The Sundance Missives - Season 3, The Epilogue

Hi everyone!

Well, I've made it back home. The snowstorm on my last day turned my shuttle ride from Park City to the airport into a 3 ¼ hour ordeal. It should have taken 45 minutes, but apparently the highway got shut down for a while. I got to the airport 40 minutes before my flight was scheduled to take off, so I quickly checked my bags with the skycap and rushed through security with 20 minutes to spare… only to finally take a look at the departure board to see that my flight was going to be delayed for three hours. I suppose it could have been a lot worse.

Just as in years past, Sundance was a lot of fun for me. This year was all about the movies for me. Some people would consider what I was doing (seeing up to the three movies a day) drudgery, but I enjoyed it. I saw more movies (24 total) than I have in past festivals. That's because I didn't take any days for snowboarding or for walking around like a celebrity. John Henry Smith-Bourbon was apparently around Park City, but it's amazing what a year can do to his fame – he had no entourage or camera crew and he basically went unnoticed amongst the crowd. He's going to have to find himself a new publicist if he wants any future in this town! Also this year, I was able to escape Park City without catching any of the various colds and flus that debilitated a lot of the volunteers. Got to love those zinc lozenges!

Below is my ranking of the movies that I saw. No movie blew me away like "The Nines" did last year, but there was definitely some good stuff out there. Of course, with the good, there also has to be the bad to balance things out. (By the way, in case I hadn't mentioned it, "The Nines" was release on DVD on Jan. 29^th.)

4 ½ Stars:

1. Just Another Love Story (Kærlighed På Film)
2. In Bruges
3. Hamlet 2
4. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

4 Stars:

5. The Great Buck Howard
6. Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North

3 ½ Stars:

7. Assassination of a High School President
8. Phoebe in Wonderland
9. Sleep Dealer – Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award & Alfred P. Sloan Prize
10. Time Crimes (Los Cronocrímenes)
11. Choke – Special Dramatic Jury Prize – Work by an ensemble cast
12. Be Kind Rewind
13. The Last Word

3 Stars:

14. Mermaid (Rusalka) – World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award
15. Sunshine Cleaning
16. Goliath
17. Pretty Bird
18. The Wackness – Audience Dramatic Award
19. Animation Spotlight (Shorts) – I would consider "Lapsus" & "For the Love of God" 4 stars

2 ½ stars:

20. What Just Happened?
21. Downloading Nancy
22. King of Ping Pong (Ping Pongkingen) – World Cinema Dramatic Jury Prize & World Cinema Dramatic Cinematography Award
23. Momma's Man

2 Stars:

24. Birds of America

I hope you enjoyed reading this year's missives. You can relive all of the Sundance excitement at http://teds-sundance-missives.blogspot.com/. Still working on the photos, but they will be available soon.

Your Sundance correspondent,

Ted