Dancing in the dark makes dork a dull boy

Not exactly a great beginning to the day on Friday. I arrive at the press office, which for the 29th Seattle International Film Festival , is being held at The W, at just after 9 a.m. No press pass is ready. Seems as if the J-peg photo of me that the newspaper sent wouldn’t work. So we take a Polaroid. No problem, except that I end up grinning like somebody’s dorky grandfather.

The worst news is, though, that there are no press screenings today, as there usually are. Which means no movies until 4 p.m. Which is bad because I can usually see three films during the day to go along with the three that I see at night. As it is, I end up catching an 11:30 a.m. “Bruce Almighty” at the Cineplex Odeon. As I thought, it’s initially funny but goes gradually downhill. Has Jim Carrey reached the down slope of his career this fast?

The 4 p.m. film is a documentary titled “The Weather Underground,” which tells the story of the small group of radicals who, in the early 1970s, broke away from the activist organization Students for a Democratic Society and embarked on a series of bombings in what they called a “war” against the U.S. government. It combines film footage of the day with interviews featuring some of the principals, such as Bernadine Dohrn and Mark Rudd, but doesn’t do much more than put things in perspective. The overwhelming feeling the movie seems to communicate is one of failure, which is depressing.

I say this later to a white-haired guy in the restroom. I figure he’s my age (or older), so he would understand my feeling, or at least remember the actual events themselves. But all he does is say, “Oh?” and nothing more. I should have thought twice before trying to start a discussion in a restroom, even at a film festival in Seattle.

Next up is “Camp,” a funny little kind of musical about a “Fame” kind of summer camp in which kids dance, sing and act their way through a number of shows. There’s the typical camp stuff — romances, personal crises, jealousies, triumphs — along with clichﾎs such as the burned-out director finding new meaning, the gay boy who finds inner strength, the ugly-duckling girl who gets the good-looking straight guy and… well, that’s part of the film’s problem. There’s just too much going on.

Finally, we have a couple of political documentaries, both playing at the Broadway Performance Hall (which is across the street from The Egyptian, at Seattle Central Community College). One is titled “Scenes From an Endless War” and it is a sometimes-hilarious look at the present administration’s war policies. The second, which is fascinating, is an Irish Film Board production that studies the recent attempted presidential coup in Venezuela . It’s titled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and it is a damning condemnation of U.S. policies in South America that, 1, appear not to haven changed since the Monroe Doctrine and, 2, are hypocritically anti-constitutional.

And then that’s all. I’m too tired for the midnight show. I’ve got to get up tomorrow (which is now today) and see more movies. Starting at 11 a.m. Which is just 1:16 away. So I’ll check in later. Right now I’ve got a date with the dark.

Or is that dork?