Mon. January 23, 2006
Park City, UT -
The here! Networks team kicked off Friday, the first full day of the festival, by picking up John Waters for a full day for interviews and appearances. During our adventures with Mr. Waters we were late for a meeting, and were pulled over by Park City's finest for "improper passing." While we were waiting for the officer to finish running our license and uncover the numerous warrants for our arrest, Mr. Waters reminded us to stop laughing and express remorse for our crime (we really did believe we were using a turn lane). When the cop returned to deliver the ticket, he exclaimed "God dammit" in a moment of frustration while attempting to find the exact penile code we had violated. Perhaps "improper passing" is a rare violation in Utah? We think all the straight acting local boys would beg to differ. Mr. Waters later commented, "My ears are not garbage cans." He also rightly stated that "improper passing is just the beginning" of our wave of corruption during the Sundance Film Festival.
Making our way around Park City with John Waters was an adventure of another kind. The crowds on Main Street parted like the Red Sea with filmmakers calling out how much they were inspired by Waters' films. Lunch at Zoom included a visit to our table by Mr. Sundance himself, Robert Redford, to welcome Mr. Waters to the festival.
That night, we accompanied Mr. Waters to the Queer Lounge's opening festival party honoring the film Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. Prominent queer filmmakers and queer film festival programmers from around North America made it the gay place to be seen. Filmmakers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland were on hand to celebrate the screening of their film Quinceanera as part of the dramatic competition in this year's festival. Acclaimed filmmaker and Queer Brunch founder Jenni Olson mingled with her peers and colleagues, and April's Shower star Honey Labrador walked the red carpet with style. Others mingling included supermodel Jenny Shimizu, Absolut Vodka marketing whiz Scott Seitz and Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival executive director Thom Cardwell.
A film generating considerable buzz at the party was Little Miss Sunshine, a debut feature from co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. Screening for the first time earlier that evening and starring Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin and Steve Carell as a gay uncle, Little Miss Sunshine is a hilarious comedy about a most dysfunctional family in a VW bus on a road trip to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Ms. Collette is one of the Hollywood celebs who is lending her support to the LGBT community by attending Outfest's Queer Brunch this weekend, which is being sponsored by here! Networks.
Saturday morning, we headed off to an early screening of Wordplay, a charming documentary about the New York Times crossword puzzle and the people who create and play it. One of the top crossword puzzle players in the nation also happens to be fabulous, wicked smart, and gay. Wordplay was preceded by an excellent short from Pacific Northwest queer filmmaker Andrew Blubaugh entitled Hello, Thanks about a gay man's year of looking for love in the personals, and his resulting love for writing personals.
The here! team also made it to the 1st Annual PlanetOut Brunch at Cisero's on Main. Hosted by PlanetOut's Jenny Stewart and Scott Mazer, the brunch attracted Tales of the City's Armistead Maupin, whose new film The Night Listener is debuting at Sundance.
One of the interesting things about Sundance is that it attracts scores of filmmakers whose films aren't in the festival, but who are looking for distribution. We caught up with Ken Tipton and his producing partner Darlene Lieblich. The twosome were pitching Tipton's debut feature, Heart of the Beholder, about Tipton's personal experiences as a videostore owner ruined by religious fundamentalists. First-time filmmakers, whether accepted by Sundance or not, all share the burning persistence to see their films made. In Tipton's case, it took 12 years.
In the afternoon, we made it to Gus Van Sant's panel discussion at the Queer Lounge. The famed queer director of Drugstore Cowboy, Good Will Hunting and My Own Private Idaho took questions from a packed audience and screened his shorts with beat poets William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Topics ranged from working with River Phoenix to his experiences developing Brokeback Mountain as the director attached to the project five years ago.
Dinner followed at Chimayo. Seen eating at the Main Street hotspot were former Vice President Al Gore (who has a film this year at Sundance) and his wife Tipper, Outfest's programming director Kirsten Shaeffer, award-winning Sundance programmer Roberta Marie Munroe, directors Anne Beatts and Eve Brandstein, the Advocate's Alonso Duralde, Sundance Executive Director Geoff Gilmore, ESPN's LZ Granderson, and here! Networks CEO Paul Colichman.
It's a relatively early Saturday night because we need to be up bright and early Sunday morning for 10th annual Outfest Queer Brunch presented by here! Networks. John Waters will be headlining to launch his new series on here!, "John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You."
Stay tuned for all the highlights from the best celebrity and filmmaker-studded queer event at Sundance.
For more information on here! Networks, please visit www.heretv.com.
Photo: Quinceanera directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.
For the complete article (non-reader view with multimedia and original links),
Tap here.
Head to the local LGBTQ news, events, directory and people network at ChicagoPride.com