Lifestyle
Sundance 2025 Kicks Off With Cynthia Erivo, Jon Hamm and Abby Wambach
“Our family, we have a word we say when we are in the middle of being scared and excited — it’s scited,” said Abby Wambach, the two-time Olympic gold medal winning soccer player. “That’s me right now: scited.”
It was Friday night, the first full day of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and celebrities and filmmakers were packed into a luxury hotel ballroom in sweaters and snow boots for a gala, which raised $1.5 million for the Sundance Institute, the nonprofit founded by the actor Robert Redford that supports independent artists.
The 450-person event took place in the vast ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley, a new hotel at one of the bases of the Deer Valley ski resort, where lift tickets cost about $300 a day and snowboarding is still prohibited.
The Sundance Institute proceeded with the festival amid wildfires in Southern California, which have affected many in the entertainment industry and beyond, to bring its community together, organizers said.
“What gets us through, and moving forward, is the art form and the ability to tell these stories,” said Ebs Burnough, the chair of the board of trustees for the Sundance Institute, when asked if he felt uncomfortable about holding the festival this year.
“Not every story is light and easy, but we have to tell them,” he said. “This is what storytellers do.”
The Sundance Film Festival, held nearby in Park City for more than 40 years, is credited with catapulting the careers of once-unknown talent, including Quentin Tarantino, Kristen Stewart and Christopher Nolan, and is now full of recognizable faces presenting big new projects while clomping in the snow and networking on Main Street.
Ms. Wambach was in Utah for the premiere of “Come See Me in the Good Light,” a documentary directed by Ryan White about two lovers who explore love and morality after receiving an incurable diagnosis. Ms. Wambach and her wife, the author Glennon Doyle, are executive producers on the film.
“It’s my first Sundance, and it’s my first time being part of a film,” Ms. Wambach said. “This is so exciting to be a rookie.”
The actor Jon Hamm, who was starring in “The Big Fix” a new audio drama from Audible about corruption in 1950s Los Angeles, was surrounded by gala attendees shaking his hand and asking for photos.
He said he had difficulty recognizing people covered in winter gear.
“Everybody isn’t in tuxedos here,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Do I know you?’ They have hats on, so I can’t tell.”
Cynthia Erivo, who was wearing a wrap dress and big, clunky silver earrings, arrived encircled by an entourage. She had just been nominated for an Oscar for best actress for her role in “Wicked,” and was coming off a whirlwind day of media appointments and events.
“We all love coming to Sundance because there are more indie, more off-the-wall ideas,” she said. “There is no pretense. You don’t have to dress up too much if you don’t want to. You just get to be cozy and see really good films.”
The festival, which opened just days after Donald J. Trump was inaugurated for a second term, has a slate this year infused with politics.
The actress Glenn Close was on the Sundance board for nearly 20 years and was thinking about current events. (She also played JD Vance’s mother in “Hillbilly Elegy,” the 2020 film based on the vice president’s memoirs.)
“There is so much discord and darkness in the world,” she said. “We have to be reminded of what it means to be human beings. Art has the ability to inspire, and we need that.”
She was at the gala to give a tribute to her friend Michelle Satter, the founding senior director of artist programs at Sundance Institute.
Around 8 p.m., guests sat down for a dinner of bronzed salmon and speeches reflecting on the impact of the Sundance Institute.
The actress Olivia Colman, whose film “Jimpa,” about a mother taking a nonbinary teen to visit their gay grandfather, premiered Thursday at a packed Eccles Theatre, took the stage to give Ms. Erivo the Visionary Award.
Ms. Colman, wearing face glitter and a costume tiara, lauded Ms. Erivo, “as a human, and as an actor, or as a singer, or activist, and ally, and a fashion icon, and as a frankly mind-bending practitioner of a whole load of gym exercises I can’t even name.”
Ms. Erivo walked on stage to a round of applause before putting the tiara on her own head. “It can’t be left here,” she said. “It must be worn.”
Throughout the program, audience members speculated on the festival’s future following the announcement by organizers about plans to move to a new location in 2027, which could include Cincinnati, Boulder, Colo., or Salt Lake City, with ancillary screenings in Park City.
“There is tons of traffic, it’s really hard to get around, it’s really hard to get housing, it’s expensive,” explained Amanda Kelso, the chief executive of the Sundance Institute.
“We love Park City, we love the community, but we also acknowledge that we need to think, ‘How are we going to be sustainable for the next 40 years?” Ms. Kelso said.
Mr. Hamm said if the festival moved it should adopt a new name: “I think that’s the only fair way to honor this and honor what the new thing will be.”
But if Cincinnati is selected, he joked, “we can water ski on the river.”
There are, as I’m writing this, just shy of 500 reader comments on our recap of our 15 favorite looks from the Met Gala on Monday. The top comments are almost all negative.
“I’m sorry. I find this display of ‘fashion’ disgusting and I wish the NYT wouldn’t celebrate it,” reads the most recommended comment. “I’m struck by how out of touch and unrelatable this feels for the average American,” is the one just below that. A few down we get the first of many comparisons to the elitist incongruity captured in “The Hunger Games.”
The uneasy state of the American economy watered the soil for this sentiment to grow. Gas prices have soared since the onset of the war in Iran. The cost of groceries remains stubbornly high. The word “inequality” came up five times in the comments section of our story. It seems that the gala, to some, landed as a financially frivolous, Marie Antoinette-like affair.
For a few years, the Met Gala has ignited these “Hunger Games” comparisons, as the event has mutated into a competition of which attendee can wear the most baroque, procession-halting dress. I lost count of the celebrities who proudly shared how many hours it took to make their ensembles.
This, more than anything, seemed like the point where they were misjudging the simmering animus toward them.
If the intention was to laud the work and elevate the craftsmanship involved in making garments like these, it was ringing hollow in this forum, where tickets cost upward of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a table. The opulence of the clothes became another example of billionaire class entitlement for a cause most people don’t benefit from.
It’s not an entirely new conversation, even if the critiques were louder this year. Five years ago, when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore a dress splayed with “Tax the Rich,” she sprayed lighter fluid onto a hot conversation about the class politics of this particular charity event. (At this year’s gala, Sarah Paulson arrived with a dollar bill stretched over her eyes, an intended critique on the influence of money that many viewers saw as a hollow gesture.)
The discourse roared with a particular fervor in the lead-up to Monday for the marquee presence of Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, one of the world’s wealthiest couples.
Placing the Bezoses at the apex of the gala ratcheted up the sense that something already well outside the reaches of the average person had been taken to a new tier of exclusivity. There were protests centered around Bezos, and at the event Christian Smalls, a former Amazon union leader, attempted to storm the carpet. He was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors.
“It shouldn’t be that way when you have all of this money and wealth,” Smalls said of Bezos in an interview with The Times on Wednesday. “He should pay his workers a fair share.”
In responding to cries of elitism, the Met Gala’s organizers have long pointed to the money that the event raises. They did so again this year. At a news conference on Monday introducing the Met’s new fashion exhibition, Anna Wintour, the event’s longtime chair (and the global editorial director of Vogue magazine), shared that this was the most successful Met Gala ever, having raised $42 million.
“That money could feed and clothe many hundreds of less fortunate people,” read the top comment on our Met Gala story.
We’ve come to expect anti-celebrity comments when we cover cultural events. “Who cares!” is a common, if slightly disingenuous, refrain given how many readers clamor to see and vote on their favorite looks from awards shows.
But there’s a meaningful difference between the Met Gala and many other red carpet events. At the Oscars or the Emmys, the arrivals lead to a star-studded performance the public can watch, shows with a purpose — celebrating talent (subjective though that is) — that is self-evident. For the viewing public, the Met Gala ends at the doorstep of the museum. If you’re watching at home, the gala can be seen as nothing more than a bunch of grandiose clothes that lead nowhere.
In reading up on the life of Ted Turner, who died Wednesday at 87, I perked up at this five-word sentence in Malcolm Gladwell’s 2010 profile of the media mogul: “He dressed like a cowboy.” It led me to scroll through photos of the Cincinnati-born businessman — especially in the 1970s, when he was sailing in a piqué polo and an incongruous striped conductor’s cap or taking in his Atlanta Braves with his button-up shirt undone to mid-chest.
Turner, a college dropout, who was a prolific drinker (and philanderer), looked rugged — swashbuckling even. He was, it should be said, handsome. In some images, Turner, with his modest mustache, looks like Robert Redford’s body double. But it’s remarkable to visit these images now, when all corporate titans — of media, tech and otherwise — dress so alike. They’re Sun Valley clones in their fleece vests, stretch chinos and dad caps that they theatrically pull low in front of cameras.
But Turner was indeed a telecom cowboy, upending how networks ran in his rugby shirts, knit ties and denim. He looked suave. How few media C.E.O.’s can we say that about now?
Everywhere I go I see young men in ribbed tank tops, sometimes with unbuttoned shirts on top, but often not. The tank tops can be black, white or gray, but they’re worn with everything — not just as undershirts, as I was taught was correct. What is going on? — Richard, Philadelphia
The tank top may seem basic — just a sleeveless cotton top with a scooped neck — but as a garment it contains multitudes. It has roots in the working class and the professional class, the military and the farm, men’s wear and women’s wear, sports and Hollywood, gay culture, rap culture, gym culture and indie sleaze. Read more …
Other things worth knowing about:
Once upon a time, Primm, Nev., had three bustling casino resorts, shiny gas stations, a roller coaster and Bonnie and Clyde’s “death car.”
It was a bit surreal, said former visitor John Honell of West Covina: “You had this whole complex in the middle of the desert.”
Southern Californians traveling the arid stretches of the I-15 would see Primm pop up. As he drove to Sin City for bowling tournaments, Honell would stop and “drop a few coins” into the slot machines. It was a gambling oasis — a little less flashy and a little more affordable than Vegas and 45 minutes closer.
“I guess it worked for a while,” said Honell, 85.
But it works no longer. The last of the three casino resorts will close on July 4, owner Affinity Gaming confirmed to The Times this week.
Honell, a regular in the 1970s, saw the growth of a desert gamble: the expansion of the Primm property, in the dusty town once known as State Line, from Whiskey Pete’s gas station, bar and slot machines into three busy resorts.
The Nevada gambling hub south of Las Vegas along the 15 Freeway appears finished, though. Southern Californians who appreciated that it was a shorter drive now can find gambling much closer, at tribal casinos.
Las Vegas insider publication Las Vegas Locally posted a termination letter from Affinity Gaming’s affiliate, Primadonna Co. LLC, to employees who worked at Primm Valley.
With the casino closing down July 4, all employment will end that day too.
Affinity Gaming declined to make an official comment.
The castle-shaped Whiskey Pete’s opened in 1977, followed by Primm Valley in 1990 and Buffalo Bill’s in 1994. Whiskey Pete’s was the first casino to close, in December 2024. Buffalo Bill’s Resort ended 24-7 operations on July 6, only opening when the casino’s concert venue, the Star of the Desert Arena, hosted special events.
David G. Schwartz, a gaming historian and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said Primm’s casinos were “built for an entirely different world.”
“Southern California is a huge market for Las Vegas and, in particular, it was once very attractive for those in the Inland Empire,” Schwartz said. “It was a way to trim 45 minutes off the drive — it was a 2-hour drive. It’s different math.”
Lights still glow on the Buffalo Bill’s Resort and Casino sign on Sunday, July 6, 2025 in Primm, NV. (Bridget Bennett / For The Times)
(Bridget Bennett/For The Times)
Primm was once one of Nevada’s more popular gambling resorts, a less expensive, slightly more kitschy alternative to Las Vegas that benefited from being closer than Sin City.
Primm Valley, Whiskey Pete’s and Buffalo Bill’s all hosted at one time the famed Bonnie and Clyde V-8 Ford riddled with more than 100 bullets in 1934.
Whiskey Pete’s offered a quick and affordable 24-hour IHOP, in comparison to Vegas’ pricier buffets, and Californians and Nevadans visited Primm Valley’s 100-store outlet mall, supported by shoppers who were brought by bus to the mall for free.
The three resorts enjoyed expansion and growth throughout the 2010s by utilizing low prices, gimmicks and attractions to lure guests.
Buffalo Bill’s was the biggest of the trio, boasting a buffalo-shaped pool and 592 rooms at its opening (the Bellagio has nearly 4,000 rooms) and eventually expanding to 1,242 rooms.
Buffalo Bill’s and its sister resorts closed in March 2020 when the pandemic hit, reopening between December 2022 and 2023. But they struggled to attract customers.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic hurt all Nevada casinos, that was only part of the reason for Primm’s decline. Schwartz said tribal casinos in Southern California saw their prospects soar as Primm’s hotels teeter-tottered.
California voters passed Proposition 1-A in 2000, which allowed tribal casinos to operate slot machines and erased limits on card games.
“Many of those people Primm was drawing from began to stay in Southern California, where the drives are just much shorter and the amenities much closer,” Schwartz said. “You see the same issue playing out at Laughlin along the Arizona border and Reno and Tahoe in Northern California.”
Shortly after Proposition 1-A’s passage, San Manuel was one of several tribal casinos in San Bernardino and Riverside counties that declared an arms race with Nevada.
Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, run by the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, opened in December 2004. The tribe was the fourth between 2002 and 2004 to open or expand its operations, including Agua Caliente in Palm Springs, Morongo in Cabazon and the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians in Temecula.
Most of these casinos have continued to build and expand their operations as revenue has continued to flow.
The Southern California tribal resorts are classified by the National Indian Gaming Commission, a gaming regulatory body, to be in the Sacramento region, which includes all resorts in California and Northern Nevada.
In 2014, the combined casinos contributed $7.9 billion in gross gaming revenue.
Ten years later, 87 tribal operations throughout two states combined for $12.1 billion, marking a modest 1.4% increase from 2023.
Yaamava’ Resort & Casino, run by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, sits in Highland, about 200 miles from Primm but less than half that distance from downtown L.A.
Yaamava’ completed a $760-million expansion in 2021, which added a 17-floor tower, three bars and about 1,700 new slots.
The 7,400 slot machines at Yaamava’ make the casino the West Coast’s largest, with 4,000 more slots than its Vegas peers. By square footage of gaming space, Yaamava is No. 4 in the nation and still the biggest on the West Coast.
“The decline has been part of a larger trend,” Schwartz said of Primm. “People are choosing options that most appeal to them.”
Around July 4, Mena started the countdown to football season.
Stowell joined him at sports bars to watch Longhorns teams, and managed to stick it out at an early-season Texas Longhorns home football game in 105-degree heat until halftime, where he met Mena’s cousins, who had season tickets.
“It showed me willingness,” Mena said, who didn’t miss any football “away games” in November 2021 when they stayed in a Cancun villa with a satellite dish for five days with friends.
In January 2022, Mena hosted a 40th birthday party for Stowell at the Golden Goose bar in Austin, and by the end of the year, they bought a fixer-upper — a one-story bungalow just a 10-minute walk to the university’s football stadium.
“His love of sports knows no bounds,” said Stowell, with memorabilia, posters and jerseys everywhere in his house. “I had to then take the reins,” with a more subtle nod to the Longhorns. “The front door is burnt orange.”
During the renovation, in August 2023, they took a trip to the Azores and Portugal, where Stowell proposed with a gray crushed diamond band as they sat on bar stools at Pavilhão Chinês, a quirky, hidden bar in Lisbon where servers wear tuxedos.
“After the renovation is done, do you want to get married?” Stowell asked Mena pragmatically.
On April 24, Elana M. Schulman, a friend of the couple who became a Universal Life minister for the event, officiated the 25-minute ceremony at Assembly Hall, an events space in Austin. Their 180 guests got to choose Austin murals as backdrops for photo booth snapshots, enjoyed local Tito’s vodka and Lalo tequila margaritas, and Zed’s New Zealand-style ice cream and a taco truck.
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