Sundance 2008 Day 1: Cold, Tired, Hungry, But Plenty of Movies!

January 19, 2008
by Alex Billington

The first 24 hours of Sundance have been pretty overwhelming, which is why updates have been staggered recently. This year I have the company of Neil Miller from Film School Rejects and Peter Sciretta from SlashFilm and the occasional appearance by Vic Holterman of ScreenRant, which means I have even less time to stop and write. Not only did I party quite late with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson yesterday night at the In Bruges party, but it's been one hell of a fun adventure today. It's cold, I'm tired, and I didn't eat all day, but I'm already into the thick of Sundance 2008 and loving every last minute of it. The greatest two weeks of the entire year have finally begun!

Below is a photo of the temporary "camp" we setup inside of the headquarters at the Marriott while working during some downtime between a few movies. Neil is in the middle and Peter is on the right side. I'm up behind the camera taking the photo, but you can see my computer and workspace.

Sundance 2008

We're only one day in and some quite interesting things have already happened. I was contacted by Maria Bello's and Downloading Nancy's lawyers on Thursday night for running a trailer that contained some "unauthorized" scenes of Maria Bello nude, although it was publicly available where I grabbed it. I quickly switched it for a newly edited one that did not contain those scenes. But I was delightfully surprised to find that Maria Bello herself happened to be at the same screening I was at Friday morning for The Yellow Handkerchief. It's quite funny to see all that happen and then be at the same screening as her (and probably her manager) that following morning. At least I fixed it quickly and made them all happy.

It's also a very surreal experience sitting about two rows in front of Quentin Tarantino, who is here as a juror for the dramatic film category. I saw two dramatic competition films this evening, The Wackness and Sunshine Cleaning, and Tarantino was there for both. He's not hiding from the crowd, he's there just as an attendee like the rest of us (and also as a juror). I also caught the world premiere screening of The Wackness, which was a great film, and caught up briefly with Olivia Thirlby, who I met at last year's Sundance. It's only really the first official day and all of that has already happened. I can't wait to see what else will go down in Park City over the 9 remaining days…

Sundance 2008 Review List:

FRIDAY (JAN 18)
In Bruges - 8.5/10
The Yellow Handkerchief - 5/10
The Wackness - 9/10
Sunshine Cleaning - 6.5/10

Discover More: Sundance 08

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