The place to be Thursday night after the late press screeings was the Yarrow Bar, where Elvis Mitchell and Quentin Tarantino were holding court. The press crowd was rocking the bar; we had the guy with the guitar in there again providing impromptu music and the small bar was packed. And of course, everyone was watching Tarantino, and simultaneously pretending not to be watching Tarantino. Frankly, he's so expressive it was hard not to watch him, which was a bit tricksy because he was sitting in front of me, and was directly in my line of sight.

Last night I saw Ballast, which I really enjoyed, at a packed Raquet Club screening. It's a contemplative, character-driven movie, nothing fancy except a great script and superb acting, which is what I love to see in an independent film. This morning I caught Towelhead, directed by Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) which I've heard a lot about. It's about the sexual awakening of a young girl, and the situations she gets into as she wrestles with her blossoming sexuality. Very intense, but a very well done film that a lot of women, especially, will relate to from their own teen years -- particularly the conflicting messages young girls get about themselves as sexual beings and learning to express that sexual power in a world where a girl who has sex is a slut, but a boy who does the same is just "becoming a man." Very powerful film. Oh, and William H. Macy was at the screening, a couple rows ahead of me.

In other Sundance news: Snow yesterday. Lots and lots of snow. It's very pretty, but it's kind of hard to see or appreciate that when you have to walk to the shuttle with it smacking you in the face like a million tiny fast-pitch snowballs. A brief break in snow this morning, and from what I hear there's a storm moving in with a lot of snow tomorrow and Monday. Hopefully our flights out on Monday won't get canceled.