Wholphin

OK, first off, I’m no scuttlebutt. If you want the super chill on Spike’s
Absolut / CAA party last night, talk to Bill Murray. Suffice it to say I
wasn’t the guy passed out and drooling on himself in the corner. But before I get too sleep deprived and incoherent, I just want to say I feel really good about my romantic prospects here this year. I think this is the year I find true love. You might think, from the past 10 issues of Wholphin, that I am only capable of loving squid and other sea creatures, but that’s not true. I am capable of falling in love with humans and this year I am falling in love with six of them, namely the Sundance Shorts Programmers.

I’m on the jury so I can’t talk specifics, but 2010 is shaping up to be one of the better curated festivals I’ve been to. Perhaps some film school zombies out there still see shorts as a temporary way station on the glorious road to being offered “Alvin and The Chipmunk’s Bavarian Vacation, “Wir Suchen Eine Nutcrackers!” …But if you view short film as a calling card, you’d better understand that the criteria for what that means has changed drastically in the last few years. The emphasis has shifted from “short” to “film.” And we’re seeing films here. Serious and amazing and hilarious and freaking heartbreaking films directed by serious and amazing directors. Many of them aren’t cheap, and many of them aren’t even short, they’re just “differently lengthed.”

Shorts are being screened in larger theaters this year and the screenings have been justifiably packed. At the opening night premier of Shorts Program One, Bob himself introduced the program and made it clear this was truly an “opening night premier” in the festival sense, a sign that differently-lengthed films are on increasingly equal footing with their extended counterparts. Bob attributed the new heightened profile and interest to the advent of mobile technology and reduced attention spans, but the fact is people are just making better movies.

And the fact that people are obviously interested in watching great motion pictures at whatever length is proof that in this business, length, the right length, is everything.

And my god. The mango gazpacho hors d’oeuvres were slurpier than the girl ???????????? (redacted by the Wholphin legal staff) was drunkenly making out with last night! Play on players!

C-packs, Neosporin in each nostril and hand sanitizer in the shwag bag, everyone spends a good deal of time here discussing their infallible strategies for avoiding the viruses they will invariably catch here at the Park City playground. But there is never any mention of a more subtle infection that is far more contagious and detrimental to the health of our nation’s filmmakers.
The first symptom is a distinct tension around the eyes. This is often followed by a loss of focus, verbal coherency, and nausea, culminating in bouts of “krampfhaft” (convulsive laughter) and in extreme cases, temporary blindness.
This as-yet-unnamed virus is a debilitating neurological illness resulting from the complete ontological crisis of needing desperately, with every cell in one’s body, to both get up from the bar and go network with Powerful Industry Professional X who can make your career in a single conversation, and to simultaneously stay right where you’re sitting and continue flirting with Unbelievably Attractive Person Y, who just might be the sexiest person you have ever spoken to, (excepting that girl who stole your heart in Amsterdam who was like a prettier, bubblier version of Natalie Portman.) It is easy to see how such an epidemic could spread here in Park City as unbelievable attractiveness is as common as a sore throat. For those who lack resistance, it can lead to a massive psycho-neurological breakdown, –because let’s face it, putting libido above art is basically admitting that deep down you are no different than the studio execs you love to hate, and that the only reason you want to shmooze Powerful Industry Professional X over there in the first place is to eventually raise your career to a level which will enable you to have a shot at attracting Unbelievably Attractive And Impossibly Perfect Persons, like the one you are currently inexplicably attracting.
Devil On Your Shoulder says: “Dude. She’s touching your arm! Cut out the middle man, save yourself a ton of aggravation and work, and go straight for the gold!”

Angel On Your Shoulder says: “But think of your contribution to society through the enormous gift of your art?? What will the world do without your semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story?? A dork that becomes a man over the course of one wild hot summer?? That’s genius!!”

Realizing that both your angel and your devil are fucking liars, you get drunk and end up whining to your buddies, thereby spreading the virus.

The festival hasn’t even officially started yet, but if I were an epidemiologist, I would predict that this year’s outbreak will be nasty.

You know that feeling when you get on a plane and realize, as the steward is shutting the doors and everyone is on board, that you are about to be graced with that increasingly rare experience of an empty seat next to you?

It’s amazing.

It’s like escaping from a kidnapping. You feel like you’re getting a brief
reprieve from this fucked up degrading cattle car of an air transportation
system we have been forced to endure for years in the enduringly American
name of “shut up if you can’t afford better.”

It’s exciting. Like a Jersey Shore cat fight.

Except that, right as you plop your special polygamy issue of National
Geographic on the seat, you suddenly see a big, sweaty, overweight Homer
barge on and come lumbering down the isle. Suddenly, you’re right back in
the kidnapper’s house about to be touched. And boy does he touch. He
squeezes in next to you like a banana being smooshed back into its peel and he’s not just sweaty, he’s wet, like he just ran all the way from home. And now he’s shared his smooshy wetness with your arm. But you don’t have time to care about that because he immediately starts spreading his legs, rapidly opening and closing them in this manic compulsive nervous rhythm, bumping into you each time without noticing or caring.

Bump bump bump bump.

You think, because you are disgusting, Jesus, he must be trying to air out
his sweaty fellas. God, where do these people come from? His head is in his
hands and he’s breathing heavy, like he’s in the midst of a pteromerhanophobic panic. Either that or he’s suffering from a low grade
Parkinson’s. Oh no. What if none of this is his fault and he’s just
suffering from an involuntary movement disorder and can’t help his incessant legs bumping which also makes him sweaty and late for planes? Oh what a jerk you have been for rudely accusing him of airing his sweaty fellas.

Or not.

You decide to give him a dirty look, yes that’s what you’ll do, a big “Yo,
what the hell, dude?” frowney face to let him know that knee bumps, even
from people with involuntary movement disorders, are not cool. So you take a second to prepare, and then right as you look up at him, that’s when he throws up into his mouth.

Bingo! He’s an independent filmmaker. Strap up, we’re off to Sundance!