Sundance 2010: What are all These Categories About?

"If you must put me in a box, make sure it's a big box with lots of windows and a door to walk through and a nice high chimney." — Dan Bern

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival is on its way, and to celebrate, new festival director John Cooper* (we'll miss your gloriously over-the-top introductions, Geoff Gilmore!) and his new Cooperesque sidekick, Trevor Groth, have done what Sundance does best—rename and change-around its lesser-known categories. Chris and I will be looking at the other selections in coming weeks, but first let's start with the unfamiliar.

Spotlight: Once there was American Spectrum. Then its components were split into American Spectrum (small indie films that didn't make the competition) and American Spotlight (name directors or actors with non-premieres). Then there was just Spectrum (turns out there are countries besides America—which itself isn't a country but two continents!). Then there was the short-lived Global American Spotlighty Spectrum Extravaganza. Now we have Spotlight and NEXT, which we'll get to, uh, in a minute. This year's selection includes global programs like Rachel Perkins's "Bran Nue Dae" from Australia and therefore starring Geoffrey Rush, controversial Frenchie Gaspar Noé's "Enter the Void," which, sources tell me, is very long, "I Am Love", Luca Guadagnino's Italian film starring Tilda Swinton, and—perhaps most enticing—Jacques Audiard's "Un Prophète,"—which won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. They've also thrown in a shorts program highlighting—sorry, spotlighting—the shorts of the New African Cinema. American efforts include "Nine Lives" director Rodrigo Garcia's "Mother and Child", starring Annette Benning and (don't tell Brent Sallay) Naomi Watts, and "Louis C.K.: Hilarious", a concert film of the comedian's brilliant stand-up routine. Seriously, it's fucking funny.

Spotlight: Documentary: Sometimes they just put documentaries in Specturm/American Spectrum/Whateverthefuck, sometimes the documentaries get their own category. Under this new Spotlight, they have their own little sub-category again. The talk of Utah will, of course, be "8: The Mormon Proposition, directed by Reed Cowan, who used to be a reporter at KTVX. (What channel number is KTVX?) I don't know what obscure proposition this film details. Probably something about offering someone a million dollars to sleep with his or her wives.

NEXT: The festival folks hope the new NEXT (or maybe it's "NEXT <=>" but you don't seriously expect me to type that, do you?) selection will shut up all those whiners who go on and on to anyone who'll listen about how the festival isn't really indie anymore. This sidebar features only films that were made on a budget of $5,000 or less. So it could include a masterpiece like "Primer" and/or a two-hour tape of some guy masturbating in front of his shitty digital camera. But you can't say that the programmers didn't try to showcase low-profile films this year. Now the only question is, will all those whiners attend the NEXT screenings, or will they be too busy getting their pictures taken with Ryan Gosling? If you need a celebrity, you can at least see Janel Moloney from "The West Wing" (but more importantly guest spots on "Sports Night" and "30 Rock") in Habib Azar's "Armless." (FYI: Moloney has arms.)

*I hope Mr. Cooper's promotion won't stop him from being so awesome that he pulls over to pick up a lowly film critic as he tries to run through the slushy Park City streets, late to a screening. You rock, John!

bxAv110 bxAv110 bxAv110

A Tale of Two Marriages

Since the passing of California's Proposition 8 to ban gay marriage, the discussion in Utah (and the rest of the country) has grown louder than ever. It's a dialogue that we should have engaged in so ferociously prior to the election.

Utah has been particularly hopping. The state is home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose leadership encouraged its members across the country to donate more than $20 million to the Yes on Prop 8 cause. During the many conversations I've had over the past couple weeks, two marriages keep popping up in my head, and I wonder which one most people would prefer to exist in their neighborhood.

Next door, two people love each other dearly and decide to get married and spend their lives together in a caring relationship. There will be good times and bad times, and the couple hopes that they will make it through the tough parts and live a happy life together. Because this couple happens to consist of two men or two women, many consider this marriage an abomination and lobby to legally erase it from existence.

A few houses down the street, another relationship, this time heterosexual, plays out, but it veils a deep secret. The man is so ashamed of his homosexuality and so pressured by the bigotry facing homosexuals that he stays in the closet. To prove something to himself and others, he marries a woman whom he doubtlessly cares about, but the sexual desire isn't there, no matter how much he wants it to be. The woman does her best to ignore the signs that everything isn't right, and hides her unhappiness. They have some children and love them, but a nagging feeling haunts both husband and wife, because something is missing.

Unwilling to abandon his wife and unable to form a meaningful homosexual relationship, the man instead finds himself seeking meaningless, anonymous sex in public restrooms and highway rest stops. This goes on for some time, until one day an undercover police officer apprehends him in the act. Now his family is shattered, his children confused and ridiculed, his wife heartbroken, his career possibly ruined.

If he happens to be a public figure, like a church leader or a politician, then the embarrassment plays out in public. His traumatized and humiliated wife must stand beside him as he delivers a speech for a media circus press conferences.

And here's where I get a bit confused: Which of these scenarios is supposed to damage the sanctity of marriage?

The crux of anti-gay-marriage rhetoric is based on falsehoods. Some people who belong to faiths that oppose marriage equality tell us that if the government acknowledges gay marriage, that their religion must perform marriages that they don't believe in. The people who make these claims are at best misinformed and at worst spreading fear-mongering that they know to be lies.

I have a hard time believing that the people who engineer this messaging actually believe it. But it's stunning how successfully they distort the issue of religious rights to the opposite of the truth. No church would be forced to conduct weddings that it doesn't believe in. Hell, your religion could consider marriage to be the union of the two sides of an Oreo cookie, bonded by cream. No one forced the LDS church to allow blacks into the priesthood before the leadership decided to do so in 1978. That's what freedom of religion means. However, anti-gay legislation invalidates the practices of the many religions that do believe in marriage equality. I doubt Mormons would like it if California said, "You can get married in the temple, but don't expect us to acknowledge it!"

Prop 8 and other anti-gay legislation bring religion into secular law—exactly where it shouldn't be. No one can stop a religion from disliking a minority population's way of life—or the majority's way of life—even if that way of life in no way affects the religion or its members. But Prop 8 does strip homosexuals of their rights. And no matter how you feel about the homosexual lifestyle, it's something to consider before taking a stance on any law that deprives others of their rights.

bxAv110 bxAv110 bxAv110