I’m impressed that A.C. Slater doesn’t totally lose it while listening to Miss Teen South Carolina respond to an interview question with a completely incomprehensible answer.

Everyone at the SuperBowl party I was at agreed that the best part of the entire SuperBowl was the halftime show. Prince put on quite a performance. CBS and the NFL probably thought he would be a safe bet since he's now a practicing Jehovah's Witness–i.e. little danger of a wardrobe malfunction. But, not all of the old Prince is gone. True to form, he brought twins with him. He's tried this before, but had to settle for two girls who looked alike. This time he has real twins, Maya and Nandy McClean. former Australian Idol hopefuls. He played a somewhat eclectic set that included covers of CCR, Dylan, and Foo Fighters songs. But the big payoff was at the end when he closed with Purple Rain. I think it could only have been better if he did Nothing Compares 2 U. And what was that about Prince needing a hip replacement? He sure didn't look like he was having any hip problems, yesterday.

Grace is Gone ended up winning the Waldo Salt award for screenwriting. John Cusack plays a father who can't bring himself to tell his daughters that their mother has died in Iraq. This has to be the one film that has unanimously won over the critics and has generated tons of buzz. The guys over at Filmspotting named Grace is Gone one of their five favorite films of the festival. Unfortunately, an inconsolable baby contributed to my missing this screening. I was seven people away from getting into the screening, but, alas, it wasn't meant to be. Fortunately, Grace is Gone has been picked up for distribution by the Weinsteins and should be in wide release well before the end of the year.

The TBA screening ended up being No End in Sight. A few people waiting in line had their suspicions that Robert Redford lobbied to get this film shown for the TBA showing since he opened the festival with some anti-war sentiment. I guess it would make a fitting bookend. No End in Sight is a documentary by Charles Ferguson about the quagmire that the war in Iraq has become. This is no Fahrenheit 9/11. Charles Ferguson is no Michael Moore. I actually believe what Ferguson has captured on film. I don't believe that he's manipulating the viewer through the use of creative editing and by harassing those he interviews. Rather, he found the highest level government officials–those that were directly responsible for making some of the most important decisions affecting the course of the war. What he found is that they were repeated hamstrung and left to watch helplessly as poor decisions were made, each decision worse than the one before it.

The Great World of Sound was the last screening I caught at Sundance. Unfortunately, I also found it to be the most disappointing one. It's about a guy named Martin, who has mostly good intentions, but gets caught up working as a "producer"/salesman for a sleazy conman that preys on hopes and dreams of aspiring musicians to line his pockets. At first, Martin doesn't realize that they're conning people. He actually thinks that they're going to produce albums for these people. However, he soon figures out that what he's really doing is just separating these people from their money by deceiving them in the worst possible way. He has a bit of a moral crisis, but rather than emerging as the tragic hero, he just ends up being tragic. Maybe I just found the ending too unsatisfying. Maybe I just thought they drew the whole thing out a little too long. I just didn't find it all that satisfying in the end.

Anyway, that was pretty much the end of my Sundance experience for this year. I hope to catch some of the films that I missed at the festival that have been picked up for distribution. Here's looking forward to next year. I wonder what it will be like… This year's Sundance film festival was reported to be a critical disappointment according to some and continued to be plagued by the perception that it embodies the independent spirit less and less every year. There are plenty of articles out there criticizing the increasing commercialism of the festival. While this may be true, it's still one of the best places to see some of the best independent films around.

I caught a screening of Interview, in Ogden, on Saturday. It's a remake of Theo Van Gogh's 2003 film of the same name. This version was written by David Schechter and Steve Buscemi. Buscemi also directed the film and played the role of Pierre Peters, a political journalist who gets stuck writing a fluff piece on the starlet du jour, Katja, played by Sienna Miller. Pierre and Katja are immediately at odds with each other and Katja ends up cutting the interview short. Through a random series of events, Pierre ends up at Katja's loft and attempts to complete the interview. What ensues is kind of like a game of emotional chicken. Pierre continues to pry into Katja's life in an attempt to complete his assignment. There's a small twist at the end, but it wasn't completely surprising. I thought it may have been a bit of commentary on entertainment journalists and paparazzi since it was written by an actor. Buscemi and Miller both gave excellent performances.

It was a late screening so we couldn't take the bimmer. But we did take it to dinner before the show. ep drove the X3 to dinner on Main Street in Park City. We had some sushi at Kampai. The sushi was actually pretty good. We ate at the sushi bar and, Ryan, the sushi chef there, took good care of us. We ate there last year too, though not at the bar.

Q & A Session with the producer of Waitress. 

We caught a screening of Waitress tonight in Ogden. Ogden is about 65 miles from Park City. We made the mistake of thinking it would only take us an hour to get there. A semi-trailer jack-knifed on the expressway in the canyons between Salt Lake City and Ogden snarling traffic for miles. We were 30 minutes late to the screening, but they let us in because of the accident in the canyons. Apparently, we weren't the only ones late to the screening. We were just extra late because we also managed to get slightly lost on the way there. That's what we get for trying to navigate the entire way there using the sad excuse for a map provided in the Sundance film guide.

Oh well, at least we got to drive there and back in a BMW 525xi. It was about 15 degrees outside when we left the theater so the heated steering wheel was definitely a boon. There's no denying that the 525xi is a nice ride. Although, I found it quite lacking when it came to power. The 215-hp 3.0 liter inline six had a hard time keeping up with the canyons in Utah. The additional weight of the all-wheel drive system and three passengers conspired to dampen the "ultimate driving experience". The engine also seemed to be lacking low-end grunt. The brakes also seemed to be hypersensitive and didn't have very good feel. It was nearly impossible to feather the brakes for a smooth stop.

Anyway, back to Waitress… I enjoyed this film. It was bittersweet and poignant. The writer and director of the film, Adrienne Shelly, also played one of Keri Russell's waitress co-workers. It was moving to see her play the part she wrote for herself in a film that her friends characterize as a labor of love. She unfortunately did not live to see her film premiere and get picked up for distribution at Sundance. The producer said that after speaking with Keri Russell they knew that she was the one they wanted for the lead role. Unfortunately, they made this decision right after Russell got her part in Mission Impossible III (That's a role which I still wonder about her taking. From what my friends that met her tell me, she seems to be trying to be less Hollywood and do things more along the lines of Waitress.) They had to wait six months for her to finish MI3. The producer of Waitress said they shot the entire thing in 20 days. It's amazing when you hear how quick the shooting goes for some of these independent productions. They were also able to get Andy Griffith to more or less come out of retirement to play the owner of the diner that Russell works at.

We have tickets to a screening of Interview tomorrow in Ogden. So, it'll be another long drive. But, the film sounds interesting. The majority of the action in the film occurs between Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller.