Sundance Diary: Hey, 'Waitress,' how about some pie?

Overheard on the Main Street Express shuttle bus, 10:15am, Jan. 25: "And then Cuba Gooding Jr. started screaming, 'A free piss! A free piss!'"

Howdy there, PopWatchers.

Usually I'd put an exclamation point at the end of that, but the fact is, I'm pretty depressed today. It's these Sundance movies -- why are they all so sad? War, death, global warming, death, unpleasant sex, war, drugs, death, death, death... Why is it so hard to make a movie about bunnies, Sundance? Where is that exposé on the fluffy cuteness of bunnies??

I guess it hit me yesterday afternoon, as I was running -- RUNNING -- to catch a screening of My Kid Could Paint That, one of the few documentaries at this festival that does not focus on how this world has gone to hell in a handbasket because people treat each other (and the world) very, very badly. So there I am, running. And I'm wearing this pair of swag boots I picked up (the very same kind that Matisyahu snagged for his wife OMG!), because after eight days in the same pair of North Face clunkers I brought from home, my toes were trying to secede from the union of my feet. And I'm running, and I step on what looks like sidewalk, but it is not. It is a hole full of slushy ice, and I go down. And because my swag boots are basically nylon tubes, my ankle secedes from the union of what angle my ankle is supposed to be at, and just explodes. By the time I get to the screening, it's sold out, and I'm left limping, wet, out of breath, and once again: depressed.

I tell this story for two reasons: One, to point out the bad karma that inevitably comes from cavalierly accepting a pile of free s--- and then bragging about it in blog posts, and two, to demonstrate how one little incident here at Sundance can wreck your rhythm for the rest of the day and pitch you inextricably out of sorts. Because after missing that My Kid... screening, I came back to eat Thai food in the photo studio, only to find myself locked out; I eventually got in and immediately fell asleep instead of blogging; our rockin' video editor Jason Averett woke me up with minutes to spare before my next screening; and then I was back out running again.

Luckily, I made it to the library in time to see Low and Behold, a movie I am liking more and more the farther away I get from it -- but still a movie which was shot in post-Katrina New Orleans, and is, therefore, brain-crushingly depressing. It's the story of a shy claims adjustor and the NOLA native he befriends while driving around the city, measuring the devastation, and the rubble just goes on for days. It's really more of a docu-drama, featuring interviews with people who lost their homes and shot after shot of moldy walls and destroyed homes and entire fields where houses have been swept away. Powerful stuff, but then you try and enjoy your cocktail hour, ya know?

Quick round-up of other stuff I've seen lately:

Life Support
Queen Latifah is an HIV-positive AIDS activist working to stop the spread of the virus through her Brooklyn community. Ms. Owens turns in her usual warm and winning performance, but -- you guessed it -- AIDS is depressing.

Chapter 27
Fat Jared Leto shoots John Lennon. This movie was exacly the right length, but -- you guessed it -- crazy people assassinating rock stars is depressing.

Waitress
Ah, Waitress. I'm glad I can finally report on this for you, PopWatchers! It's been one of the most buzzed about films out here -- thanks to the depressingly tragic murder of its writer/director, Adrienne Shelly, back in November -- and like anything that's been overhyped, it suffered under the burden of expectation (and some of my overly rigid anti-maternal philosophies, brought about thanks to my cold, frigid womb). Still, Keri Russell is a revelation -- I wrote the word "RADIANT" in my notebook -- and in the role of her disgustingly abusive husband, Jeremy Sisto is certainly disgusting. Nathan Fillion makes for a cute doctor, Cheryl Hines is her usual hi-larious self, and Ms. Shelly took direction from herself like a pro. The real standouts here, though, were the lovingly-filmed pie-making sequences, because I freaking love pie, and I suppose if I can't watch bunnies, pies will have to do.

Mmm. Pie. Maybe I could rub some on my ankle.