Weathering the
Queer Brunch crowd with John Waters, moderating a panel
with Armistead Maupin, and getting the scoop on
Lifetime’s upcoming Gwen Araujo movie
The dominant
figure in this year’s Sundance materials is Icarus,
the mythological figure who had wings to fly, but
plummeted to his death after he flew too close to the
sun. Ol’ Ick is seemingly everywhere – in
the festival trailers, on the T-shirts, and on the program
book and posters. But what, exactly, is he doing
there? Is the message: “Look, filmmakers, you
may have gotten lucky enough to have gotten into
Sundance, but don’t get too excited because Hollywood
only wants you if you can make the next high-grossing
crappy sequel or remake”? For an event that
exists, presumably, to reward artistic daring, it seems odd
to make a mascot out of a character who died because
of hubris. I’m just saying.
Sunday
11:00am: Time for
the second queer brunch—the 10th annual Queer Brunch
hosted by OutFest. My roomie Jenni Olson shows me a shortcut
via the Marriott at Prospector Square, which is
housing the festival headquarters, and we hook up with
a knot of queer cinema A-listers: Strand Releasing
copresident Marcus Hu, artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien
(Looking for Langston, Young Soul Rebels), and
critic B. Ruby Rich, who actually coined the term
“New Queer Cinema” back in 1992 in
Sight and Sound magazine. (Ruby is also one of
the critical world’s better huggers.) Walking
into Queer Brunch with this bunch makes me feel like
the dorky debate team guy who somehow managed to get a seat
at the cheerleader table.
11:04am: We
arrive at the Grub Steak for the Queer Brunch. How to put
this…well, as Charlton Heston once observed in
Planet of the Apes, “It’s a
madhouse…A MADHOUSE!!!” Tables full of people,
barely enough room to maneuver around the room to the
buffet tables or the bars, ear-splitting house music
at an hour of the day when the human brain
can’t really handle it. (Unless that brain has
already been awake all night, but that’s
another story.) I can barely maneuver my way around the
room to schmooze, and on top of that, I have no idea who
many of these people are. Some of them look
suspiciously like college students who lucked into a
no-invitation-required party featuring free Absolut Bloody
Marys, but I couldn’t say for sure. Once again, John
Waters is the guest of honor for his upcoming Here
show, and I steal a quick moment with him.
“I
don’t know how you can handle this crowd,” I
tell him. “I’m about ready to murder
someone.”
“Oh,
it’s not that bad,” he says. “I find it
easier if I just stand still and let them move around
me.”
I’m not
quite patient enough to try that strategy, so I start
heading for the door. Once again, I bump into my
unofficial Sundance escorts, Small Town Gay Bar
director Malcolm Ingram and his boyfriend Chris. The
ever-present and ever-connected publicist Jim Dobson is
herding them through, so I guide them over to meet Marcus
and Ruby. Malcolm and Chris also grow tired of nudging
their way through the packed restaurant, so we make
plans to meet at the Marriott for lunch.

Queer Brunch: It’s a madhouse…A MADHOUSE!!!
11:50am: You know
that old saying, where if you stand in Grand Central
Station long enough, supposedly everyone you’ve ever
known in your life will walk by you? I think the film
industry equivalent would be the lobby of the Marriott
Prospector Square during Sundance. While I’m waiting
for Malcolm and Chris to make their way over, I
encounter, separately, two of my favorite movie
people, director Jessica Yu and screenwriter Howard A.
Rodman, both of whom are generally so busy that I never get
to see them at home in L.A.
1:30pm: After
lunch, Malcolm and Chris and I all head back to Queer
Lounge, where I’m moderating a panel with Night
Listener writers Armistead Maupin and Terry
Anderson and director Patrick Stettner. As we stand
around, Malcolm tries to start psyching me out.
“You’re getting nervous now,
aren’t you? You getting nervous?” I respond
that I’m not the one that’s going to be
horking into the toilets before my documentary has its
world premiere tomorrow. “Ouch, man, that’s
mean,” he replies.
2:00pm: Also
hanging out at Queer Lounge is Small Town Gay Bar
producer Andre Canaparo and his mother. As I approach, the
mom gets this big smile, like she’s so happy to
see me again. Since I’m one of those people
who’s really terrible about remembering names and
faces, I immediately go into “Uh, I know
I’m a jerk, but remind me where we’ve
met” mode. “She’s never met you
before,” Chris reassures me. “She’s
like that with everyone she meets the first
time.” Whew. She introduces me to Trevor
Walton, senior v.p. of original movies at Lifetime. I
immediately hit him up for a copy of She’s
Too Young, the network’s recently-aired
teen VD melodrama starring Miriam McDonald, one of the
stars of my favorite teen soap, Degrassi: The Next
Generation. He smiles and promises to send me a
copy, and then shares with me some of the most
interesting dish I’ve heard at Sundance: Lifetime is
making a movie about the brutal murder of transgender
teen Gwen Araujo, with Agnieszka Holland (Europa
Europa, The Secret Garden) directing and
Mercedes Ruehl starring as Araujo’s mom.
2:35pm: After a
split second, I realize that the Queer Lounge volunteer
standing in front of me is Guy, someone I’ve known
since we were both members of an organization called
Gay & Lesbian Young Adults in Dallas. (For both
our sakes, I won’t mention how many years it’s
been since we could be considered young adults.)
He’s been living in Utah for several years now.
Apparently, he also wants out, so I tell him to give
me a shout next time he’s in L.A.
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