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.