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The OTHER Marshall Movie!

This year's Appalachian Film Festival wrapped up with an opportunity for film fans to see the other Marshall movie, the acclaimed independent film by actor/director D.B. Sweeney called "Two Tickets to Paradise."

While "We Are Marshall" occupied our hearts and minds for most of 2006, this little independent comedy grabbed honors at a number of film festivals. And now it had its Huntington debut.

"Two Tickets to Paradise," originally called "Dirt Nap" and quietly debuting last autumn at the San Diego Film Festival, tells the story of three guys going through a mid-life crisis, who take a road trip to the Orange Bowl where Marshall University is playing the University of Texas. It stars Sweeney, John McGinley and Paul Hipp.

Sweeney, who will attend the festival, wrote, produced, directed and starred in the film. (He has also appeared in films such as “Eight Men Out,” “Gardens of Stone,” “Spawn” and such TV series as “CSI Crime Scene Investigation,” “Life as We Know It,” and “Jericho.”)

In Huntington, the film was screened Saturday, April 21, at the Keith Albee Theater.

Writing last fall in the Marshall University Alumni Association magazine, Suzanne Cogar of Irvine, Calif., talked of how in the summer of 2005, Sweeney put out a call for Marshall extras to do tailgating and stadium scenes for the film.

"More than 100 Southern California Marshall alumni and friends poured down to Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego over Labor Day weekend 2005, and participated as extras in the all-day movie shoot," she writes. "Onlookers would not have known that there wasn’t actually a Marshall football game going on as the MU tailgaters wore their Marshall green in the stadium parking lot, and fired up their BBQ grills, complete with burgers, dogs and drinks."

A year later, California-based Herd alums gathered for a premire at the Pacific Gaslamp Theater and to chat afterwards with the producer/director Sweeney.

"Within the first five minutes of the movie," Cogar writes, "Marshall was mentioned several times, and one character even said 'I love the Thundering Herd!' to a great round of cheers from all ... Even though Marshall’s fictitious opponent in the movie was the well-known Texas Longhorns, there were, by far, more Marshall mentions than UT."

In talking with fans afterwards, Sweeney said he had always been familiar with the 1970 Marshall plane crash and impressed with the resurgence of the football program, as well as the winning tradition of the 1990s, so he wanted to use our school in his directorial film debut.

See the Trailer!