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Sundance Diary Day Four

By Amanda Mae Meyncke | Miscellaneous | January 22, 2013 |

By Amanda Mae Meyncke | Miscellaneous | January 22, 2013 |


8 AM Get up at what feels an ungodly hour, but still, not feeling too bad.

8:45 AM Starbucks for the very first time this trip, I’m beyond delighted that i’ve managed to go this long. I go nuts and get a breakfast sandwich, greedily munching on my way to the press tent.

9:22 AM Turn in my Interior. Leather Bar. review, which I thought was okay but still not the best thing that ever happened to the world. It’s a documentary about James Franco re-creating footage from Cruising. Lots of dicks. I think I talked about this already.

11:30 AM I see In a World. My favorite so far! So lovely, warm and funny. It’s Lake Bell’s world, we’re just living in it. This is probably the funniest movie I’ve seen at Sundance so far, so, so hilarious. I also love that it’s set in Los Angeles. Lake Bell isn’t afraid to give away her funny lines or to look dumb, which is important in a writer/director/star. Take care of your cast and they’ll take care of you. See this one if you can!

1:30 PM Get right back in line for the next movie.

2:15 PM See a producer that I worked with on the Five Knives music video. She remembers me of course, but I didn’t remember how I knew her. We chit chat a bit, but we’re both distracted.

2:30 PM Fruitvale snuck up on me. Horribly sad narrative about a shooting that took place in the Oakland area. The entire theater is laid out, people are sobbing uncontrollably. I’ve never seen an audience reaction like this. Full review to come.

4:21 PMTurn in my In a World review, think about how hungry I am. I am really hungry. I don’t have any snacks today, having finally tired of a steady diet of almonds. I want candy. I’m at the end of my health rope and ready to swing right onto the red vines. I resist, at least for today. Kit Kats? I’m comin’ for ya.

6 PM Seated for Touchy Feely. I wanted this movie to be better. Rosemarie DeWitt is pretty good, great actually, but everyone else is just okay. Except for Scoot McNairy, whom I want to cast in some sort of something as Matthew Gray Gubler’s brother or cousin or something. My love of Matthew Gray Gubler knows no bounds. Back when the internet was wild I wrote tons of articles about him. I should probably go take those down.

7:45 I’m back at the hotel, changing my clothes and putting on glitter eyeliner. I don’t quite get the concept so I slather it on, and then as it dries I realize I may have put too much on but hope that it looks sort of charming rather than cheap.

7: 47 PM Try to wipe off some glitter. Doesn’t work. Dully stare into mirror at ghastly shiny visage.

8 PM I get on the shuttle back to Main St. and there’s a big raucous group.

8:20 PM Head to Main St., texting all my good time contacts in search of fun. Seth texts that he ate too much chicken and is a big baby and is going back to the hotel to sleep all of the days of his life. I tell him he’s no fun at all and he says that’s a widely known fact. I berate him some more but he serenely refuses to respond.

8:45 PM Go to the Korean Film Council party with Conrad and some other friends. This guy John tells me all about living in Toronto, and I say, “I know everything about Toronto, I just saw that Sarah Polley doc.” Which is a joke that only works if you saw the movie, because it has nothing to do with Toronto.

9 PM Bartender tells me they’re out of everything but sweet white wine, red wine and vodka. I do red wine.

9:20 He tells me all about Detroit and I keep bringing up photos I’ve seen. We go back and forth describing scenes of desolation. What a wonderful, uplifting evening.

9:30 PM Vanessa is having some problems with this one guy, I give her relationship advice which may be the dumbest thing ever to try and tell someone. She’s a smart girl and handles it. We both vocalize our desires never to have to do anything ever, and our delight when situations resolve themselves without having to talk about anything. Escapism at its dumbest.

10 PM We’re some of the first in line for the Kickstarter party, I spy some friends from school at the front of the line. Jovial shouting ensues.

10:15 PM They won’t let us all in, and so Conrad is conducting traffic, as soon as the bouncer turns away for a moment, Conrad tells us to walk into the party one by one. It kind of works and reminds me of the scene in In Search of the Castaways where Hayley Mills does the same thing, backwards.

10:30 PM Everybody’s in and we’re eating bacon wrapped shrimp and drinking all of the whiskey we can lay our hands on. Which is a lot. These bartenders seem a lot less wrapped up in “limits” and more into “making people happy” which is the best policy ever.

11 PM They make their own alcohol here. This means that they’ll never run dry! Drink, drink up, Judah Ben Hur!

11:15 Meet the director of “Showrunners” and I tell him I put his trailer up on the site, that I loved the concept and couldn’t wait to see it. He tells me they just bagged Vince Gilligan of “Breaking Bad” and I start talking about X-Files, immediately, because DUH OF COURSE WHY WOULDN’T I? We try to out-do each other in our X-Files love, our collections of paraphernalia and scribbled fan fictions.

11:30 PM Joe rolls in, he edited this year’s Sundance film The Crash Reel and has another short here in competition, he was at a filmmaker’s dinner and spent the whole time talking to Al Maysles, which sends little old Grey Gardens obsessed me into a tizzy. I talk about my friend at the Academy archive showing me pallets of boxes marked “Maysles” and knowing there was just tons of reels of film in there, how exciting that was. Joe is beside himself and keeps showing us a picture of him with Maysles. I step on his foot and pretend it’s an accident.

1:20 AM The High West lost our friend’s coat. Everyone is milling around waiting for them to find it or something but it never surfaces. The natives are getting restless and the girls are starting to drunkenly shout that they wanna go home. DON’T WE ALL. (Well, not me, I’m having fun. For once.)

1:40 AM We head back and I almost slip on some black ice. Conrad tries to give me a lesson in walking on the ice, something about putting your foot down solidly. I don’t quite understand how it’s any different from regular walking.

2 AM I finally arrive back at the hotel, Joe and Conrad insist on driving me back, and the snow is deep and even, much like Old King Wenceslas found when he looked out.

2:07 AM I’m too tired to even take off my make up, just stare at myself in the mirror for a little while, plug my phone in and look out the window into the darkness. There’s little lights on throughout the Canyons, other revelers up late, lovers with assignations, families with restless small children, and other girls sitting in rooms staring out the window, wondering.