Sundance: Stars and Slopes Forever

Of course, in the movie, the boyfriend gets into trouble up there on the ungroomed sheer slopes, and his plight provides a chance for "Mission: Impossible"-type derring-do.

I based the scene on the real-life experience I shared with two newly minted ski club buddies who unwisely trusted my navigational abilities one day.

The three of us had been doing blue runs off the Canyons' Tombstone Express when we ran into a video crew preparing to shoot a scene for "Entourage," the TV series about an actor's life. We decided to get out of the way. "Follow me," I said, and, to their regret, they did.

One major mistake later, and we were looking down at a landscape that resembled an inside-out moon on edge and searching for a signs of a merciful god in the list of trail options:

"Red Pine Chutes."

Would need a ladder to get out of that one.

"94 Turns."

Not an optimal choice for a skier who doesn't turn too well to the left.

"Talus Garden."

Isn't talus loose rock?

"Fright Gully."

Leave it to the Freddy Krueger franchise.

Not an "Easy Street" or a "Scooby-Doo" among them, and downloading was not an option.

A couple of weeks earlier, a boarder had ridden up the Ninety Nine 90 and never come down again. He skied under the ropes and out of bounds and was killed in an avalanche.

"It ain't called a fall line for nothing," I joked to my companions, who may have been considering skewering me with a ski pole.

"How bad can it be?" I asked as I began a wobbly traverse across chunks of icy snow known as death cookies.

Bad enough to inspire the kindly ski bus driver to lower the hydraulic step so I could limp aboard a couple hours later. Bad enough that he offered some of his personal stash of pain relievers. I had no idea my knee could rotate so far backward, but I counted myself lucky for stopping my upside-down slide down the slope before I hit the pine trees.

We finally made it down to our level by painstakingly sidestepping for a half-hour or so. Even that was, as they say, fraught with peril.

Of course such sensible caution won't do box office, so the scene in "The Parallel View" has helicopters, a ledge and a ski patrol team with toboggans. Yet even with all that action, "The Parallel View" probably will never get off that mountain because underneath that Hollywood tan, Tinseltown is frostier than a T-bar in a snow squall.

So until someone with that vision thing decides to bring my movie in out of the cold, I'll keep doing my knee exercises and see if Slamdance might be interested in a fresh new filmmaker. Maybe Farmer John would lend me his tractor and boa. If not, the secret of Sundance will remain unblabbed, and you'll find me -- and hardly anyone else -- on the Park City slopes.

M.J. McAteer is the letters editor for The Washington Post.