Sundance Diary: The Nine Best and Worst Things at the Festival

In trying to sum up my entire Sundance experience, I admit I'm struggling a little. How to put a tidy bow on ten days of my life that were simultaneously thrilling and repetitive, inspiring and depressing, much easier than digging ditches but no cakewalk, either? Is it possible to enjoy a week and a half of seeing good movies and drinking free cocktails and hanging out with famous people if you've only slept for about 12 hours the entire time? And should you be drinking the free cocktails if breakfast, lunch, and dinner were a Clif bar? How do you catch a wave upon the sand, PopWatchers?

Well, I'm not sure. But I do know that my first film festival was an experience I'll not soon forget, and I hope these blogs—in all their spazzy self-involvement—have given those of you not yet lucky enough to attend Sundance or its fellow festival brethren a little bit of insight into what the process is like. I certainly wasn't expecting to be as tired/hungry/emotional as I was the entire time, but I didn't expect to get a hug from Barry "Tequila" Zito, either, so I guess it all evens out.

And maybe it's because it's colder here in NYC than it was in Utah (or maybe it's because my apartment is nothing at all like a Marriott), but by the time our plane landed last night, I was already feeling the strands of Sundance slip away, the "really weird dream sequence" dissipating into the chaos of baggage claim and cab rides and piles of junk mail and unanswered personal e-mails. I sat next to the mighty Missy Schwartz on the plane and watched her writing her wrap-up for the magazine and realized that the journalism never stops here at EW—but the world also doesn't stop in order for us to get our journalism done. By the time I sit down and go through my notes and try to come up with deep and meaningful things to say about the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, life will have moved on—Isaiah Washington is due to say something else offensive any day now—and no one will care. Time is of the essence, and, as with all blogs, so is expediency. I'm sure you've all appreciated the way I cannot for the life of me be concise, even in this ADD-inspired format. For that, PopWatchers, I am sorry. And I wish I could make these words blink to better get your attention, but I'll just have to hope a couple of you are hanging in there. Also, had I known that cat poster was going to come to symbolize this entire experience, I may have thought twice about attending.

So what's the best way to do this wrap-up? I guess I'm going with a list. This is America, after all, and if we can't put stuff next to bullet points to help us remember history, then it's as though it never happened at all.

[insert trumpet fanfare]

WHITNEY'S LIST OF THE TOP NINE THINGS BOTH GOOD AND NOT SO MUCH FROM SUNDANCE 2007

9. Rolling Suitcases
What was the must-have accessory of the festival? If three's a trend, then consider this: In Rocket Science, Reece Thompson's stuttering debater turned a brown wheeled suitcase into a Linus-style security blanket. In Life Support, Queen Latifah used a black rolling bag to transport condoms and safe-sex pamphlets around her Brooklyn neighborhood. And on the streets of Park City, director Crispin Glover (It's Fine Everything is FINE) was never once seen without his trusty luggage. There were plenty of themes at Sundance—therapeutic sex, masturbation, dead pets—but this one was the most random. Also, the one least likely to make me really uncomfortable.

8. Teeth
The last movie I saw was also the craziest: Teeth, Mitchell Lichtenstein's schlocky, surprisingly funny exploration of the vagina dentata, a.k.a., a chick who can bite off penises with her, well, you know. And bite she did; this is not a movie for the faint of heart. But for a bunch of exhausted people in a Friday night press screening, it might have been just the kick in the pants we needed to make it through one last day. Congrats to star Jess Weixler for her dry, controlled performance—it won her an acting award—and to everyone involved in this film for giving the EW staff a chance to sing "Vagina Dentata" to the tune of "Hakuna Matata" every day for the foreseeable future.

7. The Holiday Village Sprint
The Holiday Village is a movie theater located about a half mile from the Marriott hotel where I was staying, and since a half mile (even at 7,000 feet) is a very walkable distance for any good New Yorker, I frequently chose to hoof it there rather than waiting for the shuttle. But what a half mile (at 7,000 feet) is NOT is a pleasant distance to run, especially not at 8:27am, while wearing snow boots, before I've had any coffee, desperate to make it to a press screening for a movie whose cast members I'm scheduled to interview later that day. I have never before wished for powers of teleportation quite as strongly as I did while trying to negotiate the icy sidewalk in front of American Lumber at high speeds. Next year, I'm hiring someone to stay in my hotel room and be in charge of waking my ass up.

6. My Hotel Room
My accomodations at the Park City Marriott faced the swimming pool, which is indoors and sheltered under a skinny skylight. Natural light only hits the ground in that atrium when the sun is directly overhead, and thus the amount of daylight making it into my room was pretty much exactly the same all day long, whether 9am or 6pm or 3am. And as Sondheim might say, perpetual sunset is rather an unsettling thing. For all those wondering why I spent so much of my time at Sundance on the brink of a nervous breakdown, I invite you to give Room 215 a try sometime.

5. Bangkok Thai
When I wasn't eating Clif bars, I was eating the delicious pad thai from this establishment. And although this and every other restaurant in Park City puts a truly inordinate amount of salt in their food—my theory is that they're trying to force us all to drink water in order to stave off the pulmonary edema—it was still a life-saving alternative to granola wrapped in plastic.

4. Our Bartender, Corey
Also life-saving: bloody marys.

3. Friday Night Dates
My usual NYC habit of meeting with friends for dinner on Fridays found its way to Park City, and I got the chance to see how the locals lived when my pal Bridgette and her mountain-man boyfriend Matt took me out to their cabin and made me steak. Getting to the cabin required a snowmobile ride over a snowed-in pass, and when we buzzed back to the car after dinner—with the moon shining down on the snow and everything sparkling and colorless and spooky—I thought I might die from the beauty of it all, even though my face was freezing off from going 40 mph on a snowmobile in the dead of night. My favorite reminder that there was life outside the inside of a movie theater.

2. The Savages/Crazy Love
The first two movies I saw at Sundance, and still two of the best. Sure, the quality didn't stay that consistent for all 10 days, but I remember sitting in the theater and thinking, Man, if this is the kind of stuff I get to see all week, I am the luckiest gal on Earth.

1. The Nines
Oh, like any of you are shocked this is No. 1. It's been a rollercoaster ride ever since this movie came into my life—at first, I felt exhilarated, but then somehow (gosh, I wonder how) word got out that I was obsessed with this movie, and I started to feel a little self-conscious about all the drooling I'd done. Even John August, the director himself, referenced me on his blog as basically the Nines superfan. For a couple of days, I tried to pull it back, tried to reclaim my dignity, tried to pretend like I was way excited about an artsy, foreign, depressing documentary instead... but I can't lie anymore, PopWatchers. I really think this movie changed something in me, for whatever reason, and it's so rare that I have that kind of response to anything these days (see: "cold, frigid womb"). I hesitate to use the phrase "religious experience"—those who have seen the movie will understand why—but for me, The Nines was the most powerful example I've felt in years of great art's ability to reach through the fourth wall and capture the hearts and minds of its audience. Redford wanted me to Focus on the Damn Film, and this is what I'm doing. Dear Distributing People: I AM NOT EFFING AROUND. BUY IT. If nothing else, I need other people to watch it so I can stop feeling like the crazy lady who saw the Virgin Mary on her Toaster Strudel.

And that, PopWatchers, is all I have to say. It's been real, it's been fun, and like 65 percent of the time, it was even real fun. Thanks for sitting in my pocket this whole time. I hope you'll jump back in tomorrow for quick interviews with the filmmakers behind Everything's Cool and Low and Behold, and that you will remember to have your pets spayed and neutered. Also, keep those feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars. This is far too short a denoument, considering everything we've been through together, but my fingers hurt. Pastorek out!