Jonny invited me to the Sundance Director’s Mixer. It was sort of awkward explaining to people my limited role in Jonny’s film but I couldn’t really turn down free beer schmoozing at the DGA Theater…
There was a bunch of cool people to talk to including festival programmer Trevor Groth and some of the other filmmakers. I’m stoked for the festival; however, in a related note I asked my boss today if he had any advice about the festival. He said “Sundance is awful. It’s overcrowded, expensive, and full of poseurs.”
Last weekend GlitterFish attended the CineVegas film festival. The fest ran all week and will end today. Here’s some pictures and my thoughts on the on the festival.
CineVegas is held at the Palms Casino and Resort. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a Vegas Casino that lacked plastic monuments, novelty buildings, and a fake sky painted on the ceiling. It’s a little far away from the Strip but that’s a positive in my book. The Palms is also affiliated with Playboy which assures attractive cocktail waitresses as opposed to the aging ex-stripper/chubby single mom that describes your average Vegas cocktail waitress.
One cool thing was the swanky CineVegasHQ press center. Decked out with free Vitamin Water, Red Bull, and Stella Artois, you could check your email at the bank of iMacs available and pick up as many free sharpies as you wanted. If you were really ballsy you could chat up the celebrities and filmmakers walking around but mainly I just scooped up free swag.
Speaking of celebrities we spotted Bobcat Goldthwait, Dennis Hopper, Marguerite Moreau, Ben Foster, and that dude from road trip.
As far as the films go they all screened at the Brenden Theater at the Palms. The first show we saw was the Shorts Program #1. I was really impressed and a little intimated by how good the films were. I could be nit picky (a lot of the films ran a little long) but the fact was they were all well done and entertaining. Interestingly enough, and something that should be encouraging to poor young filmmakers, between the four of us our two favorites also featured the lowest production value. My top pick was What the Captive Ate directed by Matt Lemche, a hilarious video diary about an image-conscious man trapped in his bedroom when his roommate’s guests stay longer than expected. Our other favorite was The Smoking Section directed by Chris Pozzebon. We also saw Shorts Program #2 and you can read Nate’s review of that here.
I want to quickly mention one of the features we saw, The Puffy Chair. This movie showed up on the blogosphere last year after it got some great press at Sundance. Since then it’s been all over the festival circuit and just started playing in select markets. The movie has no stars, was shot for $20,000, and its written and directed by two brothers you’ve never heard of. All it has going for it is terrific acting, a great script, and the enthusiasm of everybody who has ever seen it. I briefly talked with director Jay Duplass who explained their unfortunate lack of marketing money. They do have a MySpace page but I asked him if had done anything to engage bloggers directly and he said they hadn’t! If your going write, direct, and star in a guerrilla feature you might as well do some guerrilla marketing. It’s a great film so do yourself a favor and see if its playing in your area (it opens in LA July 7th).
As good—and bad—as the films were its cineVEGAS. Any fest that bills itself as the most dangerous film festival has got to be all about the parties. We managed to hit up the Foundation Room at the Mandalay Bay and had a really good time. There were playmates, a snotty director, and lots of suits pecking at their Crackberries. There was as also a view.
GlitterFish attended the CineVegas film festival last weekend. Celebrities, Playmates, and Hollywood parties…it was almost enough to make me forget I’m unemployed and sleeping on a floor right now.
I’m waiting on some pictures before I give you guys the full report; however, I wanted to point out quickly that I saw exactly half of all the short films playing and only one has a website. If your short film played at CineVegas and I was going to review the shorts program One Rat Short is the only one I would have press materials for.
So Andy already posted a bit of the video, but here is a formal re-cap of the night.
First off, thanks to Stormhoek for the free wine.
The night started off with a great vegetarian chili dinner provided by the host, which went incredibly well with the wine. I’d have to think this was planned, all that Top Chef that we’ve been watching finally paid off.
The rest of the night consisted of the talent show, with talents provided by the guests in attendance.
The talents started off with Nate and Nicole’s re-enactment of one of the student films that we worked on this past year. Their rendition of “Move Me” was something to be witnessed.
Up next, Andy performed an illusion that left all of us baffled to this day. Somehow he managed to tie his shoes without his hands. Incredible.
This exceptional trick was followed by the recorder stylings of Elyse, which provided for the funniest moment I’ve experienced in recent memory. After playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”. She also did a tarot card reading for a few people which gave us all a glimpse into the future.
The video portion of the night was to follow as we watched childhood videos from Celeste and Nate, and an awesome Star Wars parody from Andy. True geekiness was exhibited in this portion of the night as Celeste played a ring leader, Nate was a Piano teacher on crack, and Andy played a Jedi warrior.
We then moved back to the performances outside as Nathan read some amazing poetry that he had written himself, which was recieved exceptionally well by everyone in attendance.
Jonny then had the group in an all out sing along to Third Eye Blind’s “Jumper” which brought everyone together in a Geeky embrace.
The capper of the talent portion of the night was Jennifer’s amazing cheer that she did in praise of all of us who had recently graduated.
Or so we thought…turns out the Stormhoek wine did its job and got most people pretty intoxicated which led to impromptu talents throughout the rest of the night, mostly at the hands of Nate, who performed an interpretive dance that he had done for a high school talent show.
The night was full of laughs and total geekiness. Here’s a little video we made.
Last weekend GlitterFish attended the CineVegas film festival. The fest ran all week and will end today. Here’s some pictures and my thoughts on the on the festival. 
