Houston Worldfest Day 2 Saturday, April 21st
Well, of course, filethirteen is not going to be able
to cover all 10 days of Worldfest. I have to get back
to Austin to tape some episodes of Lube TV and, you
know, work my day job. I may come back next weekend,
I haven't decided yet.
Saturday, I got up a bit early, after spending the
night at Web's place, and after writing up day one,
we traveled into Houston for lunch and to try and retrieve
our press passes. After making a call or two, we discovered
that our passes were under the name Eugene Debbs, because
that's whose quote is on my signature file and, therefore,
at the bottom of my e-mail. The person who took care
of my passes saw that name at the bottom of my e-mail
and put the passes under that name. Debbs was some sort
of union organizer or something in the early part of
the 20th century and Vonnegut is always quoting him.
That's how I know about him.
We got our passes and Web and I lunched at the Saltgrass
by the theater. Meat good. Web had some prior commitments
Saturday night, so by this time he had to just drop
me off at the theater. I met up with my friend Jarrette
from guerilla-films.com, after I sat through the end
of some shorts.
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I came into the theater in the middle of "My
Friend's love Affair," an unremarkable and rather
contrived and typical hetero love story about
an office romance. It was, at least, inoffensive.
The same could not be said for the last short,
the only one I saw in its entirety, "Say Goodnight
Michael." This film is one of those been-done-to-death
shorts about a guy who gets caught up in his life
and forgets to make time for his dreams, his pipe
dreams that is. So, of course, he goes to sleep
and has a dream where some guy comes into his
house, holds him hostage, fucks with him, and
almost kills him, takes everything he has, etc.
Then, SURPRISE, he wakes up and is a "new man"
because he realizes he has been a bastard for
a while because he lost sight of his "true" self.
Typical crap that has been done so many times
it has become pathetic. Worse yet, writer/director
Grant Cramer, who must still be in short pants,
seems to take ignorant delight in torturing his
main character. This dumbass has obviously seen
"Pulp Fiction" a gazillion times and thinks he
can be the next Tarantino. What tripe.
Anyway, the night was pretty normal with Worldfest
always about 15-20 minutes behind. Hunter Todd,
the festival founder and director and do-it-all
guy, introduced most of the films with his standard
rhetoric. One of the things he mentioned was that
the festival had searched endlessly to find a
space this year and every theater they had booked
for the festival was eventually closed down including
the Cineplex Odeon and the Loew's River Oaks.
At one point they were going to show the films
in an abandoned bank lobby on Gessner before the
Meyerland became available to them. The Meyerland
was bought, according to Todd, by fired General
Cinema employees who picked up some of their closed
theaters on the cheap. This is happening a lot
as major exhibitors are going bankrupt and closing
small, money-losing theaters. The folks who re-opened
the Meyerland, again, according to Todd, have
dedicated 3 of the theaters 8 screens to arthouse
fare.
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Todd also mentioned his disdain with the Houston International
Festival who apparently wait for Todd to announce his
festival dates before copying him so as to make it appear
that the film fest is a part of the International Festival.
Todd says he has some tricks up his sleeve for next
year to alleviate this problem and that next year the
fest will probably run in March, "during the rainy season."
I saw three films Saturday night, "The
Testimony of Taliesin Jones," "Wrong
Number" and "Lakeboat."
Two remarkable films with a stinker sandwiched in between.
Todd, in introducing "Wrong Number," told us that a
Christie digital projector worth "half a million dollars"
was being used to project the video image. The screening
had sound problems and shut off once during the showing.
For the most part, however, it was an enjoyable evening.
I hung out with Jarrette and saw my friend Vassily.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, seems to know Vassily.
He's very popular at Worldfest.
Until next time.
Lodger2001 @ Worldfest Houston 2001
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