[Things I learned at #SIFF10]

1) The leftmost seat in row H at SIFF Cinema is sort of broken, definitely squeaky. Avoid.

2) If you’re getting concessions at an AMC theater, go for a kid’s combo. Manageable sized soda & popcorn, and! Fruit snacks! Plus, a game on your box, all for six bucks. What a deal.

3) There is a lot of awful local film. In fact, if there’s any good local film, please let me know, since I have yet to find it. Maybe I am just really bad at choosing.

4) My favorite theater to attend & volunteer at is the Harvard Exit. Not just because it’s close to both my apartment & Joe Bar, although both of those things help.

5) I have a fondness for the Egyptian (Secret represent!) but I dream of a day where I see a film there and the projection is in no way fucked up. Hey, it could happen. Also, it’s a shitty place to work Will Call.

6) I really like working Will Call. Who knew?

7) I must take all three weeks off next year. Must dooo eeet.

8 ) The Hong Kong Film Office montage makes me desperately want a Tony Leung retrospective. Get on that, people. I’d kill to see In the Mood for Love on the big screen again. And Hard Boiled, which I’ve only seen on video (and a shitty print at that.) Oooh, and Infernal Affairs (which, hey, I saw at SIFF back when it came out, and the projection was fucked up. At the Egyptian, so no surprise there.)

9) There are people who buy popcorn to go. This had never occurred to me. And not that I’d do it now, because hey. Expensive. And I’m not that into theater popcorn anyway. White cheddar, though, that is an entirely different story. Om nom nom.

10) I really cannot handle the sun. 40 minutes standing outside the Egyptian and I thought I was going to throw up or pass out. Or possibly both.

(Sorry to say this is not my last #SIFF10 post. There’s a film at the volunteer appreciation party on Wednesday, and then next weekend I am attending the hell out of the Best of SIFF, so that’ll be another eight films at least. I am so excited about Best of SIFF I can’t even express it properly. Anyway. Fair warning.)

PS EXTRA BONUS LEARNED THING: William Shatner’s amazing linguistic abilities! As displayed in the cinematic masterpiece Incubus! I am choosing to believe the Esperanto is Bill Shatner’s native tongue. Dear SIFF Cinema: I would totally come to a screening of that. No lie.