I can’t believe that the 1995 Sundance Film Festival happened over 18 years ago, but it did. Look at how many selections are considered indie classics (or at least semi-classics) today — Before Sunrise, The Usual Suspects, The Basketball Diaries, Shallow Grave, Safe, The Doom Generation, Brothers McMullen, Heavy, Little Odessa. This was when Sundance was still modest and manageable and not the hypefest it later became. Bryan Singer was hot as a pistol after that first Suspects screening — you couldn’t talk to him for more than 15 seconds before someone pushed their way in. Peter Chelsom‘s Funny Bones wasn’t a classic, but seeing it led to an opportunity to interview Jerry Lewis at the Stein Erickson. Two weeks later I withdrew from Entertainment Weekly reporting for a while so I could compose a whopper-sized Los Angeles article called “Right Face,” about the struggles of conservative-minded writers and actors in the film industry.