Day 6 (Tuesday, Jan. 26)

My experience sharing a one-bathroom condo with five other guys has so far been surprisingly hassle-free. What’s more, my snoring, which was once legendary, has reportedly failed to bother anyone. And believe me, I’ve asked. I’m very self-conscious about it. I even brought spare earplugs for anyone who needs them, and have authorized all interested parties to do whatever it takes to silence me if I disrupt their sleep. One time I shared a room with someone who made me stop snoring by plugging my nose. It also made me stop breathing, but that was none of his concern.

Anyway, the condo has been fine, except for one thing, which is probably an obvious thing, which is that when six men share a small living space for six days it becomes — in terms of debris, leftovers, and general untidiness — a scene of unspeakable horror. I am not a clean freak, but I am generally neat and uncluttered. My cinematic brethren do not share this tendency, or at least they don’t when they are renting a condo. Perhaps their own homes are immaculate. (I am pretending to give them the benefit of the doubt.) We have a lady girl female woman person staying with us, too, but so far the fabled “woman’s touch” has had no impact on the situation. Indeed, since she has her own bedroom, we’ve barely seen her. When we have, it has been so that she could share stories with us that all involve referring to celebrities by their first names and pretending to be very good friends with them. This is amusing, but it doesn’t make things cleaner. (That’s a real photo that someone took of the tabletop, by the way. And that photo was taken three days ago.)

I began the day by heading to festival headquarters at the Marriott, where I needed to pick up a few press kits. HQ used to have a sizable lounge area for journalists, with plenty of tables and chairs and complimentary soft drinks, but not any more. Last year the complimentary soft drinks were reduced from Coke and Pepsi to Shasta; now the recession has taken its toll by removing the lounge altogether. I assume money is also the reason there were no press screenings on opening night, and why the press screenings end Thursday this year instead of Friday. And I know money is the reason they moved all the press screenings to Holiday Village instead of the Yarrow: Now the public screenings that used to be at Holiday Village can be held at the Yarrow, which is twice the size and thus represents twice the possible income in ticket sales. Since Sundance is a not-for-profit organization, things like that matter.

While at HQ, I ran into Dave Chen, of Slashfilm, whom I’d spoken to many, many times — I’ve been a guest on his podcast — but only met in person for the first time here at Sundance. Dave is perpetually busy and industrious. To the best of my knowledge, he does not sleep. He asked if I wanted to go to lunch at the Marriott’s restaurant; I countered that I had been planning to go to Burger King, which is much cheaper than most hotel restaurants. He countered that Burger King is terrible and will kill me; I countered that I don’t care. Still, he convinced me to eat at the Marriott, and I had a fine club sandwich and a lively conversation, and we somehow recorded two mini-podcasts in the process. That’s what happens when you hang out with Dave Chen — you wind up producing work without even meaning to. He’s like a productivity talisman.

My first movie of the day was at 2:00, and it was “The Freebie.” This film is in a new category at Sundance, called Next, which is for super-low-budget movies. I’ve been wary of this category, since plenty of films in the competition, Premieres, and Spotlight categories have low budgets, too, and you gotta wonder why THESE ones were put in a separate group, like maybe they’re not good enough. Plus, the category is called Next, which makes me think of an impatient director watching auditioners: “Thank you, NEXT. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. NEXT!”

But several people who had seen “The Freebie” — several very different people, with very different tastes — had told me it was fantastic, so I bumped the movie that had been on my schedule and watched this instead. In football parlance, I called an audible, I think, if that is really what those people call it.

And I was glad I did, as “The Freebie” is indeed a fine, low-key drama about a married couple who wonder if a “freebie” — that is, one night where they each get to have sex with someone else — might help their stagnant relationship. (Hey, it worked wonders for John Edwards.) The most surprising thing is that the guy is Dax Shepard, who I would not have predicted would be a solid dramatic actor. He started on that MTV show “Punk’d,” which in my mind is the same as that MTV show “Jackass,” which in my mind is highly amusing but not what you’d call deep. Anyway, nice job, Dax.

Remember how last night was a crazy clustercuss in terms of long lines and packed theaters and middle-aged Italian lunatics? Well, welcome to Tuesday, the day when half the press corps has left town, leaving only us grizzled, hardcore festival-goers. Even a much-buzzed-about film like “The Freebie” attracted only half a theater’s worth of journalists. Many of us had missed the old days, when you could saunter into a screening five minutes before it starts. Now the days of sauntering were again upon us. It was a new era of sauntering!

Up next was “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil,” a horror comedy from the midnight section. The Midnight films tend to be either fantastically entertaining or complete train wrecks. There is very little middle ground. “T&DVE,” happily, falls into the former category. The scenario is this: Think of all those slasher movies where teenagers are murdered by depraved, backwoods hillbillies. Now imagine the story from the point of view of the hillbillies, who it turns out are harmless and innocent, and the whole thing is just a big misunderstanding. The hillbillies are played by Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine, and the film is very, very funny, a cheerful and affectionate parody of the genre.

There was only a 30-minute gap between “T&DVE” and the next film. In the old days of last night, you’ll recall, this would not have been enough time. But in the Era of Sauntering, it was fine. Alas, the movie in question was terrible. I left after an hour, and I only stayed that long because I’m friends with one of the producers, and I’d been excited that his movie got into the festival, and I wanted to support him. But then I decided the my enduring the whole thing wasn’t going to help him, and would probably only make me hate the movie even more, so I left. If I didn’t have a friend involved in the production, I would tell you the title and make fun of all the things I disliked about the film. That is my usual “modus operandi” (Latin for “method of being a jerk”). But in this case, I will let tact take over and let it go. I’m not cruel. I’m not the violent kind.

Weinberg and Childress disliked it, too — that seemed to be the consensus among most viewers, unfortunately — and Weinberg and I couldn’t muster the fortitude to see another film after it. Instead, we ordered pizza to his hotel room and ate and wrote for many hours. This is the way many Sundance evenings end, by the way: parked at the Yarrow, eating junk food, writing reviews, general merriment. Drew McWeeny often joins us, writing his reviews in longhand (!) in a little notebook, I guess because he doesn’t like to carry his laptop around with him, or maybe because he’s a fancy lad, I don’t know. At any rate, these gatherings are fun, a good way to unwind and remain sane despite the madness and Chen-induced productivity of the day.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 1:03 pm 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.