TGIM

It's not often that the weekend makes you wish for Monday but this was pretty much the kind that can. Not that it was monumentally horrible. The front-end was too loaded with running around plus there's some ambient stress in the household that, shall we say, wasn't managed in the best possible way. On Saturday morning I was having coffee with The Neighbor and asked, "Is it Monday yet?"

But there were some highlights. Working backwards, the season finale of "Battlestar Galactica" was swell. I'll never hear "All Along the Watchtower" in quite the same way again.



Bob Dylan is a cylon!

I made a terrific pork tenderloin thing for dinner last night, oven roasted with an orange marmalade-ginger glaze. I cooked down the pan juices & glaze & enriched it with a blob of butter to make a sauce. Accompanied by couscous with lemon, mint & chives and some asparagus, it was a very lovely springtime supper.

Not that the weather around here has been remotely springlike. March is a stupid month. We're ready for spring, it is spring but we had borderline torrential rain all weekend. And while it is actually clear this morning, there was ice on the car again. I digress.

The best thing about the weekend was that The Spouse and I got to attend the Seattle premiere screening of ""Fortune Hunters" the film he worked on last summer. It was terrific.

With a run time of only 21 minutes, it is a sweet little film about a Chinese-American guy, played by Kelvin Yu, who writes fortunes at his dad's cookie factory. His girlfriend is planning to go to China for a year so he decides to break up with her. After realizing what an idiot move that was, he writes her, begging for another chance. He unknowingly sends the message to the fortune printer and mayhem ensues.

The movie is charming, funny, well-acted and beautifully lit (which, of course, owes almost entirely to The Spouse. Just saying). The film has been screened at a couple of film festivals and they've entered it in SIFF, the Seattle International Film Festival. Given that this is in fact one of the biggest festivals in the world, it would be huge if they get in. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, the film just begs to be a feature. Writer/director Thom Harp and Mike Standish, who produced and co-wrote the show, are working on the full-length script as we speak and plan to shoot in Seattle, with as many of the crew who are available. The Spouse told Thom he'd do what he could.

You'll remember that The Spouse had a terrific time making this movie. Part of the reason for that had to owe to the fact that everyone involved in the production was just as nice as can be. I didn't have a ton of behind-the-scenes experiences during the time that he was making movies for a "living". But based on what I did, it always seemed like the crew were totally awesome, fun people but that the farther up the echelon you got, not always so much. Thom and Mike are truly lovely people, not at all pretentious and really super funny. There was a little Q&A after the screening and I kept imagining the two of them in tuxes, accepting the Oscar. Oh. Wait. Oscars rarely go to comedies. More's the pity. They deserve it.

If you have a chance to see this little number at a film festival near you, please go. You won't be sorry. And Seattlites, if it gets into SIFF you gotta go see it.

Before the movie started, The Spouse was talking to some folks and called me over to meet them. I'd met Neil Holcomb, the cinematographer, on the set. There was some lad who I totally forgot already (sorry) and a cute little thing who reminds one of Goldie Hawn. The Spouse introduced her with a "And this is Jessica, who did something on the show". She was only the female lead.

After the screening I went up to congratulate her and said, "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you mind giving me your autograph?" I told her about The Child and her new-found love of acting and thought it might be very cool for her to have an autograph from a real live actress. Jessica was so cute...I think it might have been the first time anyone asked for her autograph. She gave it to me, adding "Break a leg" to her signature. I'm going to frame it for The Child.

The other cool thing about the screening was seeing The Spouse get a credit. He's worked on a lot of stuff but his name didn't always make it onto the credits. Seeing it on "Fortune Hunters", especially when he so enjoyed the experience of making it, was really superfantastic. Way to pad that IMdb profile, sweetie!