Nov 082004
  November 8, 2004

I know the MEIC was a full convention, with panels and concerts and workshops.  It said so in the guide and on the radio.  But for me, there was only film.  Nine features and thirty-six shorts, and I was there to watch them all.  Stephen Zimmer, the lord and master of the MEIC, asked me to be a festival judge, and I must applaud his wisdom.

So I sat, first in an old-style downtown theater (damn, I wish they still built them like that) for a few 35mm prints along with the standard video projections, and then in a theater at the local university.  Apparently, left on my own, I will sit and watch movies indefinitely, never eating and drinking only coffee.  Somewhere in there, I was rescued by director Devi Snively and her partner Agustin Fuentes, who managed to move me into a restaurant where there was real food.  I can’t say that the switch from coffee to bad beer and a fruity rum drink was better for me, but sometimes change is good.  Now I’m pretty fanatical about film, but Devi and Agustin were so inhumanly interesting and pleasant that I was quite happy to take time away from the flickering projectors.  Of course, I made it to the “big screen” showing of Devi & Agustin’s Teenage Bikini Vampire.

For the films, it was a mixed bag, as is normally the case at any festival.  Some were excellent and some should be buried deep in the earth, encased in lead.  The highlights included Vin Morreale’s romantic comedy Breaking and Entering and Aren Haun’s Froth, a talky comedy about the lives of coffee-shop workers that screamed “Indie”.  The most interesting feature was Able Edwards; entirely shot on green-screen, it felt like a low budget version of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.  While the technique was fascinating, the story was predictable and unengaging.

The best moments of the festival were in the short films.  The “can’t miss” films included C.J. Roy’s Roadside Attractions, Bryan Smith’s Laundry Day, Rob Meltzer’s I Am Stamos, Devi Snively’s Teenage Bikini Vampire, and Blur studio’s beautifully animated Rockfish.

Also of note was Doug Karr’s The Straightjacket Lottery (showing that all of us are more than a little crazy), and Mike Williamson’s The Silvergleam Whistle (an FX marvel of a simple campfire story).  I’m also partial to Casey Crow’s Tojenkawa; it’s either my animal rights side kicking in or the nudity.

I had a chance to chat with directors, but it was the movies that ruled, and there were enough of interest to make the MEIC a success, for me anyway.