12 years old and in the middle of a rant - my mother asked if I could form a sentence that did not include the following, “I want, I need, I’ve got to have”.
At 12 - I wanted Shawn Kroop to be my boyfriend, I needed a ride to the Sherman Oaks Galleria and like every other student in the 7th grade at Cal Prep, I had to own a pair of Guess jeans, which I had to pay for out of my allowance because of my parents reluctance to understand the cost of “cool” (which by the way was $100).
Last year, at 35 - I found myself head over heels in a new relationship where everything was on target. Good communication, thoughtful and insightful conversations, he was sensitive but not overly, my parents liked him, his parents liked me, we liked each other’s friends, things were good in and out of the bedroom, for all intents and purposes it was a healthy relationship.
In the beginning we saw each other a lot and usually spent most of the weekend together. Cut to two months later, we seemed to be spending less time together. Everything else in the relationship seemed to be as solid as it had always been, although our full weekends together had dwindled to Saturday nights and early Sunday mornings with maybe one other day during week. The emails and phone calls seemed to die down as well. Maybe that’s natural after the “honeymoon period”, but still… so suddenly?
Aside from this issue I felt happy and when we were together we always had a great time. No matter how many conversations we had about this subject, at the end of the day, he required less time and I required more. That’s just the way I am built.
In the throes of our breakup he said something about my stubbornness, my obstinance. It sounded familiar, maybe a little too familiar… like my mother’s refrain so long ago - I want, I need, I’ve got to have.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Sundanceland
Walking down Main Street in Park City, my friend Cookie pointed out that Sundance is like Disneyland except the celebrities are the rides.
Having been to only the more laid-back Telluride Festival, I wasn’t quite prepared for the complete transplant of a microcosm of the elitist LA movie biz transplanted to the snowy hills of Utah. Despite its high profile pedigree what I thought I was in for was a larger scaled version of what I had experienced in Colorado: Familiar faces free to walk down the street without being hounded, a ticket actually assuring me a seat in a theatre, restaurants and bars without velvet ropes and exorbitant cover charges, small and necessary conveniences available without having to take a $12.00 cab ride to buy tampons. In Telluride, there was a cohesive feeling between the film festival and the town, with a sense of community, it felt like summer camp for film lovers.
At Sundance there is a rigid and noticeable class difference between the Hollywood insiders (which, as a casting director, I have always considered myself somewhat a part of) and the locals who are treated like bumpkins. That Utah mountain air is very rarefied, indeed.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great once you pierce the five layers of assistants, festival guardians, thuggish bouncers and unnecessary red tape to get to the people who we had all traveled there to see and to the screenings you came for in the first place.
My fondest memories from Sundance are of spending time with the people that actually made the films. At the after party for Shrinks, I saw Kevin Spacey and couldn't help but ask him about working with the legendary Burt Lancaster in Rocket Gibraltar, which I had seen when I was a kid. After politely tolerating a slew of backslappers asking him for his autograph and giving him the generic compliment, "I like your work", he was thrilled that someone asked him about something different and immediately launched into a dead-on Lancaster impression which had everyone laughing hysterically.
Another night, while trying to get into the exclusive Tao, 3:10 to Yuma actor Ben Foster, seeing that I had been rebuffed by the stone-faced security guard, claimed that I was with his party even though we had barely met. Thanks, Ben!
If you have sharp elbows, a take-no-prisoners attitude and are up to the challenge of circumventing the system, you can get the full Sundance experience. But if you’re not up for the Hollywood theme park, might I suggest Disneyland: The rides are the rides.
Having been to only the more laid-back Telluride Festival, I wasn’t quite prepared for the complete transplant of a microcosm of the elitist LA movie biz transplanted to the snowy hills of Utah. Despite its high profile pedigree what I thought I was in for was a larger scaled version of what I had experienced in Colorado: Familiar faces free to walk down the street without being hounded, a ticket actually assuring me a seat in a theatre, restaurants and bars without velvet ropes and exorbitant cover charges, small and necessary conveniences available without having to take a $12.00 cab ride to buy tampons. In Telluride, there was a cohesive feeling between the film festival and the town, with a sense of community, it felt like summer camp for film lovers.
At Sundance there is a rigid and noticeable class difference between the Hollywood insiders (which, as a casting director, I have always considered myself somewhat a part of) and the locals who are treated like bumpkins. That Utah mountain air is very rarefied, indeed.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great once you pierce the five layers of assistants, festival guardians, thuggish bouncers and unnecessary red tape to get to the people who we had all traveled there to see and to the screenings you came for in the first place.
My fondest memories from Sundance are of spending time with the people that actually made the films. At the after party for Shrinks, I saw Kevin Spacey and couldn't help but ask him about working with the legendary Burt Lancaster in Rocket Gibraltar, which I had seen when I was a kid. After politely tolerating a slew of backslappers asking him for his autograph and giving him the generic compliment, "I like your work", he was thrilled that someone asked him about something different and immediately launched into a dead-on Lancaster impression which had everyone laughing hysterically.
Another night, while trying to get into the exclusive Tao, 3:10 to Yuma actor Ben Foster, seeing that I had been rebuffed by the stone-faced security guard, claimed that I was with his party even though we had barely met. Thanks, Ben!
If you have sharp elbows, a take-no-prisoners attitude and are up to the challenge of circumventing the system, you can get the full Sundance experience. But if you’re not up for the Hollywood theme park, might I suggest Disneyland: The rides are the rides.
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