Jason goes to Indiefest--Day 8

End of the first week, all new movies next week. Except for the three TBA slots. They've been filled by some of the most popular films from the first week:
On Sunday, Feb 14th at 5 pm come see an encore presentation of BEYOND THE POLE (still my favorite so far)
On Thurday, Feb 18th at 7:15 come spend the afterlife in San Francisco at LIMBO LOUNGE
And also on Thursday, Feb 18th at 9:30 see Andy Garcia and Juliana Margulies keep too many secrets and scream at each other in the comedy CITY ISLAND

And if you still can't get enough, and you like skiing, go to Sugar Bowl to ski with Indiefest and catch some free movies (at the Judah Lodge):
On Friday, Feb 26 at 7 pm see MY MOVIE GIRL with director Adam Bronstein (my review below)
Later that night, at 9 pm see yet another encore of BEYOND THE POLE (now none of my local readers have an excuse for missing it)
Then on Saturday, Feb 27 at 7 pm see the Superman doc LAST SON (I haven't seen it yet, but rest assured when I do I'll let you know)
At 8:15 there's a special Sugar Bowl only short, a snowboarding doc OPEN SPACE (damn, an Indiefest short I'll miss. I'll actually be at Cinequest)
And close out the night, and everything related to 2010 Indiefest at 9 pm with POINT TRAVERSE.

But I'm getting way ahead of myself. First you should come to Indiefest's famous Big Lebowski party, tonight (Friday, Feb 12th) 9 pm at Cell Space (2050 Bryant St at 18th).

Okay, finally on to the movies. Yeah, I saw a couple of movies last night, too:

First up, the suburban Quebec teenage aimlessness of WEST OF PLUTO. French Canadian high schoolers in a partially improvised slice of life. There's little plot to speak of. What plot there is revolves around a party that gets out of hand, the conscience-nerd girl who hosts it basically gets her house trashed, then her big brother goes out to hunt down and beat the crap out of the guys who did it. Mostly it's a collection of characters. An aspiring rock band with a really lousy singer, a fairly talented skater, an astronomy nerd who thinks Pluto being stripped of planetary status is bullshit, etc. These are framed by class presentations where the kids get up and talk about what excites them. Some are interesting, some are cool, some are funny (the kid who talks about his love of peanut butter is pretty amusing). But overall it doesn't go anywhere. And I know it's wrong of me to say this, but I had trouble following it because all French Canadiens look alike to me.

And then after a quick beer I settled in for MY MOVIE GIRL, directed by and starring local filmmaker Adam Bronstein, who I have to say did a great job promoting his movie all week, showing up in costume and handing out cards even on nights his movie didn't play. It's an autobiographical comedy of love and errors (redundancy alert!) Adam, a huge movie nerd, plays Adam, a huge movie nerd. Once he had an almost-magical night with Kate, but it ultimately went nowhere. So he decided to make a movie of that night, casting himself and Kate in the lead roles, so they could make out for hours (you know, for "coverage") and she'd fall in love with him. This...doesn't...work. So he has to re-cast the role of Kate. And none of the aspiring actresses are all that cool with it. Plus, although he's supposedly making a feature, he really only has that one scene. And to make matters worse, he meets two different girls who might just be perfect "replacements" for Kate in real life. Okay, I shouldn't say that's "worse," it makes matters more complicated. Especially with such a romantically clumsy doofus handling it. Oh yeah, and it's pretty funny, and the real love in here is the love of movies. There's a heartbreaking scene after he's had his heart broken and he wanders around San Francisco looking at all the old movie houses that are closed or repurposed. That really hit me. I've said it before, but I cry a little inside whenever I see an old cinema that's been turned into something useless...like a porno theater or a church.

BTW, best exchange in the movie: "That guy behind us looks just like Dirty Harry!" "Really? I think he looks more like that old guy in MILLION DOLLAR BABY."

Oh yeah, and in the introduction they asked everyone to put on their ballot what their favorite movie kiss is. I forgot to do that so here, for the record, is my favorite: MARQUIS (1989), Colin wakes Justine (who he thinks is dead) with a kiss. "Oh! An angel!"

Total Running Time: 187
My Total Minutes: 170,578