Season 2, Episode 8 (1/26/07)

Hi all!

After all of the celebrity excitement from yesterday, today was somewhat of a low-key day. It seems like most of the stars took a cue from "John Henry" and got out of Park City. I didn't see any around town and I didn't see any at the theaters either.

The first movie I went to today was called "The Go-Getter" and it starred Lou Taylor Pucci, Zooey Deschanel, and Jena Malone. It was a coming of age story about a high school student who steals a car from a car wash in order to drive down the western coast of North America in order to track down his long-distant half-brother to let him know about a death in the family. The owner of the car calls her own cell phone to talk with the young thief, and (somewhat improbably) asks him to talk about his trip that he's taking. The thief and the car owner eventually meet up. Kind of a weird story, but Pucci was a great lead who portrayed many poignent scenes. 3 stars (out of five).

Afterwards, there wasn't a fictional film playing that I was interested in seeing, so I decided to see a random documentary. I hadn't really read up on any of the documentaries that are playing in the festival, so I knew nothing about "Banished" when I went into it. Turns out that it was about how many towns and counties in the South had their entire African-American populations run out of town between the Civil War and the Great Depression. The filmmaker interviewed many of their descendants as well as people living in those towns today, many of which are virtually 100% white. It was a bit shocking to hear some of these people talking to the director (who is African-American) about how they do not want African-Americans in their town. The production values makes it seem like it will be shown on television, rather than in the theaters. 3 stars.

Just one more day of movies, and two more volunteer shifts to go.

Until the next episode...

Your Sundance correspondent,

Ted