So, what’s it like when you sell your movie at Sundance? Like this: You drive through the streets whooping, yelling, cranking up the stereo and tossing black Adidas ski hats to the unwashed (and un-picked-up) masses.
The groovesters of “Groove” are, yes, grooving. A day after Sony Pictures Classic snapped up the low-budget slice-of-rave-life flick, the film’s players were partying in the streets here this afternoon. And to hear one of its stars tell it — this was situation normal, big-time movie deal or no.
“We’ve been partying since Day One of shooting and that’s all it was, was 28 days in a warehouse, dancing 18 hours a day,” actor Steve Van Mormer told Hollywood.com while dancing atop the SUV-anointed “Groove” Mobile. “And we haven’t stopped since.”
Not that the Sony deal hasn’t made the day of even the most veteran party animals.
“It is unfathomable,” said Van Wormer, who plays a club promoter in the flick. “It was always in the back of our minds, but it’s a total, total dream. … It’s unbelievable. I don’t even know what else to askfor.”
A sequel?
Meanwhile, in other Park City happenings:
BIG “BUCK”: “Chuck & Buck,” a different kind of buddy film starring the directing-producing brothers behind 1999 summer smash “American Pie,” was bought today — reportedly for $1 million-plus — by Artisan Entertainment, the distributor behind that other 1999 summersmash, “The Blair Witch Project.” The deal was completed after the “Groove” one, leaving that film with the distinction of being the first Park City buy. “Chuck & Buck,” with hot “Pie” sibs Chris and Paul Weitz, is the second feature from Miguel Arteta, who became a Sundance star with 1997’s “Star Maps.”
GOLDEN GLOBES? WHAT GOLDEN GLOBES? OK, so tonight’s official Sundance party was billed as the DirecTV Golden Globes party — except, like, it started at 9 p.m. local time (or roughly just as the award show was ending) and, like, nobody cared anyway.
Reports Hollywood.com’s Gerry Katzman: “Fifty percent of the people there had very little concept that the Golden Globes were even going on.” The other half were juiced that Alan Ball took a Globe for his screenplay for “American Beauty” (almost like an indie — except for the DreamWorks part).
And then there was the matter of Barbra Streisand. (She picked up the Globe’s lifetime achievement award.) The word that came up most often, Katzman says, in describing Streisand‘s acceptance speech was, um, “rambled.”
MAYBE WE WERE AT THE WRONG PARTY: The big shindig in town tonight (perhaps the one that emptied the streets) was apparently the MGM-sponsored Globes bash. This one wasn’t for journalist types — it was for “the special people,” in the words of a fellow journalist type (i.e., a nonspecial person).
THE ORIGINS OF BUZZ: “Oh, it’s really good.” — A cell phone disciple on her way out of Saturday’s premiere of boxing chick flick (and Dramatic Competition hopeful) “Girlfight” at the Park City LibraryCenter.
HOW TO PARK IN PARK CITY: Stop your SUV in the middle of Main Street — and get out. (Leaving the engine running is optional, if not recommended. At least that’s how three drivers — two in one lane, one in the opposite — did it at the same time here Sunday night, much to the delight of their fellow motorists.)
PARKING ASIDE, WE’RE A WELL-BEHAVED BUNCH: Park City police Sgt. Sherm Farnsworth told us today all has been pretty quiet in packed Park City — flier controversy or no. The Slamdance types, as we reported earlier, have been complaining that their filmmakers are being hassled over handbills and threatened with $2,000 fines. Farnsworth said no actual citations had been issued through the weekend. He also denied that police were springing a new law on festivalgoers — as Slamdance had suggested. (“Why they say that … I have no idea,” Farnsworth said.) The anti-flier ordinance has been on the books for a while, the official said, adding that police are just cracking down this year. In other civic news, Farnsworth estimated that the biggest Park City population crush is yet to come, with up to 30,000 expected to be milling about town Wednesday and Thursday. No word on how many will come bearing fliers.
WHO SAID MOVIE PEOPLE HAVE NO STANDARDS? “I can’t just whip out a power schmooze — ‘How ’bout them Knicks?'” — A conflicted guy overheard tonight on Main Street.
THE MOST WELL-INFORMED MALL IN AMERICA: Park City’s Main Street Mall (home to the No Dance Festival), where the communal TV sets are inexplicably always tuned to CNN.
HOW TO ELIMINATE THE COMPETITION: New to Park City this year is the Independence Film Festival. It’s the brainchild of filmmaker David Merwin, who has a very specific agenda: To screen his short, “The Regular Menu,” as many as 100 times by Wednesday morning. “The Regular Menu,” in fact, is the only film on the menu at the Independence Film Festival, based near Slamdance headquarters at the Treasure Mountain Inn. Said Merwin: “We could have hustled up some other entries, but I kind of liked the idea of being the guaranteed grand-prize winner thisyear.”
MOVIES WE SAW:
1. “Songcatcher” (Sundance Dramatic Competition) — We had to get up early to watch this stuff? Janet McTeer plays a 1920s musicologist who chooses to move to hillbilly country to live with her lesbian sister schoolteacher (Jane Adams) and discovers the joy of native folk songs. Unfortunately, almost every freakin’ scene features dirty-faced mountainfolk breaking into song. It’s both annoying and unrealistic — as if the hillbilly lifestyle was not too divorced from that of a Broadway gypsy. A great performance by Aidan Quinn (as McTeer‘s love interest, a hillbilly with a heart of gold) and an unbelievable supporting turn by Pat Carroll (“The Little Mermaid“) can’t make up for the film’s contrivances. (– AnonymousSource)
2. “Double Parked” (Slamdance Competition Feature) “Tumbleweeds” (and/or “Anywhere But Here“) with a New Yawk accent. Like those two wacky-mom/put-upon-kid flicks, “Double Parked” gives us a wacky single mom (who, in a twist, is as a tough-talkin’ meter maid name of, ugh, Rita) and a put-upon kid (who, in a twist, is sickly). Though heartfelt, this is the kind of film that shows up on IFC or the Sundance Channel full of a self-congratulatory sense of entitlement that says, “We’re indie. We’re better than Hollywood because no cars were crashed to make this film.” Well, no cars were crashed to make “Anywhere But Here,” either, and it’s just as cloying as that, so what’s the point? (– J.R.)
MOVIES WE WANTED TO SEE BUT COULDN’T GET TICKETS TO EVEN THOUGH WE WAITED OUT IN THE BITTER COLD FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF: “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (Sundance Documentary Competition).
SPOTTED: Indie god Steve Buscemi (“Living in Oblivion“) at today’s “Songcatcher” screening at the Eccles Theatre; indie guru John Pierson (TV’s “Split Screen”), animation icon Craig “Spike” Decker (of Spike and Mike’s Festival of Animation) and James Woods (“Any Given Sunday“) at the Independent Film Channel bash tonight at the Harry O’s nightclub. We also thought we saw Kato Kaelin (The People vs. O.J. Simpson) at the IFC shindig, but upon further review it was determined it wasn’t Kato, after all. (It was that kindof night.)
LOOKING AHEAD: The Jason Priestley-directed documentary “Barenaked in America” (about the pop band Barenaked Ladies), plays Slamdance on Monday; the buzz-a-rific “Happy Accidents” (with Marisa Tomei) unspools at Sundance; alternafest SlamDunk begins its run at Harry’s O.
