Not What the Doctor Ordered (On Festivals)

I am riddled with flu right now — no doubt filmfestivalitus, a common strain of cinennui, exacerbated by an immunizing shot of bridesmaideningtitus for good measure. Nothing more on the wedding circuit here, I do thee promise, but I must report that, although Ebertfest was a piece of peach pie, Trifecta has already gone Utarded.

I like the model that Ebertfest presents: a showcase for hand-picked films with absolutely no choices to make and very few distractions. It allows for gestation, conversation, even, at times, conversion. (I like silent films now after a screening of The Eagle.) While is Tribeca even an essential stop on the overground film railroad?

Because my whole attraction to movies will always be that luxuriant surrender to another world, the plaguing sense that Something Is Being Missed (not to mention the nonstop flicker of the Blackberry) feels contrived. Oh, I understand braving the hoopla of the Toronto Film Festival (especially as it screens so many international films that don't make it to North America otherwise), and God knows nothing's going to stop the behemoth that is Sundanceteria in its tracks (not even Redford, apparently). But Tribeca? For all its overkill, it simply doesn't slay me.