SUNDANCE, ‘98. DAY VI. 1/20...
Sorry Sundancemancers, "At Large" devotes Day 6 to THE SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL...
Of all the film festivals I’ve covered (San Francisco, New York, Palm Springs, Sundance, Santa Barbara, Austin, et al), Slamdance holds a special place on the warm side of my heart. In 1996, during the fest’s 2nd year in Park City, Slamdance was a blip on the big media hit list. Barely functioning as Reporter-at-Large for Spy Magazine at the time, I called their offices looking for some juice to blend into my Industry Column. What I got was recruited as a juror for their 2nd Annual Festival.
When I offered free press ink (fulfilled post-fest in both Premiere and Film Threat), festival organizers John Fitzgerald (now Director at the AFI Fest), Peter Baxter (diehard current Slamdance Executive Director, and Dan Mirvish (Co-Founder at Large) promised to put me up for free. Little did I know I’d be sharing a hotel room at then festival headquarters (The Yarrow Hotel) with an entire documentary film crew, the festival’s publicist, and anyone else who could scam a piece of floor space.
Sharing jury duty with Paul Cullum from Film Threat and some chick from the Utah Arts Council, halfway through the proceedings, we were hard pressed to find a fourth juror who had seen all the films. Along came "Gabe." Gabriel "Gabe" Wardell was the Slamdance projectionist that year, constantly suffering projector breakdowns in good humor. In the end, the joke was on us, the other jurors. Gabe insisted on voting for the most insipidly awful films screened. I remember him casting his Grand Jury Award vote to a real yawner about an agoraphobic woman -- a film I called "a location manager’s dream" in a review filed after the fest -- that actually forced that film into a runner-up spot.
Fortunately, Greg Mottola’s "Daytrippers" took the Jury Prize that year, and with it’s critical praise and modest release, helped put Slamdance on the map. And in Park City, Slamdance, in it’s fourth year, is now an institution at the Treasure Mountain Inn (at the top of Main Street); that documentary crew who squatted with me at the Yarrow are screening their film about indie filmmakers, "Independent’s Day," (dir: Marina Zenovich) daily at Slamdance, and, of course, Gabe is still spooling and judging at the little festival atop the hill.
I celebrated my Slamdance homecoming today by appropriately crashing the Miramax-sponsored Sundance party with a crew of creatives from the Slamdance entry, "Burn": Director, Scott Storm; Executive Producers, Bryan Singer (dir.: "Usual Suspects," "Apt Pupil") and Adam Duritz (The Counting Crows), stars Johnson Slavin and David Hater, writer, Dylan Kussman, and "silent" Executive Producer, Christopher McQuarrie (writer, "Usual Suspects"). While mainstream press pressed flesh, the "Burn" boys and I basically tore Sundance to shreds for the sheer fun of it. In a corner, we made a game out of words-in-film-titles that should be forbidden from entering. Here’s what we came up with, playing off current Sundance titles: "Once we were..." ("Once We Were Strangers"), "Ruby," or "Rubies" ("A Price above Rubies") "Any film named after a State" (Montana), "How to" ("How To Make The Cruelest Month") and "any title with a comma in it" ("Next Stop, Wonderland"). Then, McQuarrie -- after hearing that the cellophane-wrapped sandwiches craft-serviced at the Sundance Library Center screenings were "pretty good" -- remarked, "Jesus Christ! Even the fucking sandwiches here get ‘buzz.’" Then, we ate...
The trick to navigating bullshit crowds at Sundance is to simply head in the opposite direction. Case in point: As the Miramax Party crowd funneled out to the next "hot" party -- Was it the William Morris party??? -- half our crew stayed behind and booked a table where we were (The Main Street Seafood and Oyster House). There, we enjoyed the ambiance of a nearly empty restaurant with food and service of the highest order. We shot the shit over Cioppino, then, as we were about to leave, legendary screenwriter Paul Schrader stumbled up to our table. "You know," mumbled the writer of ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Raging Bull,’ "my last few films have been independent films [‘Late Sleeper,’ ‘The Comfort Of Strangers,’ ‘Affliction’] because studios don’t make my kind of films any more." He then showed us his fully packed screening schedule as competition juror this year; I booked a half hour with him for Friday, and he sauntered off to a private table downstairs with the Miramax folks where he was no doubt the designated "Honorary Drinker."
With moments to spare before the Slamdance premiere of "Burn," we bypassed Starbucks (Yes, Park City is now soiled with Grande Lattes and a La Salsa now), and scrambled up the hill to snag some prime "cushion space" in the screening room. Greeted by Festival co-founder, Dan Mirvish, we greeted old friends and new, and before the lights went down, the party began. You see, there’s something magical about a film festival presented "by filmmakers, for filmmakers." And what that magic is, is that certain sense of humor emerging after years of struggle, trying to make, then find an audience for a micro-budgeted vision.
Dan Mirvish, who made a fine little film called "Omaha -- The Movie" that didn’t get into Sundance a few years back, not only started Slamdance, but actually "four-wall" distributed "Omaha" around the world on his own. Seeing him wearing a washboard, barking audiences in to see his film at the Hollywood Sunset-5 not long ago made a believer in him out of me. And at the "Burn" premiere, seeing was believing.
Scott Storm’s "Burn" a taut psychologically thrilling study of the Alpha-male brought the capacity Slamdance house down. Although claustrophobic at times, Kussman’s dialogue as spewed by stars Hater and Slavin cooked the pace of this one-set wonder up to about Fahrenheit 451. Perfectly paired with a tragic love story short film called Loverboy, "Burn" got added affirmations when -- after the screening -- it was announced that it was accepted into The Seattle International Film Festival. Of course, we all piled into a locals-only townie bar to celebrate.
Click "At Large" tomorrow to find out how I survived a Sundance screening marathon!