Saturday's numbers make it look like this year's film festival was ... ta-da! ... the best ever. Estimates have admissions at more than 96,000. That doesn't include "Big" at the Open Space. Last year, there were 80,000 admissions.
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A plane flew over downtown Traverse City Saturday trailing a banner that read, "Michael Moore what have you done for Flint lately."
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Filmmakers at Saturday's comedy panel gushed about Traverse City and how friendly everyone is. "If I were rich," said Jeff Garlin, who probably is pretty darn rich, "I'd buy a summer house here."
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Friday night's Open Space crowd for "Goonies" was the biggest yet, said volunteers. Movie-goers were sitting all the way back to the marina.
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One visitor from Oakland County was amazed at the "orderliness" of the Open Space movies. "There's no talking. Everyone watches the movie," she said. "And it's very smooth how they get the crowd out afterwards." The police have been stopping traffic on Union and Grandview Parkway and letting pedestrians cross "until they're all gone," she said.
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The tunnel for the film school at the CenterPoint building has steps on both ends so it's not wheelchair accessible, said Susan Odgers, who last week wrote a column about accessibility at the film festival. She also said spots for wheelchair seating at Lars Hockstad were switched around during the course of the week, but are now back to being in the middle of the auditorium.
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"Learning Gravity" director Cathal Black told the Old Town Playhouse audience on Friday night that his film about a poet/funeral director could have been a "potential freak show." There were "many nights when I didn't think it was going to work," Black said. Instead, the film made the dark subject of death "tender," even. The audience seemed to agree it was no freak show. They gave it standing ovation.
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Michael Moore asked the audience at Saturday's comedy panel what they thought he'd get the most heat for: Country Joe McDonald's foul language at an Open Space performance, putting the name "Ossama" on the marquee at the State or scenes of a barely clothed Beverly D'Angelo in "Hair." Hands down, D'Angelo, the audience said.
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