Sundance-dance-dance is the new awesome

I was out at Sundance last week for my yearly cinematic adventure. Anyone that follows the fest could probably tell you that there weren't many "wow" movies to brag about going to see this year. And it is a good thing there are so many people I like to hang out with in Utah anyway, because I'm not totally sure how glamorous the Sundance thing turns out to be in the end. Sure, when my friends invite me to go see "Choke" or "Be Kind, Rewind" in a few months, I will get to put on my snobbiest voice and tell them that I already saw the premiere, like, 6 months ago. And then joke will be on me as I sit home alone while they are all off at the movies together.

Of course, half the fun of Sundance is all the famous people milling about, and I see quite a lot of them in the theater where I work. I was tearing tickets at the door of the theater one morning when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and the tapping man said in a hushed tone, "Look, I've got (name of famous guy) here, and we really don't want a lot of picture taking or attention drawn to him. He just wants to come in and watch the movie." I looked behind me, and sure enough - I had just unwittingly torn the ticket of one mildly uncomfortable famous guy. I hadn't even noticed that it was him, and honestly, no one else seemed to be paying him much mind either - certainly not enough attention to warrant asking me to be put under some sort of special theater protection program. All the moviegoers were far too interested in getting good seats to bother standing there fawning over him. I turned back to famous guy's overly concerned handler and told him that we would do what we could if people started bothering him, but that as it stood, he could just go get a seat like everyone else. They both went in to watch the film and I didn't hear from them again. I am not sure which was more funny to me - the idea that someone that famous and recognizable would put themselves in such an obviously public arena like the Sundance Film Festival and expect that they can ask that everyone ignore them ... or to ask that people ignore them when embarrassingly, everyone already is.