Cinequest 2009: Opening Night

Let’s see how far I get since I’m tirrrrrred.
Took Catalina downtown with me to pick up my passes and the kids’ tickets before the film. Went to the Hotel Montgomery to get my pass and right away found Jason and Christopher and… Cullen Hoback! Surprise! I had heard he was in SF last week and asked him to come to CQ – I don’t know if he planned to come anyway, but he’s a great filmmaker and I’m happy to see him around. Hopefully next year he’ll show up with another movie.

Took Catalina to Asqew Grill, my favorite place to eat when I’m downtown and then we were in line for the 7pm movie by 5:50pm. We were like tenth in line, but John arrived 45 minutes later after they had let everyone into the lobby. GRRRRRR teenage boys. So we were standing in line at the interior door while the poor Cinequest people were trying to control the crowd entering the theater – and this HORRIBLE WOMAN behind me starts YELLING that she wants in, that she saw other people going in so why couldn’t she, and just kept arguing and YELLING at the poor volunteer. Meanwhile she inches herself closer and closer until she’s completely bypassed me and four other people. CUTTER. She yelled and harangued and wouldn’t shut up for ten minutes, I kid you not. Her husband stood there smiling. If you are that woman, and you are reading this: YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. GAHH. Regretfully, I didn’t think to take her picture.

We got into the theater finally, and were off to the side but the California Theater has wonderful seating everywhere.

I think I’ll review the movie tomorrow, as I’m tired and didn’t LOVE the movie, but don’t want my exhaustion to make the review even worse. It wasn’t a bad movie, it just wasn’t that great. Oh, but I have to say this: Jane Seymour had a part in it and she prominently wore this damn necklace. Way to completely distract the audience and take them out of the film with your too-obvious product placement. I rated it a 3 but Catalina gave it a 5. John didn’t vote but said he liked it. I’ll review tomorrow.

So then we went to the after party, and it was in a new location this year – I’m really disappointed. In years past they had held it at the Hotel Montgomery, and it was always packed so full you couldn’t move. But last year was a lovely evening and we got to hang out on the hotel patio and it was the best party ever (the pink vodka didn’t hurt either). There was room to move around and room to sit and hang out. But this year they moved it to a couple restaurants/bars down the street, possibly to accommodate a larger crowd – but it was JAM PACKED when we got there, and we were there before half the crowd got there. There was a band and alcohol and hor d’oeuvres, but Catalina was sad that the chocolate fountain was gone. The main problem was it was just too packed. It was a warehouse packed with people. Catalina took a pic with Nathan Louie and we all just decided to leave. We were sad that we didn’t stay at the party, but I can’t hang out like that with two underage kids in tow.

Did we all have fun? YES. Are we tired? YES.

See ya at the movies.