Visit to SF

About a week ago, my son invited me to go up to San Francisco to see a documentary. He had seen an advertisement for a film that recorded the efforts of a ex-college basketball player to seek employment in professional basketball. The player came from the University of Oregon. It was the world premiere of the movie and the producer/director was going to be there. It was not announced, however I knew that the player was a local kid, so I suspected that he and/or his family and friends would be there.

Here is a description of the film from the theatre's web site: BOUND Demystifies the world of basketball, and for the first time, identifies the key decision makers involved at the highest level of the game. Following Robert Johnson, a San Francisco native, in his pursuit of a post collegiate professional basketball career. The film tells the story not yet told of Americans playing professionally over seas. Still with hopes and dreams of the NBA. Written & directed, by Ryan O’Halloran and Brenden Hamilton. Running time: 90 mins. Show time: 7:30 Only. Filmmaker in Person!

How could I say no?

So I headed up to SF yesterday afternoon. We had decided to get dinner first and then go to the movie. When I arrive, Ben suggests that we take the BART. The train has a stop close to the theatre in the Mission district and it will be easier to park the car. Ben recommends a certain parking lot at the BART station and comments, "at least it is in the open, if your car is broken into someone will see it happen!" - thanks alot Ben! Then as we are entering the train station, Ben adds, "Don't worry about it, the area that I am taking you to is much worse. Lots of gang activity there." Ahhh, Ben?

We take the BART to the Mission area. Ben had used Google Maps to find some restaurants close to the theatre, so we figured that we would find it first, then find someplace to eat. We start walking towards the theatre. After about 5 minutes, we turned around and started walking in the correct direction. The area looked run down, but there were plenty of people about. Most returning home from work.

We found a taqueria(?) that looked good and was really busy. A busy restaurant is always a promising sign. Our meals were very good. It was a popular neighborhood place where friends meet and families came for a dinner after work. Not only was it busy, but most people seemed to be having fun at the meal. Lots of loud happy conversations. It was fun watching people enjoy their meals.

So we got to the theatre about 10 minutes before show time. Johnson was out front looking pretty happy, greeting family and friends. As we go in, we are surprised at how many people were there. I am bad at guessing crowds, but I would guess 200-300 people were there. (Ben, what do you think?) It was clear that most of the crowd were friends and family of Johnson or the director/producer. At the beginning, the director introduced the film and one group of the crowd cheered loudly. At one point, Johnson's mom appeared in the movie and another group cheered loudly. A friend of Johnson's came on screen and yet another group cheered loudly.

As I mentioned before, this was the world premiere of the film. It was a one time mid-week showing at the theatre, so we did not have great expectations for the movie. However we were very pleasantly surprised. We both enjoyed the movie and thought it was pretty good. I will admit that there are lots of basketball scenes in the movie and a non-sports fan might not enjoy the movie as much as we did. Also, I enjoyed the scenes around Eugene and of Oregon basketball.

About a third of the way into the movie, they interviewed Johnson's father. He is in his early 40's and has spent over 20 years in either jail or prison. Later, the movie showed Johnson talking about how he was so glad to get away from his neighborhood, that so many of his childhood friends had gotten into trouble. At one point, Johnson was walking around his old neighborhood and his friend is pointing out where people had been shot and commenting about how much blood there had been. I'm thinking, "Hmm, I bet alot of his friends are right here in the theatre with us!" Later I found out that Ben was thinking the same thing. In fact Johnson's brother was sitting right in front of me and his father was a few rows in front of us. But we never felt in danger. The mood of the crowd was very cheerful and joyous. We did not feel any tension in the crowd.

After we got to the BART station, we waited about 10 minutes for the train. Several trains had passed by, that were going in the wrong direction. Then we realized that we wanted to go in the "wrong" direction. (Notice a pattern here? We are not so good at direction.) So we crossed to the other side of the platform and waited another 10 minutes. Of course several other trains came through going the other way. We're just hanging out, watching trains go past! :-) Finally, we caught a train and got home easily. Luckily no damage to my car. All in all, I had a great time. Thanks Ben!