you won't hear from me

It's here again, 10 days of delicious new filmmaking goodness from around the world. I can't wait to get my ass handed to me with the sheer delight of it all. Some observations:

Tonight I see 2 movies that both have the word bang in the title. The President's Last Bang is followed by Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

In the space of 2 days later in the week, I'll attend Black Bull, A Cock and Bull Story, and The Matador.

I'm seeing 7 Swords, Twelve and Holding, Banlieue 13 & 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous

I'm not going to blog it up, sleep's way too important. I will be trying to steal a few scant minutes for podcasting here and there, so keep your eye on the Mamo over at the right.

See you at the movies.

I am an inkwell hair dipping motherfucker, and it's time I went Anne of Green Gables on your ass.

I've been back a week, and made a very smooth transition between jet lag and ongoing fatigue. Everywhere I look, the city seems smaller, more pedestrian, more drab. This ain't Barcelona, I'll tell you that. We got most of our pictures back, and I'm starting to organize a slideshow. I'll set it up on flickr, if I have the energy.

I'm supposed to Mamo it up after work today, and I'm just itchy about the whole thing. We got our very first honest to god fan mail this week, we're planning to publicize ourselves at the fest, and I'm still trying to figure how I'll get time to record some shows in the midst of the insane schedule I seem to have planned out for myself.

I'm old, by the way. For the first time since 1992 (the year of my festival newby-dom when I didn't know down from up,) I won't be at the last midnight madness screening, closing out the fest like a true movie maniac. This year has felt entirely weird, with nothing really grabbing me and taking hold in the schedule, no absolute must sees. Just lots and lots of what looks to be pretty good, coupled with the usual grab bag of compromises and calculated risks. I'm sure we're gonna discuss it at length in the podcast.

This years closing midnight is Hostel, which looks to be a thoroughly repugnant exercise in Miike style gory nonsense. No thanks. Instead I'll be ending things off with Vincent Ward's River Queen, or if I'm screwed on my pic selection, the gay hip hop documentary. By the way, I'm officially calling foul on calling documentaries "Docs". If you're doing that on a regular basis, stop it, gaylord.

I'll know more about my final picks as soon as they email me with them (that's new!) and I'll post them accordingly. Here's a picture of Max to freak you out. It's a self portrait.