SXSW film festival day 4: Osama bin Laden is IN THE HOUSE!

by John P. Meyer

(Well, at least it seemed that way when the lights went out.)

This was a productive day for the film guy (unless you count any actual writing as production). He got to hang out for a while with a bunch of really nice Native American film people (and an equally nice Anglo publicist) in the 37th floor penthouse of the Hilton Residences overlooking drizzly downtown Austin.

Then later he (wait a minute, I mean "I") got into the screening of Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden, but only because I accidentally arrived an hour early for the show. The line was already extensive by then, but at least I made it into the theater. (Many didn't and were turned away.)

Just as Morgan Spurlock was getting to the juicy questions (such as, "where is Osama Bin Laden?") during his talks in Egypt with the relative of a key Al-Qaida operative, the screen went dark and silence reigned in the theater. The manager told us that thunderstorms had knocked out all the electricity to the building. After 15-20 minutes or so, Spurlock (I mean the one in the theater audience as opposed to the one in the movie) quipped: "O.K, right now I'm going into the cave..."