When we land in Salt Lake City, I learn something else about the Sundance Film Festival: when they say it's 11 degrees, they're not using the metric system. I had figured that maybe because it was in Utah, a place full of Mormons and run by Orrin Hatch, they might do things differently, kind of like the way Arizona doesn't have Daylight Savings Time or Martin Luther King's Birthday. But in Utah, 11 degrees isn't something that you double and add thirty. 11 degrees means it's really really cold.

"Dude, we have to get warmer clothes," Trevor says as we're driving the rental car to Park City.

"I told you not to wear shorts."

We stop at a Wal Mart on the way and pick up gloves and ski hats. Trevor's ski hat has a puffy ball on top of it. He also buys long underwear and corduroy slacks. "Corduroy's really warm," he says, "Plus, I think it's coming back in."

The drive to Park City is beautiful. I'm only guessing, because we make it at night and the freeway looks like any other freeway, but the way it winds and climbs and twists around makes me imagine we're driving into beautiful mountains. Trevor only gets carsick once and feels much better after we pull over for a bit. Coming into Park City, Trevor rolls the window down, despite the 11 degrees, and yells out the window. It's the sort of lazy meaningless yell he figures you might make when you pull into Palm Beach for Spring Break.

Now that we're here, I get the feeling that this can't be right. How could a town this small assume the mantle of each year's mecca of independent film? The Main Street area consists of about a half dozen narrow streets with quaint alpine shops that look like they were built by Santa's elves. It's surrounded by a buffer of several blocks of condos and hotels and bungalows for rent. If you drive towards the slopes that plunge down from the surrounding mountains, you'll find a few majestic lodges that would look like something out of The Shining if they weren't besieged by parked cars. There is snow everywhere. Icicles, too. We don't get icicles in LA. People talk about several millions dollars of business under these icicles, buying independent films and using words like "backend" and "gross" and "points", words that belong in Encino office buildings, the hills north of Sunset Boulevard, and along Wilshire Avenue, words you don't usually say with your breath coming out in puffs of frost.

One of the controversies about Sundance is that it shows movies that might not be considered independent. There are movies with big-ish budgets, big names, and big studios behind them. The conventional definition of a film festival is a place for filmmakers to bring their movies to get them noticed and bought by distributors. So some people -- mainly independent filmmakers -- balk when Sundance shows movies that already have distribution deals with major studios. But the people behind Sundance say they don't want the festival to be strictly a place for buyers and sellers; they also want to use it to showcase talent, even if it's already part of the studio system. Sundance has become such an institution that it has sponsors like Blockbuster Video, Mercedes Benz, Entertainment Weekly, AT&T, Coca Cola, Sony, and Motorola. There's no question there's lots of money here.

It's a little after 11pm once we check into our condo. We still don't have tickets for many movies, but a certain number of tickets for every movie are released at the main box office at 8am on the morning of the show. I figure if we get there are 7am to get a place in line, we'll get tickets for everything we want.

"So, what are we doing tonight?" Trevor says once he's put his socks and stuff into the dresser and looked into all the closets. He's still wearing his ski cap with the puffy ball on top.

"I figured we'd get some rest. We have to get up really early."

"No way, dude. Did you see all those crowded places when we came in? Those were parties. Let's go."

"You have to be invited. We weren't invited to any of them. We can't just walk in."

"Don't be stupid. There are ways to get in. Stick with me and maybe you'll get to see some famous people."

We drive towards the Main Street area, where we park and find a restaurant closed off with velvet ropes. There are two guys in tuxedoes standing in front.

"We're not dressed for that one," I protest, "We can't go into that one."

"Those guys are bouncers. They have to dress up. Now just follow my lead."

"What are you going to do?"

"Ninety percent of life is looking like you know what you're doing. Benjamin Franklin said that."

Trevor marches right up to a bouncer at the velvet rope. He's moving like a man with a purpose. I follow close behind.

"Invitations, please," the bouncer says.

Trevor turns and looks at me as if I have them. Suddenly they're both staring and me. That's Trevor's plan? I start slapping my pockets as if an invitation might have suddenly appeared in one of them.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen, this is a private party. I'll need to see your invitations," the bouncer says again, while I whap various pockets. His head stick neckless out of his tuxedo collar.

"You don't need to see his invitation," Trevor says. He actually does the little Obi-Wan circled finger wave, but his hands are down by his side. The bouncer just looks at Trevor and for one impossible split second, I think maybe it's going to work.

"What are you talking about? Yes, I do need to see his invitation. Perhaps you boys are at the wrong party," he suggests, "Try O'Harry's down the street."

We slink away.

"What was that?" I ask when we're out of earshot of the bouncer.

"I don't know. It was the only thing I could think of."

"Star Wars isn't real, you know."

"I have a high midichlorian count. Besides, he gave us the location of another party. We got an inside tip. That's how it works here."

O'Harry's is packed. A band is playing. These are all people from Los Angeles. I might as well be in the House of Blues or the Viper Room, except for all the people in brand new skiwear emblazoned with North Face logos.

"This isn't a party," I yell at Trevor over the noise, "It's just a bar."

"Yeah, isn't it great?" he yells back, "I'm going to the bar. What do you want to drink?"

"Just a beer."

"Nah, you need gin. Martini it is." He disappears into the crowd. I retreat to a far wall and start going over the schedule of movies for tomorrow. Thirty minutes later, Trevor finds me.

"Where have you been?" he says, "I told you there'd be famous people here. The drummer to Jane's Addiction is here. Also the guy who played trumpets on Snoop Doggy Dog's last album. At least that what's this girl told me."

"Where's my martini?"

"You said you wanted a beer. I drank it when I couldn't find you. Want some of mine?" He holds out a half empty Miller Lite.

"What are you doing? You don't drink beer."

"Yeah, I don't go to Sundance either," he beams, taking a swig. He's still wearing his ski hat. It sits really high on his head. When he drinks from the beer, it traces a long arc back. Every time he tilts his head, it swings wide.

"Besides," he says, wiping his mouth with his gloves, which he's still wearing, "I heard that in Utah, the beer only has 1/2 per cent alcohol because of the Mormons. You have to drink four times as many beers to get drunk."

"Dude, smush your hat down. It's too tall."

"It supposed to be this way," he says, the hat swaying high and proud, "It keeps a pocket of air over my head."

"How many beers have you had?"

"Six. But Six Utah beers is like--," he does some quick math, "--one and a half real beers."

"We have to get up early to get tickets for tomorrow. We better go."

"Okay, let me go say good-bye to this girl. She's here because she did a song for one of the movies. She said she knows Phil Collins' brother."

Trevor is hung over the next morning. "I think I have a cold."

"No, you're hung over. Drink some of this coffee and take a shower, then we're leaving."

"Did I get that girl's phone number?" He's going through his jacket pockets.

We get to the main ticket office a little before 7am. There are about 150 people in line in front of us. The guy at the front of the line says he's been there since 3am. Trevor leans against the wall and slumps down among the muddy boot prints.

"Gimme the Game Boy," he says, "Did you bring Mario Golf?" He turns the Game Boy on and then nods off. I reach down and turn it off to save the batteries. While Trevor dozes, I learn something else about Sundance: everybody wants to talk to everybody else, particularly when they're standing in line. There's the same charged communal buzz of people who've been to a wedding together or in an earthquake.

"What did you see? What are you here to see? Do you have a project here? What did you think of X? You really should see Y. Don't bother with Z." And they all know movies, whether from the inside or the outside. There are people here who call themselves producers and writers, there are wanna-be actors and writers, there are movie buffs, there are retired couples from Nevada, there are festival organizers from other cities, and even people who really work on movies.

"Hey, congratulations on The Family Man," someone tells someone else, "I thought you guys did a really nice job for what it was."

In overheard conversations, people constantly relate themselves to the topic at hand, which is almost always a movie. "Oh, my client was in that" or "my friend was executive producer on that" or "yeah, I worked with him on his first film".

Trevor holds our place in line and I go out to get more coffee and maybe some muffins. There are two guys standing outside the ticket office, smoking in the cold sunny air. They share the affectation of holding their cigarettes between their third and fourth fingers. One of them is looking at a flyer the other has just given him.

"It's our own film festival we're starting."

"Oh, with Tony Danza?"

"Well, we're thinking we might be able to get him as one of the judges. See, it's says 'jury candidates'. We might be able to get Leonardo DiCaprio, too, but we didn't want to put his name down until we sealed the deal. We didn't want to get sued, you know."

A handful of spin-off festivals orbit Sundance like petulant satellites: Slamdance, NoDance, and TromaDance are all nearby and simultaneous, showing films that probably tried first to get into Sundance.

Trevor finally wakes up as the line starts moving. He has mud all over the back of corduroys. Almost everything is sold out by the time we get to the front. We get the last ticket for one of the five shows we were in line for, so only one of us can go. Trevor flips through the program to find the synopsis for the movie. It's a musical about an East German transvestite rock singer. "I guess you can go to that one," he offers.

At least we have tickets for about a half dozen movies. And we can still show up early to each movie to get in the wait list line. But in the meantime, we're headed to our first movie, the world premiere of Christine Lahti's My First Mister.

Trevor reads from the film guide: "'My First Mister is about a special first love that creates satisfying feelings about family and friendship.' This isn't a chick movie, is it?" he asks warily, still trying to get the mud off his pants.

"I'll level with you. It might be."

"Well then, I'm bringing the Game Boy in with me."

Cont'd