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Another day of CIFF, another animal cookie dinner in my hotel room….
Last night was a pretty productive night. After catching up on my mail and blogging, I was able to figure out that I could fix the smell in the room by turning on the heater. Granted, it meant that the room smelled like an electrical fire instead, but it was an acceptable replacement. Sadly, when I got back tonight, the smell was back, too. I guess I’ll have to crank the heat again for a while. After another day of (mostly) freezing-cold theaters, it’ll probably do me some good. Might raise my body temperature back to somewhere in the 90s.
After a good night’s rest (which was — no surprise — filled with some pretty strange dreams), I got up to prepare for another day of movies. After I got out of the shower, I made a quick call to the front desk and was told that it wouldn’t be a problem to bring a guest for breakfast, so I called Michael and told him to walk over for something to eat.
Fueled up and ready to go, Michael and I hopped back in the car and headed for the Tower. We were thrilled to find that the parking lot wasn’t full (yet), so we could actually park near the building instead of having to take the shuttle to the dark, creepy lot that’s down the hill and across the street. Once we got inside, we realized that we were still pretty early (since we didn’t have to take the shuttle), so we decided to wander up to the hospitality suite, which wasn’t open yet. So we continued to wander, wasting time until our 11:25 movie.
Today, we started with something light and entertaining and…French. Copacabana was a fun film about a free-spirited woman and her disapproving daughter. From there, we had just a few minutes to run across to the other side of the theater to catch Here Comes Lola — a German family film about an imaginative little girl and her quest to find a best friend. Again, it was nice and light. Definitely fluffy — almost like a German Hannah Montana — but it was cute. And if you’re seeing five movies in a day, you really appreciate cute.
After our first two movies, we had just a short time to grab lunch. We would have had a little bit longer, but there were some spooling problems with Lola, so it started later that scheduled — which means that our lunch would be shorter than scheduled. Just as we were choosing from our food court options, I heard someone calling my name. I turned to find Gary Patrick, my close personal friend, whom I met two years ago before a CIFF screening. He and his wife, Marian, and I have been just missing each other since then, and it was great to finally run into him. Of course, he was racing off to a screening, and I was racing off to lunch, but we coordinated our schedules and planned to see each other at a later screening.
In case I haven’t mentioned it before, things at the festival are a complete madhouse. Today, there was also some kind of dance event going on, along with the annual arts festival that always coincides with the film festival, so the line at McDonald’s was about three miles long. People were angry. People were stressed out. People were complaining. And I was beginning to worry that I’d have to grab my lunch and race right back to the theater. Fortunately, after a very long wait, I got my lunch and found Michael, who was already enjoying his Japanese food. We didn’t have long to enjoy it, though, because we knew that our next movie would be a full one. So after I finished my lunch, I ran off to save some seats while Michael finished up.
Movie #3 was Insidious. Since it’s opening next week, they were treating it much like a screening — which meant that they had security guards outside. And — no surprise — it filled right up.
Technically, I can’t write anything about Insidious right now, but I think I’m allowed to say that it’s the kind of movie that’s fun to watch with a crowd. Horror movies rarely screen (though this one did in Columbus on Thursday night — I just decided to wait and see it with Michael), so I don’t get the experience often. But it’s always fun to see a scary movie in a theater filled with people who are freaking out and screaming. It was a movie that I didn’t have to see at CIFF — I could have gone to the screening (or I could easily catch it at a theater back home next week), but I’m glad I did. The crowd alone made it worthwhile.
Once it was over, though, it would have been nice to get some fresh air — to walk out of the theater, wander down the hall and through the mall to the hospitality suite for a drink. But when we got out of the theater, the hall was jammed with people — so jammed, in fact, that it took us so long to get out to the main hall that we decided that it wasn’t worth trying to get anywhere. Instead, we turned around and went right back in for the next crazy screening.
Movie #4 was Small Town Murder Songs, a Canadian movie about a small-town cop who’s investigating his first murder. It was clearly a pretty buzzed-about film — because the screening was packed. From my seat at the back of the theater, I kept watching as people came in because the Patricks were supposed to be there. It wasn’t until they were seated in the second row that I saw them. They turned around to check out the crowd, and Michael and I tried waving to get their attention — but we were just too far apart. I thought about trying to go up there and talk to them, but, by then, the festival staff was busy seating people and hauling out folding chairs — and I knew that there was no hope of making it through the crowd and coming back to still have a seat.
The director of the film was there to accept an emerging artist award — so he took a few minutes to chat before the movie began. Honestly, after listening to him, I already loved the movie. He was just an interesting guy. And though the movie was a bit slow (which, as Michael pointed out, is pretty tough to sit through when it’s your fourth movie of the day), I enjoyed it.
Once it was over, we were once again corrallled through the hallway and out into the mall. Michael and I had hoped to make it to the Great Lakes Brewery (which we tried to do last year and ended on an adventure that we’ll laugh about for years to come). But, once we got out of the screening — later than expected — we knew that there was no way to get there and back and still catch our next movie. Instead, we decided to try some restaurant nearby. First, we tried Tower360. When we walked in, they informed us that they were closed. Apparently — as we were told by some very unhappy fellow prospective patrons — they were “too busy” and had decided to close for an hour. Funny, though, there were tons of empty tables.
Next was Houlihan’s, but we didn’t even try to go in after we saw the crowd in the waiting area. So we wandered back to the Hard Rock Cafe (which is where we ended up after our adventure last year) — and they had a 45- to 60-minute wait. Feeling slightly flabbergasted, we tried to figure out what to do. While we were standing there, we noticed that the hospitality suite was still open, so we headed there. If nothing else, we could get something to drink, some munchies to eat, and a comfy chair. I even managed to get Michael a bottle of Great Lakes ale — which, while not quite the same, was at least something. We had some little cheesecake squares to go along with it while chatting with some of our fellow festival goers — and we hung around until they decided to shut the place down. By then, it was time to move on anyway.
The last movie of the day was another one of those highly-buzzed films. Danny Greene was so far on standby that we figured we just had to see it. After all, it’s a documentary about a notorious local figure — so it was bound to be a festival favorite (though not with one of the women at the hospitality suite, who told us, “Danny Greene was blown up in my ex-husband’s parking lot. I don’t need to see the movie.”). And, no surprise, it was absolutely packed. Fortunately, though, we had some very capable volunteers who managed the whole thing surprisingly well.
Though I would have liked to see more of the story, I was relieved that the movie was just 60 minutes long. After five movies, my eyes were starting to play tricks on me — and Michael and I were both starting to slow down. We had talked about trying to make it to the brewery after the screening, but we wer both too exhausted — so we decided to call it a night (and tentatively plan for lunch at the brewery before we head home on Monday).
Tomorrow, though, will be more of the same. We’ve got a list of some must-see movies — along with some that we’ll see just because there’s nothing better to see. Our schedule isn’t set in stone yet, so we’ll have to do a little eavesdropping to find out what’s good. Who knows what kind of little gems we’ll find….
