Sundancing

I took a little trip to Park City, Utah for some skiing and Sundance movie watching last weekend with my sister and Emily. We had the BEST BEST time - every day brought new things to look forward to and more fun and there's no better way than enjoying it with good friends. Good times, good times.




We flew into Salt Lake City Thursday morning and drove 30 min into snowy Park City to our cozy cabin.

We all, at one time or another, almost fell on this icy porch, with the whole windmilling "Aaaa! aaaa!" thing. Sometimes you DON'T learn your lessons.

We explored downtown Park City, which is kind of a cross between old west (think saloons and "this town ain't big enough for the both of us" *cue high noon music*) and a posh ski town (there's a Fred Segal and clubs), and ate a late-afternoon dinner since none of us had had lunch yet.

Main Street

The beauty of the Sundance Film Festival is that the normals can buy tickets for movies (though they are hard to come by) and if you catch the first screening, the director and cast will introduce the film and then hold a question and answer session at the end, where anyone can ask questions, which proved to be pretty interesting.

Inside Eccles Theater

We had bought tickets to two movies ahead of time, but wanted to get into see the movie that was opening Sundance, "Friends With Money," so we ended up waiting in the waitlist line on an icy sidewalk while it was snowing.

Somehow, they manage a (muffled) smile for the camera. Can you feel your lips?

BUT, as a reward for our frozen toes (17 degrees!), we got in. Yay!


This screening was cool because the entire cast of about eight actors attended, unlike the other movies we saw where only a couple were there. I really liked this film - it's about four women who have been friends a long time, with varying degrees of success in wealth and life and how that affects their relationships with each other. Good ensemble cast, great dialogue (the director also wrote it), and it was surprisingly funny and relatable.

"Friends With Money"
Joan Cusack, Francis McDormand, Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Keener

The next day, we headed to The Canyons Resort for some skiing and it turns out, Utah snow is everything it's hyped up to be. It was a beautiful day, mid-20s and sunny with snow flurries now and then, perfect skiing weather. Check out my sister's blog for ski pics. The resort is enormous with great terrain- we probably covered only a third of it and the snow was light, dry, and powdery. We were giddy with delight. Haha. At one point, my sis and I found ourselves completely alone, surrounded by trees and utter silence, up to our knees in powder. After navigating through what seemed like an endless forest (the result of seeing an unmarked gate at the peak, looking down, and saying "mmm ... we could probably do that" - note to self: check map next time), we jumped a drop-off into a narrow ravine (we think it was a frozen creek) and ended up what amounted to bobsledding along until it shot us back up onto the trail at the bottom heading back to the lift. Awesome.

At the end of the day, we headed back to the cabin, soaked in the hot tub, and cooked a lovely dinner complete with peach cobbler. Mmmmm ... cobbler.


Then we went back out into the frozen-ness and caught "Lucky Number Slevin," a kind of mystery mob thriller with a case of mistaken identity. It had great performances, including Morgan Freeman and Sir Ben Kingsley as opposing head mobsters, cool visuals, and an interesting plot. Before the movie started, my sis spotted Josh Hartnett sitting a couple rows ahead of us and we "stalked" him, albeit passively. Mainly, we sat there and said to each other, "Hey, that's Josh Hartnett." Turns out, my sister is an excellent celebrity spotter. Emily, who says things like, "you know that girl, Sarah Jessica Gellar?" when referring to Jennifer Love Hewitt, is not. Good try, Em.

"Lucky Number Slevin"
Lucy Liu (cool boots!), writer Jason Smilovic, director Paul McGuigan, Josh Hartnett

Saturday brought more snow and another day of skiing, this time at Park City Mountain Resort. It was colder, since there was no sun and plenty of snowfall, but just as fun. Ahhh ... another wonderful day hungrily enjoying the powdery goodness. Honestly, I can't remember two better days of skiing.

Then back downtown to catch "The Night Listener" with Robin Williams and Toni Collette. It's a psychological thriller about a night-time radio host and a woman who took in an AIDS-stricken kid, who struck up a friendship with the radio host. I'd have to say I liked this movie the least, but the Q&A at the end was really interesting because it was apparently based on a true story and the writer was talking about his own experiences. Creeeeepy ...

"The Night Listener"
director Patrick Stettner, Toni Collette, screenwriter Terry Anderson, author Armistead Maupin

We then headed down to Main Street for some dinner, putting our names in a 45 min wait. Sundance, we learned, requires a lot of patience. (It also requires the wearing of snow boots, not normal boots, *ahem, Emily*, but that's another story.) No worries, we wandered amongst the crowds outside for a while and soon after going back to the restaurant, we were seated, where we enjoyed a yummy dinner which, try as we might, we could not finish. Emily, ever practical, wondered aloud if we should take the leftovers. "No Em, I'm NOT going eat Thai for breakfast." So off into briskness we went, sans doggie bag.

Sundance kids outside the famed Egyptian Theater

And then ... Sunday, it was back to reality. Boooo. I'm already plotting to go back.