The adventure of the film festival
Glens Falls has never looked better
The Front Page
Morning Update
Saturday, October 16, 2021
By Ken Tingley
Never has Glens Falls looked better than Friday evening.
Despite on and off showers, there was a steady flow of people downtown from restaurants to the theaters and the Civic Center. A ridiculously balmy 70-degree evening certainly added to the perfection.
The Adirondack Thunder were playing an exhibition hockey game and the Adirondack Film Festival was running movies nonstop all day long while people lingered in the sidewalk cafes.
The Park Theater looked dazzling as it prepared for more than 100 people for its evening showing of “Lie Hard.”
Written and starring Ian Niles - he has a show on Amazon Prime called Milleniums - Lie Hard has a familiar plot as a sad loser tries to impress his girlfriend’s wealthy parents by borrowing $4 million from the local mob boss to purchase a mansion. How he happens to know the local mob boss is not really any of our concern as the young loser’s lies makes things progressively worse.
This could have been a Ben Stiller movie. Imagine Kathy Bates as the tough mob boss and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as her muscle. Along the way, the loser enlists the services of two smarter-than-they-act shoplifters at the local all-night pharmacy because he is looking to buy power tools. Strangely, this is where the movie turns for the better. Imagine a young John Goodman and Kevin Hart as the shoplifters who deliver some of the best lines in the final act of the movie and help to make our hero’s life even worse.
The only problem is that none of those name actors are in the movie.
This madcap final act saves the film and most of those attending were laughing out loud in all the right spots.
After a rocky start, “Lie Hard” came together and most left the theater smiling after a long day of shorts at the film festival.
It’s part of the fun at any film festival. You never know exactly what you are going to get and that is part of the adventure. It’s the discovery.
Documentary day
This is documentary day for me with “Missing in Brooks County” playing at 11 a.m. and the hockey documentary “The Russian Five” after that at the Wood Theater to be followed by a panel discussion.
While spending a couple hours watching shorts at the Wood in the afternoon, there were about 25 people in attendance.
Media attention
My book “The Last American Editor” will be getting a double dose of media attention on Sunday.
I had a nice chat with Times-Union reporter Donna Liquori a couple weeks ago and her story will be in the Times-Union’s Sunday newspaper. Check that out if you get a chance.
It is online now.
Earlier this week, I did a radio interview with Mike Morgan at Adirondack Radio. Mike and I talked about my book and my newspaper career over 30 minutes Wednesday. It was a great conversation.
So if you are an early riser - the interview will be aired at 6 a.m. Sunday - check out one of the following stations: Froggy 100.3/Classic Hits Q 101.7/Big Country 107.1; 97.9 and 1230 FOX Sports Radio/Magic Oldies 96.9 and 1410.
The book is available at the following outlets: Chapman Museum, Glens Falls; The Silo, Warren County Historical Society and Ace Hardware in Queensbury; McKernon Gallery in Hudson Falls; Lake George Steamboat Company and Lake George Historical Society in Lake George; Maple Tree Books in Warrensburg; The Sagamore Resort and Trees Adirondack Gifts and Books in Bolton Landing; Battenkill Books in Cambridge; Northshire Books in Saratoga Springs; the Book House at Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany and the Friar Tuck Newsroom at the Albany/Rensselaer Train Station in Troy.
Putting in a plug here for local producers. Check out Odyssey, and remember that the Phelps brothers and the Ravacon collective showed the potential for local film in the area. For a time they had a late night tv show on TV 8. I mean, Banana Boy! That story in the Post Star led some of us to explore the idea of a local-only film/video event, People’s Pixel Project. This was at a time when downtown GF was littered with empty storefronts and people were literally chasing young people out of downtown. We counted 5 legit theater options downtown with at least 6 screens. It was beyond the scope of our abilities to put on a real film festival but we felt it could be done by the right people. It is incredibly gratifying to see the continued success of this festival. I am confident it will continue to build.