What I'm Planning to See at the TCM Film Fest

This is always subject to change, because I'm just one of those wild and crazy spontaneous kinda gals and who the heck knows what I'll feel like doing once I get there, but here's what I'm hoping to see at the Festival as of today, Wednesday, April 27th:

Thursday
6:30 PM -- AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (red carpet walkin', yo!)
10:15 PM -- THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN (As a newly-made disciple of Sternberg, how could I not?)

Friday
10:00 AM -- THE CONSTANT NYMPH (How can I go against The Siren?)
1:00 PM -- ROYAL WEDDING (Astaire. On a ceiling. Dancing. 'Nuff said.)
4:00 PM -- BRITISH AGENT (Leslie Howard takes on the Bolsheviks)
6:15 PM -- DESIGN FOR LIVING (I've never seen this essential classic, so what better way to see it than on the big screen?)
9:15 PM -- DODSWORTH (Again, this is One of the Greats, and I've never seen it. My plan for this festival is to have as many "first time" viewings as possible.)
12:00 AM -- THE TINGLER (How could I resist?)

Saturday
12:30 PM -- HOOP-LA (MOMA restoration of Clara Bow's last film)
3:45 PM -- WENT THE DAY WELL? (It was a tough call: Do I go to the rarely-seen movie I've never heard of before OR do I see one of my all-time favorites in a new 70th anniversary restoration? While I'm not normally one to pass up the opportunity to see CITIZEN KANE on the big screen, I don't think I can miss the chance to see a rarity like WENT THE DAY WELL?)
7:00 PM -- THE CAMERAMAN (with Vince Giordano and His Nighthawks Orchestra!)
9:30 PM -- GASLIGHT (Angela Lansbury will be there. Can't. Wait.)

Sunday
7:30 AM -- Mass! (The most important event of the festival)
9:15 AM -- THE SID SAGA (I honestly have no idea what this will be like, but it sounds too crazy to miss!)
3:45 PM -- A TRIBUTE TO THE NICHOLAS BROTHERS (Between Fred Astaire in ROYAL WEDDING and this Nicholas Brothers tribute, I'll be in movie dancing heaven)
5:45 PM -- LAUGH O'GRAMS (I'll probably leave the Nicholas Brothers tribute early to get a good seat for these cartoon shorts. Widely known fact: I wanted to be a Disney cartoonist when I was seven years old.)
7:15 PM -- FANTASIA (One of my movie obsessions.)

Midnight Pee Wee

Last Saturday night I experienced Midnight Madness.

By 11:30 PM on a Saturday night, downtown Royal Oak is usually filled with hundreds of drunks stumbling down the sidewalks in packs, a bunch of Sex & the City wannabe chicks and their AXE body spray-soaked boyfriends. Also, at this point on a Saturday night in Royal Oak, a few fat, lonely middle aged cat ladies wander the streets looking to escape their claustrophobic lives. There are also several frayed and grey-haired hipsters, stinking of leather and the early '80s, stalking the city as if looking for an impromptu Lou Reed concert to start.

And amidst them all are the hipster kids, the nerds, the zoom-dweebies, the dorks and punks, all of them from the high school band geeks to the twenty-something slackers, shoulders slumped, skinny jeans, cigarettes and funky black-rimmed glasses dangling on their faces, all of them hanging on street corners, loitering around the town like River Cuomo's locust army. All of them in line to see the midnight showing of PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE.