My reviews of last weekend’s “Rambo,” “Meet the Spartans,” and “Untraceable” are now posted. Here’s hoping the reviews are more enjoyable to read than the movies were to watch.

In other news, I’m afraid I’m coming down with the Sundance Flu, a bug that started claiming victims near the end of the festival and has continued to wreak havoc on members of the press since then. Cooped up together in the same screening rooms all day, and then sharing each other’s needles and crack pipes at night — that’s a recipe for disaster.

I’ll try to produce at least the minimum amount of work the next couple days, but if I go away for a while you’ll know why. And if the masseuse shows up tomorrow and finds me naked and dead, I hope she calls 911 before she calls anyone else. (People with the Sundance Flu are allowed to make jokes about anything they want.)

Day 10 (Saturday, January 26):

As usual, this 10th day of the fest was a cheat, as I didn’t do anything Sundance-related. There are no press screenings on the final Saturday, and there weren’t any public screenings that I felt compelled to wedge myself into. They did announce the awards, though, so here they are:

Continue reading…

Day 9 (Friday, January 25):

The guys from Film Threat were kind enough to let me stay at their condo last night, as most of their crew had gone home. I felt safe despite their publication’s ominous title. Film Threat? What about Film Promise? That would be so much more pleasant.

After getting up at 8:30, showering, stumbling around half-asleep, going outside, going back inside, putting clothes on, and going outside again, I gave the Film Threat guys a lift down to the Yarrow. One of my favorite secrets about Sundance used to be that the Yarrow Hotel didn’t care if you parked there. This was in stark contrast to every other business in Park City, which will tow your sorry butt within seconds if you’re not actually a customer. Everyone assumed the Yarrow had the same policy, so no one parked there, so there was always plenty of space for me.

Anyway, last year the Yarrow jumped on the bandwagon and started blocking off their parking lot — unless you paid $20 to park there. I thought it was the end of an era. But this year it’s open again, and I’ve been parking there the last few days, even overnight. Please do not tell anyone, though, as I want this to remain my little secret.

Continue reading…

Day 8 (Thursday, January 24):

I’m not even going to brag anymore. I was up at 8:45 a.m. I’ve successfully gotten up at a reasonable hour every day of the festival. I have not overslept and missed anything I was supposed to see. It is a major victory for me in the ongoing battle between me and myself. I will win this war yet! I will not allow myself to triumph!

The weather continued to be lousy today. In years past we’ve generally lucked out and had maybe one day of snow during Sundance, while the remaining days were clear (though still cold). But this year it’s snowed at least a little bit almost every day. IT IS ANNOYING. I intend to register a complaint with Robert Redford, if I can find the hollow tree he lives in.

It was a light day, movie-wise. Several of the press screenings were for films I simply had no interest in seeing — documentaries about lint, or angsty German dramas about bored housewives, that sort of thing. I also needed a good, long chunk of time to write. It’s hard to get anything done when you’re doing it in half-hour spurts. By the time you find a place to sit down, get out your laptop, connect to the wifi, check your e-mail, get up to go to the bathroom, grab a snack from the concessions stand, chat with whichever pal you run into, and complain about the weather, it’s almost time to pack it up and go to the next screening. So I needed some real time to do some real work.

Continue reading…

Day 7 (Wednesday, January 23):

You’ll be glad to know that the chest pains I was having a couple days ago have subsided. Now if I exert myself slightly I just get a little light-headed, like maybe I’m going to pass out, except I don’t pass out. This is definitely an improvement, as chest pains are painful (duh) while light-headedness is kind of fun. It’s how Paris Hilton feels all the time, only without the lesions.

I got up at 8:45 this morning (DAY SEVEN OF EARLY ARISING!) and headed straight for the Yarrow lobby, where I made with the clickety-clack on the laptop for a while. This was necessary because apparently my various employers actually want me to write things for them.

My first screening was at 11:30 a.m., the premiere of the new version of “Funny Games.” The 1997 original is a love-it-or-hate-it German terror flick about a home invasion. The new one is almost a shot-for-shot remake, made by the same writer/director, Michael Haneke. The only conceivable reason for it is simply to have it in English, which is more marketable than German.

Continue reading…

Day 6 (Tuesday, January 22):

I know a lot of readers are dying to know whether I got up early again today, bringing my streak of professionalism and efficiency to six days. The answer is that I got up at 9 a.m. I grant you that some people don’t consider 9 a.m. to be “early,” but in my defense, those people can eat me.

First on my agenda, naturally, was to hop on the ol’ Interwebs to see the Oscar nominations. The Academy changed its schedule a few years ago, moving the nominations up so that now they’re always announced during Sundance. It’s a way of making entertainment journalists’ heads explode from trying to cover two major stories at once. Before the day was over, many of those heads would explode a second time.

My first screening of the day was “Towelhead,” the directorial debut of Alan Ball, who wrote “American Beauty” and created HBO’s “Six Feet Under.” I was surprised to learn that “Towelhead” was based on someone else’s novel, as the subject matter seems very Alan Ball-ish, dealing once again with suburban hypocrisy and treachery.

Continue reading…

Day 5 (Monday, January 21):

My Ripken-like streak of arising at 8 a.m. continued today, and get this: I didn’t have to be at a movie until 11:30. I used the time to write and to visit headquarters to request a ticket to a public screening tomorrow night.

We got our first really bad weather today. It snowed all night and continued to snow off and on throughout the day, making everything slushy and wet. This almost led to an unpleasant incident on my walk to the Yarrow when a couple was on the sidewalk in front of me was walking really slowly and arm-in-arm, preventing me from getting around them. It is unwise to raise my ire first thing in the morning.

While waiting for the shuttle bus to take me to headquarters, whom should I run into but Patrick Hubley, the world’s friendliest Canadian. Patrick used to be the head press officer for Sundance, so I used to see him frequently before and during the festival, always unfailing nice, helpful, and energetic, no matter how stupid my questions were. This year he’s here just as an audience member, which means he’s able to actually watch and enjoy the films instead of dealing with minor crises 24 hours a day. It was very good to see him. I know you don’t care, but hey, whose diary is this?

Continue reading…

Day 4 (Sunday, January 20):

Three days in a row, people. This is unprecedented. I arose at 8 a.m. AGAIN today. I was the last one in bed last night and the first one up this morning. I am the most industrious person in the condo. I have never been in a group of people before in which I was the most industrious. What is going on here?

As I was getting ready to leave this morning, I chatted with the strangers who had slept in my bedroom. (The refugees on the fold-out couch were gone by the time I got out of the shower.) They’re documentary filmmakers who made a film called “10 mph” about a guy who rode a Segway across America. They were very nice. They gave me a DVD copy of the movie, proving once again that if you speak to an independent filmmaker in Park City for longer than five minutes, you will walk away owning a copy of his or her movie.

Perhaps as karma’s way of balancing out my awesomeness, today I started having chest pains whenever I exerted myself, e.g., by walking kind of fast or going up a slight incline. I thought it might be the high altitude, except that it’s never been a problem before. Is this nature’s way of telling me not to walk anywhere, ever, for anything? Or is it nature’s way of telling me not to eat at Burger King every day? Either way, I plan to continue ignoring nature, which has rarely been useful to me anyway.

Continue reading…

Day 3 (Saturday, January 19):

Remember how I was up at 8 yesterday, and how you snidely predicted that would be the end of my early rising? Well, guess who didn’t get to bed until after 2 and still got up at 8 this morning! That’s right. Suck it, haters!

The reason for my ambitiousness was partly out of how professional and diligent I am, and partly because I wanted to see the movie about time travel and killing. It’s “Timecrimes,” a Spanish film written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, who was at the party last night in his film’s honor, singing karaoke like a madman. I was particularly fond of his rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” in which he changed the lyric “nature of my game” to “nacho of my game.” The food at the party was nacho-based, too. This kind of thing probably happens a lot when your name is Nacho.

Speaking of the party, conversations about it were overheard on the shuttle bus today. It was the talk of the town! Apparently after we left, a squadron of tow trucks showed up to haul away the cars that people had parked in the neighboring condos’ driveways. Any party involving both the fire department and tow trucks is a success in my book.

Continue reading…

Day 2 (Friday, January 18):

I arose at 8 a.m., an early hour that readers of previous years’ diaries will recall is typical of the first day of the festival and much less typical of subsequent days. But this year we are being very diligent and professional and will arise by 8 a.m. every day! We are even referring to ourself in the plural, that is how professional we are.

First on the docket was a documentary I was very eager to see. It’s called “Stranded,” and it is the story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes Mountains in 1972. You probably remember this story because it involves cannibalism. I know that’s why I remember it. My whole life I thought it was a Chilean soccer team, not a Uruguayan rugby team, but you can bet I got the cannibalism part right.

Continue reading…