Sundance Blog: Celebrity Sightings

By Peter Sciretta/Jan. 18, 2009 3:16 am EST

Sundance is now in full swing and I havent been able to to blog about the experience as much as I would like to. We've got a tremendous response to the video blogs, probably more so than anything else we've ever put up on the site. It probably speaks to why America is so obsessed with reality television. And the response has not only been online but also on location in Park City. I've met a bunch of cool readers and even had some run ins with celebrities, some of which even read the site (which I always find very shocking and extremely cool).Yesterday morning Scott Sanders, the writer/director of Black Dynamite and Jon Steingart, the film's producer, came up to me while I was leaving a screening and asked if I ran /Film. Apparently they've been watching the video blogs and have since requested via our friend Scott at WeAreMovies, that we have more arguments in our future video blogs (you can watch the original fight video here). While I can't make this happen, I'm sure something will go down in the next seven days of the festival. We're seeing the midnight show of Dynamite on Sunday and we might be partying with the guys later in the week.

And earlier today at the 500 Days of Summer screening an actress came up to me and introduced herself, asking if I was the /Film guy. She explained that she reads the site and that she had a film playing at the festival called The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, a film I have had marked on my must see list. (I'm waiting on a publicist request, and hopefully I can get tickets to the Monday premiere.) She was extremely nice and we chatted for a moment before I thanked her for reading and wished her luck with the film. I sat back down and pulled up her name on IMDb. Sundance has a lot of first time filmmakers and films with unknown actresses, and for all I knew this could have been her first big break.

I'm not good with names, and the name Tania Raymonde didn't ring any bells. But it turns out that it should have, as Raymonde played Ben's daughter Alex on LOST. And those of you who regularly read the site know that LOST is my favorite television series of the moment. I loved her character on the show. She also looks so much different in person. Suffice to say I geeked out for a few minutes before I gathered the guts to turn around (she was seated behind me) and explain my error and profess my LOST fandom before the film started. Tania, if you're reading this, please shoot me an email.

And my third celebrity run-in happened while I was entering the Library for the Mystery Team screening. Jason Reitman totally cut in front of me (kinda, sorta, but not really). He apologized, as it turns out he was just trying to get to the concession stand in the room with the ticket que. Not too exciting.

I once made a complete fool out of myself talking to Reitman while I was drunk at a party at the Toronto Film Festival. I doubt he remembers. If you're interested, you can find the story on one of the /FilmCast AfterDark episodes from September 2008.