9-15-2004

A bee landed on me today.

Inside a theater.

I didn’t notice it at first, then saw something crawling up my thigh. I looked down and, to my horror, ‘twas one of the numerous wasps that have come out to play during the festival. At this time, I should point out that anyone who knows me knows exactly what happened next: I had a small freakout. I don’t like insects in general, and things that can sting or bite me are, as a rule, not welcome to promenade on my person.

Anyway, back to the movies....

The day got off to a rocky start, thanks to the sound problems at the Paramount. (Note: it’s the same theater where The Machinist film broke.) We were all sitting down, watching Dear Frankie, a sweet little Scottish drama about a well-meaning mum (Emily Mortimer) who hires a stranger (Gerard Butler) to pretend he’s the long-lost father to her son (Jack McElhone), when sound disappeared. The wee lad is deaf, though, so when the sound cut out the first time, many of us in the audience thought it was some clever artistic technique to illustrate the silence in his world. But no, it was not. Because the sound kept going on and off repeatedly, until finally staying off for a good few minutes. Now, while the sound of the movie had stopped, the sound of the audience grew exponentially as the seconds ticked by. People were screaming for the projectionist (there isn’t one at the Paramount, since everything is operated by computer), banging on the windows of the projectionist’s booth and basically letting it be known, LOUDLY, that someone somewhere needed to fix something. QUICKLY. (They did, eventually, and the sound problems were remedied.)

My next film was a filler (read: I had a three-hour block of empty time and just picked a movie to fill the slot). It was the new Todd Solondz movie Palindromes. I gotta say, I’m not sure Todd Solondz movies are my thing. This one is about a 12-year-old girl who desperately wants to have a baby and tries to go about getting pregnant. The girl is played by a different unknown child actress in every scene (so as to illustrate that the character could be any one of us) and even becomes Jennifer Jason Leigh (playing a 12-year-old!). The story kind of meanders and isn’t terribly compelling, but there sure were some folks who loved it. Yes, they were pretentious film snobs with nondescript pseudo-European accents raving about how it was “genius! just genius!”, but still.

One of my only must-see movies of the fest was up next. It was the Dylan Kidd-directed romantic drama, p.s., starring Laura Linney as a university admissions officer who believes Topher Grace is the reincarnation of her high-school love, who was killed in a car accident as a teen. The film was very good, and the performances were very sharp. And I do have to say that Laura Linney was freakin’ hot! Drool-tastic! She was, as my friend Chris likes to say, lusciously thrashable. (He means that as the utmost compliment, btw.) And, much to my surprise, so was Marcia Gay Harden, who plays Linney’s wealthy, oversexed best friend. She looked great!

Not so great, however, was my final film of the day, Keane. My friend Helen (wisely) decided to sell her ticket to this indie drama. Wisely. The fest programmers could have saved themselves a lot of time and program-book effort if they had scrapped the 500-word, effusive praise-laden description with the following: a guy acts manic and irritating for 90 minutes. Damian Lewis stars as said guy, whose daughter was abducted from a bus station a year before the action in the film, and he basically spends the entire film being really weird, having delusional outbursts and generally behaving in a highly creepy fashion. I dunno, maybe it’s because this was the last movie of the day or maybe it’s because it (like Palindromes) was just a filler, but I was ready to leave about 30 minutes in. I didn’t, though. But should have.

I’m feeling exceptionally pooped tonight, so I’m keeping it short. I’m hoping for a sound night of sleeping. I heard a woman in line today say, “I actually had a full-night’s sleep last night, and I’m like a whole new woman today!”

I need that kind of rest, I think.

Roger Ebert Sightings: Come back to the five and dime, Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert.

Celebrity Sightings: Quite the poor turnout today, with Todd Solondz (who really is a very odd little man) and Damian Lewis the only folks trotting out for their screenings.

Line Buzz: Favorable reviews for Summer Storm, which I’ll be seeing tomorrow night.

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