The Friar's Club held their third annual Comedy Film Festival this past week, and Ed and I were invited to 
go to one of the films. I knew little about it, but was interested because a) it was going to be at the Friar's Club, and b) having attended Sundance, I wondered what another film festival would be like. There are film festivals just about every week in this city it seems, and it's becoming increasingly meaningless to have your movie featured at one; my friend Adelle, who is in the fashion industry and knows nothing about movies beyond the fact that it's a good idea to eat popcorn while watching one, told me recently that she and some friends are planning to create a film festival in San Francisco in 2012. Adelle is a smart, capable, very cool person, but the fact that she's planning an event like this illustrates my point well: just because your film is picked for a festival doesn't mean it's any good. This, however, was the Friar's Club, and not amateur hour. The film we were going to see had been featured at several other film festivals, even winning some, but I'd heard mixed reviews.It was not until Saturday that I learned that we wouldn't actually be watching the film at the Friar's Club, though Ed attempted to console me by pointing out that we'd be right next door. Hmph. The theater was tiny - I'd guess it couldn't/shouldn't have held more than 60 people - but it was quite luxurious. We sat on long couches arranged on tiers, though those who arrived later than we did had to make due with benches arranged along the aisles. It ended up being a full house, and I was very glad the theater did not burst into flames during the movie.
The crowd was pretty interesting. There were a lot of young people in ripped jeans with scraggly beards and backpacks who looked like products of film school. There were also lots of older women with bleached hair, daring clothes, and too much eye make-up. According to the directors' talk after the movie, quite a few actors from the film were in the crowd, though Ed and I didn't recognize anyone.
The film was preceded by a short called Mr. Bear. The volume was too low for first 45 seconds, so the crew restarted it, overcompensating so that it was almost painful. Despite the blaring soundtrack, both Ed and I really enjoyed Mr. Bear, a very dark comedy about mistaken identity. There's not much of a market for short films, though the more I see, the more I find that I really like them. The crew seemed to have figured out the volume by the time the feature film began, which was a relief.
I had proctored the PSAT earlier that day, which meant getting up quite early after what had been a late night. Ed was given the assignment of poking me if I nodded off (we were in the front row) but apparently I was pretty subtle about it when I did, because I lost somewhere between five and ten minutes of the film before he noticed and nudged me awake. Unfortunately, it seemed to have been a very critical five to ten minutes, because things didn't make a whole lot of sense after I'd regained consciousness.
The film was just ok. There were a lot of parts that were clearly meant to be funny that weren't really, and there was a fair amount of unrealistic dialogue, which is something I can't stand, though I'm never sure whether the writer or the actor is to blame. Later, when talking with one of the directors/writers, I couldn't bring myself to lie outright, though I tried to sound positive; for example, when she mentioned that one of her professors from film school had come to the screening, I commented that it must be great for her professor to see that two of her former students had made such a successful movie. I'm not sure how well I pulled it off, but I tried.
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| Andres Rosende of Mr. Bear |
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