Day 6 (10/17/2000 )

As predicted, the latter days of AFF yield little in the way of social interaction or large crowds.

I spent a good portion of the day going through e-mails and catching up on stuff. I got nice e-mails from the filmmaker's responsible from "Ten Hundred Kings" and "cicadas." I also got a friendly e-mail from Courtney Davis, AFF Competition Film Programmer, whom I mentioned as "having a few drinks" at the Governor's mansion on the AFF DAY ONE report. Courtney informed me I was mistaken. Sayeth the lady: "I thought it was funny that you assumed I had been drinking at the Governor's Mansion because I was more fun. I was actually totally sober but feeling a lot of weight off my shoulders." I can imagine the stress of putting together a film festival must be enormous and so I apologize to Courtney if I misrepresented the facts. She's a sweet person and I certainly enjoy knowing her.

Courtney also informed me that AFF won't be showing "Sunset Strip" on Wednesday night because they are having trouble getting a print. This is a film starring Adam Goldberg that looks interesting. It is scheduled to only play NY and LA currently and I was hoping to get a look at it. Goldberg impressed me much last year with his "Scotch and Milk" screening and, of course, he has an Austin connection having been in "Dazed and Confused." Hopefully "Sunset Strip" will play here somewhere, sometime. Maybe Tim League over at the Alamo can get the hook up.

At 7ish, I went to the Paramount for "Songcatcher" and "A Man Is Mostly Water." I wasn't particularly interested in either of these films but they seemed the most convenient choices from the available schedule. I thought about seeing "What's Cooking" at the Arbor but wasn't sure I could make it to the Paramount for the later show. I wanted to see "Water" because it is a competition film and I like to see as many of those as possible. So far I have seen 7 of the 13 comp films. "Water" wasn't worthy of being included in this list. Surprisingly, "Songcatcher," which showed at Sundance and will be released in December by Trimark, was really much more interesting than I assumed it would be.

During the film, the couple next to me talked, dropped things and - a new winner for annoying - popped out a flashlight to look at the program. How fucking disrespectful of other people can you get. Beepers, cell phones, talking, chomping popcorn... nothing can top the disturbance of a flashlight shined in your eyes in the dark. Fucking morons. I grumbled at them then got up and moved.

And sure enough, after looking at some historical markers outside during intermission, I found myself the first person in the balcony of the Paramount for the second screening of the night at 9:15pm. The show was slated to start at 9:20 and over the next 5 minutes every talkative and annoying person in town came and sat almost right behind me. The are 1400 goddamn seat in the Paramount and the loudest idiot in the place always parks his (or usually her) ass right behind me. Sheesh. I got up and moved yet again.

"A Man Is Mostly Water" was proceeded by a horrendous short film called "Ripple." If I were Fred Parnes, who made the feature, I would voice some loud objections about this.

After the fest, I went to Wan Fu on Oltorf. They are open until 2am every night. I grabbed some good Chinese food and headed home to watch the rebroadcast of the Presidential Debate.

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