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January 17, 2007
Before The Fall, 2007
The magic of The Day Before Sundance is the quiet. You can park on Main Street. You can see what the town, for the most part, is like before the invasion begins.
Of course, being relieved about being away from the insanity of L.A., my “crew” and I have not thought as carefully as we might and ended up eating mediocre BBQ twice already, forced by eating lunch after 3pm. Oy.
Year after year, the familiarity with Park City increases so it feels less foreign. You know how to navigate around traffic. You know the hours of various key businesses (like the Wal-Mart or the UPS Store). And you have the full list of where you can eat, drink, buy, sleep, and fight the good fight.
The biggest question around town is “What’s hot?” And while we have all had an earful of different titles, talent, and young directors, the answer right now is, “John Sloss.” Yes, there has actually been more hype about Cinetic than any one film up here.
People coming from Hollywood looking for Little Miss Sunshine are expected to go home with Little Missed Time At Home because there is really not much to buy. And even last year, which started as a questionable commercial year, ended up with a lot of sold titles by a lot of fairly well-established directors, including Michel Gondry. Meanwhile, the truly great Sundance-y films, like Writstcutters: A Love Story went without distribution. (The film will finally get a small pre-DVD release in a few weeks.)
And of course, the indie world has become so incredibly stratified that the films that get distribution from the second or third tier are in a ghetto of their own. (I hate even mentioning the tiers, as many great people with great intentions work these companies that simply don’t have millions at their fingertips to spend on marketing when they feel the urge.) So we wait to see what The Dependents and Lionsgate are going to do, while feeling a small twinge of pain for films that are already leaping into the next tier before even getting to try to blossom up here in the near-snow. (It’s been unusually cold but dry and absolutely beautiful.)
More later...
Posted by poland at January 17, 2007 06:08 PM
Comments
David, Wristcutters is coming out in September, released by After Dark.
Posted by: EDouglas ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 17, 2007 07:31 PM
Wristcutters rocks, go check that out.
Posted by: The Carpetmuncher at January 17, 2007 09:07 PM
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