The Golden Rat

 

golden rat

The Golden Rat. That's what was on everybody's mind at the Slum throughout the day. Who will win the Golden Rat? Filmmakers were tense in anticipation when they saw a Vagrant walk in with the freshly painted awards.

vagrant with rats

At 10 p.m., the ceremony began. The Vagrants pushed extra pillows and chairs into the Screening Lounge to accommodate the overflow.

closing night crowd

Two Vagrants came out as emcees and immediately spent several minutes casually dropping the names of celebrities who had stopped by the Slum: Tim Robbins, John Cusack, Tori Spelling, John Waters, Alex Winter, others.

vagrants starfucking

The Ceremony began with the presentation for Best Actor. The nominees were a cat from a short called RED FISH, a monkey from a short called HURDY GURDY and David James from the film HANG YOUR DOG IN THE WIND. After much waiting, the result was announced: A tie between the cat and the monkey.

David James jumped up out of his chair, cursed the emcees, threw a beer can at them, screamed "Slumdance is bullshit!" and stormed out of the room. Later, James said: "I worked really hard on that role, and I did a good job. Fuck Slumdance."

david james, moping

The Vagrants powered through other fake awards, including Best Sex Scene, and finally announced Best Picture. The honored film was a stunner:

STAR WARS

STAR WARS won the Golden Rat for Best Picture. A Vagrant accepted the Rat for George Lucas, saying, "George got burned by the Academy in 1978, and he's been waiting a long time for an honor like this."

After the Ceremony, the party started, and it was the biggest Slum bash yet. Every inch of the 6000-square-foot Slum was filled with revelers.

scary vagrants

But the really interesting action was going on in the Slum office. First, the principal figures of Slamdance showed up to talk about next year. Nothing was decided.

And then a contingent of Sundance people arrived. They seemed to want to hang out in the office, but we couldn't figure out why.

sundance in the slum

Trevor, a programmer of Sundance, agreed to pose with a Slumdance programming Vagrant:

sundance hugginh slumdance

The party raged on until daylight. The Screening Lounge was packed to near-capacity for a 4 a.m. showing of STAR WARS. Tent City hosted many romantic entanglements. A pleasant aroma filled the Smoking Lounge. The beer ran out early, and nobody seemed to care.

A horde of acquisitions executives from New Line Cinema and Miramax showed up, along with some vaguely recognizable stars. Still, a good time was had by all.

 

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