By Unpopular Demand....

Dusty in here, isn't it?

One of my annual rituals is attending the Maryland Film Festival in Baltimore, Maryland. Hosted mostly at the Charles Theatre right across the street from Penn Station and two blocks down from the local meth factory, the festival is usually a fun mix of independent features and documentaries, short film collections, and classic odds and ends. John Waters always presents a film, and about four years ago, they started a tradition of showing a 3-D movie Saturday morning and a silent film with the Alloy Orchestra on Sunday morning. That said, the festival always seems hit-or-miss with me. Last year, I saw 9 to 10 showings, including a collection of work by music video icon Chuck Statler, a mockumentary about a death row inmate released to play in the (sorta) Super Bowl, and a little-seen Harold Lloyd movie.

This year, it's mostly miss.

Outside of the comedy and animated shorts programs, there isn't much of interest. Even the 3-D and silent films are underwhelming: the Raymond Burr thriller Gorilla at Large (about a serial killer gorilla) isn't as bad as last year's William Castle special Fort Ti or as classic as Vincent Price's House of Wax, while the silent version of Hitchcock's Blackmail pales next to previous showings of Sunrise and the two-color Technicolor Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks. I'll probably see Blackmail, but I've already missed the 3-D flick, mostly 'cause sleeping in sounded better. On the other hand, I really wanted to see Murderball--a documentary about the clash between Canadian and U.S. wheelchair rugby teams--but the two showings of it conflict with the aforementioned short programs. That's another problem with the festival: Sometimes they have a lot of movies I want to see, but most wind up showing at the same times.

One of those conflicts this year is between two independent features that sound interesting but could excruciate more than entertain. One is Black-Eyed Susan, wherein two friends rob a dead man's apartment but get caught up in a cat-and-mouse game with the man's relatives. The film was written and directed by Jim Riffel, who apparently has been making ultra-low budget films for years now, including the Howard Stern documentary Shut Up and Listen, the feature Mass of Angels (which really does sound interesting, damn it), and a unnamed cult film that he's disowned but was named to the 300 Films of All-Time by the Edinburg University Film Society. The other is After the Apocalypse, a Japanese film about the survivors of a nuclear war. More Lord of the Flies than The Road Warrior, the film is shot in black and white and features no dialogue. The latter can be extremely effective, as borne out by the horror film Soft for Digging, which I saw in my first Maryland Film Festival.

Since I wasn't able to choose between two movies that don't demand my attention, I instead left it up to my esteemed fellow collegues, zombies, witches, and whatnot at the B-Movie Message Board. They have until Sunday morning at 8 a.m. to vote. I'll go see the winner and post an in-depth review on the BMMB later in the week. Sounds fun, huh?

In 24 hours, I've gotten a grand total of 3 votes.

Looks like they're just as excited about the festival as I am. Oh well. A review still will be done, and a report of the rest of the festival should appear here as well.