Friday, November 30, 2007

Found Footage With Deadly Olives

The venue and the food: Central Cinema is a movie theatre with a full restaurant menu and liquor license. Which is pretty frickin' cool.
But some of the food they offer is a little odd. The Pizza with slices of potato and some very pungent salty-spicy olives was okay - though I was ill-prepared for the potency of the olives. But I'm not sure what veggies were on our appetizer. It was dark, and I think I ate slices of pickled watermelon (seriously, both rind and flesh), sweet-potato hummus (might have had a touch of mango, too), meatless hash with lots of rosemary, and things that I thought were fava beans but Sarah identified as chestnuts. I think. Most of it didn't stay on the ...was that ultra-thin foccacia or some sort of tortilla-knackebrod-pizzadough hybrid?
Future Plans: I'll be thrilled to go back, but I'll order more conservatively and early enough to get my food in while there's light. It beats anything in Albuquerque, that's for sure. Word of warning - if you're tall, sit in the front row or on the aisle. My knee hurts today, and those tightly-packed loveseats w/ desktops are to blame.

The entertainment: The Found Footage Festival is a mixed media presentation. The gallery tag would say "Discarded VHS cassettes, stand-up comics, and diet coke". It was painfully genius. The seduction instructional footage clipped below. Montage of boring corporate videos with picture-in-picture professional topless armwrestling to distract you. Astrology Songs. Arnold talking about how body-building makes him orgasm. Disrobic penis-flopping. And two amusing geeks on stage providing a running commentary with props.

Future Plans: Afterwords, I spoke briefly with Joe Pickett about sending him some tapes. "Sensational Service" videos from UATC will definitely head his way. I'm also interested in seeing if I can get him to put a Pizza Face Death montage in next year's show. Audie, you should seriously consider sending these guys Floating Alf.
Brendan, you might consider putting on a weird costume and taking your class to the set of Chic-A-Go-Go (talk about new media - sheesh) at your local Channel 19 studios. Or not.
But anyone would do well to catch the FFF when and if they come to your town.

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