Have fun sorting through all this….

The bands are only listed at this point, but the schedule for films is available.

So as I mentioned in the pre-”Cloverfield” post, I suggested a song title for Matt the Electrician and Southpaw Jones: Dean’s List. And I was able to return to Flipnotics North to see the results on the following Thursday (January 24). Southpaw’s was a bit, um, well, but Matt’s was fun, and now you can enjoy it on youtube. Aren’t you lucky? It’s from a subsequent performance at Saxon, which I missed, but I’ve tracked it down for you. Just for you, for no one else, so please click through, ok? Once there, you can find some other performances by Matt and by Bob Schneider from January 28, during AJFF when I was seeing the documentary about Jewish comediennes.

It seems like it was a different set of musicians playing with Bob that night, but I’ve enjoyed the shows at Saxon a couple of Mondays in February. As I mentioned in another previous post, Oliver Steck is playing with Bob on Mondays now, and Danny Levin has also been on stage, doing an excellent job with the cello and fiddle. For $10 cover plus a few bucks for Matt’s folks (who don’t get a cut of the cover), Mondays are easily the best value for a night of fine musical entertainment. (Fun things to know and tell: You have to be 21 to get in, and there’s nothing to eat unless you have Papa John’s deliver.)

On the other hand, Thursdays at Flips North aren’t too shabby, either. It’s all ages with no cover, but you should always take that tip jar seriously, folks!

Friday night after Shabbat services at Kol haLev, I saw “In Bruges,” which turned out to be much better than I expected–pushing the boundaries of movieness into filmdom. Tight story, interesting characters, lovely scenery, a few surprises, nothing superfluous. Other people said it’s gory, but maybe multiple viewings of “No Country for Old Men” has inured me to such things.

On Sunday, I saw “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” which turned out to be pretty much as I expected, but perhaps not quite as upbeat as I’d been led to believe. Good thing I was in a good mood! Interesting camera work to give you the author’s point of view. Spelling in a different language was difficult to fake in the subtitles, which made me wish for dubbing or something. I only barely know any French, but found myself trying to beat the subtitles and guess what was really being spelled out.

“Making Trouble” was interesting more than funny. “West Bank Story” is just plain funny.

Sadly, I have to report that the venue for on-campus screenings was sub-optimal. It was in a lecture hall in Garrison with streetlights shining in through exterior window. Since it’s a lecture hall, the show was projected on two screens, one on either side of the lectern, just like a PowerPoint presentation.

This is one case where I think you’d be better off seeing the material at home, so I skipped “Silver Jew” last night. That’s twice now. Someday, though, I’ll see it.

Since I’ve got other plans for tonight, I’ll miss seeing “Arranged” a second time, and I’m skipping Thursday’s offerings entirely. So that’s that, AJFF-wise!

Someone who read about my New Year’s Eve and how much I enjoyed Oliver Steck sent me a list of up-coming dates:

Every Monday with Bob at Saxon

Every Thursday (except VD and 2/21) 10:30pm at Flipnotics with Aunt Ruby’s Sweet Jazz Babies (traditional jazz)

Matt the Electrician has returned to Mondays at Saxon as well, making Mondays at the Saxon Pub your best bet for regular musical entertainment.

“Jellyfish” had some interesting moments, but didn’t really hang together. The surreal bits, the coincidences, the acting, the characters–all good. It’s a shame that the plot didn’t hold them together better, although I’m not sure whether it was the writing or the editing that could have made the difference.

“Sixty Six” is one of those gems that you go to film festivals to have the chance to see. Everything perfect, nothing wasted, totally charming. I can’t recommend it highly enough; I don’t know how you’ll find it, but do keep an eye out.

It’ll be the comedy choices tonight for me!

complete AJFF schedule

It’s tragic that “Steal a Pencil for Me” is only showing at noon on Wednesday. It was one of my favorites during SxSW 2007.

my AJFF schedule

• “Jellyfish” (9:30 Saturday, so after ice skating) http://www.wejew.com/media/1005/Jellyfish_Movie_Trailer/
• “Sixty-Six” (2:30 Sunday, if brunch doesn’t go too long) http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/trailers/sixtysix_trailer_small.htm
• “My Father, My Lord” (7pm Monday @ Arbor) no trailer available, has won lots of awards, sounds intense
  or
  “Making Trouble” (7pm Monday @ UT) Jewish comediennes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6qnpWNO8GI
• “Three Mothers” (7pm Tuesday @ Arbor) http://www.3mothers.co.il/default_en.html, but I hope the movies has subtitles, because the trailer sure doesn’t.
  or
  “Silver Jew” (7pm Tuesday @ UT) This one got good buzz during SxSW 2007, but I missed it.

Wednesday night, I have an invitation to the 30th anniversary party for the Omelettry, so I won’t be seeing “Arranged” again. I did see it during SxSW 2007, and strongly recommend it.

Thursday night sounds a bit grim. We’ll see.

So there’s still no queue at Alamo Village. I’m able to get a parking spot right at the head of where my show’s queue will begin, and I see others in cars waiting to see if anyone will get the line started. I pull out an uncompleted sudoku and hope that we can all stay in our cars for a good while longer. But, alas, a couple gets out of the next CR-V over and starts the line, even after I plead with them not to. So they say I can sit in the car and wait and they will let me come in with them, which I take them up on, until I see that there are a couple dozen people lined up, so I join the queue. Most of the folks are not dressed anymore warmly for standing in line than I was for sitting in an office, so I almost feel like peeling off layers and sharing, but I’m only so kind.

The five people I end up chatting with are very fun, and we have a lot in common in terms of movies. Except that they know why too much about video games and movies based on video games, and they are all 20-30 years younger than me. But anyway, it’s a good group to stand with, as everyone is intelligent, able to contribute to conversation, and adverse to spoilers. (I hated having to put my hands over my ears while being queued up for the last Harry Potter book.)

And then the doors open about 15 minutes before show time, and our group gets the center seats in the center row, and I get an escape seat (near the break between the tables). Perfect. The staff is great, very efficient; beer arrives promptly, and chicken fingers not too much later. Yes, midnight is an odd time to have chicken fingers, but I love their chicken fingers, so I skipped dinner so I’d be hungry for them.

The pre-show selections are not great: some basic Godzilla with some inexplicable clips of a scene from a B movie of a woman dancing while an escaped mental patient watches and then shoots her. Huh?

Then the previews. I didn’t know I was about to get a Star Trek preview, so I wasn’t sure what was happening after I saw the Bad Robot logo. It sure wasn’t “Cloverfield” but what the heck was it? And then we start catching on, and people are cheering and rising up out of their seats. So exciting!

“Cloverfield”? Even what I heard on NPR and read in the paper the next day would have been enough to dull the experience, so if you’ve googled and found this, just knock it off and go see the movie. I’m the biggest ‘fraidy cat in the world and I have serious motion sickness, but I was fine and well able to sleep afterwards. There’s plenty of suspense and surprise during the movie, so it’s well worth seeing. It’s not a Great Film, but it’s a Fun Movie. See it on the big screen and with a big audience. The crowd really helps in movies like this!

So Matt the Electrician and Southpaw Jones are already performing when I get to Flipnotics North, but I get a mocha (one shot regular so I can stay up until 2am, one shot decaf so I’m not up forever) and still find a seat up front. Fortunately, the song title challenge songs are still to come, and one of the previous week’s song title songs returns (MtE’s Obama song, which is now stuck in my brain).

Did you realize that the upcoming February has five Fridays? That was part of the challenge thrown out last week, which also somehow got some rainwater thrown in, perhaps due to the bottled water. So it was that we had two songs called “Five Fridays in February Rainwater Green Blues.” Or something like that. It’s obviously too long for a proper title.

But the songs were fine and I was ready to propose the next week’s: the Dean’s list. But as I didn’t make it clear that it was related to The Child, it got interpreted as having something to do with Howard, so I had to issue a stern injunction against smart remarks about the scream. Southpaw said he sympathized because he understands the damage a PA system can do. But I still have to return to hear it, because the only other time that my suggestion was accepted (years ago–something about chicken pox), I was unable to return for the results.

So the show is over and it’s 10pm-ish, and I head back to Alamo Village, hoping that I don’t find too many people waiting to get in.