- PARK CITY, Utah - Robert Redford. Jodie
Foster. Holly Hunter. Matthew Broderick. Alfre Woodard. Ethan
Hawke.
The movie stars are all out at
the Sundance 2000 Film Festival, the nation's most important in
terms of launching new, independently produced American movies.
The festival began here Thursday and continues through Sunday.
Yet on Main Street, the hubbub of festival "buzz" activity, people
aren't so much name-dropping the stars they've seen as talking
a strange, new language.
They're mentioning and discussing
terms such as "digital projection," "video streaming," "high-definition
format," "Internet distribution," "content-driven Web sites,"
"high bandwidth" and more. It isn't that this high-tech jargon
suddenly has more romantic allure than a movie star. Rather, it's
because the proponents of the digital-entertainment future - both
digital-video filmmaking and Internet-based entertainment - have
invaded Sundance and Park City's Main Street in force.
And it's also because, six days
into the festival, the actual movies have been slow to build acclaim.
That probably will change as more, such as Alan Rudolph's "Trixie"
starring Nick Nolte and Emily Watson, have their premieres and
others already showing develop followings.
But the opening-night film "What's
Cooking," a comedy-drama about families of different ethnicities
celebrating Thanksgiving in L.A., met a lukewarm response. Variety,
in an early review, praised its acting but called the film "only
a notch above a Lifetime telepic."
(Redford, founder of the Sundance Institute, didn't even introduce
its world-premiere Thursday screening in Salt Lake City, opting
instead to introduce the next night's Park City premiere, Stanley
Tucci's "Joe Gould's Secret.'')
The event eliciting the most excitement to date was Friday night's
world premiere of "American Psycho," director Mary Harron's (so-far)
NC-17-rated adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' notoriously satiric
novel about a 1980sera Wall Street yuppie who also is a serial
killer. In the crammed lobby of the sold-out theater, which could
hold some 1,200 people, there was desperate begging for tickets
at any price.
"This is probably one of the most
anticipated films we've ever presented at the festival," said
Geoff Gilmore, Sundance's co-director and director of festival
programming. Yet the excitement seemed to be about getting into
the film rather than the movie itself, which got a mixed response.
But the joke that Gus Van Sant already wants to remake it shot-for-shot
got laughs.
So far, according to Indiewire.com,
just a few movies have sold to distributors - "Groove," a low-budget
drama set in the ravemusic culture, and the strange "Chuck & Buck,"
Miguel Arteta's dark comedy about the secrets that bind childhood
friends as adults.
"Chuck & Buck" also is a key reason
so many people are talking "digital." It is one of two movies
in Sundance's vaunted Dramatic Competition shot inexpensively
with digital-video cameras and then transferred to film. (Sundance
also, for the first year, is offering digital-projection for filmmakers
who want it.)
Because of these breakthroughs,
low-budget filmmakers are celebrating the arrival of their "digital
revolution" at this year's Sundance. And they're busy spreading
it all over the city. "It's just in its infancy," said James Boyd,
whose alternative-to-Sundance NoDance film festival is located
in a minimall's second floor on Main Street. NoDance offers what
it bills as the first all-DVD-projected festival.
At the same time, Internet startups,
some with more financing than major Hollywood features, are in
town to promote the concept of digital-online entertainment. Atomfilms,
a Seattle company, has a recreational vehicle parked on Main Street
that's bigger than some of Sundance's theaters. Inside, visitors
can recline on a bed adorned with a leopard-skinlike blanket and
black-and-white Atomfilms.com pillows, while watching (on video)
short films the company shows on its Web site. "This is to promote
our company, plus get new submissions and let people know short
films are out there," said Kevin Maude, Atomfilm's Web-production
coordinator.
There are other offices and displays
booths on Main Street for proponents of high-tech, low-cost filmmaking,
with names such as IFILM.com and reel.com. And every young person
who flocks here to promote his or her non-Sundance film now does
so with a Web site. Trash cans are plastered with stickers for
buddyhead.com, KingMidasthemovie.com and takeme2yourleader.com.,
to name a few.
On Saturday a beat-up red Ford
pickup parked on Main Street carried signs for wakfilms.com and
Mulliganmovie.com. The first site promotes a short by Roger Johnson
called "Welcome to Alaska." "It's about a guy who has a picture
of himself by every state's welcome sign except Alaska," Johnson
said. And "Mulligan," according to cowriter/co-producer Kevin
Ross, is a 35-millimeter feature that happens to be the first
movie ever sponsored by Subway restaurants.
"It's a golf comedy - "Mulligan'
is a golf term to do it over," he said. Ross also handed out an
invitation to his movie's post-premiere party, promising that
a top Subway executive would be in attendance.
Top that, Robert Redford!
