Sometimes you just have to stand
Here’s a closer look at Saturday’s Adirondack Film Festival offerings
By Ken Tingley
It doesn’t happen often, but every once in awhile you get one of those magical movie moments that has nothing to do with what is happening on the screen; where the audience becomes part of the experience.
That happened Friday afternoon at the Wood Theater.
David Straithairn had just finished his dazzling tour-de-force as Holocaust survivor Jan Karski in the stage-to-screen production “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski.” The credits had just begun to roll.
Holocaust dramas still have the power to touch deep into our souls.
But no matter how affected we might be, it just doesn’t seem right to applaud.
Instead, a man sitting at the center of the theater stood up.
Did he just need to stretch his legs?
Then a woman next to him stood up.
And then another person to the right. And an entire row stood up. Slowly, like dominoes one after another, audience members stood up in silence. Perhaps it was in appreciation of Straithairn’s performance, or the powerful screenplay of Clark Young and Derek Goldman, or the reality that millions could have been saved.
“Great crimes start with little things,” Karski says in the final message. Perhaps, that is what everyone was thinking about.
Wondering what they would have done.
Wondering if they were doing enough now.
There was more than 25 standing when the credits finished rolling, and then silently, slowly we all filed out of the theater.
Talking Lyme
Approximately 50 people turned out to see the Lyme Disease documentary “The Quiet Epidemic” on Friday afternoon and then stayed to hear directors Lindsay Keys, Winslow Crane-Murdoch and SUNY Adirondack microbiologist Holly Ahern talk about the movie and the challenges we face in diagnosing and treating the disease.
If you missed the movie, you will have other chances.
It was at the Adirondack Film Festival because it was important for this community to see this movie, to digest the information it revealed.
Lyme Disease is around the region and the tick season is getting longer and the problem greater.
We are all at risk.
Best Bets for Saturday
The Adirondack Film Festival has something special for you on Saturday if you are willing to make the time investment.
In the early days of cinema, you didn’t just go to the theater to see a movie, you saw a double feature, a cartoon, a newsreel and maybe even a couple of shorts.
For most of us, we no longer have the attention span or the time to spend an entire afternoon at the movies, not to mention the cost of snacks. But you may want to give that some consideration today.
The Adirondack Film Festival has a collection of four feature films showing that is worth your time and energy and will leave you in deep discussion about movies for the rest of the weekend.
Check out these possibilities.
Creature Feature
First up Saturday is an old-fashioned creature feature like we used to see with classics like “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
“The Last Frankenstein” leads off at 12:30 p.m. at the Crandall Library as the latest descendent of the famed monster doctor faces a midlife crisis that leads him back to his the family business of finding the secret to immortality.
It is crazy, fun and well done. You don’t have to be a sci-if fan to like this one.
It is followed up at 2:45 p.m at the Wood Theater with “Cryptid.”
When a small town in Maine is stalked by a mysterious animal that rips its residents apart, a free lance journalist who can’t keep his job at the local newspaper takes on the case hoping to save his job.
There is a little of “Jaws” in this one. Queensbury’s own Nick Baroudi, who has appeared at the Adirondack Theater Festival, has a starring turn in this well-done monster movie. It will keep you on the edge of your seat and looking around the corner when you leave the theater.
You’ve got to read it
“Sweet Disaster” is a delightful subtitled German movie that you won’t be able to stop watching, or reading.
Frida’s unexpected pregnancy coincides with her airline pilot partner breaking up with her. But this movie is not about melodrama. Frida begins a quest to get her ex back which makes for a fun romp - drones are part of the formula - that will leave you smiling and wanting to read more and more and more. Get your reading glasses on and go see it at 3 p.m. at Crandall Library. The only problem is you can’t see “Cryptid” if you see this. You will have to choose.
There There
The film festival concludes with perhaps the most thought-provoking of all the movies and the one with the most star power.
“There There” includes Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore), Lili Taylor (Mystic Pizza, Say Anthing) and Molly Gordon (Booksmart) in a series of vignettes which interlock in the type of circular script writing that made Tarantino a name in Pulp Fiction.
Each of the stories is compelling and all of the performances are top rate.
And when you are done, you will be left debating what you just saw and that’s what the best movies do.
Skidmore connection
If you are really ambitious and want to check out the Adirondack shorts at 1 p.m., there is a short documentary by Kathryn Brodie of Skidmore College that chronicles the creation and story of Pitney Meadows Community Farm. Even though I was editor of the Glens Falls newspaper for more than 20 years I had never heard the story Pitney Meadows, a female run, community supported and charitable operation. It is nice to see a local story represented here.
I learned a lot.
Fathers and Sons
In the Adirondack regional films category showing at 1 p.m. at the Wood Theater, “The Long Goodbye” is a video love letter between fathers and sons that explores what happens when the son grows up and how fathers deal with it. In this case, the Vermont son moves to New York City.
If you are a father, this is a must see, but more importantly, you should bring your son.
Lasting impression
Also in the Adirondack category, a widow devastated by her husband’s murder desperately seeks closure in the short “A Lasting First Impression” that surprises and shocks with its twists and turns.
