Bgay Presents:
Saturday Jan. 21
The here! Networks team kicked off Friday, the first full day of
the festival, by picking up John Waters for a full day for
interviews and appearances. During our adventures with Mr. Waters
we were late for a meeting, and were pulled over by Park City’s
finest for “improper passing.” While we were waiting for the
officer to finish running our license and uncover the numerous
warrants for our arrest, Mr. Waters reminded us to stop laughing
and express remorse for our crime (we really did believe we were
using a turn lane). When the cop returned to deliver the ticket,
he exclaimed “God dammit” in a moment of frustration while
attempting to find the exact penile code we had violated. Perhaps
“improper passing” is a rare violation in Utah? We think all the
straight acting local boys would beg to differ. Mr. Waters later
commented, “My ears are not garbage cans.” He also rightly stated
that “improper passing is just the beginning” of our wave of
corruption during the Sundance Film Festival.
Making our way around Park City with John Waters was an adventure
of another kind. The crowds on Main Street parted like the Red Sea
with filmmakers calling out how much they were inspired by Waters’
films. Lunch at Zoom included a visit to our table by Mr. Sundance
himself, Robert Redford, to welcome Mr. Waters to the
festival.
That night, we accompanied Mr. Waters to the Queer Lounge’s
opening festival party honoring the film Wrestling with Angels:
Playwright Tony Kushner. Prominent queer filmmakers and queer
film festival programmers from around North America made it the
gay place to be seen. Filmmakers Richard Glatzer and
Wash Westmoreland were on hand to celebrate the screening of
their film Quinceanera as part of the dramatic competition
in this year’s festival. Acclaimed filmmaker and Queer Brunch
founder Jenni Olson mingled with her peers and colleagues,
and April’s Shower star Honey Labrador walked the
red carpet with style. Others mingling included supermodel
Jenny Shimizu, Absolut Vodka marketing whiz Scott Seitz
and Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival executive director
Thom Cardwell.
A film generating considerable buzz at the party was Little
Miss Sunshine, a debut feature from co-directors Jonathan
Dayton and Valerie Faris. Screening for the first time
earlier that evening and starring Greg Kinnear, Toni
Collette, Alan Arkin and Steve Carell as a gay
uncle, Little Miss Sunshine is a hilarious comedy about a
most dysfunctional family in a VW bus on a road trip to the Little
Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Ms. Collette is one of the Hollywood
celebs who is lending her support to the LGBT community by
attending Outfest’s Queer Brunch this weekend, which is being
sponsored by here! Networks.
Saturday morning, we headed off to an early screening of Wordplay,
a charming documentary about the New York Times crossword puzzle
and the people who create and play it. One of the top crossword
puzzle players in the nation also happens to be fabulous, wicked
smart, and gay. Wordplay was preceded by an excellent short from
Pacific Northwest queer filmmaker Andrew Blubaugh entitled
Hello, Thanks about a gay man’s year of looking for love in
the personals, and his resulting love for writing personals.
The here! team also made it to the 1st Annual PlanetOut Brunch at
Cisero’s on Main. Hosted by PlanetOut’s Jenny Stewart and
Scott Mazer, the brunch attracted Tales of the City’s
Armistead Maupin, whose new film The Night Listener
is debuting at Sundance.
One of the interesting things about Sundance is that it attracts
scores of filmmakers whose films aren’t in the festival, but who
are looking for distribution. We caught up with Ken Tipton
and his producing partner Darlene Lieblich. The twosome
were pitching Tipton’s debut feature, Heart of the Beholder,
about Tipton’s personal experiences as a videostore owner ruined
by religious fundamentalists. First-time filmmakers, whether
accepted by Sundance or not, all share the burning persistence to
see their films made. In Tipton’s case, it took 12 years.
In the afternoon, we made it to Gus Van Sant’s panel
discussion at the Queer Lounge. The famed queer director of
Drugstore Cowboy, Good Will Hunting and My Own
Private Idaho took questions from a packed audience and
screened his shorts with beat poets William Burroughs and
Allen Ginsberg. Topics ranged from working with River
Phoenix to his experiences developing Brokeback Mountain
as the director attached to the project five years ago.
Dinner followed at Chimayo. Seen eating at the Main Street hotspot
were former Vice President Al Gore (who has a film this
year at Sundance) and his wife Tipper, Outfest’s
programming director Kirsten Shaeffer, award-winning
Sundance programmer Roberta Marie Munroe, directors Anne
Beatts and Eve Brandstein, the Advocate’s Alonso
Duralde, Sundance Executive Director Geoff Gilmore,
ESPN’s LZ Granderson, and here! Networks CEO Paul
Colichman.
It’s a relatively early Saturday night because we need to be up
bright and early Sunday morning for 10th annual Outfest Queer
Brunch presented by here! Networks. John Waters will be headlining
to launch his new series on here!, “John Waters Presents Movies
That Will Corrupt You.”
Stay tuned for all the highlights from the best celebrity and
filmmaker-studded queer event at Sundance. For more information on here!
Networks, please visit
www.heretv.com.
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