Actually, it was pretty awesome. Wound up 2008 12/28 with an evening at the Orpheum, a posh gilt-edged, velvet-draped, 'thirties movie palace converted to a home for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra doing Bugs Bunny On Broadway, an evening of classic cartoons with accompaniment from the VSO because not only did Chuck Jones et al use a lot of classical and opera in their work, they also had original scores. It was quite simply awesome. I know I've used the phrase "toe-curling delight" a lot on this blog, but this just out-squee-ed them all. The audience was about 99% adults, some small kids [who this was obviously a big night out for, and were *amazingly* well-behaved]. So, the VSO played with a 15' x 15' screen right above them with all the great musical cartoons - "Kiww the wabbit! Kiww the wabbit!", Michigan J. Frog, the Rabbit of Seville - I'm so glad I didn't wear mascara because I laughed so hard I cried. And having the event at the Orpheum was doubly cool because this really was a theatre where back in the thirties to the sixties, you would have been able to see these cartoons, with a newsreel, an action serial and your movie. And with audience reaction, something really lacking from all those 6:00 am wakeups as a kid, trying to watch Merrie Melodies or Funorama quietly while fishing through the Honeycombs cereal box for whatever piece of crap toy was on offer at the time.
Other highlights from 2008? A couple standouts from September/October's film festival.
I'm really looking forward to the DVD release of Let The Right One In on March 10th/09; I find myself rereading the book to recapture the bits from the film I enjoyed so much, I'd honestly recommend you see the movie first, if there are any arty-type movie rental places near you that might carry festival fare.
The festival was so much fun; besides LTROI, I saw a dozen films, among them [REC] the Spanish original that Quarantine was based on [if you call a shot-for-shot remake "based on"] - [REC] appeared at the festival at the same time Quarantine was in theatres, and how could I turn down my only chance to see the original on the big screen?]. I cannot remember the last time I went to a scary movie and actually screamed - but my friend & upstairs neighbor Miss M assures me I was, in fact, screaming. Gaah! Zombie outbreak in an apartment building, with joggly Blair Witch-style camerawork, and these are not your slow-moving, bumping-up against-the wall, "Braaaaaaainnss..." zombies, no. They are frisky, and pissed off, and could probably outrun Ben Johnson. So of course "How zombie proof is your apartment?" has become the subject of much debate between me and my neighbours. It is agreed we need to make friends with the people in the penthouse suite pronto, because the elevator goes all the way up only with a special key, so it might not be a bad idea to show up with a bottle of wine NOW, just in case. However, the weird noises in [REC] *were* coming from the upstairs apartment [and thank you, Quarantine for ruining the final, night-vision shot of [REC] with your frigging trailer].
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