Denver 07: Opening Night - New Spots, Old Friends And...A Cow?

Apologies on the delay of getting some Denver fest reports up, but well, some personal and professional things have kept me busy. That said, I have oodles of pix, anecdotes and reviews coming, so stay tuned!

One of the things I have consistently harped up vis a vis the Denver Film Festival is the amazing hospitality and organization the festival has and applies to its guests. Kurt Cobain: About a Son filmmaker, this year's Denver panelist, blogger, juror and all around man about town A.J. Schnack concurs and we pretty much ranked Denver and Sarasota the two fests in the world that treat their guests the best and to be honest, may just be the two best regional fests, full stop. I know it'll take a natural or personal disaster to keep me from either for years to come.

A few weeks ago, I inquired as to the name of my Denver hotel and wouldn't you know it? The fest's guest relations guru, Crystal Hamrick had in her infinite wisdom, put me at the Residence Inn by Marriott. I'm here for 10 nights, so a kitchen makes sense. Not only that, but the hotel has free wifi and they do my grocery shopping. Rocks. Oh, did I mention they have a coin laundry and a 24 hour outdoor hottub? Word. They also have a cow i the lobby:

After checking in I had a quick shower and headed off to the opening night party which to be honest, much like many other opening nights, in that it's large and mostly for the locals. It's sort of like first meal on the first day at summer camp, when all you want to do is find all your friends from the year before and catch up, so it's spent running around looking for people. That said, this year's opening night had a killer DJ set up (and the DJ herself wasn't bad):