Tribeca Film Festival Day 2

My second full festival day began with a reading by M. Night Shyamalan, director of "The Sixth Sense" and a bunch of other spooky films I love. His new movie this summer, "Lady in the Water," is based on a bedtime story he told his two daughters, and he turned it into a children's book to be released a month before the film - a rather savvy piece of marketing, especially since the book is a cliffhanger and you have to see the movie to find out what happens. I got some one-on-one interview time with him after the reading and he was super-nice; I believe he's about my age, so it's impressive that he's accomplished so much.

Then I headed to a movie theater overlooking the Ground Zero site to catch that David Duchovny movie, "The TV Set," about a man's efforts to get his labor of love turned into a TV show, and all the horrors of the TV network system. It's funny and poignant - definitely a good one to add to the Netflix queue. Duchovny and his Brit co-star Ioan Gruffuld, who I've been a fan of since his bit part in "Titanic," came in for a Q&A afterward - they are both quite fine-looking (and tall) in person.

Following that was a documentary that I hope to write about for the Observer, "Jesus Camp." It's a look inside the evangelical Christian movement that holds so much current power in American politics and how they are indoctrinating (some would say brainwashing) their children. It was really interesting, but unfortunately I started feeling sick during the screening - not sure what it is, either a touch of food poisoning or pomegranate-margarita hangover or just simple exhaustion from running around so much for the past several weeks, but I had to skip out on my final screening and premiere party (probably was going to meet Ray Liotta there, but oh well). I also hated that it caused me to miss seeing former Observerite Jaime, but hopefully we'll catch up during my next trip through the city.

As I write this I'm recovered after a full night's sleep and ready to have a final lunch with Leslie before heading home, but I hope to come back to cover Tribeca again sometime. It's a slightly more hospitable and easy-to-navigate festival than Sundance, and certainly less intimidating than Berlin.