Cinematical

Cinematical's Sundance team is here in lovely Park City, kicking of the first day of the festival today. We're staying at the Yarrow, the "press hotel," and today this place has transformed from sleepy little ski resort hotel to Sundance insanity. You can't walk two steps without running into some press person or another around here, and with celeb interviews taking place in random places like the middle of a hallway and other critics rushing frantically from screening to screening, they almost need traffic lights in the hallways to keep things flowing.
Last year the Yarrow was fairly quiet, with a rather mundane bar and not much else going on besides the constant screenings in the ballroom and the tap-tap-tap of fingers on keyboards in the lobby. This year, however, the Yarrow has a bit of excitement going on. I first suspected something was up when we went to the bar on Wednesday night and found fabric draped on the walls and people running around with lots of artwork.


Turns out Allison Nord, the hotel's food and beverage boss, decided to turn the staid Yarrow into a hip, happening hangout. Working with a company called the Dream Factory, she has transformed the Yarrow into a hipper playground, with DJs in the bar and eclectic art everywhere. Just in the bar alone, there are cooper gear wall hangings, a Buddha statue holding a glowing blue orb (that's the blue ball in the pic above, and the picture next to it is now glowing under a black light), another wall hanging of a busty woman straddling a rather phallic rocket, giant bean bag chairs, and tables with rocket bases (also seen above).

This pic shows more of the artwork in the bar.



The upstairs has been turned into a groovy nightclub atmosphere, and Dream Factory honcho Christoper Crescitelli assured me that the parties that will happen in that space are all being put on to "give back" to the Sundance Film Festival by putting on hip, fun parties that locals and your average Sundancer without VIP access can go to. And for after those long nights, just outside the lobby, Nord showed me, is the "Rainforest Wellness Tent," (pictured, below) which is lovely and green and white. In the Rainforest, folks will be able to get free Shiatsu and cranio-sacral massages for tips only, use massage and energy tables, and learn about cool eco-friendly products and organizations.



All of this is cool, and we'll try to cover some of the party action upstairs, but it does make me glad my room is far from the loudness, because I do get grouchy if I don't get at least a solid four hours sleep a night during a fest.

I haven't had a chance to get out and about Main Street yet, but will be posting a photoblog soon. Aside from chatting up lots of old friends and meeting new ones, the only celeb I've seen as of yet was Crispin Glover being interviewed about his newest film, It is Fine. Everything is Fine, and the cast of An American Crime at tonight's packed premiere.

Right at the climax of that film tonight, there was a medical emergency in the crowd and a woman started yelling for "LIGHTS!" At first, everyone seemed to think she was saying "FIRE!" because there was a mildly developing air of panic as people rose from their seats and started to head out before they realized it was an evacuation situation. At any rate, we hope the gentleman makes a rapid recovery.

As for the film itself, it was quite well done. I'll have a full review coming up soon, as well as an interview with Ellen Page, who stars in the film. For now, suffice it to say that director Tommy O'Haver took a sad and gruesome real story and made a film that tries to explore the psychological aspects of how a housewife and group of neighborhood kids turned an innocent girl into a torture toy and, ultimately, murder victim, and that both Page and Catherine Keener are really outstanding in the film.

Also yesterday, I caught Ostrov (Island), a Russian film in the World Dramatic Competition, and The Savages, starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Everyone I've talked to who has seen it really enjoyed The Savages, and I liked it as well. Look for my review on that one, coming later today or tomorrow.

Coming up, I have four films on my plate today: The Good Life, directed by Stephen Berra and starring Mark Webber and Zooey Deschanel, Bill Paxton and Harry Dean Stanton; Broken English, directed by Zoe Cassavetes and starring Parker Posey; Grace is Gone, directed by James Strouse and starring John Cusack, and Nanking, the documentary about the rape of Nanking, co-directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman. I heard great things about that last one this morning from The Hollywood Reporter's Anne Thompson when we shot our first roundtable, so I'm really looking forward to seeing that one.

The rest of our team has a full slate as well, and we'll be bringing you lots of interviews over the coming days; we'll also have coverage of the Outfest Queer Brunch, the Women in Film panel, and some party and scene coverage, so keep checking back. Let us know if there's anything in particular you really want to see us cover, as well, and if it's not already on our radar, we'll try to work it in.