After almost three years of living in Champaign-Urbana, this year I finally made it to some of the Ebertfest movies. I got into all three by waiting in the last-minute ticket line, which seems to be a pretty good way to go. Seating is general admission, so even if you buy your tickets ahead of time, you're not guaranteed especially good seats. The balcony of the Virginia, where I ended up sitting for all three movies, has one major problem: all the seats are lined up directly behind each other, instead of slightly offset. So unless you luck out and get a seat where no one is sitting in the seat directly in front of you, you're almost guaranteed a neck-craningly painful viewing experience. For the first movie,Playtime , my date and I got seats on the aisle, but directly behind two guys whose huge, beefy heads blocked the entire screen. My date kindly offered to switch seats with me, but it wouldn't have made things any better for either of us, so I slipped out of my seat once the movie started and sat on the steps in the aisle. We were right near the top of the balcony, so I didn't block anyone's view or exit, and I ended up having a great view of the screen. Then on Thursday I took some vacation hours and went to the two afternoon movies by myself. For Murderball, I got a fantastic seat with no one in the seat in front of me, so I had a completely clear view. By the time I had gone back out to get my ticket for The Saddest Music in the World and come back in again, my good seat was gone, and I found myself behind a very tall girl whose head consistently blocked the right half of the screen. Seating problems aside, these were some great movies.

• Playtime - This was an extremely odd and slowly paced movie that I feel fortunate to have seen in its full 70mm glory. Playtime, follows two characters, Mr. Hulot and an American woman named Barbara, as they spend the day traveling from one indistinguishable concrete and glass building to another. The two lives briefly intersect at various points throughout the day, providing a reassuringly human element to the urban landscape. Nothing really "happens", and I think if I had been watching this movie on the small screen I would have been really bored. None of the shots ever come in for a close up, because there is too much detail going on in the background and middle ground of the various shots. Because it would be impossible to make out much of this detail on a tv-sized screen, you'd lose a huge part of what makes the film engaging. So unless you're like my brother, who set up a home theater system to show movies and tv in a 9 or 10 foot wide projection against the wall of his apartment, you might not want to bother with renting this. We didn't stay for the discussion afterwards, but the next day, while introducing another movie, Ebert mentioned that a movie critic in the audience who had seen the film numerous times had noticed for the first time that Barbara was wearing an engagement ring and that Hulot noticed this and briefly looked sad. So even after multiple viewings there are still new details to reward an attentive viewer.
  
• Murderball - This was by far the best of the three movies. A documentary about wheelchair rugby as played by quadriplegics, Murderball is really more like an event from the X-Games than a traditional people-overcoming-the-odds-of-their-handicap movie. The film definitely doesn't shy away from the profound ways that these guys' lives have changed since their injuries, but it also focuses more on their competitive drive that makes them Olympic-caliber athletes. When Mark Zupan and Joe Soares came out onto the stage at the end of the movie they got a standing ovation that Ebert described as the longest in the festival's history. And indeed they should have. I predict this one is going to be huge when it comes out this summer, and probably in serious Oscar contention next year. Keep an eye out for it in theaters near you in July.
  
• The Saddest Music in the World - This was the only one of the three that I didn't really like. A strange hybrid of a silent movie and a farce, Saddest Music left me with a bad taste in my mouth at the end. I think mostly because I wanted some kind of redemption for the main characters. Even though you finally see the fast-talking musical showman with a tear in his eye at the end I never felt like he really reached a point where he or any of the other characters allowed themselves to truly feel their sadness. I didn't stay for the discussion at the end, because, while it's possible the director might have had some insight that would have changed my view of the movie, I feel like a movie shouldn't depend on external explanations to make you 'get' it. Not that a movie can't be successful if it intrigues you and confuses you, but if you have to depend on external factors to make the movie feel worthwhile, then it has, in my opinion, failed.