In Need of Recovery

Two weeks of not-enough-sleep, far-too-much-excitement, and unbelievably-constant-activity caught up with me yesterday as I schlepped through the day on auto-pilot. I was pretty sure people at work noticed me dozing, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to make it home in one piece. The sad part is that I STILL didn't go to bed early last night. But somehow my energy returned today. I'll have to enjoy it while it lasts...

Another festival come and gone. Highlights? Well, this year it was obvious. But in terms of the films, I have to say that "The Fall" was the most surprising and definitely my favourite. I didn't plan on seeing this one, I just got the chance during one of my theatre shifts. The only person I recognized was the lead character, played by Lee Pace, who was on the series "Wonderfalls", which I loved and as such was inevitably cancelled. It's set in the 1920s, where a movie stuntman falls off a horse and loses the use of his legs. His depression sets in, and he cons a young Eastern European girl with a broken arm to steal some morphine for him. In return, he tells her a story about five heroes who set out together to kill an evil governor. The film was shot in 23 countries and the story has a Wizard of Oz quality, where people from the real world show up in the fantasy world. Very cool cinematography, and the little girl completely steals the show (she kind of looks like Hallie Eisenberg and reminds me of Jonathan Lipnicki but is far less annoying). The rest of the films I saw ("The Last Kiss", "Penelope", "Starter for Ten", and "Paris, je t'aime") all tie for runner-up. To be honest, I loved all of them pretty equally. I kept it light this year, nothing too dark or heavy. That's part of the reason why I chose not to see "The Last King of Scotland" despite all the good things I heard about it and the fact that my favourite actor was in it. African dictators? People getting killed? Sorry, I'll save that for another day.

I was fortunate enough to see "Paris, je t'aime" with my friend who accompanied me in Paris. Seeing all the familiar arrondissements in the 18 short films brought it all back. Man, I miss Paris. But that cemetary still creeps me out. And now I'll always picture Oscar Wilde popping up out of nowhere with relationship advice.

And finally, guess what! It would appear that "Haven" is being released in selected cities in the US. I saw Orlando Bloom on a talk show last week and wondered, what's he doing there? I then discovered that he's promoting a film that I saw at the festival two years ago. I guess some distribution deals take longer than others. If it ends up showing somewhere in Toronto, I would recommend it to you. Like I said in my blog, it's Orlando in a non-pretty-boy role, and the large ensemble cast is quite good. Remember, the jerk chicken is excellent.

"If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?"

You Are My Sunshine

I am a friggin' starstruck lunatic.

I'm sitting here, still trying to figure out why I'm going out of my mind after meeting the ONE actor at the entire film festival that I really wanted to meet. Okay, it wasn't a "meeting" per se, more like a very brief exchange of slightly coherent words that occurred while he wasn't even looking in my direction. And even now, hours later, I can tell that I'm going to continue to be weirdly excited for days on end.

So I won't go into the whole story, because it's just too long and I'll probably start giggling again (and I just stopped, so I really don't want to get back into that). I'll sort of skip to the end, where I see him leaving in a black SUV and I actually catch myself waving at him like an idiot. I decided to go eat a quick dinner at one of my favourite Thai restaurants a couple of blocks away from the theatre. There I was, sitting by myself in a cafeteria-style eatery, surrounded by dozens of really loud people enjoying their meals and each other's company, and I evaluated my current emotional state. I started off by thinking, what the hell is wrong with me? I was reduced to this quivering, hyperventilating little girl simply by having a two-sentence conversation with a guy I don't know beyond what's written on his fan sites and other online entertainment resources. He is a person, just like I am a person and everyone in the restaurant is a person. How...or why...are we like this when it comes to well-known people? Is it a cultural-societal thing? Or are we genetically predisposed to madness when we come into contact with people we know only through a public medium and not even on a remotely personal level?

I can't lecture anyone about this, since I am clearly inflicted with the same tendency to react strongly towards any and all famous people. I just wish I could control it a little better. Although I am sort of proud of the way I held it together when I was standing six inches away from him. I was so dangerously close to losing it while he was signing my ticket stub. That would have been horrible.

Oh yes, and I've learned something about myself that I would like to share with the rest of the world. Ready? Here it is:

I am a complete sucker for all British accents.

And if you're wondering about the title of the blog, it's a reference to Penelope, one of the three films my favourite actor is starring in at the film festival. As far as I know, right now only one of my loyal readers knows what it means. The rest will just have to watch the movie.

(How's that for subtle marketing?)

"Why'd you have to be so cute? It's impossible to ignore you"