Why Sundance Hates Provo

When a European friend recently told a Park City retailer that she was teaching in Provo for a semester, the man recoiled in horror and said "Oh, God, not Provo! I do anything I can never to go to Provo! It is so homogeneous, so damned Mormon, stay away! How can you visit America and live in Provo?"

Can any good come out of Provo? OK: on most days I hate Provo, too. But I will save my usual cheap rants on Red-State staples such as sprawl, Escalades and Florida Entryways. I live here, and I am proud of our quirky-in-spite-of-it-all local personalities, our (barely functioning but still existing) downtown, the fact that we have(well, we had) a gothic(esque) church (burned-out shell of a tabernacle) in the center of our city.

Provo has surprising oasis-spots of funk hidden in the stretches of suburban wasteland. Communal Restaurant would still draw rave reviews if it were in the Haight. Even--gasp--BYU has a thriving International Cinema, tons of film students, some of whom will actually beat out U of U students and get into great grad programs.

Provo should not be written off. I am trying to bloom where I am planted, dammit.

Every January, we film enthusiasts from Utah's third city have a choice: we can either sit here with our thumbs in our butts or we can make the harrowing drive to the Broadway or the Rose Wagner every night and so that we can use our "Locals" pass.

The UTA Bus "Express" is every bit as beholden to the whims of traffic as any car on the road. So I get in my super-sexy brown mini van and I drive. I drive and watch and drive and watch and drive. My carbon footprint is Sasquatch-esque.

Ogden, home of Weber State U (that internationally acclaimed intellectual and educational Mecca) gets their Peery Theater included on the locals pass. Even Laytonites can get to a Sundance film in 20 minutes.

The Problem: SLC, Park City and even Ogden residents are "localer-than-thou."

The Solution: Make Sundance Resort a local venue!

I'm not asking for screenings in the Gozongaplexes of Provo's Malls, but why is the screening room at Sundance resort not counted on the locals pass? Why do we have to buy extra tickets to go to our local venue as locals? Sundance is just a jaunt up the canyon from us, and still in Utah County (I think).

Open up more screening rooms up there. We promise to take UTA up the canyon, and not to mock the fur mukluks that wander down from the Park City crowd. And we will leave our guns, our multiple wives, our eight kids, and our Ford Exploitations and Chevy Subdivisions back in our 12-car garages.

If Sundance & Co really want to change the way that Americans experience the cinema, it needs to stop preaching to the Patagonia-clad choir and open a cultural mission to Provo. Homogeneous Provo, so damned Mormon in so many ways, but every bit as local as Ogdenites, Salt Lakers, and those oh-so-glamorous bleach-blond retailers who sell turquoise-encrusted sunglasses to Paris Hilton.