(Thee Emergency performing at Chop Suey in a shot from "$5 Cover." MTV photo.)

I went last night to a special screening of “$5 Cover: Seattle,” the MTV project I covered extensively during Sundance. This was the first time we all got to see Lynn Shelton’s 12 short narratives in a row, which is definitely the way to see them. Though each tells its own mini-story, with Seattle’s independent musicians as characters, they all weave together, and sometimes a story that arises in one is resolved in another down the line.

The shorts were great, as were John Jeffcoat’s mini-documentaries about the bands and the even wider-ranging “B-side” docs produced by Sue Corcorane. But the striking thing about the whole event was the over-the-top talent on display. If you’re not checking out the independent music scene in Seattle, well, then, you’re missing out on one of the best things about living here.

I also found it interesting that while Seattle’s all-male bands get a lot of publicity, and rightfully so, the women are just as worthy of note, if not more so. Among the standouts in “$5 Cover: Seattle” (which will hit the network’s website in June): the two-woman powerhouse Thee Satisfaction, garage-pop Tea Cozies, Thee Emergency, whose lead vocalist, Zana “Dita Vox” Geddes, proves she has screen presence and acting chops as well as a voice to die for. Thee Emergency is the last band you hear in this preview for the series:

Click here to see the trailer for “$5 Cover: Seattle.”

Here’s my latest story for the Seattle Times. If you’re reading this because you followed the link from the Times, welcome! Please do let me know (via the form on this page) if you or your organization is doing something I should check out. My aim is to make this a compendium of the things that, on any given day, make life worth living – especially helpful on particularly gray ones.

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:

Most years, by the time the Sundance Film Festival’s over, I’m really ready for it to be over. This year, the snow and the work flew fast during the first weekend, while it was hard to tell which movies were really turning audiences on. By the second weekend, though, a few films were standout favorites, and of course I hadn’t seen some of them. And of those, some may never get U.S. theatrical distribution, so this was my last chance.

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)

"Tucker & Dale" Q&A with director Eli Craig. Photo by Brandon Joseph Baker for Sundance

If you love campy horror that gives uppity teenagers their due, or hillbillies, or movies that simultaneously take the piss out of and show a lot of respect for classics in their genre – or if you just want a crazy bloody hilarious good time, then “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil” is the Sundance movie for you.

It was for me. After many hours over the last couple days dealing with email, Web, photo, AND phone malfunctions (why do all these blow up at the same time – and of course right when lots of people are trying to reach me…or at least I think they are, but how do I know, when they can’t?), I was ready for some blood.

Every year, the festival’s Midnight series gives us some doozy genre movies that make up with enthusiasm what they lack in budget, and this is a classic example. “Tucker & Dale” concerns a couple humble hillbillies who get on the wrong side of some snooty college kids when they both head for the deep, dark, possibly killer-infested woods. Although it supposedly takes place in West Virginia (of course), it was filmed in Canada (of course).

The leads are sympathetic and funny and never cheesy. The movie features a few great lines (“I should have known that when a guy like me talked to a girl like you, somebody would end up dead”) and scenes that had everyone laughing out loud even as they cringed.

Another nice touch: Writer/Director Eli Craig’s entertaining Q&A after the film, which was also both sweet and hysterical. Craig said the reason his movie ended up low on the nudity scale was that none of his Alberta-based cast was willing to take her shirt off. A local stripper volunteered to be a stand-in for one of the actresses, but when she appeared on the set, “She was about 40 years old and extremely rugged-looking,” Craig said. So the shot ended up being filmed from a distance – a great distance.

Turning more thoughtful, Craig mused on his film’s underlying themes of “our classist society” and marveled on getting into Sundance: “I can’t believe the things people always told me would pay off – hard work, believing in yourself, never giving up – all paid off.”

(A scene from "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil." Photo by Dan Powers)

Listen to me on RadioWest here (I’m the first 20 minutes or so):

Thanks again to Elaine and Doug for having me on the show.

More of Sean’s awesomeness…

http://blogs.sltrib.com/sundance/index.php?p=10097&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

(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.

My friend Clayton Chase Fullmer took this great photo of Bill Murray for WireImage, the festival's official photographer.

I never thought celebrity-seekers would be as excited about seeing Bill Gates as they are about starlets.

He made a couple events difficult to get into when he decided to go to them. Apparently, he was partying pretty hard this weekend, dancing and flirting with young women way past midnight. I know it’s hard to imagine. I’m glad he got the Sundance experience, but it meant a lot of people didn’t get into these events because they were taken over by Gates and his entourage.

The Roots performed with John Legend at a party for “Waiting for Superman.” Because Bill Gates was there, I didn’t get in to hear it. I was deeply, bitterly disappointed. The Roots are one of my favorite bands to see live, and since they joined Jimmy Fallon as his house band, they haven’t toured much.

So I stood outside, with snow piling up on me, cursing. “Stupid Bill Gates!” I said. And I trundled off to catch a shuttle home. On the shuttle, I ran into my dear friend Sean P. Means, movie critic for the Salt Lake Tribune. Like me, he was covered with snow. Also like me, he’d been waiting to get into a party and had given up. We shared a friendly gripe about our thwarted efforts.

I soon realized that if I’d gotten into that event, I would probably not have made it home. And as I slid along at 10 miles an hour through a sideways blizzard, gripping the steering wheel and gritting my teeth as cars slid off the road all around me, I thought about what’s really important in life. Not Bill Gates. Not even The Roots (though they’re up there). It was important to me at that moment that I made it home without dying or crashing my mom’s car. It was important that I made it back to my sweetie in Seattle. And chatting with Sean was a lot more fun than party conversation would have been. Friends and family, that’s what’s important. And good music, when you can get it.

The snow was just starting when this photo was taken at the Eccles Theater. (Photo by Brandon Joseph Baker, courtesy of Sundance Film Festival)

I’m about to go interview MTV honcho David Gale and stopped for some lunch, which ended up consisting of breakfast. I just realized those fried potatoes had a lot of garlic. Apologies to David in advance.

I was supposed to interview Bill Murray and Robert Duvall today, but they cancelled this morning due to knee injury (Murray) and altitude sickness (Duvall). They’re around here somewhere, but they’re not talking to the press. Sigh.

Nonetheless, their movie, “Get Low,” is pretty good, and lifted higher by Duvall’s performance. The guy doesn’t miss a step.

People keep asking me if I’ve seen any good movies. Usually by this time I haven’t seen many – too busy working! The one getting the best response so far is the one I mentioned yesterday, “Waiting for Superman.”

By the way, everyone seems to want to know whether Bill Gates is traveling with security guards. What do you think? I saw a couple, with Secret-Service-style, with clear headphone cords coming out their ears. My sources tell me he came to Sundance with a contingent of 14 security people. I’m guessing they go with him everywhere. You would have security, too, if you were Bill Gates. They also tell me the one movie he was interested in seeing at Sundance was “the one with the girl from Twilight” (that would be “The Runaways,” BTW). Maybe he’s not such a nerd after all.

Celebrity sightings: I saw Elisabeth Shue the other night. Not sure if she’s in a movie or just having fun. I also saw Ty Burrell from “Modern Family,” whose hometown is Grants Pass, Oregon (he also attended the U of O) and who now lives in Utah.

My first crappy photo of Bill Gates (on the right, with producer Lesley Chilcott and legendary school reformer Geoffrey Canada)

Ever since we moved to Seattle, people have been asking Bill, my fiance, “Have you met Bill Gates yet?”

I suppose people think that since (my) Bill works in technology in Seattle, he might someday run into (the richest man in the world) Bill. And it will probably happen eventually. But I ended up meeting the software star first. Today, at Sundance.

Gates was here to support “Waiting for Superman,” a documentary about just how bad America’s public education is, and why. The Gates Foundation is a big supporter of efforts to reform failing schools, and Gates is also interviewed in the film, bemoaning the lack of educated American workers who could be filling the high-paying jobs he now has to recruit for worldwide.

In person, Gates was, well, pretty nerdy. During the post-screening Q&A, the filmmakers turned to him whenever someone asked a question involving numbers or obscure facts, and he happily rattled off percentages and program names.

I met him at a reception after the screening. I’m sorry to say I have no photographic evidence (he posed with fans and I did have a camera, but I just can’t bring myself to do something as cheesy as ask to have a photo taken with someone). I shook his hand and introduced myself and mentioned that my fiance works for a couple of his old buddies (which is true), and he replied with, “I love those guys!” and that was about it. He’s clearly enjoying his job as philanthropist, which he approaches the way he approaches everything: with an eye toward value and return on investment.

I did have nice conversations with a couple Gates Foundation folks, which I hope to print sometime soon.

The movie, directed by Davis Guggenheim of “An Inconvenient Truth” fame, is a touching and saddening look at families’ efforts to get their kids into better public schools, even as the odds are stacked against them. It looks at the ways some schools (often public charter schools) are blowing the notion that kids fail in school because they come from poor families or otherwise tough backgrounds. And it gives some reasons why it’s so difficult to make schools better (national teachers’ unions are big villains here).

Bill Gates was a surprise guest, as was Geoffrey Canada, a prominent school reformer. Musician John Legend, who composed a song for the film, will be in town tomorrow.

In related news, Microsoft is everywhere at this year’s festival – not that you’d know it, necessarily. The company’s search engine, Bing, is an official festival sponsor and hosts the Bing Bar hangout on Main Street and quite a few parties. Obviously, the company’s trying to distance itself from Microsoft’s staid reputation.

It’s probably safe to say that Bill Gates didn’t have much to do with “Waiting for Superman” getting into Sundance – I mean, Guggenheim has an Oscar, and all. And the movie itself is good. Paramount will be releasing it nationally, so make a point of seeing it. Just maybe not with an ardent teachers’ union rep.

...and, my second crappy photo of Bill Gates, this time at the reception.