Jason goes to Indiefest--Day 6

Yeah, I spent Valentine's Day the same way I've done for the past decade--watching movies at Indiefest. And that's truly the steadiest, most committed relationship I've ever had.

Sorry for getting mushy. No more romance, let's just get to the movies, starting with the shorts program...The Languages of Love.

KITAGAWA IN THE 2ND GRADE: Okay, I'm pretty sure 2nd grade means something different in Japan than it does in America. Like there it means the 2nd grade before you graduate high school (here it would be 11th grade or junior year). In any case, Kitigawa admits her love to two boys--friends who are about to graduate (which I guess would be called 1st grade there, 12th grade or senior year here). She likes them both for different reasons, and sets them into weird competition with each other.

A LOVE STORY IN MILK: Happy Farms loves Valley Dairy, and it's super cute. My one problem is why would anybody by two different cartons of milk? It would make sense if one was whole milk and one was 2% or skim, but they were both whole milk.

BUBBLES: And Israeli woman whose husband is away on yet another business trip. A complex love triangle that's open to some interpretation. My interpretation is that one man is really the memory or her ex-lover who has passed away but in many ways she's still more in love with him than her husband.

FIRECRACKER (FATAKRA): An Indian family is reunited in America after way too long. It has left some bad feelings and the father needs to earn his wife and son's love again. Features a beautiful dance.

WE REFUSE TO BE COLD: That's kind of hard to promise in a Montreal winter. But you gotta start with some significant promise before you work your way up to the more important ones.

SUPER. FULL.: A very tender love story of two impoverished deaf people. He puts up with a miserable job and saves up all his money to take his wife to an elegant dinner at the fancy hotel across the street. I really liked how their deafness worked and the use of sign language. It's all about appreciating the quiet moments, which is maybe easier to do when it's always quiet.

Well, the quiet didn't last long, because next up was LOVE BITE: The 80's POWER BALLAD SING-ALONG. This has become an Indiefest tradition, 3 years and running. Here's what I said the first year they did it:

And I ended the night with LOVE BITES: The 80's Power Ballad Sing-along. I got drunk with a lot of weirdos, we played old hair band love ballad videos, and sang along as loud as possible while still heckling the videos. It's exactly what it sounds like, and it was much more fun than it had any right to be. And since I do have the hair for it, I even got up in the front and head-banged to Shot Through the Heart to end the show. That's not something I thought I would do...ever.

Well, I don't have the hair for it anymore. So I put on a blue punk wig and rocked out anyway. It was still way too much fun, even when they ran out of free whiskey. FYI, based on the hangover I still kind of feel two days later, I think I'm solely responsible for them running out of whiskey.

Happy Valentine's Day, indeed.

Total Running Time: 180 minutes

My Total Minutes: 265,531