Feb 12, 2006
Hoffman, Panels, & Fan Mail

Last night we received the following email for one of our dedicated subscribers, we’ll call him Jim (his real name).

Hey Ed,

Have you seen any *good* films? You seem to go for guaranteed stinkers like Karla. I've seen all 5 of the Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Film. I'm up to a total of 48 films, and will break 50 on Sunday. Some of the good films I've seen recently, in addition to those Oscar nominees are Rain in a Dry Land, Transamerica (with a great Q&A with Felicity Huffman), Believe in Me, We the People, Sequins, Shadow Boxer (Cuba Gooding was there for Q&A), When the Sea Rises, Touch of Spice, ...

See you around,
Jim

Yes Jim, we have seen some good films - but you are correct, we have also seen quite a few not-so-good films as well. You see, it’s not always coffee and palm trees being a member of the dedicated staff of edhat.com. Aside from the fact that our boss, Ed, is as crazy as an AYSO soccer fan, we don’t always get the choice assignments (remember the toilets?). We had all the passes. We could have gone to 50 films in 11 days, like you. We could have stood on the red carpet and watched the stars go past. We could have stayed late at all the parties drinking free booze until closing. We could have lounged around the hotel lobby submerged into the depths of comfy couches, watching the people come and go (talking of Michelangelo). We could have used our connections to get close to the celebrities to tell them how great we think they are.

We could have. But we didn’t.

Instead, we took pictures of the pressroom food. We went to local surfing movies, dirt bike movies, watched punk rock bands, carried cameras in hands that should have held drinks, saw openings of stinkers, and films that were all the rage, but really aren’t that good. We hung out in front of the Hotel waiting for people to show up to stand on our little piece of carpet. We also spent a lot of time working on our web site, fiddling with HTML, cropping pictures, and making sure all the links work.

In other words, we spent a lot of time being Edhat, which, believe it or not, is actually quite fun.

Every once in a while we would find ourselves with a free block of time, and we would see whatever was playing. One of our film selection criteria was to pick films that wouldn’t be coming to the Riviera this year, far riskier choices, but choices that maximize the opportunity offered by the festival to see things that you might not otherwise get a chance to see. We did see Duck Season and C.R.A.Z.Y., which were good films. And some of our interchangeable passes ended up around the necks of people seeing Tsotsi, Joyeux Noel, and Planet Ibsen.

Yesterday, Ed was out of town counting cars on the 91 freeway in LA, but the dedicated staff was hard at work covering the producer’s panel, the writer’s panel, and the Philip Seymour Hoffman awards.

Sorry, but we don't have any pictures from the Hoffman party or from the press room (food).

One last thing – tonight is Festival’s closing ceremonies. There will be an Edhat contest on Monday, and things in our little blue town by the big blue sea will be returning to normal. We would like to get your feedback on our Festival coverage. Please go to our festival feedback page and tell us what you thought of the last 11 days of Edhat.

Okay – one more last thing. We would also like to sincerely and humbly thank the very distinguished and talented group of writers who so generously gave their time and talent to covering all of the events this past week. Thank you.

Today's Film Festival articles: