Jason goes to Cinequest--Day 2

Now the festival's starting in earnest. Although I'm still working my day job, so just 2 shows last night. But first, a couple of drinks in the lounge at the Continental Bar, and then some food and drinks at Rookies Sports Lodge, featuring a wine pouring of Cabernet and Chardonnay from J Lohr.

That's a heck of a beverage Frankie is enjoying there

Then I wandered over to the Hammer Theatre just in time for LOVE TYPE D. Frankie just got dumped, again. And in the worst possible way--her boyfriend sent his 11 year old science nerd brother to break the news to her. Worse yet, since he's a science nerd and keeps up on the latest papers, he informs her that she probably has the newly discovered "dumpee" gene. See, some people dump others, some people get dumped, and she's genetically destined to get dumped. This bit of pseudo-science is the premise behind this comedy. The pleasing illusion that it's your fate--not your faults--that cause one to repeatedly fail at love. There's a whole institute set to study it and find...well, not a cure, but effective "hobby therapy" to let the unlovable live...marginally palatable lives. There are several funny bits (especially the super-concentrated pheromones that make men fall in love while simply angering/confusing their soon-to-be-ex-girlfriends). Overall it's very enjoyable, largely on the strength of Maeve Dermody's performance, but it does suffer slightly from what I call the "90 minute short" syndrome--when a movie had an idea that would be really effective and snappy as a 20 minute short, but stretches a little thin when it's feature length.

LOVE TYPE D plays again three times:
Thu, Mar 5 2:30 PM at the California (OMG! That's like now! Run!)
Sat, Mar 7 12:20 PM in Redwood City
Sat, Mar 14 12:45 PM in Redwood City

So I didn't have time to stick around for any Q&A, because I had to run to the 3Below for the shorts program (really, TV pilots program) "Shocks, Thrills, and Dark Visions"
ASKING FOR A FRIEND: Sometimes you come home and see your roommate standing over a dead body that's bleeding out and soaking into the carpet. You know, one of those days. Looks like the start of a hilarious dark comedy series.
R. L. ALMAN'S PETER PAN: A clever re-imagining of Peter Pan, set in modern San Francisco, where the evil Hook corporation is gentrifying all the artists out of there.
S41NT: A hacker's adventure with government conspiracies. Looks like it could take several seasons to untangle, but this was a good introduction.
SUCKED IN: A very short (think a concept for a pilot) and funny twist on a woman being stalked by a dangerous junkie who knows she was stealing (he assumes drugs) from her hospital. Spoiler alert--she wasn't stealing drugs.
GLITCH!: Unless I blacked out for 24 minutes, this one actually didn't play. And a lot of people were confused at the end thinking there was one more film to go. So I'm going with it didn't play...I guess there was some sort of glitch?

Some of Peter Pan's fairies, in R. L. ALMAN'S PETER PAN

Shocks, Thrills, and Dark Visions plays again Saturday March 7 at 4:15 in Redwood City

Then over to Chacho's for one last beer and then home. Because there's more Cinequesting to do tomorrow (which is now today)!

Total Running Time: 185 minutes
My Total Minutes: 522,117