By the way, in my earlier stories, I discussed the Moondoggies, a local band in MTV’s $5 Cover series. They played at the Seattle film-industry party at Sundance and both impressed onlookers and reminded us of home. Here’s a YouTube shot of the band at the Crocodile:

But it was time to get back to Seattle, leaving me to wonder what I’d missed.

One of these years, I’ll become one of those champion film-watchers, like Sean P. Means at the Salt Lake Tribune. Or Jeremy Mathews, who talks about all things movie on his Same Dame podcast/blog. By the time I saw him at the festival, he’d watched 40 or so movies, which averaged out to 7 a day or so. These guys have butts of steel. Alas, I didn’t bring my donut cushion – and I’m still young enough to care about parties, panels, and other assorted goings-on to sit through that many movies. I’d rather let the iron butts figure out which ones I should see and try to catch those. Avoiding the “dogs” has always been a good strategy for me.

For my take on Sundance overall, as well as the state of the Seattle film community in general (well, as much as I can fit into 500 words), see my story in Sunday’s Seattle Times.

James Rolleston played the title role in the movie "Boy," a charming New Zealand film you may never have the chance to see after Sundance. (photo by Jill Orschel/Sundance Institute)

(Director Tony Scott drops his hat and gestures to co-star Kristin Stewart and Melissa Leo of Welcome to the Riley in the press line at the Racquet Club Theatre at the Sundance Film Festival, Park City Utah, January 23, 2010 Live at Sundance/Calvin Knight)

I was a guest on Radio West this morning (Tuesday), discussing my impressions of Sundance. If you missed it, you can catch it again at 7 p.m. on KUER FM90, or you can download the podcast anytime from kuer.org.

I had a lot more material than we had time, so I thought I’d add a few thoughts on how the festival’s gone so far.

Celebrity sightings:

Joseph Gordon Levitt (you may remember him as the kid from the TV show “Third Rock from the Sun”) is doing a couple of projects – the film “Hesher” is getting pretty good reviews. He also did a presentation as part of the festival’s Frontier on Main on his venture called Hit Record, which is a place where people can come together and collaborate on projects and then share the profits. His website is www.hitrecord.org.

As he describes it, “In a nutshell: we create and develop art and media collaboratively here on our site; we use my position in the traditional entertainment industry to turn that creativity into money-making productions; and then we share any profits with the contributing artists.” He seemed genuinely nice and won over a lot of people at the festival this year.

Then there’s “The Runaways,” a retelling of Joan Jett’s early years in an all-girl rock band. For celebrity watchers, it was notable because it starred Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart. Some others were more impressed that Joan Jett was in town (she was executive producer of the film).

I’m still bummed about The Roots, but Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt were in town for a Sundance concert celebrating music in film, and it was nice to see them in an intimate venue. (Lyle Lovett wrote music for a movie here.) After that, I headed for the Seattle party to hear the Moondoggies, a tight band featured in $5 Cover, the project I’m writing about for the Seattle Times.

And Jimmy Smits is apparently super nice.

As for the overall vibe: It’s John Cooper’s first year as director of the festival. He’s done some new and different things – disagreeing on if it’s good. For one, he re-categorized some movies. There’s the “Next” section, focusing on low-budget films. Some people thought this would backfire and become a sort of ghetto, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Some of the most talked-about movies are in that section.

There’s a visual theme with every festival. This year, it’s kind of got an off-kilter, rough-edged, edgy, grungy feeling. I think that theme is ugly and the whole “Rebel!” thing is a little cheesy, but that’s just my opinion. Obviously, the movies are the most important thing.

A couple movies have been bought by distributors, including “Buried,” which stars Ryan Reynolds as a guy who gets buried alive and has to figure out how to escape. Obviously not a good movie for anyone with claustrophobia.

It's Time!

I’m launching this blog just in time for the Outdoor Retailer convention and the Sundance Film Festival. For a long time now, the last week in January has been my busiest of the year, and this is gearing up to be a big one.

I’ll be writing stories about Sundance for the Seattle Times, but I’ll be adding a lot here that you won’t see there (including, I hope, some juicy gossip and celebrity encounters). Outdoor Retailer is a trade show for the outdoor recreation industry, which means people like me go there to find out about the latest and greatest in outdoor gear. I’ll pass along what I find out about that, too.

I was at the Salt Lake airport yesterday watching the hordes descend. It struck me that it’s pretty easy to tell which were in town for which event:

Sundance clothing: tight designer jeans, funky hats, ridiculously inappropriate outerwear, orange Puma sneakers or high-heeled boots
OR clothing: nondescript relaxed-fit jeans, baseball caps or wool hats, ridiculously overbuilt outerwear, comfy leather shoes
Sundance luggage: pricey
OR luggage: got free at a previous show
Sundance rude behavior: refusal to get off phone even when talking to customer service person
OR rude behavior: talking loudly and obsessively about snow quality and their last outings
Sundance build: slender bordering on sickly
OR build: athletic
Sundance male/female ratio: about 50/50
OR male/female ratio: about 70/30

Of the two, you would think Sundance would be more fun. It’s busier, with more going on in more places. But the affable crowd at OR will probably be having a better time in Utah.

Stay tuned for more updates…

Linas Phillips (writer/director/actor) in a scene from "Bass Ackwards," a film I'll be following. Photo by: Sean Porter / A Furnace Films Release

Linas Phillips (writer/director/actor) in a scene from “Bass Ackwards,” a film I’ll be following. Photo by: Sean Porter / A Furnace Films Release