Jason goes to SFIFF--Day 5

Back to the normal weekday grind. Working my regular job (that has nothing to do with movies) and zipping up to the city for a couple of movies.

First up, a charming and hilarious German comedy SOUL KITCHEN. Zinos is a Greek-German who owns and operates the greasy low-class titular restaurant in what appears to be an abandoned factory. He's a nice guy, but things don't generally turn his way. His girlfriend's going to Shanghai for her job. His restaurant is a dump that's not up to code. He owes back taxes. Oh yeah, and his jailbird brother is out on parole and needs a job. Add to that a new gourmet chef "The Traveler" who's brilliant but volatile, an old school chum who wants to steal the restaurant out from under him and sell it to a developer (Udo Kier in a cameo). But just when things are getting to be too much, the new chef becomes a hit and his little greasy pub becomes the hottest spot in town. They finally have money to fix up the kitchen, pay off his taxes, and clean the place up. But he's still got that issue of the girlfriend in Shanghai, so now that he has the money he buys a ticket and leaves his brother in control of the restaurant. Both turn out to be bad ideas, but seeing this movie was not.

So then I went back to the festival lounge for more than a few beers in order to get ready for A DRUNKEN EVENING WITH DEREK WATERS AND WOLPHIN. Lots of funny shorts that originally played online, including of course some of the Drunk History series (specifically: the Frederick Douglas one starring Don Cheadle and Will Ferrel, the Nikola Tesla one starring John C. Reilly and Crispin Glover, and the Oney Judge one). Also some other shorts, like Bob Odenkirk as Riff Sweetwater talking about "street surfboarding" or Derek and Simon (Helberg, from "The Big Bang Theory") in THE PITY CARD, about taking a girlfriend to the Holocaust Museum on a date (worst part, she hadn't heard of the Holocaust).

In between shorts, Derek Waters and Wolphin editor Brent Hoff came out on stage, did little bits (Derek did the opening dance from "Blossom") and generally got drunker and drunker as the night went on. That was the only problem. The balcony had drinks (you get there through a bar in the theater) but down in front row center I was sobering up. Although I started with a good drunk going on, by the end of the night I was losing my buzz. I should have known to schedule enough time to go to a convenience store to get some drinks to smuggle in. It's not like I've never done that before...in that very theater...as a previous SFIFF.

Anyway that was Monday.

Total Running Time: 169 Minutes

My Total Minutes: 182,657