I've been super-exhausted ever since I got back from Sundance -- not from seeing all those movies and doing all that work, but from catching up on all the TV I missed while I was gone. Oh, kidding. Sort of.
(Note: I did actually blog for work while I was there. Not as much as I should've, but a little. Click here to see my posts; you'll see my box office prediction from this past Friday, too.)
Going to Sundance during the first half of the festival is both good and bad. On the down side, you arrive not knowing which films are going to have the most buzz, so you sort of have to make your best guess about what's going to be worth seeing. Therefore, my colleagues who went for the second half of the festival got to see better films than I did, since they were able to be choosier, whereas much of the time I'd guessed wrong.
On the plus side, there's more going on during the first half of the festival. We had a production crew there to film interviews with celebrities, and I had a blast hanging out with them as well as watching some of the interviews. On a very busy Sunday, I talked or was otherwise in close proximity to Steve Buscemi, Sienna Miller, Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Heather Graham, Victor Rasuk (he was in Raising Victor Vargas and Lords of Dogtown), Zooey Deschanel, Chris Klein, and Ginnifer Goodwin. In fact, I had a lovely time chatting with Ginnifer Goodwin (who's dating Chris Klein) in the green room while Chris Klein was off doing his interview. She's adorable, by the way, and very down-to-earth. I much prefer her to Katie Holmes.
There was supposed to be a Nathan Fillion/Keri Russell interview that day (for their movie Waitress), but it ended up being cancelled. But I was able to attend a public screening of Waitress the next day, and since I got there late I happened to be sitting in the front row (helpful tip: If you ever go to one of these things, sit in the front row), which meant that when they brought the cast out to take questions afterward, I was in Nathan Fillion's direct line of sight and only about 15 feet away. Nathan Fillion (or as I like to call him, Nathan Fillion) is one of those celebs I don't just have a crush on -- I actually harbor the delusion that he would make a good boyfriend. My boyfriend, in particular. So when I saw him, and he looked at me for a good several seconds, my heart went all a-flutter. I was goddamn swoony.
It's funny because immediately after that I went to a screening of Dedication, where I met a woman who works in another division of my company. She, being a sane person, hearts the Fillion as well, and I excitedly told her about my close encounter. "Is he single?" she asked. "I think so, but I don't know," I said. We gave each other a look, and then laughed. Because we'd both been thinking the exact same thing: "Oh, he's single? Well, I totally have a shot, then!" As if his being married would've taken us out of the running, but not, you know, his being a big-time Hollywood star.
Incidentally, perhaps my best star sighting of all was Harvey Weinstein, in the lobby of the Eccles theater after I saw Dedication, which the Weinstein Company bought. In the theater I'd already seen Billy Crudup, Justin Theroux, Mandy Moore and Bob Balaban; but somehow, seeing Harvey made the whole Sundance experience seem complete.
I didn't go to many parties while I was there -- I'm just not that well-connected; no one cares about networking with me -- but on Monday night there was a party thrown by AOL Music, which was a mini-concert played by the L.A. band Silversun Pickups. While I thought I knew nothing about them, it turned out they have at least one song that I'd heard before, "Lazy Eye," which was featured on this past week's episode of The O.C. (You can listen to the whole song here.)
They put on a great show. I was right up in front, dancing and bantering with the lead singer, who was wearing earmuffs around his neck, for some reason. (Him: "Are you all getting lots of free stuff here at Sundance?" Me: "No! You're our free stuff!") And of course there was an open bar, and of course I got a little (OK, a lot) toasted on some drink the bartender claimed to have invented for me called The Sundance, and then we all went upstairs to the green room afterward and hung out with the band. And I remember spending quite a long time talking to the lead singer (name: Brian Aubert), who's pretty cute and kept laughing at my jokes and touching my arm. Naturally, he ended up having a girlfriend -- or at least she acted like she was his girlfriend -- who was there, in the green room with us. Afterward, I asked people why he would flirt with me when his girlfriend was right there, and they all patiently told me, as if talking to a child: "Because he's a rock star."
The next morning was Oscar nominations, and I was supposed to wake up at 5:30 to help update the site. I already figured I was going to be out late, so I'd told everyone that I wasn't going to sleep that night at all. Yeah, because that plan always works out so well. Suffice it to say that at 2 a.m. (or whenever it was), when this guy Dave, who was with the band somehow, told me that a bunch of people were going over to the band's condo and did I want to come, the fact that I was supposed to wake up at 5:30 the next morning was not even a blip on my radar. I wasn't exercising the best judgment. It could've cost me my job. But I'm sorry, when a rock band asks you to come hang out with them in their condo, YOU GO.
It's all very hazy at this point -- I believe there was a hot tub involved, though I did not partake; and I made a fool of myself trying to hit on this cute PR guy named Matt; and I freaked out at some point because I couldn't find my purse -- but fortunately there were two other people present who are also employed by my corporate overlord (again, I'd never met them before, I think they work in sales or something). They were sober enough to call our on-call PA, a Mormon cutie named Allen, and get him to drive us home. I did feel bad that we woke this poor boy up at God knows what hour and made him come pick us up, but whenever I mention this to any of my production-minded colleagues, they say, "Whatever, it's his job." I had enjoyed chatting with Allen on another occasion when he drove me from the studio to another condo. Turns out he's a fledgling director (of COURSE) working on a spoof of 24, so we talked about that for a bit -- and afterward, somebody told me that his little spoof stars Donny Osmond. I'm two degrees removed from Donny Osmond! At last!
Well, that was my Sundance experience, more or less. (I'll post about buzz, and movies I liked, some other time.) I worked a lot and was exhausted all the time and dealt with annoying crap occasionally, but overall I had fun. Next year, why don't you all come meet up with me? I'm tight with the Silversun Pickups, after all. I'm pretty sure I can get you in.
