Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

Than the movies, I mean.

You have to understand what it’s like up here at Sundance. If you’re fancy or a somebody, you get to ride around from venue to venue in private cars, but the rest of us all pack into the buses. And that’s part of the fun. Tonight we were body to body in a bus that seemed to take the long way around, just so we could all appreciate the driver’s eclectic selection of music–from Grace Slick straight into the Beach Boys and then into some blues. Couldn’t figure out the pattern.

And then you get to a screening, and even if you have a ticket, you’re standing packed into lines, chatting with whomever about what movies you’ve seen and liked, which ones to avoid, which ones we all wish we could have gotten tickets to. Of course every other person is on a cell phone, and we’re all grabbing a few bites of sandwich or cookie before we go into the theatre, and here’s the thing: everybody’s happy. Why wouldn’t we be? Days and days of nothing but movies, morning to night. Heaven.

Today I saw John Cusack’s new one, Grace is Gone, about a man whose soldier wife is killed in combat in Iraq (I’m not spoiling anything–that’s in all preview materials). Touching, but I needed it to hit harder on the futility of this war. I needed more . . . anger. But I can see a lot of people will like it.

Then a movie I won’t name because I walked out of it, it was so bad. And it reminded me of a conversation I overheard yesterday and was making fun of. Some woman behind me was telling the strangers she sat beside that there aren’t any good movies anymore, and it’s because no one is buying her stories. She’s a writer, and apparently a brilliant one, and everyone in “the business” is a fool for not recognizing her talent. To hear her tell it.

So I was rolling my eyes because even if you think something like that it’s not so attractive to say it out loud, especially to strangers. But then today the movie I walked out on was by a novelist, and this was his screenwriting and directorial debut, and it was horrible. And I confess that I thought as I sneaked out, “They picked that and not mine? Huh???” So I guess I’m not as immune from that kind of whining as I like to pretend.

The best two flicks of the day were a documentary called Everything’s Cool–a jazzier take on global warming than (sorry, Al) An Inconvenient Truth. Some great interviews, great personality profiles, and not a single graph. The other winner was Parker Posey’s Broken English. I’m a sucker for single-girl-in-New-York-trying-to-find-love stories. And I could watch Parker in anything–she’s always the most interesting person on screen.

There was music under the stars tonight, but I’m whipped. Overstimulated. So we’re back here at the condo watching the Winter X Games and eating my husband’s specialty, homemade chicken soup. Very glamorous. We are bus people. We are fleece people. Embrace it.

Got an 8:30 movie tomorrow morning, so signing off. Got to go read a bunch of The Time Traveler’s Wife before I pass out. Aren’t you loving that book?

Technorati Tags: Sundance Film Festival, Movies, Films, Grace is Gone, Everything’s Cool, Broken English, Parker Posey

Posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 9:08 pm under Movies & TV . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.