Film Festival Cometh

Traverse City is relatively new to the film festival scene. I think this is the 6th or 7th one that we have done. Michael Moore, instrumental in refurbishing our old State Theater, started it and it's been a huge deal. Like most things in our area it started out as a way for us locals to celebrate something that we love. Cherry Festival was to celebrate the completion of the harverst for most of the 87 years that we've had it. And the film festival was to celebrate the thing we love and where we love to watch it- Movies at the State. But you can't keep movies to yourself. And you can not keep a gorgeous venue to yourself... it's just plain selfish. So the Film Festival going viral was bound to happen.

Now a lot of locals will say that they wish it would have stayed local, that they wish is would have taken longer for the world to find us and come in droves to suck up tickets so that it is harder for the "po' folk" to get there. But seriously.... if that is what we wanted we should have gotten behind restoring the theater back in the 80s before it sat vacant for 20 years. That's one of the funny things about our locals... Bitch about an eyesore but offer no constructive ideas about what to do with it. Then bitch twice as hard when someone else takes care of it and makes it more than a  great place for offensive graffiti. There is just no pleasing the Old Garde sometimes.

Personally I find the best part of the Festival the Ginormous Screen on the Open Space. Three stories of Ty-fighters battling X-wings and the Death Star going kaplooey. Free movies at dusk. With the water behind it I am not all that thrilled when they show Jaws. And you can bet every hair on Cumberbatch's head I will be there when Into Darkness graces that big screen.

I'm not sure of the movies showing this year. I might want to see Across the Universe. Or Austenland. I don't know. I usually get stuck with night shifts since I am the single chick and everyone else comes first. I do know that there will be lots of activity in town and a handful of celebs and with that kind of pressure the carefree geek in the last post will want to hide.

Coming out of Introversion and stepping into the cold hard light of day is not easy. And no matter how often you succeed in being better than your limitations there will always be those days where you chant "trizzle trazzle trozzle trome" and thank God for solitude and move Introversion from the Limitation column to Crowning Glory. I am glad that I'm not scared of every shadow and that reveling in all those wonderfully geeky things that I love no longer feels like an act of heresy. And I hope for the painfully shy whose career paths have thrust them into a cutting spot light (Armitage, Cumberbatch et all) that it is less unnerving as time goes by. I do have to remember though that God made me introverted for a reason....

it is an early warning system for the sensitive that is more subtle than a 7 foot robot with flailing arms that screams out a warning every time the wind blows & thinks everyone's name is Will Robinson. Nothing like telling your enemies you are on to them. Subtlety Robot. Subtlety. Or is it decorum?

Anyway... if I get to brave the crowds I shall revel in all the fantasy that Hollywood can give me with people who share my passion for storytelling and fantasy, escapism and wonderment.