Day 6 (Tuesday, January 23):

I felt justified in sleeping in this morning, since I’d been out until after 2 a.m. Plus, yesterday was the last day of City Weekly’s coverage, so I had no more specific assignments for that organization. Plus, I don’t have to explain myself to you, so get off my back.

I was actually awakened at 9:30 by the gentle, soothing hand of City Weekly overlord Scott Renshaw, who told me I needed to move my car because I was blocking another CW correspondent who had to leave. I completed that task and then heard refreshing news from Renshaw: The Oscar nominations had come in (that part wasn’t news; I was expecting them), and “Dreamgirls” had NOT been nominated for Best Picture!

The reason this is refreshing is that certain pundits and observers have been declaring this film a front-runner, even a shoo-in, for MONTHS, even before they saw it. And while it’s a perfectly good movie, it’s not the Best Picture of 2006. Seeing it not even get nominated meant we could breathe a sigh of relief, for if it had gotten a nod, there would have been the chance it would actually win. Now the only one we have to worry about winning is the mediocre “Babel” — which, considering its similarities both in content and quality to “Crash,” might pull it off, since apparently the Academy loves crappy, obvious “message” films about ridiculous coincidences and plot contrivances.

But none of this has to do with Sundance, so I will get back to the point.

None of the morning press screenings appealed to me, so I went to press headquarters to check on some public screenings. They’ve changed this process this year, and not for the better. It used to be that at the Eccles and Library venues (the two largest), members of the press could show up an hour before a public screening and they’d have some tickets to give out, about 50 at the Eccles, and 10 at the Library. For other venues, you had to request a ticket 24 hours in advance, but it usually wasn’t a problem.

As of this year, ALL tickets for public screenings must be requested a day in advance. The general impression we’re getting is that they want the press to stay at press screenings only, and leave the public screenings for the public.

At any rate, I requested a ticket for tomorrow’s public screening of “Joshua,” which I’ve heard great things about. The personnel handling ticket requests said immediately that all the available press tickets had already been given out for that showing, “before we even opened this morning.”

I said, “Can I request a ticket to the other public screening, then, two days from now?”

“No, you can only request tickets the day before.”

I knew this, but I had asked so that I could make my next point: “Then how could all of tomorrow’s ‘Joshua’ tickets have been given out before you even opened today, if today was the earliest anyone could have requested them?” You can see that I have learned cross-examination from the master, Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy on “Law & Order.”

The answer to my question required calling over another ticket person, who explained that perhaps it hadn’t been meant LITERALLY, but that as soon as they opened today, the few tickets set aside for tomorrow’s “Joshua” were snatched up. The point is, there had only been a few tickets to begin with — not the 50 there would have been in years past — and they were gone within minutes of the press office opening this morning.

(I should also point out that the Sundance press office personnel are unfailingly polite, informed, friendly, and tireless. I was frustrated, but I don’t think I was short with them. At least I hope I wasn’t. Don’t get on the bad side of people who control your access to tickets, that’s my policy.)

I had a couple options for this afternoon. There was a press screening of something called “Son of Rambow” at 1:30, but there was also a public screening of “The Ten,” written and directed by David Wain (whom I saw earlier in the week, you’ll recall) at 2. I’d been interested in seeing “The Ten” anyway, and my curiosity grew when I overheard a woman say it was among the worst films she’d ever seen. Whenever I hear such superlative statements about a comedy — especially one I think is likely to be good — I think, “Well, maybe you just didn’t get it.” (Please note: This does not apply to movies by the Wayans Brothers. Those actually ARE terrible.)

Since “Son of Rambow” and “The Ten” were playing at adjacent venues, I figured I could see what the wait-list situation looked like for “The Ten,” and if it didn’t look promising, I’d have “Son of Rambow” to fall back on.

My question was soon answered: Outside of where “The Ten” would be playing, a sign had been posted saying there was NO HOPE for wait-list tickets, so don’t even bother getting in line. So much for that.

As it happens, I’m glad I couldn’t get into “The Ten.” A press screening will probably be scheduled for one of the still to-be-announced slots later in the week, and “Son of Rambow” turned out to be my favorite film of the festival so far. It’s a hilarious, imaginative, and touching comedy about two young boys in England in the mid-1980s. One is a troublemaker and rabble-rouser, while the other is from a strict family that won’t let him watch TV or go to the movies. The two lads bond when they are exposed to “First Blood” (aka “Rambo I”), and their fondness for it drives them to make their own version using their home videocamera. The film perfectly captures the whimsy of little boys’ imaginations, as well as the tenuous friendships kids have. I laughed more during the movie than I have all week — pure, childlike laughter, not the dirty kind of laughter I had during the movie about the killer hoo-hah.

Before the screening began, the theater staff made a special announcement to the effect of “Don’t use your BlackBerrys during the movie; the light is really bright, and it annoys everyone around you.” (It is possible they made this announcement specifically because I asked them to.)

Of course, if you’re self-absorbed enough to use your BlackBerry during a movie, then you’re probably also self-absorbed enough to think that you’re the exception to the announcement telling people not to. And sure enough, right in front of me: a-hole BlackBerry user, female, slender, laughing and enjoying the film when she was paying attention to it, but otherwise heavily engaged in communicating with the outside world.

I started leaning way over so I could see what she was writing, and she didn’t seem to notice. One of her messages read: “Can you call HD Net to get me Jason’s cell number?”

When I read that, I started to feel bad. I’d been judgmental, assuming that anyone using a BlackBerry during a movie was ill-mannered and self-important, and that their correspondence was frivolous. It never occurred to me that someone might need Jason’s cell number! Jason was probably frantic with worry, wondering why this woman hadn’t called him, not realizing she didn’t have his number. And the people at HD Net were going through their day tragically unaware that they were in possession of a valuable piece of information. If only someone could be told to call HD Net to get Jason’s number! All this senseless chaos could be eliminated.

After “Son of Rambow” was another hotly debated, highly anticipated press screening: “Hounddog,” aka “The Movie Where Dakota Fanning Gets Raped.” I first heard about this movie last August, when production began, and it’s recently been the topic of discussion all over the media. Everyone wants to know: Is it exploitative? Even if the rape scene is discreet, does the very IDEA of it exploit the 12-year-old Dakota Fanning? And how discreet is it? Do we see any of South Dakota? (I am deeply, deeply sorry for that joke.)

Members of the press were lined up an hour early, and some wound up being turned away because the venue was filled to capacity. The other press screening this packed was “Zoo,” a few days ago. Basically, if your movie includes sex with a horse or sex with Dakota Fanning, WE ARE ALL OVER THAT.

They let us into the screening room quite early, and as is my custom, I went to the bathroom a few minutes before the movie started. You have to sign in at the press screenings (so the publicists will know who saw the film), and if you leave they stamp your hand so that you don’t have to sign in again when you return. You can stack up a few ink stains over the course of a day, and as I was exiting, a fellow journalist remarked on that by saying, “You end up looking like Queequeg in ‘Moby Dick.’” I laughed heartily, despite not getting the joke.

The verdict on “Hounddog”: “Hounddog” is a hound dog. Fanning’s performance as a backwoods Southern girl with a creepy, worthless father and a religious-zealot grandmother is fantastic, but everything else about the movie is wrong. It’s loaded with symbolism so obvious it might as well be subtitled (”THIS SNAKE REPRESENTS EVIL!!”), and it has what Spike Lee calls a “magical negro” character, i.e., the wise old black man whose every line of dialogue is instructional in some way and who has vaguely mystical powers. Bleh.

The rape scene is brief — under 30 seconds — and is discreet indeed. What’s not discreet is the way Fanning is sexualized throughout the film, frequently cavorting in the swimmin’ hole in wet clothes, or being bathed and de-loused by her grandmother, or gyrating while she sings Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” for the amusement and titillation of grown-ups. Does Fanning not have parents? Oh, right, she has a mother who is also her manager, and who has said she thinks this will be a good chance for her daughter to win an Oscar. Be sure to get your Mother of the Year nominations in early!

Following the “Hounddog” debacle (and this was one where we critics seemed united in disliking it), Cinematical’s Kim and I ate dinner at the Yarrow Hotel’s cafe. Predictably, the conversation was lively and the service was lousy.

I wrote for a couple hours after that before joining Weinberg and Childress for a 10:30 p.m. press screening of “Chapter 27,” in which a fattened-up Jared Leto plays John Lennon assassin Mark David Chapman in the three days leading up to the murder. He speaks in a high-pitched Southern drawl that sounds like a cross between the creepy old-man pedophile on “Family Guy,” and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Basically, it boils down to this: John Lennon gets shot to death in “Chapter 27.” If you try to sit through the movie, you’ll envy him. It’s one of the most utterly plot-free films I’ve ever seen. Chapman shows up in New York, hangs around for a couple days, then kills Lennon. That’s it. I have told you the entirety of the story, and yet I have spoiled nothing. There’s no insight, no analysis, nothing. Just Jared Leto talking to himself for 90 minutes. Folks, if I wanted that, I would invite Jared Leto over to my house and listen to him there.

There’s a scene about 45 loooong minutes into it where Chapman is talking about movies with a fellow Beatles fan he’s met, played by Lindsay Lohan. She says she didn’t like “Rosemary’s Baby” because “it’s slow-moving, and nothing happens till the end.” At that the screening audience snorted with derisive laughter.

It was about midnight when it ended — though it felt like midnight several days later — and Weinberg, Childress, and I walked over to the Yarrow to see if anyone was hanging around there. It was pretty dead, even at Rocket 88 Lucky Bar Good-Time Table Place. I took this opportunity to go out in the hall, stand on a chair, and remove the offending punctuation from the “CONCESSION’S” sign, another trophy for my collection. I did it quickly, easily, and without talking to myself in an effeminate Georgia accent for three days beforehand. I’m more efficient than Mark David Chapman, is my point. I definitely would have taken out Yoko, too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 at 10:34 am and is filed under Sundance Film Festival. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.