May

42 - Girls Rock! (5/3) - Liked it so much I went to see the Atlanta screening with friends.

43 - Iron Man (5/4) - I was really surprised by how much I liked this one. Much better than I expected a super-hero movie to be. And I love Peter Billingsley because of A Christmas Story so I'm happy to see him doing well as a grown-up.

44 - Tell No One (5/11) - A French film based on a Harlan Coben novel, which I thought was odd. I mean, I know we remake foreign films all the time because Americans like to see things in American and all that, but it seemed odd to have that go the other way. Although here we're talking about a French adaptation of an American novel, not a remake of an American movie. But you know what I mean. It was a good movie, but I couldn't help but think that if it hadn't been in French we would never have seen it at Cinema Club.

45 - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (5/15) - Totally predictable period piece that I really enjoyed. Lee Pace is adorable and Ciaran Hinds is...well, sort of the opposite of adorable but I dig him anyway.

46 - The Fall (5/31) - Another Lee Pace movie, and one of my favorites of the year. I'm crazy about the grand, sweeping vistas and grandiose storytelling, and the little girl in this was a complete charmer. Not a great movie by most people's standards but it really struck a chord with me.

April - the rest of the month

Since Film Fest is the first weekend of the month I managed to see several more movies before April was over.

35 - Conflicts & Resolutions Shorts (4/11) - This was a short-film program at the Atlanta Film Festival (because I just hadn't had enough of festivals, apparently). Although I usually avoid short film programs like the plague, my friend Chuck directed one of the films so I managed to man up and actually ended up enjoying it.

36 - The Ruins (4/12) - Wanted to like both the book & the movie better than I did. Fairly creepy but neither grabbed me like I wanted them to.

37 - The Bank Job (4/13) - Jason Statham in a heist movie with a script that didn't suck. Usually his heist movies work out that way - it's weird. Dug it.

38 - Comedy Shorts (4/15) - Another Atlanta Film Festival shorts program with another movie by my friend Chuck. This one definitely had some duds, but it had a few gems as well.

39 - Forbidden Kingdom (4/20) - I actually had to go look this one up on IMDB to remember what it was, so obviously it didn't make much of an impression. But to be fair, April was a tough month to stand out in with me.

40 - Baby Mama (4/25) - Very funny.

41 - Tuya's Wedding (4/27) - A very slow-paced movie from somewhere in Asia. And I mean slow. Really, really slooooow.

And that's it for April, at last. Whew.

April - Wisconsin Film Fest / Day 4

Day 4 (4/6) -

• 31 - Girls Rock! Heck yeah they do! This documentary about the rock & roll camp for girls movement was a great start to the last day.
• 32 - Sixty-Six: Alex went to some documentary about tea which you couldn't have paid me to sit through, so I went to this coming-of-age tale about a boy whose bar mitzvah falls on the same day as the World Cup finals which I meant to go see at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival but missed.
  
• 33 - Constantine's Sword is a documentary about a former Catholic priest whose search for a deeper understanding of his religion leads him to study persecution and violence in the Church’s history. Pretty interesting, but we saw this one in a really strange venue neither one of us could stand, so although our next film was in the same theater, we gave our tickets away to strangers in the rush line and went to get something to eat instead.
  
• 34 - Fermat's Room is sort of a Spanish Good Will Hunting meets Saw; four mathematicians are invited to a remote location to solve an enigma, but it turns out they have to solve logic puzzles to keep themselves alive. It's difficult to explain but it's definitely entertaining, and if you can remember the logic puzzles you can always use them as bar games to win yourself drinks.

And that's all for Film Fest. Fifteen (although it was supposed to be sixteen) films in four days. And I'm going back for more next year.

April - Wisconsin Film Fest / Day 3

This was a day on which I learned something about myself. What I learned is that four movies in one day is pretty much my limit - by the time I hit the fifth film, I am seriously ready to not be in a movie theater any more.

Day 3 (4/5) -

• 26 - The Substitute is another Scandanavian film, but the exact opposite of Waiter in that it did not make you want to kill yourself. Alex wanted to go see some serious, mind-expanding documentary in this timeslot, but I said, "Let's check out this movie about a sixth-grade substitute teacher that turns out to be an alien instead!" and so we did, because she's good like that. And it was great - definitely in my top 5 of the fest.
• 27 - The Linguists is a documentary about two scientists who travel the world trying to document languages on the verge of extinction. Educational and entertaining, and one of the linguists was there and spoke afterwards.
• 28 - Song Sung Blue, a documentary about a husband-and-wife Neil Diamond tribute duo, was surprisingly sad and touching. But that feeling didn't linger long after the credits rolled and the widow (the husband died during the making of the film) treated the Q&A like her own personal live-audience infomercial. She plugged her upcoming concert dates and offered CD's & t-shirts for sale. She was also the only one of the filmmakers/stars that we saw arrive for their screening in a limo. My impression of this film was definitely tainted by her behavior afterward.
• 29 - Getting Home is sort of a Chinese Weekend at Bernie's in which a man tries to return his deceased friend to his home town for burial. Under normal circumstances I probably would have enjoyed this more, but I was starting to lag and knew I had this one plus one more for the day to get through. And as an added bonus, the print of the film hadn't made it through customs so we had to watch a dvd with timecode projected on the big screen. Not my favorite thing ever.
• 30 - Mongol would be more accurately titled Ghengis Khan: The Early Years. I was ready for the day to be over by the time we sat down to start this one, so I was not in the best state of mind for an epic. It was pretty good, but I didn't realize it was only going to cover his rise to power, not the height of his reign or anything, so I kept thinking "when is he gonna take over all of Asia already?!? Let's get the world conquered and get this over with. I'm ready to go home!"

April - Wisconsin Film Fest / Day 2

Day 2 (4/4) -

• 23 - Yella, a German film described in the program as a "metaphysical thriller" which is fest-speak for "totally tedious" apparently. Alex & I split up and went to different films in this time slot, and due to it's running time and the location of the venue for our next movie, I actually left this one before it was over. And I didn't regret it one little bit.
• 24 - Ben X, a Belgian film about a mildly autistic boy struggling to deal with bullies in high school. The solution he comes up with is not the one you think you're going to see, based on the "interviews" conducted with his family members and other students at the school that are interspersed throughout the film. Alex & I both liked this one.
• 25 - Bon Cop, Bad Cop is probably best described as a Canadian Lethal Weapon that's centered around a hockey-obsessed serial killer. Really funny - probably my favorite film of this year's fest.

The first two days are the "light" days; since the movies don't start until 5p (presumably so people who aren't using their vacation time for this like Alex and I are can go to work during the day), you can really only fit in about three a night. It's on Saturday (Day 3) that things start to get serious, with screenings starting at 10a and going way into the wee hours of the morning.

April - Wisconsin Film Fest / Day 1

My friend Alex has been going to the Wisconsin Film Festival in Madison, WI for years. Last year we decided to start a nerd-based cultural exchange program: I would join her in Madison for the Film Fest since she comes down to Atlanta to attend Dragon*Con with me. So while she's been going for a while, 2007 was my first year to attend, and I really enjoyed it although I got sick with a bad cold. (Which I was coming down with before I left and in no way blame on the Wisconsin weather.)

The Wisconsin Film Festival takes place over four days in ten different venues in downtown Madison. All of the venues are in walking-distance of one another, and usually the weather has just started to get nice up there when the festival begins, so going from venue to venue is really pleasant. I tend to prefer the narrative films and Alex likes the documentaries, so we'll occasionally split up to attend different movies showing at the same time, but this year for the most part we stayed together.

Since Alex & I attended fifteen films during the festival (and then I attended several more throughout the rest of the month), I've decided to break April up into five parts - one part for each day of the festival, and then another for the remainder of the month. Here goes:

Day 1 (4/3) -

• 20 - Turn the River, starring Famke Janssen as a surprisingly convincing hard-edged pool hustler who's trying to get custody of her son. Alex & I both thought she'd be too pretty to be believable in a role like that, but she nailed it.
• 21 - Waiter, sort of a Dutch Stranger Than Fiction but much more depressing.
• 22 - Mad City Chickens, a documentary about the struggle to legalize raising chickens within Madison city limits. There's a whole city-chicken movement, believe it or not, so you may see a coop going up in your neighbor's backyard before you know it.
  

March

I only saw two movies in March. I know - weird. And they were both Cinema Club movies, so it's almost like I was obligated to go to them.

18 - Under the Same Moon (3/2) - A young Mexican boy travels to the U.S. to find his mother after his grandmother passes away. So sorta like Lassie Come Home with illegal immigration gravitas thrown in. Okay but not a movie I was crazy about.

19 - The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (3/16) - Another boy on his own story, this time in Brazil. Also okay, but not one of my favorites.