Good Movie Day

This is where we see all of the press screenings.

The day nuts...The movies GOOD
Today was an extremely hectic day, because I tried to make an 8:30 am showing of 'happythankyoumoreplease,' and just couldn't make it on time so instead I headed over to the Eccles theater and tried to use my press pass to get me in. Although the publicist for the film, which was 'The Company Men,' had only a few available tickets and most were spoken for. She told me to wait around, that she may have some tickets for me later on. So I stood there waiting, it was snowing, and the wind was blowing pretty hard. There were a line of press behind me that were wanting to get in, lucky I was the first one there, and had waited the longest when she had one ticket come available right at show time! I think I got the very, very last ticket in the entire theater. I ended up getting the front row, smack-dab in the center. This usually is a crappy seat in regular theaters, but not this one. The Eccles theater is in a high school auditorium and the screen is pushed back a good 50 - 100 feet on the stage making it a perfect viewing distance from the front row. No craning your neck to see anything.

I got the last (golden) ticket.

'The Company Men' stars Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Craig T. Nelson, and Kevin Costner. It really is quite a good movie about today's economy and what it all means to the people finding themselves laid off in the wake of corporate greed.

Also saw a movie 'Catfish' today, which MUST be seen to be believed. It's a documentary. PLEASE, look out for this doc someday. The very best movie I've seen at Sundance this year. Wow! This thing floored me. It's hard to describe the film, without giving away major spoilers, but it's just fantastic.

The Waiting Tent. This is where we line up like cattle movie after movie.

The other two movies I saw today, 'Douchebag' (yes there is a movie titled that and yes the guy in it is a complete douchebag) and 'Winter's Bone' were also quite good. It was a very good day for movies today, even though I missed out on the one I wanted to see this morning. But, that's ok, it all worked out in the end.

My bus stop in the morning. It was cold, and snowy, and cold.

'Got Low', but then got 'Void'ed.
Today was a wild day. The snow was falling like crazy. And I ended up stepping off of a curb into a puddle that went well past my ankle. One of those bottomless puddles, where you step in and your foot just keeps going and going. Not good.

Like I mentioned before I had 3 screenings today. The first, 'Get Low' was tremendous. The more I think about it the more I really, utterly enjoyed it. Bill Murray and Robert Duvall are fantastic in it. The story is heartfelt, the acting superb, and the end reveal is believable and sweet. It should do good when it hits a wide distribution.

In case you wondered what the press credentials looked like.

The second movie I saw, was one of the most interesting pieces of crap I've seen in a long time. Gasper Noe's 'Enter the Void' is a movie that begins with some tremendously creative camera work showing everything from a first person point of view, but after about 20 or 30 minutes the movie goes off the rails, tripping back and forth through lucid dream-like sequences of a man who is dead and is hovering over keeping his sister company. It's just so terrible, sleazy, ugly, and gross. Utterly gross. You'll have to take three showers after seeing something like that.

The last movie was a rather interesting one called '7 Days.' A French revenge thriller that is kind of like 'Taken' mixed with 'Law Abiding Citizen,' but a bit more graphic. It asks the question is torture worth it? Is revenge worth it? It's very well done, but isn't for the queasy that's for sure.

Overall, a decent day. I found a great little spot with super strong wi-fi so I can stay connected to the world, which is nice.

Tomorrow's a very early day for me. First screening at 8:30 am of a movie called 'happythankyoumoreplease.' Yes, that is the name, and no I have no idea why it's called that or what it's about.

Until tomorrow...

Just Arrived

These will be my traveling companions for the next few days. That's right, it's the Fat Lil' Notebook. Don't mess.

Sundancin'
Well, I made it up to Park City safe and sound. I'm going to be waking up tomorrow at 6:30 am to get my day started. I've got to catch the bus by 7:00 am. That'll give me enough time to find out where all the new press lounges are, where I can get wi-fi access (it's a must) and where I can get free food. There's plenty of free snacks up here, you just got to know where to look.

As you can see above my notebook, pen and schedule are going to be near and dear to my heart as I try and navigate the festival.

Tomorrow's schedule has only 3 movies on the slate:

Get Low: 9:30 am - 11:15 am -- Starring Bill Murray and Robert Duvall. Felix is a miserable old hermit who has lived in an isolated cabin for the past 38 years. He catches word that an old friend has passed away and hatches a plan to throw himself a "funeral party." He even wants the townsfolk, who either despise him or fear him, to attend the party and share all the crazy stories they may have heard about creepy old Felix. Is he a fugitive? A murderer? Or something worse?

Enter the Void: 1:30 pm - 4:15 pm -- About a remorseful drug dealer, but honestly this one has me baffled by the synopsis. I'll just have to see it to find out what it's about.

7 Days: 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm -- A French film about a man who goes on a rampage of revenge after his 8-year-old daughter is murdered.

I'll also be meeting up with one of the main guys from Film.com in order to coordinate schedules so I can help them cover some films.

Well, that's it for now. I'll try and take a bunch of pictures tomorrow, and hopefully let you in on the Sundance craziness.

Sundance Here I Come!

FESTIVUS FOR THE REST OF US!
The time has come, once again, to head up to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. This year I'll be covering the festival for Logan's Herald Journal, and I'll also be contributing to festival coverage for Film.com.

I'm leaving tonight after work, and expect to be in Park City around 7:00 or 7:30 pm. I'm staying at Loren's aunt and uncle's home near Kimball Junction. They're awesome to let me stay for so long.

Sundance is exciting and freaking crazy. Last year was my first year at the festival, and it took some getting used to. Being in a theater from 9:00 am to 10:00 pm really does end up taking its toll. But, I can't complain when I'm just seeing movies all day, and getting paid for it on the side.

For the next 9 or 10 days I'll be keeping this blog, not so much for reviews, but just to share what's going on, my photos, and my experience at the festival. Hopefully, my facebook friends will find it entertaining (especially Sam Maw).

Empty Canvas to Flower Madness

I know, I know, I said I'd update as the work progressed. We all know that didn't happen. Even though the pictures haven't been up and I haven't been blogging, I have been working. First, we went to a local garden shop here in Logan and got some stuff to make the dirt nice for the plants. Then, we had to clean out the space I needed. Aaron was awesome and totally did the hard work. We got a manual tiller and that helped so much! All I had to do after that was pretty much just pick up the weeds, or violets, as we later found out.


This is how it turned out. Thanks to someone, there were a few boards from the fence behind us tossed in our garden. I found a few without nails in them and used them to make a border.



I was a little nervous to plant the flowers by myself. I didn't really know what kind to get, as the little area is mostly covered in shade all day. My sister gave me a great list of plants that do well in shade - Thank you Ala! And I asked some pros to come give me a hand to make the garden look good. Lucky for me, these pros come and do the work pro-bono. They are family after all.

My grandma always had a beautiful garden in her backyard that she would spend hours working in. It looked like a fairytale garden. Last year, Grandma sold her house and her beautiful garden and moved in with my parents. I thought if she came up to help it would bring back a little of what she had lost. Not to mention, I could use her expertise. She's also an artist and a perfectionist. I knew we couldn't go wrong with her help!

My mom has always had beautiful gardens too. Heck, I used to help her plant the flowers and weed every weekend! I knew Mom would also be valuable in this undertaking. She has an eye for what will work best and what won't.

In the end, it turned into a whole family event. Mom, Dad, and Grandma came up from Orem and stayed with Mac and Tiff out in Garland. Saturday morning the whole crew came out to help. It was awesome!

First, Mom and Dad came out to help me find the plants I needed. We went back to the local garden shop and they helped me pick out some really pretty little flowers! We found snap dragons (for Aaron, they're his favorite), nicotania (yes, they are a type of tobacco, but not an edible kind), foxglove (which I LOVE!), impatiens, lobelia, and some pretty yellow ones that open and close with the presence of the sun. Dad was super generous covered the whole thing for me. Thanks Dad!

Once the gardening commenced, Mimi had to be part of it. Looks like she's got the bug too. She 'helped' Grandma turn the soil and prepare it for the flowers. Once we all cleared out for a minute, she grabbed a spade and started digging a pretty big hole. We could hear her singing a little song Tiffiny had been singing a moment earlier - "Deep and wide, deep and wide!" Tiff asked her why she was digging the hole so deep and she said - "I have to dig it deep and wide."


We started planting and the madness ensued! It was a lot of fun to see grandma be so serious about where the plants should go. I already had a sort of plan for where I wanted them to be, we had to convince Grandma we didn't want them in rows. She was so intent on the right heights being in the right places and she kept forgetting which ones grew how tall. Heck, I couldn't even tell you right now which ones will get how big, but it was important to her for it to look right. It was nice to see her passion for gardening rekindle as she got into the dirt and starting digging.



Everyone was a huge help and now I have a little garden of my own! Lucky for me it has rained every day for the past week, so I haven't had to water the plants at all. But, a little sad in that they aren't getting what little sun they would on a cloudless day. I'm waiting for a few sunny days in a row before I take a picture of the finished product. I want to give them all a chance to look their best.

Mom also got me a bucket full of petunias to put by our front door. What happy little flowers they are. They definitely make the front of our house look much better! We also got some herbs - and I've already used them to cook with! We made a fabulous discovery at Anderson's Seed and Garden - pineapple sage. Awesome, I know. It smells so sweet and... and interesting. I made a marinade with honey, pineapple sage, and pear infused balsamic vinegar yesterday and marinated porkchops in it all night and most of today. They turned out great! It was delicious. I'll make it for you when you come for dinner.

Haiku

The Japanese art of haiku is something most of us practice in school at least once, but then we forget it. I have always liked it. I find it challenging to get your point across in such a restricted manner. And the imagery is fun to play with. Such as, my tribute to the summer months:

Golden sunlight warms

Comfort found in green breezes

Blue is happiness

They can also be funny, like the t-shirt I have from Threadless.com. If you can't read it, it says

Haikus are easy

But sometimes they don't make sense

Refrigerator

I love this shirt! It inspires me to create my own. What can you come up with? Remember, the rules are: 3 lines - first line must have 5 syllables, second line must have 7, and the third line must have 5 again. Show me what you're all made of!

My Own Mary Lennox Experience

When I was a kid one of my favorite books was The Secret Garden. Reading about how little Mary coaxed the small plants out of the ground made me feel like I wanted to go out there and raise my own small garden. But then my mom would ask me to weed the garden in front of our house and all motivation to grow my own disappeared.

But now, I don't know whether it's because we're in a new house or because it's spring, but I've got that hankering again to plant a garden. Our new apartment has a cute little yard and some small garden space, not to mention a small patio in front of the door. This is what our little yard looks like, not much right now, but with a little love I think I can turn it into my own secret garden.
I'm planning on planting easy flowers at first, ones that don't require too much care. I'm not known for my green thumb. That's where my sister comes in, her thumb is a beautiful grass green. Everything she plants seems to flourish. Her own garden is always abloom and cheerful. I only hope that with her help and advice my venture into the world of gardening will be as rewarding as hers.

In front of our door I want to try to grow some of my own herbs. Won't this look great with all sorts of pots and flowers?
Stay tuned for updates. I plan on posting something at least once a week after I get started. It will be slow going at first, so sorry if you lose interest. But won't it be fun to watch the flowers grow?