Sundance, Day 2

We spent Sunday afternoon roaming the greater Old Town area until our first movie at 9pm.

Most interesting observation: there are a lot of dogs here. Huskies, Border Collies, and handsome beasts of non-specific lineage are in much greater supply than handheld sweater wearing dogs, thankfully. Also noted: dog poop melts snow, but only to about a depth of four inches. I think this would be an excellent school science fair project, with a hand drawn chart on posterboard showing the Time/Temperature Decline Curve. It should be cross-referenced by breed and ambient air temperature.

Speaking of dogs, we saw the Amstel Light girls --dressed in tight white snow suits with white Russian fur hats -- walking their St. Bernards through town. As my loyalty can be secured by exactly this kind of brand management, we drank Amstel Light as soon as possible.

Most interesting thing Overheard/Eavesdropped was a cell phone conversation: "That bitch has been all OVER my dick; she be THROWING the pussy at me." It is unclear whether this was self-congratulation or a statement of irritation, but it was certainly news to the crowd of children pouring out of the ice cream store in front of him. I think they expected someone to throw a cat at them, or at least at the kid named Richard.

Least interesting thing observed: there was a PETA anti-fur brigade, possibly a whole division, staging a protest. Wrapped in fur coats covered in faux blood, ski masks, zombie costumes, and their own inflated senses of self-importance, they stood on either side of the street and chanted slogans back and forth across the street. "1-2-3-4, something something something gore. 5-6-7-8, something something something crate." They had gruesome placards showing furless corpses and reminded passersby that "your fur had a face."

Yeah, so did my lunch. And your boots, darlin'.

Our first Sundance movie of the week was "One Day in A Life" and we saw it at the classic Egyptian Theatre venue in the center of Old Town. It's an Italian movie, originally titled "Un Altra Pianeta", and the guide description goes like this:

"A man, Salvatore, crosses a sand dune heading to the beach. The next instant the beauty of the sea and sky is revealed to him, as if a forecast of the possibilities that lie ahead. Salvatore cuts a striking figure in his bathing suit and becomes an instant lightning rod for others' curiosity. He exudes a bold presence, although his aloof exterior barely masks a lingering hurt from his past. The sun and sand do their part, helping separate him from the struggles of his everyday life and serving as a surreal backdrop for a peculiar menagerie of characters to enter his life. Writer/director Stefano Tummolini tells a simple, yet beautiful, story that unfolds in a single day. "

The director brought two stars down front to introduce the movie: a handsome guy in a black t-shirt and a beautiful girl whose Italian stiletto pumps were almost as impressive as her massive breasts. About two minutes into it, I'm thinking -- cool structure, Italian language, English subtitles, get to see a day at a real Italian beach with intertwined stories and interesting charaters.

Three minutes into it, I'm like, "Dude, that's a dude... seriously kind of close to that other dude... are they going to fight? Dude! DUDE! Stop kissing!! That's NOT COOL!!!! It'sa Brokeback-a Beach-a! Where's the booby girl?!?!? "

By the closing credits, played across the intertwined nekkid bodies of a man and woman, with the ghost of a deceased lover jogging away down the beach, I'm pretty impressed. The director made this movie for next to nothing, creating a half-dozen stories of love where you only have one half of the relationship in the movie. For example, the main actor is a gay man who has lost his lover to AIDS. The main actress was hurt in different ways by a now-failed relationship. The booby girl is losing her beloved father; another actress is losing her mother. There's a boy in an open relationship, and a man who never speaks of his wife. The director created stories of couples and families without having the couples or families present. The more I thought about this movie, and tried to be a little more cosmopolitan about the men kissing, I liked it.

And now I know the Italian word for BJ.