HIGHLIGHTS:
Nearly all of the films (exceptions being The Troll Hunter and The Son of No One) had a representative from the movie conduct a Q&A afterwards. As annoying as it can be to listen to audience members struggle through a painfully awkard question (real example: "Is it harder to get good actors for a comedic movie or for a drama?") each director/producer/editor handling the session took it all in stride, providing thoughtful answers and insight into the filmmaking process.
Mike Cahill
I especially enjoyed listening to Mike Cahill, director of Another Earth. I liked the movie anyway and Cahill's happy-go-lucky persona completely won me over. He was so friendly and completely invested in the audience's response to the movie; he greeted each person who asked a question with a genuine "Hey, how are you?" and gave the impression that there was no other place he would rather be than at that theater discussing his project. Very cool.
Morgan Spurlock, director
The representative from Morgan Spurlock's documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold actually turned out to be the editor, which was of special interest to Steve, of course. The editor had the daunting task of whittling over 400 hours of footage down to 90 minutes, a feat he accomplished admirably. This doc was definitely the most consistently entertaining of the movies we saw; I laughed out loud several times and was captivated from start to finish by Morgan's considerable moxy (he interviews everyone from Donald Trump to Noam Chomsky (!) to Ralph Nader to Brett Ratner) and general sense of humor. Morgan manages to avoid melodramatic heavy-handedness (e.g. "Advertising is a mind-numbing plague on society that must be eliminated!") while still poking fun at himself and maintaining a smart, insightful narrative flow. Mindful-playful, indeed.
Lastly, and perhaps most pathetically, was the Incident of the Drunk Girl. During the screening for The Son of No One, a girl (age unknown) and her (presumably) boyfriend walk in and sit in the row across the aisle from me and Steve. I can hear her mumbling (and occasionally shouting) incoherent things at the movie, and it gets to the point where her boyfriend decides things are getting a little out of hand and tries to escort her to the nearest exit. Which would be fine, of course, if Drunk Girl could walk. After a few painful attempts to get out of her chair she resorts to stumbling on all fours across the floor, face-planting it a couple times in the process. Two security guards, three ushers, and one wheelchair later, she is finally escorted from the auditorium, effectively ending the most interesting part of the movie. Ironically, this was the one screening where Steve and I decided to sit near the front instead of in the balcony, where we would have missed the whole episode. Life is full of tender mercies.
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