As Part Two of this year’s SBIFF opened, I found myself pondering one of those eternal riddles. No, not what makes a story so compelling, or how it is that a piece of celluloid fiction can inspire every feel on the spectrum. What I wondered was this: Which is more difficult, surviving the daily deluge of dawn-'til-midnight revelry while carrying the burden of an ever-compounding hangover or while carrying a baby-to-be who seems to resemble nothing so much as a karate-practicing regulation bowling ball perched atop my bladder?
Having devoted the last dozen years of SBIFF-age to research regarding the former, this year, I tackled the latter. Between the exhaustion, the inability to knock back an espresso (or a cocktail) when the need for a quick energetic re-alignment strikes, and the ever-present, yet often just-kidding, need for a toilet, I figured myself at a significant disadvantage.
Of course, recast in Hollywood terms, I suppose this might make me an underdog. And thus, in Hollywood terms, the inevitable victor. Using this logic to psyche myself up as I walked to the Arlington on Tuesday night, I could practically hear the Rocky theme song.