Sundance Film Festival

The Egyptian, where we saw the film.


A random dressed-up moose that we saw as we were walking on Main St.


Waiting for the film to start.


The Q&A with the film crew after the screening.

So, I finally made it to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City! That was one of my things-to-do-before-I-graduate-and-possibly-leave-Utah list. We didn't see any movie stars, sadly, although we did look at every passing limo or Escalade to see if someone famous would pop out.

It was FREEZING as we walked up and down Main St., stopping in shops and in an art gallery. One of the coolest parts was watching a group of guys play the violin and guitar... they played Irish jigs and were REALLY good.

The film was interesting... um, very "colorful" language (for that reason, I don't think I'd see it again), but a great human interest story. It was a documentary about a heavy metal band called Anvil that was once sort of famous but never really took off. The film followed the lives of two of the band members who have performed ever since... despite their lack of fame. It was actually a touching story in a lot of ways... these middle-aged rockers were rough around the edges, but you knew that they were softies at heart and not as tough as their music would suggest.

It was cool to listen to the Q&A with the film crew afterwards-the film was directed by a guy who was a roadie with the band back in the 80's. One of the best things he said, "After seeing this movie, we had couples in their sixties coming to buy Anvil cds, just to support the guys." Imagining a couple in their sixties buy a heavy metal cd makes me smile, hehe.

To sum up: It was fun... definitely a little pricey of an experience (I think the movie ticket was $18 and with parking and gas from the hour-ish drive... it added up), but I think if I went again someday I would buy tickets as far in advance as possible and research the movies really well to make sure it would be interesting/good/worth the money. I'm glad that I had a chance to do this while I'm still in Utah!

Dan in Real Life

I recently saw "Dan in Real Life" at the dollar theater here in Provo. It's rare that I see movies that really strike me, but this one did. Although there were a few innuendos that I could have done without, it was overall clean, human, hopeful, and funny. I really enjoyed Steve Carrel's role, because I think he is hilarious, but sometimes he's so obnoxious on "The Office" that it's hard to see him as a real person. For the record, I think "The Office" is quite funny, it was just a nice change to see him in a different role.

I really like seeing comedians in "real life" roles, because I think we get the chance to see them as regular people. For example, I really liked seeing Will Ferrell in "Stranger Than Fiction." Although I think it got mediocre reviews, I thought he did a nice job.

Back to "Dan in Real Life" though. Dane Cook was also great, as were Dan's parents, played by John Mahoney (the dad from "Frasier") and Dianne Wiest (I remember her from "Little Man Tate" and "Edward Scissorhands"). The parents just nailed it on the head.

Finally, the music was awesome. It was mostly done by Sondre Lerche, who I had never heard of. Kind of folky, reminded me of Damien Rice, Kings of Convenience, Mason Jennings, if any of them are familiar. I downloaded the album (I don't frequently buy whole albums anymore) from Itunes cause I liked it so much.

Anyhow, that's my plug for the movie. It's just nice to see decent movies out there that still portray good people who care about their families and want to find love. The love story was believable, partly because, as Dan's mom tells him, "Love is messy." It doesn't seem to happen the way we imagine, but it can be better than we imagined. Well, at least that's what I'm hoping for.

Let's be honest, I think that describes the majority of us out there. :-)

It's 2008

Wow. I remember 1989 like it was yesterday. Seriously. Life goes quickly. I remember talking with Granddad back in the 1990's sometime and saying that he should live till the year 2000. It seemed SO far away at the time.

2007 was a year of transition. I got back from Spain and came back out to BYU to finish the last leg of undergrad. I lived in 3 different apartments and 2 different wards, made a lot of new friends, and had some adventures. Just to recap, here were a few of the big adventures:

-Climbing Mt. Timpanogos in August and camping overnight at the glacial lake near the top. It was one of the most miserable but memorable nights of my life because it was so cold I couldn't sleep! (in the low 30s) But, we finished the climb (on my birthday!), saw some amazing views, could barely walk for a day after we came home, and those of us who went will be forever bonded by our toiling adventure. It was worth it.

-Driving to Baja, Mexico with 10 of us and camping down there. We drove A LOT, waited in an insanely long line at the border, walked around a couple of scary parts of Tijuana (good thing we had guys with us and spoke Spanish!), went surfing, ate some delicious tacos, met some of the nicest people ever at church in Ensenada, and once again, had some major bonding moments. I learned a lot about the benefits (never a dull moment, safety in numbers, splitting costs) and challenges (personality differences, figuring out the money between 10 people--yikes, etc.) about traveling in large groups .

-Driving with 3 friends (Emily, Camilla, and Diane) to Las Vegas for one night. We stayed in an extremely sketchy hotel (good thing the door had a lock and there were four of us!), wandered around the strip and marveled at the hotels, ate at a huge buffet, and left feeling glad that we are LDS (the Vegas lifestyle would get old fast I think). We left at about 3 PM on a Friday and got home at 6 PM on Saturday, which means that we spent about 12 hours of that driving. Ha, I think next time we'll plan that one better.

-attending Llama Fest at the Hari Krishna temple in Spanish Fork, UT. Llama races, touring the temple, good weather, petting llamas... it was a fun time.

There are plenty more things that happened, but those are a few of the more unique experiences. Not everything about 2007 was peachy--there were some hard lessons to learn too, especially some wakeup calls about school, responsibility, and growing up. But, I'm getting there, and I look forward to the new year!

2008 will be a big year with lots of change: I will be graduating from college (FINALLY!) and getting a "real world" job. My long term future plans aren't totally settled, but I'm working hard to look at my options and things are slowly, but surely, becoming clearer. I'll keep you posted, and please do the same!