So I bring my lab-Doberman mix, The Dude, who is welcome at the Telluride Mountain Lodge, where he likes to stretch out in front of the fireplace after a long, arduous hike, perhaps to the crystal blue Ice Lakes in Silverton or the deserted mining camp on Tomboy Trail. And I pick up something delicious to pop in my bag for a between-movies snack at the Friday afternoon farmer’s market.Īmong its many charms, Telluride is a dog town, with canines allowed to ride on the gondola, stay in many hotels and dine on the patio at various restaurants. I check out an open-air Q&A in Elks Park, where in 2015 I listened as Meryl Streep made a case that Pope Francis should take up the Equal Rights Amendment. I meet a filmmaker for a $5 Jack Daniels at the town’s oldest bar, the historic New Sheridan, serving since 1895. Once the festival is underway, I catch a foreign film in the tiny, exquisite Sheridan Opera House, built as a vaudeville theater to serve the mining community in 1913. So I’ll hat shop again this year, perhaps at Black Bear Trading Company. I buy an amazing hat at one of the shops on the town’s historic main drag, Colorado Avenue, and inevitably leave it in one of the festival theaters by the end of the weekend. I usually try to arrive a couple days before the festival begins to adjust to the altitude and enjoy the rugged beauty of the place before the crowds descend, often opting to pick up breakfast at the Butcher & Baker Cafe in town and hike 2.5 miles up to Bear Creek Falls to stretch my legs. The next morning I head into Telluride, stopping for a coffee at the Pony Expresso in Dolores, where it’s not unusual to see cowboys driving a herd of cattle up I-145. Personally, I drive 12 hours from Los Angeles, stopping for a night in Arizona’s Monument Valley to pretend I’m an extra in a John Ford movie. Civilians fly commercial into Montrose Airport, about a 90-minute drive from the village. Part of the charm of Telluride is that it’s such a colossal pain in the butt to get there, and those who make the trip tend to be a self-selecting group. There are also free open-air screenings in the town’s Elks Park, as well as free seminars and conversations. But spontaneous cineastes can pick up tickets to individual films for $25 each just prior to show time. The festival’s weekend-long passes sell out quickly each year in early March. But what keeps us coming back is the unique magic of the event, the natural beauty of its setting, and the intimacy of a festival where movie makers and movie lovers stand elbow-to-elbow in line at the picnic. Film journalists like me are first attracted to the festival for the impeccable taste of its programmers-Telluride audiences were the first in the world to lay their eyes on recent best picture winners Moonlight, Spotlight, and Birdman. I’ve attended Telluride three times as a staff film writer for the Los Angeles Times and will return again this year for my new gig, as the Hollywood Correspondent for Vanity Fair. As we climbed over the tops of aspen trees and the Victorian rooftops of the former mining village nestled in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, I sat in silence and gazed up at the stars, which seemed brighter, crisper, and closer than they ever had before. screening of Arrival, a movie about space, time, and alien contact, and boarded the free town gondola to ride up the hill to my hotel. On a clear cool night last Labor Day weekend at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, I stepped out of the first U.S. Coffee Table Books for Lovers of Art, Design, and Fast Carsįrom Formula One racing to cuisine and midcentury design, these books are certain.
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