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Everybody should go to a film festival when they get the chance.
Even the fans of big-budget shoot-'em-ups and special effects bonanzas should do the festival thing, to see how a great story is told without a $200 million budget, a bank of computers that could land a probe on Mars and two or three of Hollywood's most marketable stars (who, incidentally, eat up a huge chunk of that $200 million before a single frame has been shot).
When I lived and worked in King County, I would attend the Seattle International Film Festival; not as an expert, or as a journalist, just as a guy who loved all kinds of movies, and had a strong enough constitution and a strong enough gluteus maximus to sit through four of them, end to end, with only a quick stop at Dick's Drive-In or Tacos Guaymas preventing me from a 100 percent popcorn diet.
When I was working a swing shift, it was possible to zip up from Kent and catch a midnight movie in the multiplex above the Broadway Market where else could you see a gem like Lobster Man From Mars on the big screen?
SIFF is difficult for me to manage any more, under lock and key here at The Sungeon as I am most of the time. But I've become a habitue of the Port Townsend Film Festival in recent years, and find it a more than adequate...