Sundance Film Festival, Take Three

On the chairlift for our first run on the first day

As always, Sundance this year provided a nice balance between great skiing and great films.

That is the sentence I should have typed to start off this post about my third trip to Utah. Alas, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and me. Everything started out rosy. I was very excited to try out my brand new boots and Ed and I had a great first day at the Canyons where we were joined my my brother, dad, and my dad's friend Meredith in the afternoon. My toes felt chilly a few times, but I fired up my new electric boot warmers and was instantly toasty again. Day Two was snowy and Ed, Anthony and I drove to Snowbird to meet up with my friend Nic, one of the best skiers I know. I filled the important caboose position (someone has to) for the morning, but after a late lunch break decided to strike out on my own for the two hours we had left to us. Visibility wasn't good because of the snow, and there were lots of rocks and icy patches that I kept coming upon without warning. I was doing OK trailing after the others but wanted to slow things down. It's a good thing I did, because my left ankle started to feel really sore as the afternoon went on. I figured it was just a wrinkle in my sock or a misaligned boot tongue, but prodding and tugging mid-run did no good. In the hotel later that night, I discovered a lump on my ankle. I figured it was just swollen and would improve by the next day but realized this wasn't going to be the case within a few turns of my very first run that morning. I had to sit the rest of the day out. That evening, my dad gave me a quick examination and concluded that I had developed a ganglion cyst, probably because of prolonged pressure and rubbing from the boot over the course of two days. Eeeeeeew. 

First aid, by Dr. Ed

Ed helped me rig up a pad made of Molefoam (a thicker and less pleasant-sounding version of Moleskin) with a cyst-sized hole cut out to spare my ankle. It worked a bit, but after about an hour or so at Park City I'd had about all I could take and had to turn in early. I was pretty disappointed to have to sacrifice two full days of a four-day ski vacation, especially since the whole point of buying boots was to prevent this sort of thing from happening. I've got my fingers crossed that I'll be healed up in time for a trip to Colorado with Ed in March and that the boots will be broken in enough by then that nothing else gross will happen. 

Waiting for one of the shorts series to start

I enjoyed many of the films we saw this year. My favorite was called The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete. It's the story of two boys whose drug-addled mothers abandon them in the projects for the summer. Obviously there are some tough moments, but there were funny parts as well, and the ending was a good one. We also saw a film called No that's been nominated for the Oscar for best foreign language film. We watched a wrenching but very interesting documentary about the huge earthquake in the Sichuan province of China called Fallen City that was great, though overly long. Usually, I really look forward to going to one of the short film series that Sundance puts together, and this year we went to two. The first was a collection of standard shorts, but the second was a new one for us: documentary shorts. It was quite interesting to watch such short documentaries, some of which were only about ten minutes long (though one was much, much longer). The standing favorite in our group was one of the shortest, a film called "Whistle" about a Polish referee who presides over adult-league games in a country that takes soccer very seriously. The poor guy was often the most hated person on the field. It was subject I'd never have thought to explore, but one that was very interesting to learn about. My favorite scene was a shot of a pheasant running frantically across the field in the middle of the game; for these players, games were almost a matter of life and death, but moments like that reminded me of how ludicrous it all was. 

The No Name Saloon, minutes before the excitement began

Sundance is apparently rife with movie stars, but my last two years haven't  yielded any sightings to brag about. I saw the back of some football player's head, apparently, but I only know that because a bystander mentioned it aloud and I don't even remember his name. I've also seen some actors on stages at the end of films, but I don't count really count these times; in my book, you have to just sort of come across someone unexpectedly. This year, Ed and I visited the busy No Name Saloon on Main Street one evening to kill a few hours before a film. I scanned the crowd hopefully but came up with nothing. "I can't believe we still haven't seen a single celebrity," I complained. (It should be noted that we'd been in the bar for five minutes and it was our first day in Park City.) "Michael Cera just walked through the door," Ed replied. "Ha, ha," I said, annoyed. We'd already seen Michael Cera in a New York bar, and I did not appreciate his humor during this time of personal dejection. "Seriously, turn around," said Ed. Yup. There was Michael Cera, about ten feet away. We did our best not to stare-New Yorkers try to be extra jaded when we see famous people-but a young rube at a nearby table yelled, "I love you, Juno!" Mr. Cera gave him a contemptuous smile and beat it for the back of the bar with a few friends. Later, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I found myself walking into a narrow hallway at the back of the bar just as he was coming out of it. We looked at each other, then turned sideways as we continued walking so that we'd both fit. I considered telling him in passing that I love his work, which I do, but my nerves and sense of decency got the best of me. Based on the look on his face as he came into the bar, he was anxious not to be in the spotlight tonight. Plus I'm a weenie.

My new friend

Although I was disappointed about the skiing part of it, Sundance was, as always, fantastic. I was pleased that my mom and brother were able to come, and I think both enjoyed it enough that they'll  be joining us next year. I hope my cyst has healed up by then, because Michael Cera is probably going to want to hit the slopes with me.