Connecting at Sundance

The next big day was on Monday or MLK Jr. day. I started off the day by skiing with my honey. Parking again was a mess, but thanks to my bro-in-law, Steve, we were able to get some pretty sweet underground parking. (Thanks Steve.) We then took public transit again to Main Street where we were able to see a couple of bands. We wanted to see Ingrid Michaelson, but because we missed our transit connection, we got their too late.

However, we did see Sea Wolf at the Music Café. It’s a pretty cool little venue and the only way to get in is by having ‘credentials.’ I, of course, don’t have credentials, but I borrowed some from work and I was consequently known as ‘Alison Butz’ the rest of the day. No really. The little concert was actually extremely awesome, mainly due to the band itself, but the intimate atmosphere and ability to be really close to the band was priceless.

I kept trying to film them, but I got in trouble. Then I took some pictures of them, but got in trouble because of the flash I was using. This lady must have felt bad for berating me so much because she gave me and Emma a couple of free CDs at the close of the show. Since we were so close to the band we went up and talked to them. Emma told them that they looked really peaceful. Not wanting them to feel like we had just finished singing hymns or something, I hurriedly told them that they rocked. They then signed our CDs. Now, that really did rock.

After finding a place to eat (thank you Davanza’s) we met up with my buddy Christian and his date (friend?) Whitney. We then took the lovely public transit over to the Racquet Club. I was worried that they’d give our seats away since we were getting there only fifteen minutes beforehand, which is customary. Luckily, we didn’t have any problems finding some seats, but we couldn’t exactly sit right next to each other. It was during this time that we were able to spot Quentin Tarantino directly across the aisle from us. I took a very quick and blurry picture because I didn’t want to feel like a gawky fan, which is why I didn’t take a second. Stupid.

So here’s the rub: with Sundance you really never know what kind of movie you’re gonna see. You can read the small little snippets before you go, but this isn’t as useful as you might think. I didn’t choose this movie on purpose; we were going because I got free tickets at work. The move was called Sleep Dealer, and honestly, after watching the movie, I’m not entirely sure why it was called that. I knew it was a sci-fi before going in, but I had no idea it was going to be ninety percent in Spanish. Think about it—a Mexican science fiction movie—that’s kind of weird isn’t it? Well, it was kind of weird, but at the same time wonderful. It was a simple story about a dystopian not-too-distant future on the Mexican/American border. The special effects were amazing for a low budget film, but for blockbuster cinema it would’ve been almost laughable. The cinematography was great and the acting top-notch, but the story was almost too quaint to be honest.

Science fiction is about turning all your traditionally held beliefs on their ear; but the major themes in the film seemed almost like retread for me. For instance: becoming less connected to humanity in a world that’s becoming more digitally connected seems like it could’ve been a cautionary public ad or something. Science fiction is supposed to scare you to the core; it makes you say, “I pray that our future could never be like that.” But this movie made me think, “hmm, the future doesn’t really sound that bad.” Am I a (gulp) becoming too much of a realist, too much of pragmatist? Maybe, but I think the filmmaking was just a little soft, if not delicate—which would’ve played out well for a rom-com, but not so much for sci-fi.

However, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the director and principle cast members giving their two bits about the movie after the credits had rolled. I think I liked the movie a little more after this, but that’s like saying you enjoyed a joke after someone explained the punch line to you. You appreciate the joke for its creativity, but you’re still not sure why you just didn’t ‘connect’ with it to start.