There is a feeling shared among high-level tennis players that the fifth set of a best-of-five match has nothing to do with tennis. It has everything to do with endurance. The same can be said of the last day of covering the sprawling CineVegas Film Festival. CineVegas is the quintessential symbiotic relationship among organizers, participants and media – we call work feverishly to keep each other busy with daylong screenings, red carpet events and onstage Q&A sessions; and nightlong parties. Sunday is the day of sleep, and if anyone who took part in the bulk of CineVegas events and screenings over the past 10 days awoke today before 11 a.m., congratulations. You’re hired.
The high marks for me were meeting a few of the filmmakers and CineVegas officials– particularly Lost in the Fog producer and director John Corey, who turned out to be one of my favorite running mates during the week; bowling partner and documentary jury member Morgan Spurlock; and Where I Stand producer Scott Goldstein. I met Goldstein in the CineVegas lounge, my auxiliary home for the duration of the festival, as I sat on a sofa tapping at my laptop. A guy shouted across the room, holding a copy of last week’s Las Vegas Weekly opened to the preview story I’d written about that film. “Did you write this!? Did you write this!?” he yelled. As I wondered who this Woody Allen incarnate might be, he introduced himself and we had a good chat about the making of the film (Goldstein keeps insisting he offered $500 to anyone who would say something negative about Hank Greenspun for the documentary).
Saturday night was a stagger to the tape – or trudge to the fifth-set tiebreaker – but there was one moment that was remarkable, at the wrap party at ghostbar. Amid the usual collection of festival revelers was Anjelica Houston, cutting a stunningly distinguished figure as the sun set on the longest day of the longest week of the year. There were a lot of beautiful people working the parties all week, but none more beautiful than the Academy Award-winning actress.
As they say, roll the credits ...
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