Williamsburg Film Festival Begins March 6, Thursday

For the 3rd year in a row, I'll be attending the Williamsburg Film Festival, which begins on Thursday, March 6 and ends on Saturday, March 8.

In an effort to provide information for anyone who might want to visit the Historic Triangle of Virginia in March, I go into details about accommodation and so forth:

I only live about 40 minutes away, but this year I decided to stay in a motel in Willimasburg for 3 days, instead of driving back and forth. So I'm currently in a Super 8 motel - a large, 3 story motel - , about a mile away from the Holiday Inn Patriot where the film festival is taking place. (There's a Motel 6 right next to the Holiday Inn, with even cheaper rates, but I made my reservations too late to get in there.) This Super 8 is about half the price, on a daily basis, of the Holiday Inn Patriot, and since I'm only going to be spending nights here, why pay more?

Williamsburg is of course the heart of the Historic Triangle - along with Jamestown and Yorktown, so depending on my schedule I'll be doing some other things while I'm here.

Super 8
Back to the Super 8... first time I've ever stayed in one. Smell of disinfectant as you walk in rather strong... but I dont mind it. That's the way hotels and motels should smell! I'm on the second floor, so even though my windows seem to face the street, I'm not too bothered by it. (Especially since the street is a large parking lot away.)

Winter season rates
Inside the room it smells fine - and I have got a huge room - two king size beds in here for $45 a night which includes taxes. There's a small refrigerator - currently cooling 3 Pepsis and a small carton of milk, and a microwave. There's a small round table and two chairs. Ther's a wardrobe. No overhead lights, but lamps everywhere. There's an ironing board and an iron!

There's a large screen tv and it gets cable...70 channels and nothing on worth watching.

(As an aside, it's too bad the Sci Fi channel has gotten so far away from science fiction. There's no classic SF on anymore, it's all the various Stargates and reality series featuring ghost hunters. Boo hiss!)

Anyway, the heater works and I've got it turned up high - I like to be toasty. The room in which the toilet and bathtub reside is rather small - but they both are clean-looking - no chipped paint, etc. so that's good.

And they've got free high speed internet, so I'm happy!

Temperature during March
Even though it's winter here in Williamsburg, VA, the weather is rather temperate during the day. Should be in the 50s-60s for the next three days - so if you visit here next year - you'll be able to do plenty of outdoor things...

Okay...to the point of this entry, which is the Williamsburg Film Festival.

Williamsburg Film Festival
It's more a Western film festival than anything else, but they've got some sci fi actors in amongst the bunch.


Guests
Lesley Aletter - daughter of Lee Merriweather. She's a stuntwoman who has doubled Sigourney Weaver and Lucy Lawless

Roger Davis - Dark Shadows (sorry, Roger, but I prefer Jonathan Frid!)

Richard Devon - various westerns, and as Molack in Space Patrol

Richard Herd - V, Star Trek Voyager

Tom and Ted LeGarde - appeared in I, Mudd as two androids

Gene Lesser - Westerns

Lee Merriweather - Catwoman, Star Trek, The Time Tunnel

Don Kay Reynolds - horse trainer - trained the horses for the Lord of the Rings movies

William Sanderson was supposed to be here, but apparently had to cancel

Jacqueline Scott - she guest-starred on on quite a few SF shows. She played Roddy McDowall's "girlfriend" in the Planet of the Apes TV series, was in a few Outer Limits episodes, a Twilight Zone and in the movie Empire of the Ants with Joan Collins.

Gregory Walcott - Plan 9 From Outer Space

On my first critical note of the evening, I must say that the $7 program sucks. Each actor has their photo in b&W. That would be fine except the photos are very dark - you can hardly see them!

The show gets started tomorrow at 10 am, when all the guest stars will be in the Dealer's Room signing autographs. They'll sign the program for free, but charge for photos and so on.


Thursday events
Thursday 2 pm - a sci fi movie - the 4D Man starring Lee Merriweather and Robert Lansing. She should be giving a brief talk before and a q & a after...

5:30 pm - the Solar Guard academy will be showing episodes of Tom Corbett and Space Patrol

Friday
12;45 pm - Twilight Zone ep Spur of the Moment, guest star Roger Davis

5:15 onward - Solar Guard


Panel of stars for Thursday - Richard Herd and Roger Davis at 3 pm, Don Reynolds and Greg Walcott at 7.

So I hope to get a lot done tomorrow...

Stay tuned, same bat time, same bat channel.