I got a chance to see Mike Birbiglia’s mostly autobiographical film Sleepwalk With Me at SXSW this year and it was fantastic. It’s based off his one man show of the same name and it was produced by Ira Glass of This American Life Fame. I have seen Mike do stand up in NYC several times over the years but I first heard of his hilarious and some times terrifying bouts of sleepwalking on This American Life. Mike has terrible problems with sleepwalking and, not to give too much away, once jumped out a hotel window in his sleep. Seriously. That happened in real life.

I am a big fan both Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia. When I worked a job where I could listen to head phones all day I listened to over 300 episodes of This American Life in under six months. I got laid off the day after I finished the last episode. Mike actually introduced me to Ira Glass at a party and I got to talk to him for an entire five minutes which was sort of a highlight of my year. They made a short film to promote the opening weekend(s) of their movie and it’s pretty delightful. (I don’t think I would use the word delightful unless under the spell of NPR.) You should watch the video and then if you live in New York you should go to the IFC Center this weekend and watch it. The film will also be opening in LA and Chicago next weekend. At least one of them will be at all the opening weekend screenings to do a Q&A which they claim (while dressed as ushers) will be better than the actual movie itself.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxHhCoOY4bo[/youtube]

 

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