As I was leaving the opening-day press conference of this year's Sundance Film Festival, some smiling person handed me a flimsy yellow totebag with a sample of instant cappuccino mix.

Since being given free stuff isn't anything new at Sundance, I folded the tote and stuffed into the messenger bag I was already carrying and went on my way.

Little did I know that the little yellow totebag - with the logo "I (heart) Cafe Bustelo" - was part of a carefully orchestrated marketing campaign, aimed at revitalizing an 81-year-old coffee brand.

As The New York Times reported this weekend, the Miami-based makers of Cafe Bustelo have been laboring for the past few years to make the brand - a blue-collar label familiar in Latino markets - hip and trendy.

The "I (heart) Cafe Bustelo" logo was visible at the recent Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and samples have been giveaway items at events tied to the Oscars and the MTV Video Music Awards.

Labels: marketing, Sundance

Augusten Burroughs, the memoirist who told tales of his mother in Running With Scissors and his father in the recent A Wolf at the Table, takes note of another father figure - Robert Redford.

Writing a diary entry that ran this weekend on The Times of London's web site, Burroughs described his recent visit to Redford's Sundance resort - and how he found in an eccentric ceiling fan evidence that the resort's atmosphere "is a father's work."

Burroughs writes:

At Sundance, when you need to go down the hill to the store, you do not get into your car. You call the front desk and tell them that you'd like a ride. Then you go outside and wait. And while you wait, it is impossible not to feel like a kid again, waiting for your father to pick you up for soccer practice or violin lessons. After dinner somebody asks: "Do you need a lift home?" If at first this annoys you, it will come to be the thing that charms you most.

A developer, perhaps, would have offered a bus. Only a father, however, would give you a ride.

Burroughs has video online from his Sundance visit posted on his website. Check it out.

Labels: Books, Robert Redford, Sundance

More on the "things are tough all over" front:

The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a conservative DC-based "market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications for public policy," has canceled plans to hold its 15th annual Aspen Summit this August at the Sundance resort in Utah's Provo Canyon.

PFF President Ken Ferree issued a statement that reads, in part:

"In light of the current economic environment, we do not think it prudent to spend our supporters' money, or ask others to spend scarce dollars, on a lavish conference at a remote facility."

Those supporters include most of the big corporate players in the telecommunications, media and computer industries. According to the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch, their big issue is deregulation of the media.

Labels: internet, Sundance, television

There have been stories of relationships that began at the Sundance Film Festival - for example, the actor Tim Roth met his wife, Nikki Butler, at the '92 festival.

Alas, this is a story of a relationship that, according to insiders, ended at this year's Sundance Film Festival: That of socialite Paris Hilton and her "BFF" (best friend forever, for those not up on the lingo), Brittany Flickinger.

Flickinger became Hilton's BFF the way most people become friends - through the rigorous vetting process of a reality show on MTV. What could go wrong?

According to this item from the Gossip Girls blog, Hilton came to believe that Flickinger wasn't really her BFF - and that, according to a source, "all that girl wanted was the free trips, the goodie bags, staying at Paris’ mansion and the parties and clubs."

Hilton had this epiphany at Sundance, when "Paris realized everything everyone was telling her was the truth."

I guess BFF doesn't mean forever any more. Who could have predicted it?

Labels: Reality show, Sundance

In today's print edition of The Salt Lake Tribune, the Culture Vulture column discusses the bevy of environmentally related movies that played the recently concluded Sundance Film Festival - and the coincidence of timing that Salt Lake City was inundated by a blanket of lung-choking smog during much of festival.

One interesting footnote: "The Cove," Louie Psihoyos' activist doc that gets the evidence on a secret dolphin slaughter in a Japanese fishing village, may be getting some attention in Japan. The Japan Times, the English-language daily in that country, has this story from Sundance. Whether any other news outlets in Japan pick up on it remains to be seen.

Labels: environment, Sundance

- Local alt-country heroes Band of Annuals plays tonight at 9 at the Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, Salt Lake City. Tickets are $5, at 24Tix.

- British trance DJ (and movie soundtrack favorite) Paul Oakenfold and opening act Diesel Boy play Saturday at 8 p.m. at In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Tickets - $25.50 in advance, $30.50 day of - are available at SmithsTix.

- And, of course, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival is in full swing in Park City - as well as at venues in Salt Lake City, Ogden and the Sundance resort.

Labels: Sundance, weekend schedule

Like a dog that won't let go of a bone, AmericaBlog's John Aravosis' campaign to boycott the Sundance Film Festival - as part of a larger boycott against all things Utah, after LDS Church members supported the anti-gay ballot measure Prop. 8 - shows no signs of slowing.

"Your Sundance registration money is quite literally helping to subsidize a donation to Yes on 8," Aravosis wrote in a post Saturday, following the tenuous links from Cinemark CEO Alan Stock's $9,999 donation to the Yes on 8 campaign to Sundance - via the festival's use of Park City's four-screen Holiday Village Cinemas, which are owned by Cinemark.

Never mind that Aravosis has his Sundance information rather skewed - he declares "the Holiday theaters are THE central location for anything and everything Sundance," which isn't the case at all.

The Holiday Village is the only permanent movie theater Sundance uses in Park City - the others are concert or lecture venues or, in the case of the Park City Racquet Club, a converted basketball court.

But the Holiday Village screening rooms are tiny - only about 150 seats each - compared to the cavernous 1,270-seat Eccles Theatre (where the major premieres are) or the 600-seat Racquet Club (where the U.S. Dramatic competition films screen) or the 468-seat Library Center Theatre.

The Holiday Village is home to more than 150 screenings during the festival's 10-day run, and cancelling those now (less than two months before the festival) would leave many filmmakers without a chance to show their films. The Holiday Village is also one of only two venues for press screenings, and without it critics would be scrambling to get into regular screenings - a further strain on a ticketing system that deals with enough sold-out screenings as it is.

Arguing that Sundance - an institution that has reached out to gay and lesbian filmmakers, workshopping such movies as "Boys Don't Cry" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" - is being anti-gay because it can't stop on a dime and give in to Aravosis' demands is foolish.

Here's a more positive idea to show your anger at Cinemark for its CEO's donation: A group is urging moviegoers to avoid seeing "Milk," Gus Van Sant's excellent biography of gay politician Harvey Milk, at any Cinemark theater. "Don't let Harvey Milk's legacy finance your oppression!," the protest's web site says.

Eugene Hernandez, editor of IndieWire, takes a thoughtful look at the intersection of independent film and the same-sex marriage issue - which has been all the talk in Hollywood this last week, both with the Sundance controversy and the news that the director of the L.A. Independent Film Festival (who is Mormon) gave a donation to the Yes on 8 campaign.

Labels: LDS, politics, Sundance

Most years at the Sundance Film Festival, the celebrities party hard the first weekend, and are all gone by Tuesday.

This year, though, there's an added reason to clear out early: Some of them will be heading to Washington to see Barack Obama's inauguration, on Tuesday, Jan. 20 - right in the middle of Sundance.

E!Online's Leslie Gornstein reports that a gaggle of celebs - Anne Hathaway, Jane Krakowski, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Spike Lee, Kerry Washington and Josh Lucas among them - will likely be jetting from Park City to Washington as part of the Creative Coalition, an organization of Hollywood stars and artists that work on social causes.

Obama's inaugural has affected Hollywood in another way: This year's announcement of Oscar nominations, usually a Tuesday event, will be delayed until Thursday, Jan. 22.

Labels: Barack Obama, Sundance

The furor over California's Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage, marches on.

And just when you thought the Sundance Film Festival was out of the line of fire (by gay and lesbian activists going after all things Utah, because of the Mormon church's strong support of Prop. 8), now Sundance is the one being asked to boycott one of its own venues.

Activist John Aravosis posted this notice on his AmericaBlog that the CEO of Cinemark Theatres, Alan W. Stock, gave $9,999 to the Yes on 8 campaign. Cinemark Theatres operates 4,700 theaters worldwide, and operates more screens in Utah than any other company - including the 24-plex at Jordan Landing and the two Century 16s.

Aravosis is urging a blanket boycott of all Cinemark theaters. (This leaves militant gays and lesbians in Utah in a bind - some were already boycotting Larry H. Miller's Megaplex Theaters over the "Brokeback Mountain" cancellation in 2006.)

Stock - as I wrote Monday on my Movie Cricket blog - was raised in Roy, Utah, served on an LDS mission, and managed theaters in Ogden and Layton before being hired by Cinemark in 1986. On Election Day, he was back in Utah, overseeing the opening of a new 14-plex in Orem's University Mall.

Here's where Sundance factors in the mix: Cinemark also runs the 4-screen Holiday Village Cinemas in Park City, the only full-time movie theaters used during the film festival. (The other venues are either concert halls or converted spaces.) The Holiday Village theaters are the go-to theaters for the U.S. documentary competition, and the main venue for press screenings.

Movie City News' David Poland, writing on his Hot Blog, puts it directly: "Sundance will actually have to answer what is now a real question... will they financially support a theater in their group of theaters that is led by a Prop 8 financer?"

Poland vows to avoid press screenings at the Holiday Village ("nothing plays the HV exclusively," he writes), but for some members of the press - those with more-restrictive press credentials - that may not be a workable option.

Poland is urging Sundance to try to find an alternative venue, but there's no viable option with the festival only two months away. The Redstone Cinemas might have the screens, but running the shuttle buses out to Kimball Junction would cripple an already precarious transportation situation.

Labels: LDS, politics, Sundance

The Hate State.

That's what a fair number of bloggers and supporters of same-sex marriage are calling Utah, following the lead of AmericaBlog's John Aravosis - who is urging a boycott of all things Utah and all things Mormon, after the support of the LDS Church and its members helped pass California's Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriages in the Golden State.

"Utah is the new Coors," declared Dan Savage, editor of the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger (and author of the sex-advice column "Savage Love"). "Since all Mormons-in-good-standing must tithe 10% of their earnings to their church, some part of any dollar you spend in a Mormon-owned business - and they're almost all Mormon-owned businesses in Utah - flows toward an anti-gay church that wages anti-gay political campaigns. Ski Colorado, Washington state, and British Columbia. Don't ski Utah."

Others have called for the Sundance Film Festival to vacate Utah (in part because the festival headquarters are at the Park City Marriott, and an owner of several Marriotts in southern California was a big Prop. 8 donor). Still others urge a boycott of Mormon artists - a list that includes Donny and Marie Osmond's current show in Las Vegas, Gladys Knight's concerts, and David Archuleta's forthcoming new album.



Funny, "hate" isn't what we saw spilling into the streets of Salt Lake City on Friday night, when 3,000 people picketed around Temple Square in opposition to Prop. 8 and the LDS Church's support of it.

We saw love. We saw commitment. We saw the beginnings of a movement. And we saw that Utah isn't as monolithic as people outside the state think.

Boycotting Sundance, as Daily Kos and David Poland's Hot Blog both argue, accomplishes nothing. Park City is a blue dot in a red state, Robert Redford's no Mormon, and Sundance has fostered gay and lesbian cinema - with titles such as "Go Fish," "Southern Comfort" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" - like no other entity.

(The idea of a Sundance boycott does give hack indie filmmakers a built-in excuse, though. Instead of saying a movie was rejected, a director can say, "Ahh, I pulled the movie before selection because I'm boycotting Utah.")

And a shotgun-blast boycott at everything Utah doesn't make sense either, because look at the people you'd hit in the blast. If you want a target, use this handy database and go after the businesses of those who directly donated to Prop. 8 supporters (something the Prop. 8 folks threatened to do to the amendment's opponents before the election) - such as this guy, the artistic director of a Sacramento-area theater who's now finding that people who work in musical theater (some of whom, believe it or not, are gay) don't want to work with him anymore.

Most importantly, don't fight hate with hate. Fight it with love - the kind of love we saw outside Temple Square this weekend.

UPDATE: Here's the word from the Sundance Institute, which has received some e-mails calling for a boycott or for Sundance to move the festival from Park City:

“The Sundance Institute has a long history, and in fact was founded, on the idea of championing diversity and freedom of expression," said Brooks Addicott, Sundance's associate director for media relations. "It would be a grave disappointment to us if the Sundance Film Festival were to be singled out for a boycott. For 25 years, the Festival has brought together a diverse range of independent voices, and we remain committed to creating dialogue around critical issues of our time."


(Photo: Leslie Sorensen-Means)

Labels: David Archuleta, LDS, politics, Sundance

Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki - whose documentary "Why We Fight" won the top prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival - writes on The Huffington Post about how, when the movie was released in 2006, he was hit full-force by the attack-machine of Sen. John McCain.

In the movie, which traces the history of the military-industrial complex and how corporate pressures have influenced how and how often the United States wages war, McCain was one of the most cogent and forthright interview subjects. His outspoken comments about U.S. foreign policy and defense-contractor corruption were true to McCain's "maverick" label.

McCain is also prominent in one of the movie's few funny moments. During the interview, McCain suddenly gets a phone call from Vice President Dick Cheney - and McCain quickly stands up to take the call, as Jarecki leaves his camera on McCain's empty chair.

Jarecki then describes how McCain's chief of staff, Mark Salter, reacted when the movie was released in theaters in January 2006:

When McCain's office voiced their concern about [the Cheney phone call], I expected, if anything, they might fear the suggestion of uncomfortably close ties between McCain and Cheney. When Salter instead declared to me that I was "making it look like John McCain was critical of the Vice-President," and that "Vice-President Cheney has nothing to do with Halliburton," I realized that what he was objecting to was not that McCain might have appeared too close to Cheney but rather not close enough. Mr. Salter demanded that I send him a transcript of the Senator's interview, not just the parts that appear in the film. Since none of the film's more than twenty other interviewees had been provided such a thing, and since I valued the film's independence from political pressure, I told Mr. Salter I would seek advice from other journalists and get back to him.

Salter next resorted to threats, saying that, unless I complied, he would smear my name in the media and exert pressure on the film's principal funder never to work with me again. I said I thought the BBC would be unlikely to welcome such pressure from an irate chief of staff to a senator. Salter then changed gears, appealing to my sense of fairness. "When Senator McCain sat down to talk to you," he explained, "he thought he was talking to a television crew from the BBC." I said that that was true, but that the film had then gone on to win Sundance and secure a theatrical release. But then something troubling about his remark dawned on me.

"If you don't mind my asking," I said, "are you suggesting there are things Senator McCain will say to a British audience that he isn't comfortable saying to the American people?" Needless to say, this didn't help matters. But I wasn't trying to be snide. My question was just the logical extension of what Salter had intimated. But it clearly touched a nerve. He became enraged and, after hanging up, sought to make good on his threat to tarnish my name and career.

Jarecki then extrapolates how the behavior of McCain and his staff then is playing out in the campaign now:

I sense that all the problems of managing McCain's public image are ultimately a reflection of a profound division in McCain's own soul as he runs for the presidency. His awkward manner, his sidekick's rogue behavior, his campaign's erratic relations with the press and public - all this radio static speaks volumes about the deeper insecurity and unresolved persona of the man himself - qualities so glaring no amount of lipstick or campaign theatrics can hide them.

Labels: John McCain, Sundance

The Utne Reader passed along some bad - and illegal - advice, and the Sundance Film Festival called the reputable journal on it.

The Utne Reader posted an item Friday with the title "Sneaking in to Sundance." It linked to a Canadian 'zine, Broken Pencil, whose "Summer How-To Issue" included tips for sneaking past the volunteers at a film festival.

The Broken Pencil writer, Fiona Clarke, suggested such ideas as creating fake credentials (acting important helps avoid scrutiny of your lamination job) or disguising yourself as a tradesperson. (Alas, the Broken Pencil web site does not include the full article.)

The Utne blogger, Elizabeth Ryan, added a warning that there are penalties - besides getting thrown out - that make such subterfuge not worth the trouble. She ended with, "While events like Sundance can spare a few lost dollars, your local film fest probably can’t."

It's that line that brought out Sundance's justifiable wrath. The first comment on the Utne post came from Sundance press person Brooks Addicott:

"I cannot imagine that Utne condones stealing - it is illegal is it not? In any case, Elizabeth Ryan is wrong on one count: contrary to public misperception Sundance Institute is a nonprofit 501(c)(3)status organization. The Sundance Film Festival is our annual fundraiser; its proceeds support the year-round efforts of the Institute to support independent artists in film, theatre and film music. We cannot afford to spare a few lost dollars - especially when those "lost" dollars are stolen."

Labels: Sundance

We've heard plenty, perhaps too much, of talk about Bill Ayers - the '60s anti-war radical and member of the Weathermen (a k a The Weather Underground) - and his tenuous ties to presidential candidate Barack Obama.

(Ayers and Obama served on a couple of education boards in Chicago together, decades after Ayers' involvement with the Weathermen and after he and wife Bernadine Dohrn turned themselves in to authorities.)

Duane Dudek, movie critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, recalls having coffee with Ayers and Dohrn in Park City, Utah, during the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.

The occasion for these ex-'60s radicals being in a Utah ski town was the premiere of a documentary, "The Weather Underground," that chronicled the Weathermen's bombings and anti-war activism.

Ayers and Dohrn, Dudek wrote in his 2003 story, "looked like any other casually fashionable couple here to ski: He had a cell-phone headset planted in his ear, she drank a Starbucks coffee. The red star on his fleece vest was the only physical evidence linking them to their younger selves."

Labels: politics, Sundance

Robert Redford is receiving a rare honor - and a nice chunk of change to go with it.

The Sundance Institute founder will receive the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize at a ceremony in New York on Nov. 12. The award is given annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life."

Besides the ceremony, Redford will receive a silver medallion and a cash prize of $325,000 - which Redford will pour into The Redford Center at the Sundance Preserve, a Sundance Institute think tank that aims to use creative expression to promote policy issues.

In a statement, Redford noted that Lillian Gish presented the actor with the Best Picture Oscar for "Ordinary People" 27 years ago. " It was an honor then, as it is now with the Gish Prize," Redford said.

Last year, the award went to experimental musician Laurie Anderson. Past recipients have included architect Frank Gehry (1994, the first year the prize was given), filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1995), musician Bob Dylan (1997), writers Isabel Allende (1998) and Arthur Miller (1999), choreographers Merce Cunningham (2000) and Bill T. Jones (2003), and theater directors Lloyd Richards (2002) and Peter Sellars (2005).

Labels: Robert Redford, Sundance

Gayle Stevens, a leader in Utah's arts community and the chairwoman of the Sundance Institute's Utah Advisory Board, died in a car crash Friday night. She was 60.

Stevens was driving north on Utah State Road 66, on the way home from a dinner party, when a deer ran in front of her car, according to this account in The Salt Lake Tribune. The car ran off the road and hit an embankment.

Stevens' husband, Peter, was driving his car behind hers. He attempted to revive her, but she was declared dead at the scene.

Gayle Stevens has been a volunteer for Sundance for 20 years, raising money and awareness for the arts organization. She also was active in other arts groups in Salt Lake City.

Jill Miller, the institute's managing director, praised Stevens: "Whether in her own home or leading a meeting as chair of the Sundance Institute Utah Advisory Board, Gayle had a personal style that was a combination of generosity, grace, femininity and perceptive intelligence. She never failed to bring her sense of fun and passion for the arts to all that she did within and for the community."

Labels: Sundance

It sounds like a Quickfire Challenge on "Top Chef": Using a resort-cabin kitchenette and ingredients found at the resort's buffet table, create a satisfying and original dish that's not on the menu.

That was the challenge that David Latt, TV producer and culinary blogger, resolved during his recent stay at the Sundance resort.

Latt (whose credits include an Emmy for "Hill Street Blues" and an Emmy nomination for "Twin Peaks") is married to Michelle Satter, director of the Sundance Filmmakers Lab, so he's been sort of trapped in Provo Canyon for the last month. Not that it's an uncomfortable prison - "While she’s at the resort, all her meals are included, served buffet style," Latt wrote in a guest entry in Mark Bittman's "Bitten" blog for The New York Times. "The food is good but if I want to cook for her there are obstacles."

Latt's solution: Make a soup using the ingredients from Sundance's salad bar: "spinach, corn, scallions, garbanzo beans, carrots, chopped tomatoes and mushrooms." He also worked in some grilled chicken breasts, sour cream, bacon, half and half, corn bread, butter and olive oil, all from the buffet.

"From now on," Latt writes, "whenever I see a salad bar I’ll think of it as a two-fer: salad and soup."

(Photos from David Latt's blog, "Men Who Like to Cook.")

Labels: Sundance