Dallas International Film Festival

Yesterday, Sheila, Margie and I headed off to spend the evening at the Dallas International Film Festival. It's held at several theatres around the DFW area. Sheila and I consulted with Margie, and she gave us the go ahead to make all plans, I was just to pick her up when it was time to leave. Our plan..... Meet at 4:45 pm at the downtown Garland Dart Train and go to the Angelika theatre, located at Mockingbird Station. And..... we're off. The first thing we did after meeting at the station, buying our train passes, and riding to the theatre, was to go to the box office and get our passes. (Thanks to Connie for watching Groupon for a bargain!) Second stop, eating Mexican food and drinking margaritas at The Margarita Ranch. It was cheaper to buy a pitcher of margaritas than to buy individual ones, so of course, we went with that. Margie had fish tacos, and Sheila had seafood tacos, and I opted for the appetizer sampler as my entree. I managed to eat almost half of what I got, it was way too much food. All very good meals. We drank until about 7:30, then off we go to our first movie. Naturally, we had to have our picture taken by the backdrop, with the paper edition of the movies to be screened.

Connie Sheila Margie

First screening........ THE RUNWAY

This was my favorite movie of the night. The Runway' is inspired by the true story of a South American pilot who landed his plane near Mallow, in 1983. Against all odds, the people of the town came together to build a runway to get him home and briefly caught the imagination of the nation. It is the story through the eyes of Paco, a young boy without a father who adopts the pilot and convinces the town to build a runway to get him home. After the movie, the producer met with the audience to answer questions. We managed to stay for only about 15 minutes of discussion, then we were off to the potty, and our next movie.

James Faust (I think this is correct) Artistic Festival Director and one of the producers of the film, (can't remember his name)

Next up, the ANIMATION COMPETITION, which was 7 short videos/movies. This was the one that Sheila was so excited about, cause she's a cartoon fan from way back. As they were handing out ballots (voting for the films), the lady noticed that we were alone, and tried to find us some men, much to the amusement of the people located near us. There was one guy in the row behind us, but the female on his left laughingly refused to share him. The lady tried to convince Sheila to fight her for the man, cause she thought Sheila could take her. The people in our vicinity were all quite entertained by all the joking going on. The host came out and announced the name of the movie, muttered some stuff about how we're seeing the best of the animated films in the world, etc. The he announces that there are three special guests joining us in the audience. I immediately turn around looking for Ann Margaret (she was somewhere) or some other well known stars. He then says they came to see the films and pick up men. He asked the three women to stand up, as they were trying to accommodate us. Of course, everyone around us started pointing at us. It was sooooo funny...... The only funny part was we had no takers. I think it's because most of the people up that late at night are about 1/2 our age. Sheila did see one cute young guy that she discussed, cause he had on sandals and had a curly fro, reminding her of her youth. On the the movies.....Well...... we were all in for a shock. The word “animation” has a much broader definition than we'd realized, as evidenced by this collection of seven short films that address love, hate, and lots and lots of death. Truly, it seems that either whoever assembled this festival program, or all the world’s best animators, have a fixation on the morbid. First up......

LIPSETT DIARIES

This movie is about a famed Canadian filmmaker, and begins with beautifully conceived visuals that mimic the way memories paint pictures in our mind. Unfortunately, it then gets morbid, and bogs down in the depressive babbling of its narration. If you are not manic depressive or bipolar, then to say you might not "get" this movie, would be putting it mildly. Here are a couple of samples of what the rest of the images were like....

In the end, after his mother leaves him for no apparent reason to him (we all got a clue cause he was one morbid child), he goes deeper and deeper into despair, self pity, and manic depression, until he ultimately leaves his surroundings, for no apparent reason (who'd want to be with him was all I could think) and kills himself. 3 THUMBS DOWN for this mess. Nest up.... LOVE PATATE You’ve never before seen a love triangle like the one in Love Patate — between a man, a woman, and a tuber. The potato has a scar, and comes between the two "people" in this movie. This movie is in French, with sub-titles.

The Tuber (Potato)

The big nosed male lead

The lead female that was dumped for the tuber. Ultimately, the tuber dies (sorta), and the male and female lead get back together (I won't discuss the role of the rabbit), until the female is killed by a bag of tubers that are evidently intent on revenging the death of the tuber. This left ME head scratching...... 3 THUMBS DOWN for this movie.

Next up....... PATHS OF HATE This is the tale of two fighter pilots engaged in combat to the death, and even beyond. At least I got this one. They both died, but their souls continued the fight into hell and beyond. 4 THUMBS UP.

Next up....... THE BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A LION

This movie is about a small boy who is deaf, and hates wearing his hearing aide because it causes extreme vibrations and garbled noise when he's in a crowd. He goes on a school field trip to the zoo, and removes his hearing aide for the trip. He sees the lion, and he can hear the lion roar with the hearing aid. He becomes obsessed with the lion.

He creates (with the help of his mom) a lion costume, that he wears at all times, and eventually escapes the house and runs away to the zoo, where he meets the lion one on one. The three of us are seeing it now, the lion takes him in and they become best buds. WRONG! The lion kills him. The end........ What a conclusion. 3 thumbs up, would have been 4 had it not been for the death of the little boy.

Nest up...... STANLEY PICKLE

This film had a look unlike anything I’ve seen before. Its claim to be considered animation might be challenged by some, since it’s really just a live-action piece that’s been shot to look like stop-motion. The characters’ jerky movements bugged me, cause I think animation should be man made pictures. Anyway...... Stanley had turned his parents into wind up toys (I think they died previously before the movie started, and he watches a girl from his bedroom window that plays with a bird. Her bird dies, she buries it as Stanley watches, and to make her happy, he changes it into a wind up toy. He shows his finished project to her, and scares her away. He then gives it all up and "jerks" his way into the woods. End of story. ???????? 2 THUMBS DOWN

Next up......SOMETHING LEFT, SOMETHING TAKEN

We thought this was the funniest of the shorts, showing two young people on a Zodiac Killer-inspired trip to San Francisco. They've definitely watched too many CSI, NCIS, and other forensic shows. Are you sitting down? This one had a happy ending. 5 THUMBS UP

Last up.......JUPITER ELICIUS

This was the shortest of these shorts at 5 minutes. It supposed to be amusing with its maniacal meteorologist narration, but I found it to be muddled. The storms were either too far or too close to his predictions. Thank gawd it was the last, I couldn't take too much more.

Regardless, it’s a collection well worth seeing, cause they do make you think. Here we are on the red carpet, leaving the theatre.

Connie wearing Cold Water Creek, Sheila wearing Kohl's and jacket from Canada, Margie wearing something she picked up in Italy

Off we went to the train station for our ride back to Garland. While waiting, there is one dude singing. He never stops, not even to pick his nose. He never lost one second of not singing. We're reviewing the movies, having a good time, when out of no where, comes a raving lunatic in a camo outfit, threatening us if we don't stop talking. Just your everyday midnight crazies at the train station. We made it home safely, and the singing due was with us all the way. Last we saw/heard from him, we was still going strong.

It was decided on the train station platform, to the background singing of the idiot music man and the ranting of camo man, that Sheila would NEVER again be allowed to select which movies we'll go to see.

I slept in today, cause I didn't get home til a little after midnight. I'm too old for this I guess, cause I didn't go to golf this evening. Well, that's mainly because it's sooooo windy.

Later.....