My Continuing Sundance Saga

--Park City, UT.) It’s been an interesting couple of days here at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. I’ve seen 17 films – I think. It could be more, it could be less. I think the altitude, bad coffee and many hipsters wandering the streets are combining to get to me. But as a dutiful blogger I must keep pressing forward. My loyal readers expect nothing less.

The best movie I’ve seen so far concerns the tale of Susan B. Devereaux (played by Kate Winslet in her 11th straight Academy Award-worthy performance) who wins the infamous Iditarod Sled Race. It is done in one continuous, unbroken camera shot that lasts for the length of the entire movie – 127 minutes. Some people found this a bit daunting. Many people walked out. I stayed to the last credit.

The worst movie I’ve seen so far concerns Michael Bay’s chamber piece about three friends playing a game of Trivial Pursuit. At first it seemed Bay was determined to break out of the routine for which he’s usually known. But, unfortunately, at the 37 minute mark (I know – I checked my watch), Bay could not hold back any longer and a vicious explosion rocked the small apartment in which this game was being contested. The main characters then rush out of the apartment to find themselves in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge. How three teenage Americans speaking in modern day slang playing Trivial Pursuit (which, to my knowledge, was not around during World War II) is still baffling to me. I walked out. Everyone else stayed.

In a related note, I spotted Katie Holmes at a bar (drinking Sierra Nevada! I always knew she was cool like that!) and, of course, approached her. It was a bit of an awkward conversation until I managed a witty comment (too witty to repeat here) and made her laugh. I quickly walked away to leave her on a high-note. Subsequently, I found myself banned from the next movie I attempted to attend my tall men in black cloaks handing out scientology “literature”.