Final thoughts on Outfest 2010 …

Still to come are more coverage of the Coming Out In Hollywood panel from Saturday and interviews with some of the Outfest Award winners.

But I wanted to wrap up my daily coverage of Outfest 2010 with some closing thoughts on this year’s event which ended last night.

I found myself too wiped out to make the trek to Ford Ampitheatre for the closing night screening of Spork and the after party at Madame Tussauds. The 8:30 p.m. start time just stretched the weekend a bit too much for your faithful blogger.

Anyway, I saw over two-dozen movies and shorts programs over the 11 days and attended several of the panels.

Greg’s Faves:

Favorite Movies (three-way tie): BearCity, Fit (pictured above), A Marine Story
Favorite Short: Gayby
Favorite Documentary: Out in the Silence
Favorite Panel: A Conversation With Jane Lynch

Seen and Heard:

*** A man inside the lobby of the DGA on Saturday sees Meredith Baxter and says: “I know you from somewhere.” The actress gives him a minute to figure it out then helps him along: “Family Ties?” The guy lights up and says: “That’s it! What are you up to now?” This poor uninformed dude clearly did not know that Miss Baxter had come out publicly last December and was minutes away from being the star attraction at a panel inside the DGA 1 Theatre.

*** I had this exchange with a festival goer as we walked from parking structure to the DGA Theatre: “I really loved An Ordinary Couple. It makes you believe in love.” The guy looked shocked and said: “I hated it. It made ME believe in anonymous sex.”

*** After sitting through the confusing Chinese movie Spring Fever, a guy sitting in my row turned to a friend and said: ‘It was like three bad movies rolled into one!” I could not have agreed more. As much as I wanted to like it – to follow it and understand it – it lost its way about halfway through and so did the audience.

*** Just as the lights went down for the screening of Boys Shorts the first Saturday of the festival, an out of breath and dishoveled-looking guy made his way into the DGA Theatre, made his way down to the front and plopped into an empty seat to the left of me. Within minutes, he was asleep and started to snore.

I tried to ignore his sawing of lumber but finally had had enough. I tapped him on the shoulder and surprised even myself when I said: “Either wake up or leave the theater.” He seemed mortified but was back to sleep a few minutes later. I moved seats, looked back awhile later and there he was, head thrown back, mouth open, asleep.

Correction:

I sat next to musician Michael Mirlas during the screening of BearCity but in writing about it, misidentified the song he wrote for one of the movie’s key scenes between Joe Conti and Gerald McCullouch.

The song is Puppy Dog Eyes.

Here is a LINK to Michael’s homepage for information on how to listen to the song on iTunes.