On The Waterfront, The Sequel

As I mentioned, I spent the last couple of days at the Waterfront Film Festival in South Haven.

S. Haven is a favorite weekend destination for me.  If I stay at the the state park campground, it's a nice 50 mile ride on the Kal-Haven Trail.  This weekend the weather promised to be nearly perfect.  The ride to S. Haven was easy with little to no breeze, just an enjoyable ramble through the shady lane. 

I had never been to the festival before, so I took a very conservative approach and bought 4 tickets to individual presentations plus a ticket to the opening night party.  Individual tickets to the films are only $12 and now that I have been there, I see that you can easily fill up two full days with events for $100.  There are constant presentations at several locations, but I think 4 films a day will be all I would want to see.  I only mention it because they sell "day"  passes for $90+ and now that I have been there I don't see their value.  

The outdoor opening night presentation was the low point of the weekend.  Held in a parking lot on the South Beach, the facilities were there for a good time with food and liquor galore, but the entertainment was beyond bland.  A, would be, celebrity who had appeared on some reality dating program was there to attempt a viable job of lip sinking. "Tony Ferrari" and his boy band threw some sanitized boredom onto the crowd.  If it hadn't been for the older couple who were inspired to dance,

 we would have had no entertainment.  The wind off the lake was getting chilly, 

so I didn't wait for the film presentation

The films were another issue.  The three I watched were very good and excellent.  I won't spoil them with a review, but I watched a romantic comedy, a documentary and a drama.  The comedy, Julie and Arlo, was excellent, a very clever examination of a couple putting their lives together.  The documentary, Kidnapped for Christ, was a frightening look at a Christian residential school for rehabilitating teens.  The drama, The Sublime and Beautiful was a compelling psychological expose'of a college professor challenged by his own infidelity and the destruction of his family. 

Now that I have had a taste of this very laid back and affordable weekend of entertainment, I will be back.

Being a tourist summertime destination, the town is full of restaurants, brewpubs and bars.   There was plenty of entertainment and I can see spending two or three days at the next one.

It was a good thing I spent little or no time at the campgrounds.  Being a lakefront, it was a busy weekend. The good thing was the modern facilities and excellent showers. the bad thing was the modern facilities and excellent showers.  Those are the camps that become trailer parks, complete with giggling rug rats pedaling their noisy big wheels around on the rough tarmac.  I'll be back next year, make reservations earlier for a more secluded campsite, spend less time at the trailer park and see more films.