot chocolate.

I now feel a little bad about talking about how awful "Taboo" was, since tonight, during it's second showing, certain behind-the-scenes players were hanging out with our crew, talking about how much it got completely screwed over in the editing process by the producers and was turned from a campy horror comedy into a lame attempt at a dramatic suspense flick. He was pretty funny, and apparently surprised when he viewed it for the first time, not believing he'd shot enough footage for them to change the ending. There's no guarantee any horror comedy would be humorous at all, but at least the people behind this film are aware that it just ain't no good. At least I now know who to blame.

I need sleepy sleep. I'm yawnin' like a whore in church.

DAY 11 - 1/19/2002

11:23 AM
So, I found my lame need for sleep catching up with me again. I woke up this morning in an attempt to go view "Bloody Sunday" only to find my eyes hurting and my entire being refusing to relinquish sleepytime. So I slept too late to see that and the other thing I wanted to see this morning, that "XX/XY" deal. So I'm going to go see the Shorts Program at 5:30 that contains "I Shout Love," which, once again, I was commanded to see by my friend. Then our midnight show is "Hollywood Hong Kong," which I know nothing about.

I guess I'm burning out a little early - maybe I'm just a rookie. Finally saw Love Liza yesterday, and I dug it. Philip Seymour Hoffman managed to periodically remind me of Jack Black somehow, although I may have just had him on the mind because I was hoping he'd show up since he co-starred with the director. I WAS going to see "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" only to find myself waiting/riding a shuttle for what seemed like eons and getting there entirely too late. Yesterday was not a good day for the friggin' shuttles. I did a lot of standing around and waiting in the cold, and then nodding off several times as we waited for traffic to clear. Somehow, I didn't get all that pissed off though. I don't get pissed off a lot. I think that's a good thing, although it periodically makes for having less negativity to spew towards films that most likely deserve it than I should.

Also, last night was the premiere screening of "Britney Baby One More Time," which I managed to see already anyway, because I'm an industry insider and extremely important to the art of film itself. I am disturbed because Robert Stephens aka Angel Benton, who's dressed as Britney Spears throughout the film, looks extraordinarily like her for a guy. It was agreed by a handful of staff members that he was indeed the prettiest man they'd seen, even wearing a Mighty Ducks jersey and dressed as a dude. It's disturbing... yet... so intriguing. Maybe I'll go sit in a corner later and question my identity. The upside of last evening's events is that I finally mustered up the courage to annoy celebrities - insofar as Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank are celebrities. I went up and chatted with them briefly and got my picture taken with them, and they seemed gracious and cool enough that I didn't feel like I was a jackass about it. So there. I have one celebrity-n-me photo, and that's all I need.

So tomorrow I leave this state for the warmer climate of northern California. I never thought I'd be pansy enough to look forward to that, but it can get pa-retty damn cold here. I may have lived in California long enough to whittle away my Ohio-born stamina. This is a source of great dismay for me. I am also out of milk so I can't have Mueslix. I suppose I could make some oatmeal with water, though.

I'm tired. So tired. I shall report back later.

DAY 12 - 1/20/2002

The festival draws to a close, and it seems most folks have lit out of here like the proverbial bats out of the proverbial hell, as my attempt to see "Secretary" - special award for originality winner - this morning is accompanied by perhaps 20 people in a theater that holds zillions. This is perhaps a good thing, since they couldn't synch up the sound with the picture and cancelled the screening. I hear it's good. James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal, yadda yadda. So I check out "Ski Bums" for some reason, a documentary on poor losers who somehow manage to spend every day of their lives playing a hugely expensive sport. That was actually more amusing than I expected it to be, perhaps solely because there's a man nicknamed "Crucial Mike" that was rather droll.

For my last Sundance film viewing, I took in the award-winning short films, two of the seven I had seen the day previous, along with a documentary on Ralph Ellison, which was pretty interesting. I don't feel that comfortable reviewing documentaries because they always feel like educational films, and the level of involvement in them depends upon how interesting the chosen topic is, really. I'm sure there are some horrible documentaries made - with sloppy, boring interviews and grossly inaccurate information, but I'd rarely be able to tell.

So the short films I saw were pretty good. The grand champion, a film called "Gasline" was pretty good, although I was left wanting more - which speaks well for what was there, but not for the closure. I think my personal favorite was "Bus 44," a quick, potent little story about how shitty it is to stand by and gawk at horrors rather than attempting to stop them. "Morning Breath: A Brooklyn Love Story" was interesting at first, but soon became arduous - a street thug torn between his homies and his girl. "The Parlor" pissed me off because it's a great idea that I should have come up with first and done better - putting a bunch of real people in the same room and give them internet chat room dialog and nametags like screen names. Also, there was a cool little docu-short about the reactions of three little girls to their uncle getting a sex-change operation. "I Shout Love," which I was commanded to see, was interesting, if a little grating at times. It's about a semi-psychotic woman who, on the verge of having her longtime boyfriend leave her for another woman, throws a fit and threatens suicide until the guy stays with her for one more night and relives all the good things about their relationship, since she never realized that the last time they did certain things would be THE last time they'd do it. It's a cute concept, made a little awkward by how initially annoying the lead gal is. It takes a while to warm up to her. Overall, though, I did like it - captures a lot of how messy and hard it can be to end a relationship.

The show is over now, the fun is done, and the trip to the Salt Lake City airport beckons. A good time was had by all, and I do indeed plan to return next year at all costs. I must give a special "shout-out" and unending gratitude to one Tegan Bradford for making it all possible, and to the whole midnight Egyptian crew for making everything fun and groovy.

Now, back to paying 9 bucks a pop for movies. I'll miss that handy badge.