Roll out the red carpet… it's back!

Around this time last year I recall having great craic with the Yorkshireman and our closest friends at the Belfast Film Festival. We went to watch a hugely cheesy horror film on the Lagan boat, we smirked at people being spanked and singing about Dick (and Tom and Harry too of course) in 1953's Kiss Me Kate at the Strand Cinema in the East of the city and we double facepalm failed at the film quiz at the Queen's Film Theatre. It was all great fun. Well, except for the last part. Feeling really stupid kinda sucks. But anyway! It’s back! Yes, the Belfast Film Festival has returned with a whole new programme of events for 2011.

I'll be honest, I'm not really "into" films. I much prefer a slow-burner of a story where you get to know the characters really well, so books and TV series are really more my thing. That said if the plot is interesting enough it's a decent way to spend a couple of hours. I'm also a creature of darkness and hiss at bright lights, so any excuse to sit in a blackened room is greatly appreciated. However the plot thing is crucial. I cannot abide all the arty films about things I don't care about or people I don't know. I know, I know, I'm a philistine. Meh. I also cannot abide violence, even if it's supposedly integral to the plot. I've been told I should give certain movies along these themes a chance but I only get one life and I'm not spending hours of it watching people wonder about the reason for their existence or shoot each other. I already begrudge the time I wasted watching Reservoir Dogs (seriously though, why?!) and Apocalypse Now (not even Martin Sheen could save that one for me).

Bearing this in mind, and also bearing in mind that a film festival is inevitably going to be aimed at the arty crowd who appreciate subtlety and nuances and *yawn* all that jazz, my choices were already fairly narrowed down for me. It was simply a matter of going through and seeing what looked like fun and I am now the proud owner of tickets to three events. There were a couple more I would have gone to but the times sadly didn't suit. As it turns out, the Yorkshireman and I have somewhat different opinions on what "looked like fun" not to mention different schedules, so we'll each be abandoning the other in pursuit of culture on a couple of occasions. It all kicks off next week and I'm really looking forward to enjoying a little razzle dazzle. Now just to source some costumes… well, if you're going to do something, you damn well do it right!