Austin360 blogs > Austin Movie Blog > Archives > 2008 > January > 17 > Entry
A snowballing festival
Park City, Utah — The chatter here at Sundance, Day One, is all about film and television, actors and studios and distributors, the writers’ strike, what’s good, what’s overrated. All spoken with sonorous authority.
Meanwhile, we goofed off in the snow.
I snatched a fistful of snow — a chunky ice dirt clod — to heave at Austinites Paul Stekler and Karen Skloss, as Louis Black, editor and honcho of The Austin Chronicle and associate producer of Margaret Brown’s documentary “The Order of Myths” (which premieres Saturday morning) ambled ahead of us.
Skloss spotted my snowball and made a pre-emptive strike, beaning my back in a spray of shattering stars. I hurled my weapon and inadvertently nailed Stekler, who actually cried, “Ouch! That hurt!” For the next four days, he will not hear the end of it.
When I whined about frost bite of the hand, Black tsked, “Don’t pick up snow without gloves, because it’s not a good idea.” This wuss will not hear the end of it.
Earlier, we joined former New York Times film critic/current NPR critic Elvis Mitchell and Village Voice/Dallas Observer film critic Robert Wilonsky — both enduring friends of Austin and SXSW — to fetch our press credentials at the Marriot Hotel.
Mitchell floated to the festival on the news that the documentary about major black figures and celebrities he produced, co-wrote and appears in, “The Black List,” — which premieres at Sundance — was picked up by HBO this week.
Though not pinching his signature cigar at this early hour, Mitchell still wears those long crazy dreadlocks and remains a natty dresser. He promptly made fun of my decidedly un-snow-worthy sneakers.
Mitchell and Black
Among other thickly coated celebs, Colin Farrell is definitely in town for his smashing good crime comedy “In Bruges”, and a shuttle driver said he spotted Napoleon Dynamite himself, Jon Heder, a Sundance superstar of recent vintage.
On the shuttle bus to the press screening of “In Bruges” — which blends the blood and profane humor of Tarantino with ironic British crime-flick sensibilities (and made many in the audience laugh out loud, me included) — a woman prattled with a professional photographer who was returning from shooting Farrell on the red carpet.
She asked if he was paparazzi. “Paparazzi,” he replied. “That’s sort of like calling someone an ax murderer.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Sundance
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.