Dublin Film Festival 2008

The Dublin Film Festival started on Friday. Not for me. In the past, the distant past, I used to volunteer to work in it. Later I'd fork out for the season ticket and live in a cinema for ten days, eating crisps and Yorkies and drinking as much free booze as my liver allowed (it was very generous) in the Festival Club later. Later yet, I'd take ten days off work for this pleasure. No more. The booze has lost its appeal. What's worse, they've cut down on the number of movies. I watched my fair share of dross back then, but there was always tonnes on. As Woody Allen put it in 'Annie Hall', "'The food's terrible here!' 'Yes, and in such small portions!'" Whatever is good is bound to surface sooner or later here, and more than likely in Cineworld, and seeing as a season ticket for the festival costs more than a year-long ticket for Cineworld (and I have my year-long ticket), what's the point? To see a few celebrities? To say they're hardly worth it, is to exagerate their importance. To see the movies that don't get released? Well, sadly that's usually for a reason. To meet fellow buffs. Have you met a film buff!!!! And great though Cineworld is, it's still a multiplex and not appropriate for a Festival venue. It just can't match the Screen on D'Olier Street for crummy, spaced-out nerd-dom. Sorry, folks, no festival for me any more.