Thursday, June 2, 2016

Jason goes to SFIFF--Closing Night

Yay, finally I'm finishing SFIFF! And that final film was THE BANDIT, a funny, engaging documentary about Burt Reynolds, Hal Needham, and their iconic film, SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. But let's start with their friendship. Hal Needham was Burt's longtime stunt double, friend, and sometimes roommate. In many ways, Hal always wanted to be the star, and Burt wanted to be the stuntman--the ultimate in masculinity. So they got along great as a sort of mutual admiration society. The film rolls along with gusto exploring their friendship and the wacky hijinx making SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, starting with the original idea when they noticed the crew on GATOR were bringing in cases of Coor's beer to Georgia, which didn't have any. And taking the story all the way to the release, where Hollywood/New York critics hated it, but the intended southern outlaw audience loved it. Dammit, it's been so long since I've seen SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, I kinda want to see it again.

And then over to the party for a little snacks and a whole lot of booze, and finally...finally...SFIFF 2016 is in the books.

Running Time: 82 minutes
My Total Minutes: 429,174

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