It was ‘Thin Man’ vs. not-so-thin man

On my way to the 5:30 screening tonight at the 2005 Spokane International Film Festival, I walked by the crew shooting that Cuba Gooding Jr. movie downtown. Two gigantic RVs were sitting on Lincoln, across from the post office, with a security guard standing outside. It was hard not to think: Hey, somebody famous might be inside. Then again, it might have been just the best boy trying to keep out of the wind.

I’d just left a friend’s house where the Super Bowl was on. The Patriots had just scored to make it a 7-7 game heading into the half. I figured that was a good time to leave since Janet Jackson wasn’t scheduled to perform, and I’d already seen as much bump-and-grind country music as I could take.

I’d shown up at the AMC 20 River Park Square to see the movie that was a sub for what was supposed to have been scheduled, the Slovenian feature “On the Sunny Side,” which never got delivered. Festival director Bob Glatzer had stood at the ticket table, explaining the problem to people. And, he said later, only one person wanted his money back.

Those who did stay saw 1934’s “The Thin Man,” in which William Powell and Myrna Loy play Nick and Nora Charles, the husband-wife detective team. The film works mostly because of their chemistry, but it also is a refreshing throwback to a time that wasn’t so constricted on one side by political correctness and on the other by a Puritanism that is positively anal.

Which harks back to the half of Super Bowl football that I saw. My favorite ad was for GoDaddy.com in which a busty woman was testifying before a faux Congressional committee when her top almost falls off. The whole thing is a joke, but I imagine the complaining phone calls began almost immediately. I should have called, too. Though I would have complained about Charlie Daniels .