28 Lessons Learned at Sundance

1. Just because you’re on the party list, doesn’t mean your getting in, people.
2. Just because you have a ticket, doesn’t mean you’re getting into the movie.
3. Glass floors plus skirts don’t mix.
4. Watching Dakota Fanning lick pills up off the floor is as weird as you think it would be (in The Runaways).
5. Even if you are drinking three times the amount of water you usually do, it will still feel as if a normal amount of moisture will never return to your body.
6. No brainer: James Gandolfini’s southern accent isn’t that great.
7. At some point you will lose your hat, a glove, the replacement hat you just bought, and possibly your scarf. In short, the Lost and Found booth at theaters will become a favored destination.
8. The festival volunteers couldn’t be nicer or more helpful.
9. Kristen Stewart can act. (Welcome to the Rileys)
10. Buying hand warmers and foot warmers in bulk? Genius.
11. RIP Albertson’s, hello Fresh Mart.
12. It will apparently never. stop. snowing.
13. For some reason your Utah hotel, in the dead of winter, will be staffed entirely by extremely young Brazilians.
14. The Theater Loop is possibly the only bus route in the country where people make it a point to engage each other in conversation. And like it.
15. The best movie reviews are at the bus stop.
16. The best thing at the bus stop besides the conversations are the heat lamps.
17. Just because it’s an indie screening at Sundance doesn’t mean that it’s good.
18. Just because it’s an all-star cast of a movie that already snagged a distributor doesn’t mean it’s good.
19. Gifting suites have downsized.
20. Bill Murray is just as funny as you want him to be in person.
21. Samuel L. Jackson is just as smooth as you want him to be in person.
22. Once faced with the bitter cold of a Utah night, you start to understand the rumored "secret underwear" of local Mormons. They were probably just trying to stay warm.
23. It’s freakishly beautiful here.
24. Watch out boys, the lady directors are here in full badass force.
25. Your hair will never be as straight as it will after a day spent in Park City.
26. It’s easy to realize you haven’t eaten until it’s 5 pm thanks to back to back screenings.
27. That guy who won’t make eye contact with you on Main Street is famous, you just won’t know it until you screen his movie the next day. (I’m looking at you, Lucas Black.)
28. What happens at Sundance, stays at Sundance.