TIPS FOR SURVIVING THE FESTIVAL:
- Try to eat something that doesn’t come in a bucket with fake butter.
- Plan everything including your breaks.
- Be flexible and know that your plans are probably going to change.
- It’s okay to skip a block and get a real meal or whatever.
- Talk to people even if you don’t normally feel comfortable talking to strangers.
- Anybody wearing a festival badge is someone you have a lot in common with.
TO EAT OR NOT TO EAT DURING THE FESTIVAL:
- There is a Ralph’s grocery store about a ten-minute walk away, and I’m in on Wednesday, so I will try to make it there to pick up things like fruit and Lunchables/sandwich in a bag things, that I can keep in the hotel fridge and throw in my bag to eat later in the day.
- I look for blocks where I have an extra fifteen minutes to pick up something quick on the run.
- If I get a real break, Musso and Frank’s is great. 25 Degrees at the Roosevelt is good. I love their Guinness milk shake. I’ve been wanting to try Pig and Whistle. Also my daughter just decided she likes sushi, so we may go to the sushi place in the Hollywood Highland mall.
TOP 3 “CAN’T MISS” EVENTS OF THIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL:
- Beyond the Mouse. I love old cartoons and the Special Presentations at TCMFF are really great.
- Harold and Maude. My daughter is with me, and I know she will love it. I love being able to share things like that with her.
- Speedy. Live music on a silent movie is always a treat, and I hear that the Alloy Orchestra is awesome. That’s one my daughter is looking forward to as well.
FAVORITE FESTIVAL MEMORY:
- “My favorite festival memory is from 2014, something that happened in the Blazing Saddles screening. A lot of times at TCMFF, the audience will applaud the stars when they first appear on screen. At the end of the movie, Harvey Korman grabs a cab and tells the driver to take him off this picture. He ends up at Grauman’s Chinese Theater to watch the end of the movie. All at once the audience realized that he was sitting in the same theater that we were in right at that moment, so everybody started applauding the theater.”
WHEN DID YOU DISCOVER YOUR LOVE OF FILM?
- “As a kid, we only had three or four channels on TV, so a lot of the time you watched old movies because that was what was on. It probably crystalized when I was in a college film class and saw Double Indemnity. Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, who I knew only as the perfect American TV mother and father figures, here they were 20 years younger and hotter, plotting to kill her husband for the insurance money. Blew me away. I like most good films. If I have to pick a period/genre, I would say film noir, suspense, and science fiction.”
ADVICE TO A FESTIVAL FIRST TIMER:
- “I did a TCMFF Survival Guide (http://chrissturhann.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-tcmff-survival-guide-strikes-back.html) that has everything I could possibly think of. The short answer would be if there is something you really really want to see, get there extra early. Also if you miss something you were planning on, roll with it and see if there is something else you could catch. Sometimes the things you weren’t planning to go to turn out to be your favorites of the festival.”
THE RETRO SET WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! WE’LL BE ROAMING THE FESTIVAL, LOOKING FOR FOLKS JUST LIKE YOU TO TELL US ABOUT YOUR PAST AND CURRENT FESTIVAL EXPERIENCES! FIND US @the_retro_set on Twitter! And remember: #StayClassic and #LetsMovie
Chris, I was there for that Blazing Saddles moment, just as you described. And you are SO right. It was utter joy, spontaneously shared moment, in a such a historically significant/coincidental way… that could only be truly appreciated by Old Movie Weirdos like us TCMFF attendees.