Jason goes to Indiefest--Day 5

Now we enter the daily grind of 2 movies per weeknight. Monday was pregnancy night. Yikes!

Monday night started off with the semi-autobiographical movie LET'S RUIN IT WITH BABIES. Part road trip, part relationship film, all a lot of fun. Writer/Director Kestrin Pantera plays Channing. She's living the hipster dream-life of a comfortable home, good relationship, lots of friends, and a job that's all about creativity and fun. She owns and operates the RVIP (as in, a VIP lounge in an RV)--a mobile karaoke club/bar in an RV. And just as she and her husband are about to embark on a cross-country tour two big things happen: First, he announces to everyone at a party that they're officially "no longer trying to not get pregnant." Second, he gets his dream job and cannot go on tour. So Channing goes on tour with her best friends but not her husband, has a lot of wacky adventures (my favorite being the elderly woman who eventually figures out she's on the wrong bus but still sings a song before they drive her home) and questions where her relationship is going. A really fun movie, and tuns the standard romantic comedy formula around by making it a journey to stay in love, not to fall in love.

Then pregnancy night continues with DELIVERY. A horror mocku-mentary about Kyle and Rachel Massy (Danny Barclay and Laurel Vail) who--after trying for years--are finally pregnant. And they're filming the whole thing for a reality TV show. But things go badly wrong and the movie ends up being edited out of the unaired footage from the show. After the initial joyous reactions there's a scare with an apparent miscarriage. There's some bleeding, she's rushed to the hospital, and the doctors can't find a heartbeat on the ultrasound. She's kept overnight to recover and the next morning...actually there is a heartbeat. What a lucky break! Or it would be if strange things didn't start happening. The dog starts barking at her. Video footage is broken up with static and artifacts, specifically when she's on screen. As her due date approaches, things go from weird to worse, and it manages to be an effective genre thrill as well as a fresh approach to the "found footage" sub-genre.

And that was Monday at Indiefest.

Total Running Time: 166 minute
My Total Minutes: 350,450