Austin
Gay and Lesbian Film Festival 2004 - Day 9 -
Friday, September 3, 2004
Even though I am tired, burnt out and dying for a rest
for my brain, I am going to be sad when Agliff is over.
The friendships that I am building and the fun that I
am having are very important to me. Now, I rarely, in
fact - almost never - feel out of place when I go out
into the world. I do pretty well around straight people
and have few problems with them in the workplace or the
community even though I am for the most part openly gay.
I really never get frightened and I rarely feel out of
place because of my sexuality. But it sure is nice to
be around a bunch of homos! You just get to relax and
free your mind. This year, the films have been excellent,
the staff of Agliff has been hard working and the socializing
has been grand. I am having a blast.
I arrived at the Arbor for the showing of "Yes
Nurse, No Nurse," early. That is, early if the film
started at 7:30 like I thought it did. It actually was
slated to start at 7:20 so by the time I got there,
the place was pretty packed. I had talked to Johnny
on the phone and he was saying something about a friend
of his meeting us but I was driving so I didn't know
whether his friend was coming for both movies (as we
were seeing "Nurse" first and then "Slutty
Summer" afterwards).
I was looking throughout the crowded theater for
some seats together when I heard a squeaky voice, the
unmistakable voice of my friend Craig, calling out my
name. I looked and he was sitting in the fifth row with
exactly two seats next to him. I said hello and asked
him if he was saving seats for us, which he was, so
I sat next to him. I thought, well, if Johnny's friend
is coming, we'll just have to figure it out later. Craig,
who is going to Europe with his boyfriend, in case you
haven't read Day One of my Agliff
2004 reports, had mentioned that he was probably
going to see "Nurse," but I had forgotten all about
it.
Johnny came in and Craig saw him too and called
out to him. I asked him if his friend was coming and
found out it was the next show. All was good. It wasn't
long until Scott Dinger got up and introduced the film
I noticed that they had hung up some banners for Tanqueray
and Here TV. He mentioned that the sponsor was the Austin
Chronicle before telling us that the film we were about
to see was pretty odd and it was best to "just go with
it."
The feature was shown on 35 and since it was a
Dutch film had subtitles and there were problems throughout.
At first I thought that the projector was ghosting but
then I realized that it was only happening on one part
of the screen, which means it is a lens problem. This
meant that they tried to fix it by focusing and refocusing
throughout the first few minutes of the film and never
could get it perfect. There are two options when this
is happening, either physically move the lens or re-thread
the film through the gate and both take time and require
stopping the movie and usually don't fix anything, so
eventually they just focused the film as best they could
and left it at that. The Arbor has some serious problems
with the house that have let Agliff use for the festival
and they really need to look into that.
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During the film Craig sat next to me with
the armrest up and towards the end got a little
restless. I really just wanted to wrap my arm
around him and snuggle with him. I used to have
a crush on Craig but now all I really wanna do
is hug on him and tousle his hair. Eventually
I did do just that after the movie was over. At
one point he sat with his legs up on his chair
and they were sort of bumping into mine. It was
nice and cozy and made me feel like Craig was
really comfortable around me. I think I am louder
and more obnoxious than, well, anyone that he
knows, so I know sometimes he must be a little
uncomfortable around me.
Craig had to leave after the movie. He was
leaving for Europe the next morning and had some
last minute things to attend to. I tried to coerce
him into staying by asking "Who doesn't want to
see a film called 'Slutty Summer?'" but he was
having none of that. I gave him a big hug good-bye
and so did Johnny. I had a bit of a feeling of
impending doom with Craig and I didn't want to
mention it. I think it was just my own innate
sense of not wanting to see him go since it has
been a year since I saw him. We say that we will
do some things together throughout the year but
never seem to get together.
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Slutty
director Casper Andreas
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Johnny went and got us some snacks and I waited
in line with my badge to get seats. I saw Scott Dinger
bring in a group of four hot, young guys ahead of everyone
else and assumed it was the filmmaker and some of the
actors of "Slutty Summer." I decided to sit in the second
row because I wanted to be close enough to take pictures.
John came back with the snacks and his friend whose
name is something like Zant or something like that.
He was a young guy with a bunch a scruff and totally
not my type. He also had a little bit of 'tude. I didn't
really think too much of him but Johnny was in heaven.
He barely said two words to me as he chatted away to
his new friend with his back to me. I got up to pee
and when I came back, Johnny and Zant were talking about
Seabrook TV, a company which has a advertising slide
running and an ad in the program. Zant apparently knows
the guy who runs it or owns it or whatever. I guess
it's a local company. I thought it was one of those
new TV outlets for gay entertainment like Here TV or
something.
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Scott got up and introduced the owner of Seabrook
TV and I thought I might find out something about
his business but instead he did little more than
introduce the film's director, Casper Andreas.
The Agliff trailer came on and Zant had never
seen it before. His assessment? "Someone was definitely
tweeking when they made that." (Hey, I said I
wasn't going to bitch about the trailer anymore.
Those are his words).
The film was preceded by a short, which ran
fine, but when the feature started, all kinds
of problems popped up. The film was too bright
and the sound mix was horrible. Worse yet, when
they were trying to adjust these things, the toolbar
graphics for the Beta SP video player came up
over the movie. It was a nightmare. They eventually
got the picture to look fairly decent but the
sound problems were never rectified.
At the Q&A after the movie Andreas apologized
for the problems even though I was pretty sure
they were not his fault. A lady in the audience
told him that she had the same problems with her
film and her DP had to look at the settings of
the player and maybe his should too. It was pretty
embarrassing for the festival.
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Andreas stood alone and said some of his
producers were here with him but none of the hot guys
I saw him come in with came up on the stage. I saw them
later in the lobby and they looked really young, so
I couldn't figure out if they were really the producers
of just this week's boytoys. And speaking of boytoys,
Johnny was so enamored with his that he only spent a
second saying good-bye to me when Zant went to say hi
to some other friends. I know I've done the same to
Johnny in the past, especially when I was dating Justin
two years ago, but sheesh.
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