Friday, April 4, 2008

philly film fest - young@heart and opening night party

For the opening night of the Philadelphia Film Festival, we went to see Young@Heart, a documentary about the Young@Heart Chorus, a group of seniors that sing rock songs. The movie, while primarily uplifting, runs the full spectrum of emotions as the members of the chorus experience life and death together. Comedy and tragedy are intermixed throughout the entire movie. The chorus sings such songs as The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go, James Brown's I Feel Good and even Sonic Youth's Schizophrenia. The arrangements are well done and suited to the seniors' singing style.

After the movie, the chorus director, the movie director and three members of the chorus held a short Q&A session. Becca bought their CD and had them autograph it, much to her delight. The part of the CD that I heard was pretty good.

panel q&abob signing the cd

From the movie, we went to the Opening Night party, which was being held at swanky XIX Nineteen in the Park Hyatt. The party was an interesting mix of the ultra-hip art crowd, the societal elite, the elderly, and normal people. We took advantage of the limited (sponsors' drinks only) open bar, ate some of the tasty hors d'oeuvres, learned that P.I.N.K. vodka has caffeine and guarana, and generally had a good time until they turned the lights up and we were stunned to look at the time and see that it was 1:00am. On a school night.

some hors d'oeurves

All in all, it was a great way to kick off a cool event like the Philadelphia Film Festival. I'm looking forward to the rest the event.

1 comment:

BeccaT said...

It's true. I was absolutely delighted.