Uncompany Town
“I just bought a place up by Runyon,” said a bearded, plaid-clad hipster as he sipped a latte in the café where I happened to be eating a soy breakfast bar last Thursday. I could have been at the Coffee Bean in Los Feliz, a mere 30-second trek from my front door. But instead I found myself on Main Street in Park City, Utah on the very first day of the Sundance film festival.
Each year, thousands of Hollywood’s Bogner parka-ed power players take the hour-and-a-half flight to wheel and deal their way to Indie film greatness. And this year, I was one of them (minus the Bogner, the power and the Hollywood agenda, of course).
But instead of the suited up, Ari Gold atmosphere I expected, I found a town full of people who, from a work standpoint, had no business being at the festival at all. Unless you count swilling unlimited tequila and snagging free $30 dresses as important business.
“Last night we got wasted and jumped on top of some trash cans outside our condo,” said Jeremy, a ruggedly handsome actor whose last name I didn’t catch as we shared a car to the airport on Sunday afternoon. He was nursing a hangover (or perhaps a concussion) acquired the previous day on the slopes and at an Axe Body Spray “Clean Your Balls” party attended by obvious A-listers Khloe Kardashian and Stephanie Pratt. “I probably should have seen some movies.” He said, slightly green in the face. “I feel like a loser.”
He isn’t the only one who forgot to catch a flick during the largest indie film festival in America. Out of the eight people sharing the Deer Valley residence in which I spent the weekend, not one saw a film. But we had plenty of time for homemade turkey Bolognese, gifting suites and drinking games.
On Friday evening, while sipping some of that unlimited tequila at Gen Art’s 7 Fresh Faces in Film party, I ran into acquaintances from my old Chicago stomping grounds. They didn’t plan on hitting the silver screen, either.
“I want to but I don’t think we’ll have time,” said one of the acquaintances, an associate producer at a Chicago cable television show. “Our house is ski-in, ski-out.”
Another friend, who asked to remain nameless, traveled to Park City from Manhattan with an agenda rivaling that of a Weinstein. But instead of being charged with scoring the next Precious, said friend is a budding surgeon with no Hollywood ties who schemed his way into every gifting suite in town.
“I got a snowboard today,” he proudly boasted as we shared a beer during a Saturday evening blizzard.
Others were hoping to profit off similarly unconnected souls who lack the surgeon's same Chutzpah and oh-so-friendly smile.
A quick Craigslist search for “gifting” revealed that for $200, anyone could buy a media pass to the Village at the Yard, a popular gifting suite featuring brands including Sephora, Aveeno and Charlotte Ronson’s collection for J.C. Penney. With a bottle of Aveeno moisturizer available at Target for less than a ten spot, the wiser business decision might be to buy the product outright.
But shopping next to Simon Rex? Well, that's priceless.