Sundance Diary: Dinner with Alan Rickman!
Jan 19, 2008, 11:51 AM | by Missy Schwartz
Categories: Sundance Film Festival 2008
Hello there, PopWatchers! It is currently 1:40 a.m. here in Park City, Utah. And after a very long day that began at 6:30 a.m., I am going to put off sleep a bit longer to report what fun, snowy, movie-ish things happened to me today at the Sundance Film Festival.
My first screening today was Good Dick, which was being touted as some sort of reinvention of the romantic comedy. I thought it was the reinvention of torture. And I wasn't alone: At the 11:30 a.m. premiere, almost the entire left-hand side of the theater, which is where the fancy-pants acquisitions folks were seated, left after 30 minutes. I was jealous. But in the interest of trying to say at least something positive about the movie, um…well…Jason Ritter was cute.
Later, I caught the premiere of The Guitar, the directorial debut of Amy Redford. It's the story of a woman (played by model Saffron Burrows) who reacts to the news that she has throat cancer by buying a lot of stuff that she can't afford and sleeping with the parcel delivery guy and the pizza delivery gal. Sometimes both of them at once. She also learns to play the guitar. Janeane Garofalo plays her doctor. (Garofalo's pink-lipsticked mouth got a lot of very tight close-ups. Weird.) As for how this movie played, all I'll say is that I fear for the daughter of the Sundance Film Festival founder. Poor gal.
After the jump: Details on our dinner with Alan Rickman!
The end of my day more than made up for the lousy start. As planned, I met Whitney "El Jefe" Pastorek at the Bon Appétit Supper Club dinner for Bottle Shock, and we somehow managed to snag seats at the table where cast members Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman (hubba hubba!) were seated. Eliza Dushku was at the next table over, and at one point, she attempted to climb the wall. It was odd. I have no idea what she was doing. Nor did Whitney. We were too busy enjoying the fantastic Chardonnay provided by the Chateau Montelena Winery, which is the very place that inspired Bottle Shock. We were very lucky indeed to taste their superb goods since, as a rep from the Chateau Montelena pointed out in one of the many speeches that I half-listened to, "Park City is not a wine-friendly town." (Methinks she was referring to the Mormons' dislike for alcohol.)
The movie, a based-on-a-true-story dramedy about how the aforementioned winery managed to impress the hell out of the French in 1976, played well. Soon-to-be Kirk Chris Pine held his own against Pullman and Rickman, though he was burdened with a sorry-looking wig that reminded me of Dana Carvey's Garth rug. I plan on asking him about it tomorrow, when the Bottle Shock peeps descend on the EW photo studio.
Until then, I bid you good night, dear PopWatchers.
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