Florida Film Festival Report #1 - Preface

I haven't been able to update the weblog as often as I usually do, and for that I apologise. It's just that for the last few days, I've been spending an average of 8-10 hours a day in a dark room watching movies. And they sorta don't like it when you open up the laptop and try to update your site in there. Art snobs. :)

For those of you who don't know me personally, I have for many years now covered the Florida Film Festival (the second-largest film fest in the state and one of the best "little" fests in the country) for a variety of film and entertainment-trade publications like MovieMaker and BoxOffice, and for FilmThreat.com, the indie filmmaker website of choice.

You should know this about me: I love movies. I mean I really love movies. I have, as of this month, seen 81 of the AFI's Top 100 Movies of the Past 100 Years. Most people have seen, at most, a dozen (or two dozen, at best). In addition, I have seen literally hundreds if not thousands of bad b-movies (by choice, and some with help from MST3K), hundreds of genre/cult movies, and of course there are some movies I've seen many, many times over. So, in a nutshell, I'm a big movie buff.

This being the case, the FFF is both an event I both look forward to every year, and one that is actually quite hard work and takes a lot out of me. Let me explain.

There is nothing quite like a really good film, particularly when shown in a cinema along with an audience. It's an experience that television/DVD just can't quite capture, and in some cases it really is an element of the whole experience that otherwise leaves the film falling a little flat. Hearing the laughter or gasps or sobs during a film can have almost as powerful an impact on you as the actual film itself, and enjoying even a terrible movie in the company of friends is 1000 times better than watching it on your own. (try it with Pray for the Wildcats and you'll see right away what I mean!)

The diversity of subject, technique, presentation and feeling that you get from a film festival's wildly eclectic selection of short, documentaries, video features and competition films is heady stuff, and when the films are good it's just exhilarating, particularly since most people will only get to see these films later in the year (if at all) in their local cinema, or on edgy, arty channels like Bravo and IFC years from now (if at all).

On the other hand, when a movie is bad, you just hate it. You sit there stewing, looking at your watch in the dim light and wishing you could get out of there -- but (in my case) I'm getting paid to watch this film, so sit and stew I do. I just want to wring the filmmaker's neck. Here is a medium that is more direct, more immediate, more interactive and more powerful than almost any other, and yet somehow they've managed to waste my time and theirs coming up with tripe. How dare they blow such a momentous opportunity?

Even when you love watching movies and even when most of the movies are good and well worth seeing, it is physically hard to sit quietly in a dark room for 8 hours straight (as I will have to do later today, and tomorrow -- with even longer hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday). It is hard to scratch out notes in a dimly-lit (or sometimes completely dark) theatre. Good thing the Enzian serves meals more substantial than popcorn and gumdrops, or I'd be in serious trouble.

So, over the next week or so, I'll be writing up little capsule reviews of some of the films I've seen, and letting you know when reviews of mine go online (some should be coming up at FilmThreat.com any time now). When they come to your town (or return, if you live here in Orlando), perhaps you'll be inspired to catch them -- or avoid them -- based on what I said about them. My opinion is certainly not absolute, nor is it meant to be -- it's simply a guide that may help you decide if a given film is the sort of thing you might enjoy. You have to read your own tastes "in between the lines" of mine.