Gala Opening? Boooooring!

Well, the opening night "Gala" kicked off this year's SIFF and it went down with a whimper and not a bang. The "festivities" got off to a sluggish start at the premiere of "Me and You and Everyone We Know" where the speakers before the presentation took thier sweet time making every conceivable announcement they possibly could and a certain speaker, who will remain un-named, peppered his already leaden speech with uhs, ums, wells and excruciating pauses that sent collective groans throughout the audience. It seemed like an eternity before the film finally started. The movie, as promised, was great and, depite the naysayers, the crowd seemed to enjoy it.

The after party at the future home of the Museum of History and Industry was a smashing dud! I hate to be such a killjoy, but the folks in attendance all sort of meandered around without purpose or stuck to their groups and socialized discretely, far too discretely. To quote the late great Henry Miller: "Jesus, I can't even get drunk in this atmosphere!"

The band, The Posies, were also pretty lackluster. They may be a good band, but they just didn't fit the mood at all. And they seemd to be miles away in tone from the film that was previously screened. Ah, well. I shan't go on about Seattle's inablility to cut loose and tie one on, but the party was boooooring. The food was great though! And I don't mean to disparage the planners of the festivities, but I know I wasn't alone in my feeling that the evening lacked a few things. Hopefully other Tabletheads had a better time than I did. I left early, didn't drink much and consequently didn't get a hangover, which is why I'm able to post this before noon!

Did anyone else have a similar experience, or do I just have unreasonable expectations???