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Sundance 2008 Trip Report
We have good friends who live part-time in Park City and have invited us several times to come out for Sundance. This year we decided to go and had such a great time we're already planning next year :)
For logistic reasons DH did not want to be out of town for one consecutive work week, so we arranged to fly out on a Thursday morning and return the following Wednesday. Our friends weren't due in Park City until Sunday, so we arranged to stay at a resort in Midway (about 20 min. from PC) our first three nights. We flew Frontier from Atlanta, stopping and changing planes in Denver. I have flown this same route to Utah several times but never with quite such a tight connection time of 30 min. Even though the airline changed our connecting gate at the last moment from the one across the jetport of our arriving flight to one at the extreme opposite end of the terminal, we ran and made the flight. We rented a car for the week through an internet portal (cars.com) and were taken by the shuttle service to our Chrysler PT Cruiser. It was a cute little car, fun to drive, and---most importantly---the heater was efficient and it warmed up <i>very</i> quickly. Concerned about the size (we'd specified "intermediate" and were taken aback at how much smaller that size seems to be nowadays) we tried to upgrade but nothing was available. Our internet cost of $200 per week, including every possible insurance and unlimited mileage, was great. We heard later that unreserved cars were being rented at more than $1000 per week! Fox Rentacar (never heard of it before) 7.0/ 10 for employees and ease of completing paperwork 6.2/ 10 for car size (The PT Cruiser must be far more popular out West, as we saw many, many of them being used as rentals while we were there--including several that were the twins to our rental. Before driving to Midway DH wanted to go into Salt Lake City to visit a store that sells massage chairs, as he has trouble with a pulled hamstring from tennis. A chiropractor, Dr. Widener, owns the store and was gracious and knowledgeable and very helpful. We were there for hours (literally) as DH tried out every chair. I tried out a few, too, and was surprised to find that some were actually better than a live masseuse. We finally chose a leather chair that can (almost) pass as a "regular" recliner for DH's study, and then headed out to Midway with our teenaged son who was very grumpy from being roused from his comfy sleep/massage :) We drove to Midway with no problems using DS2's portable Garmin GPS system, and that was the first time we were thankful to have brought a GPS. We checked into The Homestead in Miday and this resort was a big disappointment in just about every way except for the friendliness of the staff and the good food at Franny's, the more casual of the two on site restaurants. Our first room was appalling, with a 70's decor and vibe and a strange little tiled half-wall to separate the sink area from the room. The commode and tub/shower were in a separate room together that was really too small for an adult to stand in if the door was opened (inward). The next morning I sent DH to check out other rooms while I went to the Aveda spa. The actual place was more like an historic home instead of a spa, but the treatment was wonderful (Caribbean therapy massage, salt scrub, seaweed wrap, facial and scalp treatments) and the esthetician was professional and lovely. I did enjoy the spa but it lacked the amenities of larger hotels, such as jacuzzis, heated pools, etc. They carried a full line of Aveda products which was nice as they aren't available in our town. Therapist: 7.9/ 10 Spa physical plant 4.3/ 10 The Homestead has a hot spring lake inside a hollowed out, 55-ft high crater that is opened for swimming sessions and scuba lessons. The water is 90 degrees farenheit year 'round and it cost about $10 to swim in the crater lake per 40 minutes. It was a unique experience and the guys enjoyed it although DS2 said it was "a little creepy." The resort also has a swimming pool which we did not use and a reputedly nice golf course hidden under a ton of snow, but the overall effect is sort of a tired place that needs a complete overhaul. DH had us moved into a cottage that was certainly newer (bathroom was a BIG improvement) and it had a fireplace as well. The resort does not do a very good job of snow removal and there were numerous places on the walkways and drives that had not been salted evenly and were dangerously slippery, even for Utah. Original Room in the Shaker House: 2.3 / 10 Cottage: 6.29 / 10 Crater Lake: 7.0 / 10 Overall: 4.5 / 10 |
kswl WOW! I'd love to do Sundance. So I'm really excited to hear all about your trip.
Sorry about the hotel. That sucks. I know most people say "your never in your room" but I'm picky and want a decent room. At least the staff and food was good. Looking forward to more...Pic's too! |
Our first evening for dinner we drove back into Park City and had dinner at Fireside Dining at the Empire Canyon resort. This is an "alpine experience" with food set out buffet style at different huge stone fireplaces in different rooms of the restaurant. At several of the fireplaces are large wheels of raclette cheese. The heat from the fireplace melted the cheese onto plates that were then given to diners. Other fireplaces had hearty stews of venison, rabbit (and a vegetarian option), roasted root vegetables that included the best brussel sprouts <i>ever</i>, whole grain breads and rolls, and the traditional accompaniments to the raclette, e.g. boiled red potatoes, cornichons, dried meats, rustic mustard and chutney.
The dinner was a fun experience but we were unfortunately too late for the sleigh rides that precede or follow it. We'd gotten lost despite the GPS and kept calling the lodge for more specific directions. When we finally arrived the manager himself came over and asked if we were the kswl party and welcomed us as though we were ancient travelers finally arriving at an inn after a year's journey! I enjoyed a few glasses of wine with dinner, and the killer dessert fondue was the highlight of the meal. Dark chocolate, caramel and a white chocolate-melted nougat were the dipping sauces, and there was an embarrassment of riches to go with: pound cake, tiny almond biscotti, almonts and filberts, huge beautiful strawberries, bananas, dried apricots and cherries, pineapple, apple, cranberry cake---just every good thing possible that could be dipped in chocolate! Fireside Dining dinner: 8.2/ 10 (About $52 per person) We ate several times at The Homestead at Fanny's, which offers a breakfast cinnamon roll that fills an entire 9" dinner plate. That's <i>one</i> cinnamon roll.... look out, Cinnabon :) DS2 was very happy with this but was sick of it by the time we left. The food was well-prepared, fresh looking and tasting, and the service was outstanding. It was very reasonably priced and I would recommend the restaurant for people staying in the area even if they are not hotel guests. We did not eat in Simon's, which is a fine dining option open only for Sunday and holiday brunches, event catering, etc. Our first movies were both by the director Sharon Lockhart. Each was about an hour and they were shown back-to-back, a format the Sundance staffer who introduced them called "daring." Somewhere in the middle of the second movie DH remarked that it was certainly "daring" if one was worried about tomato-throwing during the showings. "Exit" was filmed at the entrance of the Bath Ironworks in Bath, Maine. There was no dialogue; essentially this movie consisted of shots of workers leaving the factory each day of a work week. A title announced "Monday" and there followed 12 or 13 minutes of a fixed camera shot of workers leaving. The next title announced "Tuesday," and there followed 12 or 13 minutes of the same workers. This format continued through Friday. A few interesting observations in this boring-as-watching-paint-dry movie: there were no African-American workers, practically no cellphone use and very few women. This was the world of white, male workers with lunch boxes and steel-toed boots. The audio was on and there was practically no audible swearing. Mostly the men looked eager to get out and home, and they had surprising energy for people who had put in a full day of manual or semi-manual labor. The second movie was called "Lunchbreak" and consisted of a single, hour-long camera shot rolled on a dolly or jimmy jib down a corridor in the same factory during a lunch break. The film was all slow motion but the audio had been separated and was heard in real time, providing bits of conversation about kids' soccer games, a snatches of Led Zepplin playing on a radio, etc. Mostly the audio was just the terrifically loud background noise of the factory. Apparently the workers just stop where they are and eat on available benches and not in a proper lunchroom or break room. The most interesting and exciting feature of this film occurred when a man took a bag of popcorn out of a microwave and sat down... all in slo-mo, of course. The vehemently anti-drug use DH also remarked that the film could possibly and only be improved by watching it on LSD. Movie Venue: The Racquet Club 7 /10 "Exit": 0 / 10 "Lunchbreak": -2 / 10 |
kswl,
I'm sorry you ended up not happy at the Homestead. I've never stayed there, but when I checked it out years ago I sure wasn't impressed. I don't remember when you were planning this trip? I hope I tried to discourage you from staying there. I never recommend it to people on Fodor's. The festival is wrapping up today and most people have left. Town is quieting down again. At least until President's Day weekend! |
Homestead has a variety of different options. Years ago, we had a room in the old milkhouse and were dissappointed. They have added some new units through the years. A few years ago, my work had a retreat there and we ended up in one of the new rooms (in a four plex) with a living room area, fridge, microwave, fireplace and a huge bathroom with a jacuzzi tub. Since we stayed there for work, I have no idea what the room cost was but we really enjoyed it. Some of the others had two bedroom condos or basic motel rooms. After long days of meetings, we really enjoyed the pools each night.
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Annie, those rooms you just described make up the cottages and that is where we moved after the first night. Dayle, we stayed at the Homestead because I waited too late to get accomodations in Park City, and even Zermatt was completely booked for Sundance. The only other place that had availability when I booked in October was the Holiday Inn Express in Heber City. There were some condos available in PC but we only wanted three nights (because we were staying in Deer Crest with friends for the rest of the week), and most of them required a week's reservation.
Our second night we ate at The Blue Boar, which in my mind is Midway's claim to fame. It was wonderful, as always, and this time we had DS2 to enjoy it with us. Son had pheasant, I had filet and I've already forgotten what DH had, but it was all perfectly delicious. The cosmopolitans were lovely and I had several glasses of cabernet. Dessert was a collection of cream puffs for DS, cheesecake for DH and a fruity confection for moi. The innkeeper, the engaging Mr. Neiderhauser, took DS around the restaurant to look at the antique weapons on the walls. He took down a crossbow dating from the 1600's and let DS hold it as he was pointing out some of its features. Excellent french-press coffee was a nice finish to our meals at this beautiful restaurant, which made me feel as though I were posing in a Gorsuch catalog :) Blue Boar Inn food: 9 /10 Ambience: 9 /10 Drinks and Wine List: 10 /10 Saturday's day movie was one of the shorts programs, and the men went into PC to see that and have lunch while I spent the afternoon reading Temple Grandin's new book "Animals Make Us Human." This is an excellent description of how animals respond to stimuli and their natural behaviors, written by an expert in the field who is also an autistic adult. Dr. Grandin is an articulate advocate of autistic children and animals, and she is a well known writer and researcher. This book is definitely worth reading! For dinner we went to the Mountain House Grill on Main Street in Midway, a bistro-type restaurant that serves everything from pizza to steaks. This was on our way to Salt Lake City, where our movie <i>Stay the Same Never Change</i> was playing at the Broadway Cinema. Although the food at at the Mountain House Grill was good but undistinguished, the service was good and it has a lively vibe. Mountain House Grill: 5.67 /10 The movie in SLC was, quite plainly, terrible. The moviemaker, Laurel Nakadate, introduced the film and was available for QandA afterwards. She said she got the "actors" from a MySpace site and filmed them all in their own homes doing just what they normally do. Then she asked them to do some "weird stuff" and had them do scenes that didn't really have scripted dialogue. There was actually only one professional actor in this movie. All the others answered the MySpace ad and looked and acted <i>exactly</i> as you would expect 18-30 year-olds without careers or education to look and act. The scenes were strange and pointless; for example, one woman answered the door for a worker from a pest control company and the teenaged daughter---wearing shorts that displayed the complete pudendal region AND wore them with a non-cute tank top and short cowboy boots---became upset because the mother hadn't told her they had mice. The worker was awkward and the "mother" was at a loss for words, and the daughter followed one of the workers out into the yard, where he stripped to get ready for his mouse-catching duties. The teenager asked him for mouse traps, and the next scene shows her walking around Kansas City placing mouse traps in different places, e.g. under a sculpture in a public plaza, behind a tree in a park, etc. Several scenes showed a man in his older twenties slowing his car down beside young girls walking on the sidewalk and asking if they wanted a ride. Of course, the girls got in without question and in one case the man took a younger girl (15?) to the woods for his "mens' club" meeting. The girl was sitting on a fallen tree while women were pulling up to a parking lot and letting off their husbands/boyfriends and waiting in the car as the men joined the kidnapper and the girl in the woods. One man held a large wooden club. The scene cut as they were all approaching the girl, and the next time we saw the kidnapper and the girl they were in a diner ordering pie. In the parking lot he told her to take her skirt off because he wanted it as a keepsake. She complied without even commenting on the request, and he took her skirt and left her there in the parking lot to make her own way home. The movie was a jumble of scenes like that. One high school girl was shown flipping through her yearbook and pointing to pictures of people as she defined them in a single word, " ho, slut, bitch, nerd, creepster, weirdo," etc. She was in love with a boy in her school who evidently did not know she was alive. She pretended her teddy bear was the boy and had a sort of mock sex with it in her bedroom. She put on a soiled prom dress and pretended it was a wedding dress to marry the bear/love interest. Later, that same girl was seen in a public park swimming in a lake, talking to two older men (she was about 15, they were in their late 20's). They commented on the size of her breasts and then she asked them to drown her. They decline this honor and leave. Later she is shown in the same lake drowning her bear/symbolic boyfriend. There are others in the film, equally pointless, talentless and stupid. One girl sewed a soft sculpture man who looked very much like the male model Fabio (and when I asked about it in the QandA the director said that the girl had actually called him Fabio). She danced with Fabio in the privacy of her home and watched tv with him sitting beside her. One of the other girls came by the house when no one was home and saw the Fabio and got into bed with it. No, I am not making this up. In the QandA the director---a young-ish woman who was inarticulate but clearly wanting to be daring and avant garde, answered questions in a sort of giggly, "whatever" kind of way. I asked her what the actors thought of the portrayal of their lives and homes in the film---clearly a cultural wasteland with no beauty, no books, dirty surroundings, etc. The director then introduced one of the actors (from MySpace, not an <i>actor</i> actor) in whose house part of the film had been shot. The woman was offended said angrily that she was sorry her house and life were culturally deprived and then the director made some witless remark about these being "normal" middle-class homes and what could she say but they all needed interior decorators. No, they all needed to be <i>cleaned.</i> Needless to say I was taken aback and more than a little embarrassed, but what is the use of a question and answer session with the director of a film if you can't ask him or her the real questions that occur to you? Stay the Same Never Change: 0 /10 |
kswl - I'm curious - how did you pick the films you saw? Was it random, did you like the catalog descriptions,or was this what was left by the time you bought tix?
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kswl,
Wow! That one sounds awful. I think I would have walked out. Over the years, if I have been able to get the films I've chosen, I've done very well and most have been very good to excellent. But, there have been a couple real dogs. One we escaped at the intermission! This year, I didn't get an early enough time slot to get the ones I wanted, so I decided not to settle for what was left. I was able to get almost all the films my niece wanted, but I didn't see a thing this year for the first time in 9 years. |
By the time I had my 25 minutes to get on the site and select our tickets I had combed through the whole list of movies, read all the descriptions and had made a spreadsheet of all the movies we wanted, in descending order of importance, and their relative times of day and venues. We had to allow at least 45 minutes to get from one place to another, and the bus schedule was erratic at best, as you both probably are well aware. I actually had all these movies on my list----admittedly they were not on my shortlist of 10, but they were on the list.
In my own defense please let me quote from the official Sundance description of "Stay the Same Never Change": <i>Artist/filmmaker Laurel Nakadate’s weird and delightful first feature film, Stay the Same Never Change, is a raw, audacious effort that burns with such originality and honesty that it seems destined to become a Festival discovery.....From a pining tween who turns to her sewing machine for creature comforts to a young woman obsessed with polar bears and Oprah, Nakadate’s characters reveal quiet lives brimming with anguish and desire, but also a fascinating ingenuity.....You do not have to hail from the heartland to connect with the infectious appeal of Stay the Same Never Change.</i> That doesn't sound so bad, does it? And the movies Lunchbreak and Exit are described thusly: <i>In this daring pair of new works, Lunch Break and Exit, Lockhart explores a new approach, an insisting sense of motion that produces more of what might be described as a photographic experience. In Lunch Break, the camera is entirely untethered, slowly moving in a single tracking shot through a long corridor where workers are enjoying their lunch hour at the Bath Iron Works, a massive shipyard in Maine.....</i>[in Exit] <i>The organic rhythm of workers in the shipyard receives a lyrical examination at a juncture in American economic history that may well make such scenarios obsolete. As viewers, we must completely surrender conventional narrative expectations and let ourselves be transported into the atmosphere and idiosyncratic details of life at the shipyard.</i> In vulgar parlance, Holy Bullshit, Batman! The Emperor is wearing NO CLOTHES! Who knew that in Sundance-speak "organic rhythm" means "about as exciting as watching paint dry" ??? |
On Saturday we saw the excellent film "Toe to Toe" at the Racquet Club theater. This film featured two teenaged girls at a Washington, D.C. high school who both played on the lacrosse team. One was white, wealthy, unsupervised and unhappy. She would beg the housekeeper to stay with her; the mother was frequently out of the country on very important international diplomatic missions of some unspecified sort. The girl had been expelled from several schools and although a senior, was still taking first-year algebra. She wasn't terribly intelligent and was a thrill-seeker, drug taker, and sexually promiscuous.
The black girl was from a poor family living in public housing in Anacostia. She had to take long bus and subway rides to get to school. Her mother was a security guard. The grandmother (ably played by Leslie Uggams) lived in the small apartment, along with a younger brother and an older brother (around 20) who did not work but "watched" his bi-racial daughter during the day while the child's mother finished high school. They were crowded into a small apartment but the girl (hs senior) had a tiny room of her own. Her dream was to attend Princeton, and her life was arranged and organized very tightly into studying and sports. So great was her need for order amidst the chaos of the housing project that she labeled everything in her room with a p-touch labeler. The two girls became uneasy friends of a sort, and there ensued drug use, sexual exploitation of the white girl (who would basically do anything for what she considered affection from a boy or group of boys), and a racial incident. Both actresses were superb; the dialogue was weak in places but overall the film was just wonderful. All the Sundance films are unrated but this clearly would have been an R; there were scenes of nudity, drug use, and truly BLUE language. The interactions between high school kids of different races and ethnicities rang very true, and the story had a lot to say about teenagers' lives and the state of race relations in our country. <i>Nobody</i> was spared the raw honesty of the filmmaker, Emily Abt--who both wrote and directed this movie. Louisa Krause and Sonequa Martin were the two gifted leads, both women in their early twenties who show a lot of promise. They conducted the QandA and were both just as beautiful and intelligent and happy as two young women ever were. Toe to Toe: 8.5 /10 |
kswl Loving the trip report...MORE PLEASE
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Mamaw, you are sweet ...I know my trip reports are the written equivalent of the Battan death march and I apologize!
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no, I'm w/ Mamaw - as an independent film producer, your observations are fascinating to me!
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In that case, mp, I can't wait to get to my observations on the movie "Manure," starring Billy Bob Thornton and Tea Leoni. (But there are several good movies to get through, first.)
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Thank you for doing a trip report. I'm enjoying your movie reviews very much. How many movies were you able to see over the week you were in Utah?
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No death march. I love the detail. And I agree with the mp, your doing a fantastic job. I visit the DIA often to check out the Indep. Films. There's one me and my DD are going to check out this weekend. "Let the right one in" it's a vampire flick with sub titles. She Loves anything vampire. I haven't told her it's got sub-titles. She hates that.
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kswl,
I am really enjoying your report and reviews! I won't even go into the one special screening documentary that we escaped at intermisson! I probably would have skipped both of those based on the blurbs. Toe to Toe sounds great. I was really disappointed I couldn't get in to "The Sept Issue" and "When You're Strange". :-( I got a kick out of my niece's reviews. They saw 8 films in 2 days. She graduated from UCLA Film School (with honors in 3 years, can you tell I'm proud?) and works for a film production company. Her impressions were very interesting and from a "commercial" view rather than the indy view. |
Sunday we had an evening movie in Salt Lake City, The Clone Returns Home. This is a Japanese scifi movie that we were all eagerly awaiting. However, our friends who were arriving in PC that day had planned a dinner at their home which we wanted to attend, and we were re-thinking the social acceptability of arriving at their home at 11 pm (movie 'til 9:30pm, QandA til 10pm, and an hour of traveling back). We decided to forego this movie and instead went to Redstone Cinemas to see Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman in "Last Chance Harvey" before settling in at our friends' home that evening.
I love Emma Thompson and have a great deal of respect for Dustin Hoffman, but this movie was almost a criminal dud. The story itself was a little ridiculous, and Hoffman's portrayal of this hesitant and ineffective character relied on his own well-known facial expressions and mannerisms instead of acting. The movie lurched from one uncomfortable scene to the next, leaving the moviegoer wondering when, exactly, the "comedy" would begin. Hoffman's Harvey was the Willie Loman of the commercial "jingle" music industry, and even when he had the chance to reclaim his job---and redeem his raison d'etre thereby---there really didn't seem to be much point in it. Emma Thompson plodded along as a drab, middle-aged woman who for some inexplicable reason decided to allow a visiting American man take her to his daughter's wedding. I know I am not explaining the plot; there is really no need, as to call it a plot is to elevate it beyond any reasonable expectations. Plot: thin (I'm being kind) Performances: totally phoned in Ickiest moment: every time supporting actor James Brolin is on screen Last Chance Harvey: 2.0 /10 We drove afterwards to Deer Valley and moved into a spacious and comfortable home quite unlike our digs at The Homestead. A dinner buffet of butternut squash soup, various cheeses, crackers, veggies, and <i>four different kinds of fudge</i> was delicious, and we reconnected with old friends from Florida and met a few new people from PC. The next morning we had an early film at the Holiday Village Cinema, which was the most comfortable venue of Sundance. "The Maid" was shown at 9:15 a.m., and was absolutely the best movie I saw at Sundance, and one of the best movies I have ever seen. Written and directed by Sebastian Silva, this lovely film from Chile was in Spanish with English subtitles. The story features the family maid, Raquel, who for twenty years has cleaned, cooked, shopped, and lived with an upper class family of six. She is "part of the family" and yet very much outside of it. She left her own village and hasn't seen her mother or relatives in a very long time and has no friends or social interaction beyond the family that employs her. She seems to be breaking down, both physically and mentally, and the woman of the house employs a series of "under" maids to help Raquel. She is bitterly resentful of their presence and goes to great lengths to sabotage their work. Although this is not a comedy, it provided some of the funniest scenes of any of the movies we saw; one angry maid---the zaftig "Rosa"---threatened to kill Raquel for locking her out of the house. Rosa's subtitled Chilean cussing, her attempt to shimmy down a gutter from the roof to get in a window, and her rage at the resulting burned dinner were wonderfully comical! When a forthright young woman named Lucy comes to live in the house and reacts completely differently from all the others, Raquel starts thinking about her own situation differently. Lucy offers friendship, and Raquel----who hadn't even realized she was <i>starved</i> for friendly human contact---accepts it. The movie was beautifully filmed and the actors were superb. The story was perfect, a small narrative that truly illuminated a certain part of Chilean culture, interpersonal relationships, and universal human needs. The director is an ebullient, articulate young man even when he is searching for the "right" word in English. The main characters in the cast were also present (Raquel, Lucy and the mother Senora Valdes) and answered questions about the film, their own professional backgrounds and their views on the class system in Chile. Catalina Saavedra (Raquel) spoke virtually no English but graciously answered questions through an interpreter. I kept asking questions and (so did others in the audience) and they would have stayed all day to answer but the festival volunteers finally shooed us all out. I gave this movie my highest rating and so did DH. When we left the theater we saw the director and actors waiting for the Sundance limo to take them to their next showing and we spoke to them for a few minutes. I told them that The Maid was exactly the film I had hoped to see at Sundance and that I loved their performances. When this was translated to "Raquel" she had tears in her eyes as she clasped my hands in thanks. The Maid: 10 /10 And I wasn't the only one who thought so: On January 25th the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was awarded to Sebastián Silva's The Maid (La Nana) and Catalina Saavedra was awarded the World Cinema Special Jury Prize for Acting |
Our youngest son went with us to Sundance and at this point (Monday) in our trip he and two friends who met him in PC went to their own movies. They saw Mystery Team, a sort of cross between Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew, which they liked very much. The director and actors were generous with their time talking to the kids after the movie, particularly as they were really the only "kids" at the movie. Park City High School was apparently in session and we saw very few other teenagers in evidence. (Probably because of what it took to get a class waiver from school to miss a week and the awful grind of making everything up afterwards.) Since our son is considering drama as his college major we thought this experience would be valuable for him. The other teens in our group are budding journalists who were reporting on the festival for their prep school's in-house tv station.
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Kurieff, I just saw your question: we saw 10 or 11 movies in six days!
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