Maryland Film Festival '07, Day 2: Trippy Temp

Just got back, so this is a placeholder post until I have time and alertness to write something more substantial.

Man in the Dark--This year's traditional 3-D film actually beat House of Wax as the first studio, two-projector movie...by a day or two. A potboiler with some nice depth of field and 3-D effects, wonky movie science, and "snappy" one-liners that provided more entertainment than the film itself. Just a fun time.

Syndromes and a Century--Storytelling without a story. A highly visual film that follows a number of characters in a rural army base, and then suddenly switches to an urban, sterile hospital setting with the same characters going through the same plot swings, but from different perspectives. Still not sure what it was all about, but genuinely affect still.

Animation Shorts--11 short films of varying styles, tone, and techniques. The first was the funniest: "Ujbaz Izbeneki Has Lost His Soul" is a claymation work about a young man showing up in hell after losing his soul because, well, he loses things. Much to the devil's distress, Ujbaz is still losing things....The worst was "The Ballad of Mary Slade," a generally well-done short about the tragic downfall of a young woman as retold by the insects who have come to, um, consume her. Too gruesome for my taste. Overall, a solid selection with one very powerful work ("Everything Will Be OK") and only one music video to be found (a problem that has developed from past festivals).

Golden Days--A behind-the-scenes documentary about the experience of The Damnwells, a self-made indie band who signs a major record deal with Epic, spends a year waiting for the recorded album to come out, and then gets dropped without a release. Far from a VH-1 Behind the Music special, Golden Days features no cataclysmic climax featuring tragedic or excess; instead, the film shows a band still discovering who they are and how they've grown stronger from the experience rather than unravel from it. The final scene shows The Damnwells performing on stage, opening for and then performing with The Fray, another indie act Epic kept and promoted to two million dollar sales. The Fray insisted on keeping The Damnwells as their opening act; "we're fans." It's refreshing to see a music documentary where the music does pull the band through.

That's all for now. More detail later.