AIFF Martini Matinee - it didn't work for me

The phone call lasted longer than I expected so I decided rather than rush around, I'd take my time and just go to the Martini Matinee. I'd never been to the Anchor Pub before. According to someone there, it used to be a bank. It's very NOT Anchorage. Lots of little leather couches and low coffee tables. Lots of martinis. Three or four flat screens on different walls. It had a nice atmosphere for a fancy bar, but I had to sit at a bad angle to see the screen. It was like being in a bar with music, but people are talking during the sets. Only the movies were the sets. A friend - who turned out to be the designated MC for the night - said there were seats under the big screen further 'inside' the place. I moved to a more comfortable seat, but the opening to the kitchen was there and looking toward the screen I also looked toward this brightly lit hallway.

All in all it was not a great venue and I left at intermission while they were having a movie trivia contest. But there were a couple shorts I'd like to mention.



I Have Seen the Future was a very classy animated tennis game in shades of green and yellow. The camera swept around, the tennis court warped, the main tennis player had an interesting face - not some standard look - and it all worked well with the song by the Canadian singer Chris Demeanor. (Who could forget a name like that?) An original look for the whole film(at least for me) and it all fit together nicely.

Before Dawn is a haunting, beautifully made Hungarian film [Did you read this far Ropi?] in early morning black and white. The only sound, besides all the people talking and the rattle of dishes in the Anchor Pub, was a large truck driving on a one lane work road in the middle of wheat? fields. The fields were beautiful abstract patterns in the predawn light. It stops. Quiet again. Even the room was quiet now. The horn is blasted. Rustling in the fields as bodies slip out and into the truck. Engine starts. Drives away. Then flashing lights and helicopters as the people sneaking into the country are rounded up by Hungarian(?) version of INS. It all worked well together - the darkness, patterns of wheat and roads, the story. Probably the best film of the night - at least the ones before I left. (There were others on the schedule I'd seen earlier at the animation night. I haven't written about that. All were technically well done, but few had content to match the technique. My favorite from that night was Process Enacted. which I can't quite describe. Each frame becomes like a polaroid picture in the pile of pictures that make up the movie, all very cleverly done.)

Shuteye Hotel (you can even see a snippet at the link) is a slick little dark mystery animation in seven minutes. As I write this I realize that shut eye may have more than one meaning. Was that an eye? Maybe not.

It was an attempt to have a different kind of venue - smaller and cozier - but for me it didn't work. Too much distraction from the main attraction - the films. Oh, and when I hit the power button on my digital camera I realized the battery was still in the charger at home.