6 posts tagged “city”

Every year a bunch of friends from Las Vegas come up for Sundance. This year they were wise and rented a hotel room in Prospector Square right around the corner from Eccles Theatre, which is where all the movies we saw were at. This year wasn't as lucky as last. We got into 4 of the 7 movies we tried to see. We saw Humpday, Spread, Rudo y Cursi, and I Love You Philip Morris. Those are IMDB links if you want summaries/photos of the movies.

Humpday - During a getaway at a sex-positive commune, best pals Andrew (Joshua Leonard) and Ben (Mark Duplass) find their friendship tested in strange new ways when a dare leads them to contemplate filming a live sex scene for an amateur porn festival. As the shoot date looms, our heroes must contend with two major logistical difficulties: Ben's wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore); and their heterosexuality. The tension between friends is palpable and it's filmed in a way that translates the tension to the theatre. I love the contrast between the two people as they are essentially exposed to be leading fraud lifestyles. It's a fun movie that will, unfortunately, never make it to mainstream theatres for it's content.

Spread follows the life of Jason (Ashton Kutcher) who has made a career out of targeting older women and using them for anything and everything … in exchange for a little sex. But the player gets played when he meets Heather (Margarita Levieva), a pretty waitress who knows every trick. Before Heather came along, Jason had a foolproof arrangement with Samantha (Anne Heche), a successful attorney who was happy being "friends with benefits." But now he might actually be in love. Spread made me want to punch Ashton Kutcher in the dick even more than I already want to. Ashton Kutcher pulls off the role that his entire life essentially is - being the pretty boy of the group. His character mooches on everyone until they give up on him. This movie took a great stance in not following the traditional Hollywood story line and shows his character some real growth.

Rudo y Cursi is probably my least favorite of the 4 we saw. Stuck working on a banana ranch, two super competitive soccer-playing brothers dream of getting off the farm and finding stardom: Beto (Diego Luna) as a pro goalie and Toto (Gael García Bernal) as a singer -- but it might break them. When a professional soccer team ignores Beto's goalie skills in favor of Toto's fancy footwork, Beto signs on to a rival team, and the battle between brothers is on. It was a relatively unpolished film, in my opinion that left me wondering why I cared about these two idiots. It was funny, but sort of bland.

I Love You Philip Morris - When upstanding Texas cop Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) realizes he's gay, he changes his entire life and pulls a series of bold con jobs that lands him jail -- where he meets his one true love, cellmate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). When Morris is transferred to another prison, lovesick Russell mounts a series of jailbreaks just to be with his beloved soul mate. This movie was hilarious. Jim Carrey plays the life of an oddball who has some serious con skills. This one was probably my favorite simply because it worked so well and kept me guessing till the end.

As a result of attending these, I took some videos of the actor conversations following the film. My favorite has to be this story from Ewan McGregor following the screening of I Love You Philip Morris:

P1030153

In a follow-up of sorts to my previous post on the downtown Salt Lake reconstruction, here is a flash tour of what the new shopping complex is going to look like, sky bridge and all.

http://www.downtownrising.com/city_creek/flash/tourVid_large.php

Photo From Downtown Rising

Looks pretty doesn't it? I have to agree. Except for the small fact that the majority of the developed property you see in this vision is owned and controlled by the LDS Church. Since before the 2002 Olympics, our downtown property, centered on Main Street has been languishing. Suburban expansion, coupled with the absolute lack of residential property anywhere downtown has left this business district looking like an Iraqi market, boarded up and empty save for the few remaining bars and local bookshops.

Photo by: Theorris

Many locals remember Main Street from it's legal problems, because back in 2004/2005, the LDS Church decided to 'buy' a public street section that ran in between the Temple Square and the Church Office Plaza. Essentially what happened is that the LDS Church decided that it wanted the local street, and seized the property without public consideration or compensation. (See the news about it here). Sure, people argue that we got fair market value, but an acre downtown is far more valuable than an empty dirt lot somewhere nobody even knows about. The largest controversy about this is that the public street soon became private property, where the LDS Church as the owner could remove people for not acting to their standards. Protesters and people wearing TShirts were removed from the land, resulting in legal battles. Little did the public know that this was only the beginning of the LDS Church's ambitions for downtown.

Photo: Oakland Construction
In this photo, Main Street was everything that ran between the white building on the top and the green roofed building in the bottom.

In a series of real estate deals, the LDS Church gobbled up property measuring a 10 Block area, or about 20 acres of prime real estate. Now, the LDS Church is enacting its $1.5 Billion vision for downtown, resulting mainly in the City Creek development. This development, in addition to other things, promises to redevelop the 2 downtown malls into profitable ones, residential housing, educational and sports facilities. Sounds all fine and nice. But the only problem is that all of this comes with a helping of the LDS doctrine. The malls? No beer allowed, and stores close on Sundays. Residential housing? I fear to see what sort of housing regulations they impose. If they are at all similar to BYU housing regulations, then I won't be accepted. Education? Try an LDS Business college. And sports facilities, well theres not much religious doctrine enacted except in the locker rooms.

While downtown needs this redevelopment, it doesn't need to languish under the iron fist of the LDS Church. I've often advocated turning downtown SLC into East Berlin. Put a wall around it, and occasionally fly supplies of Wonder Bread and Rush Limbaugh tapes. Then us heathens can go build our own downtown in Sugarhouse (which too is dying because of outside corporate redevelopment). Downtown SLC has just become a Mormon outpost in the big bad city of Salt Lake. I know several (5+) people who refuse to live in Salt Lake City because they find it too morally degrading. Instead, they choose to commute the 40+ miles from Provo to be, and I quote, "closer to Zion".

Photo: Dan Gorder
The Future of Downtown?

A recent debate that has developed with our outgoing mayor Rocky Anderson was the inclusion of a "sky bridge." Many argue, that if the purpose of Downtown Rising was to replenish the dying local businesses still living on our Main Street, that a sky bridge would kill the pedestrian traffic that they were desperately in need of. Of course, the Church, and their loyal subjects on the Salt Lake City Council wouldn't hear of something. Now, with a sky bridge in tow, these businesses are certainly destined to die, with the City Creek development a sealed community to service only the suburbanites to drive in and out of it. Any hope of encouraging development and growth outside of this development because of shared benefits is lost, because all shoppers are sealed into a closed environment. Much like the ballyhooed development of the Gateway district, many dreamed of a regrowth and cleaning up of the 400 West area. What we got is a traffic congested area with a nice development inside of a frightening area of the city, with no pedestrian traffic filtering into the shopping area unless it's to panhandle.

I think that the biggest thing that really gets me about this entire debacle is that we, as citizens of Salt Lake City, are supposed to be grateful to the LDS Church for spending money on us. This is the sentiment repeated again and again by the dominant local media (which is entirely owned by subsidiaries of the LDS Church). But I don't see it that way. I see this as the LDS Church spending money on themselves, us be damned. From the Downtown Rising FAQ:

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is committed to the development of downtown Salt Lake City as the home of its international headquarters. The Church is in a unique position to act as a major contributor, along with many others, to a vibrant, high quality downtown area that will continue to be a regional destination."

I just hope this doesn't ruin our city. Salt Lake is great. We have services that rival cities with a gigantic population, and yet there are only around 250,000 people in the main valley. We have a world class library system, strong humanities, and people in control who genuinely care about making life great. We have abundant open and green space, free for all to enjoy. But when the LDS Church takes its focus off of building it's newest temple in some god forsaken place, or babying Provo, they can really ruin things. The Church has control of the state outside of the city, and it makes them so mad that they can really pressure the city into doing it's bidding. I foresee only long term problems for downtown, especially since it takes into account absolutely no long term considerations of emissions (not an LEED certified project) and relies greatly on cars to bring people to shop.

PS - A good editorial from the independent paper, the City Weekly, about Main Street, May 10, 2007 - Link

I got the pictures off of Jerry's camera and dumped them on Flickr. So here's some more pictures:

Fountain

Me w/Eiffel View

Horray I'm officially moving out of the Shellbourne on Sunday the 22nd. So that means 7 weeks of not paying for that! Hello Bond Street, Hello Louis Vuitton. Not. I'm actually trying to go to Paris for the Thanksgiving weekend. So I'll use the money for that (and add a little posh-ness too ;) ). Horray for that. I just thought I'd share a photo of the new view that I get to wake up to daily:

the view

Cheers~