I have seen a large number of movies, some long and some short, and I really have no ability to spend time reviewing each one separately. So instead I am going to do quick capsule reviews of each short movie and each feature that I have seen so far. If you have any interest at all in the highs and lows of my MVFF experience, read more and see what I think.

Oh, and some of the short movies that I can't remember and might not have been shown are in the program, so I include them in case I remember them later on...

Arna's Children: This was a fascinating documentary. Filmed by an Israeli-Palestinian film star, it told the story of his mother, Arna, who opened a theater school for children in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin. It focused specifically on a handful of children who participated in the theater, and whose lives were impacted by their adopted mother Arna. A humanistic look at the other side of a long-standing conflict, it has been derided in the mainstream press as overly sympathetic to suicide bombers and Palestinian terrorists. In reality, it takes the time to show that the conflict is not always easy to breakdown and that children are easily persuaded by the wars around them. Interesting, I thought, that the Israeli filmmaker (he identifies himself as an Israeli) noted that the reception in Israel, even among hardliners, has been much better than the reception of the movie in Europe and the U.S.

Sword in the Moon: I was disappointed that the print for this movie was not available, and that it was shown from video (or a DVD source). Nevertheless, it was a moderately good martial arts flick with an interesting story and elaborate Korean set pieces. Following the story of two young men and the broken friendship, it is a classic samurai flick with big, bold fight scenes and the characteristic sacrifice for honor ending. It is definately worth checking out if you are into these kinds of movies, though I doubt that it will convert anyone into a samurai movie fan.

Cosmic Africa: Highly stylistic editing and cinematography provide more entertainment than the actual story. I highly anticipated this movie, expecting a great journey across Africa in search of the mystery of the night sky. Instead, I saw an astro-physicist who was disconnected from his heritage travel to three places and live among tribes that still had a great connection to the Earth and the stars. It was successful in what it did, I had just hoped that it would do more. I think that this is worth seeing from an artistic angle, but you can probably learn more about the wide variety of beliefs about the night sky by spending a few afternoons reading a good book.

Primer: The movie I most looked forward to during the festival, and certainly the highlight of the whole thing for me. Made on an unimaginable budget of $7,000, it looks and feels more like a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster than most multi-million dolalr Hollywood blockbusters. A fascinating story of friendship, trust, betrayal and time travel, it is effortless in its storytelling and fascinating in its production. Don't worry about trying to figure it all out after the first viewing -- the director, who spoke afterward, indicated that it was much more about the friendship than the mechanics. Certainly you can piece things together after a couple of viewings, but don't let this overwhelm the central theme of the film. Go see it today, if it at all possible. It should be playing somewhere within 100 miles of all of you, and it is worth the effort.

5@5: I'm Movin' On
Save Vergil: A piece of trash short movie. I can enjoy good tasteless, obscene humor (I'm a big fan of South Park), but I couldn't stand this waste of time. High production values do nothing but embarass the viewer. The only film, short movie or otherwise, that had people booing at the end.
Passing Hearts: A touching story about a reunion between a boy and the parent's of a child who died. The boy in the story received a life-saving heart from the child who died, and the parents are overwhelmed at this reminder of their child's life, and death. A touching piece that was the highlight of this night.
Each One Teach One: A fairly mundane story about former convicts and their attempts to better the next generation. Focusing on art as an outlet, it swept through various cliches and generalizations without ever really becoming interesting.
Catalina View: I really enjoyed this short movie about a toll booth worker who is unimpressed by the celebrities that pass through his lane. More important to him are the real, tangible life events, such as the sad goodbye he must say to his wife as she passes through his lane one last time.
The Critical Path: I have absolutely no recollection of this one. Either it wasn't shown, or it was so unremarkable that I can't even remember seeing it.
I'm Your Man: Weird and wandering. While it was the kind of movie I expected to see more of than any other (a prototypical film festival short movie), I just wasn't convinced that it was anything more than normal. It started with some interesting scenarios -- people whose lives were affected by a con-man -- and ended without ever really going anywhere. So these lives were changed, but it doesn't really matter if you never really cared about the lives in the first place.

5@5: Busted
Money: Cute. OK. That's about all I can say about this short movie. A man finds a wallet with some cash, removes the money, then when he sees the possible owner, he has an attack of conscience and tries to remedy the situation. He makes some mistakes, hilarity ensues, the movie is over. That's about it.
Rainbow Klansmen: A very moving, sad tale about a young boy who defends his African-American friend from school bullies. His father tries to encourage him to stick up for himself, which then backfires when the boy encounters a group of Klansmen beating an older black man. The boy pelts the men with paintball gun shots until they run away. Later, proud of his accomplishment, he notices that his father has paintball stains on the back of his shirt. A movie that doesn't feel the need to say anything more than that, and ends with the two young boys on a basketball court, quiet and perplexed about the world around them.
The Lazy Assassin: So much potential, but just pretty good in the end. The premise is hilarious -- an assassin who is so lazy he drives his car to the end of the driveway to check his mail. It is funny in the right parts and until the end nails everything you want it to nail. It ends on a strange and unsatisfying note, although it probably fits with the general concept of the film. When it was over, I just couldn't get too excited about it.
Conversations: An intriguing look at a mortician who has conversations with his dead clients. Things turn strange when he starts killing people to finally get them to talk to him (and possibly eats part of them -- implied but never really confirmed). It is a short murder-mystery type movie that is both unsettling and funny.
Time Lost: A true story about an Oakland man pulled over for speeding and arrested for rape. Despite questionable evidence, a clean record, police coercian, etc., this man spent 14 years in prison before a judge overturned one of the two counts he was convicted of (DNA evidence proved his innocence). More interesting than downbeat, it shows this man, now in his late 30s, as frustrated by his ordeal but ready to move on and make the best of the rest of his life. He tries to connect with his young son and daughter, unsure of his ability to be a factor in their life again. Clearly intended to show that he was innocent of both crimes, the interest in the story is less in the wrongful conviction (of which we have seen many stories of), and more in his post-prison demeanor, less bitter than might be imagined, more empowered than one would think.
The Greener Grass: A married man has a crisis of conscience. His wife and daughter away visiting relatives, he ends up going out with a friend he hasn't seen since his wedding. This night on the town turns out to bring him closer to infidelity than he might have imagined, but ultimately convinces him that he must make a choice about his future and stick with it. After the woman he meets tells him to ignore whether the glass is half-full or half-empty, and to just drink the damn water, he decides to throw out the remnants of his bachelorhood and fully commit himself to his new life (better late than never). A well-shot, well-written, entertaining short film that actually feels satisfying at the end.
Time and Space: Another short film that I can't remember seeing. Again, either completely unremarkable, or completely not shown during the festival.

5@5: You Are My Sunshine
Our New Toy: A freaky tribute to Stephen King. A boy plays with his stuffed animals, to the great disdain of his schoolmates. When the boy decides that he has had enough of their ridicule, he puts away his toys and tries to move on with life. Unfortunately, his stuffed animals have other ideas and begin to torment him in ways both sadistic and sad. A fairly standard piece, from a filmmaking standpoint, it really stands out because of the interesting story. Although, if you have read Stephen Kind, you can probably imagine the entirety of this story and probably avoid having to see it.
Consent: See it. See it now. It is hilarious. More of a public service announcement than a short film, it is a quick 6 minutes of hilarity. See it here.
For Fuck's Sake: Stupid. That about sums it up. Some guy is so obssessed with sex that he imagines four women following him around. This inevitably screws up his real love life and, well, that's all I need to say about this movie.
Wet Dreams and False Images: A very funny and intelligent commentary on John Q. Public's fascination with artificial beauty. Primarily focused on a local barbershop where the barber and the patrons believe that all of the pictures of half-naked women are realistic, it intercuts interviews with them with interviews of photo retouchers. In many cases, the interviews with the retouchers are shown to the patrons. They are stunned by the fact that what they thought was natural beauty was an artificial approximation of perfection. This movie never really tries to say more than that, but it is clear that it is successful in what it does.
The Brother: Another one that I have no recollection. I have to hope that it is because it wasn't actually shown and not that I am losing my mind.
Wedding Toast: A very funny and poignant short movie about the stress that a book editor goes through when asked to be the best man in his friends wedding. The innumerable attempts to create the perfect toast end up fruitless, as the best man loses every support he has to give his speech. Through the support and help of others he is able to give the perfect speech for the couple that he is there for. A quick journey through the ups and downs of the days before a wedding, this movie feels like a much bigger production than a normal short film. And that is a good thing.

The Snow Walker: This movie surprised me. It was free to us as members of the California Film Institute, and while I didn't expect crap, I didn't think that it would be one of the highlights of the festival. To my utter delight, it was a great movie that exceeded my expectations. It was about a charter plane pilot and his Inuit passenger who crash into the Arctic tundra. Of course and with little hope of being found, they struggle to communicate, survive and, ultimately, find a way out of their predicament. The cinematography was gorgeous, the acting superb, and the pace of the film was much better than I anticipated. I figured that this would be an interesting, but slow, movie that rehashed many of the same survival challenges we have seen in countless other movies. It wasn't this, and I was very please to have seen it.

A Tale of Two Sisters: Next to Primer, this was my favorite movie of the festival. A South Korean horror/psychological thriller flick, it hit the right notes, was interesting throughout, and was scary in ways that a recent disappointment of mine, Ju-On: The Grudge, was not. Somehow I convinced my wife to see the movie with me on the night of our anniversary. I coerced her into going by pointing out that it was at the Castro Theater, a famous old theater in San Francisco. Neither of us were prepared for just how beautiful the theater was. An organist entertained us from the stage before the movie and the architecture provided a vision into the golden days of movie-going. The movie itself was a kind of ghost story, focusing on two sisters who move back into their family's country home. At this house, they deal with an evil stepmother, evil noises, evil ghosts and other generally evil things. The single most notable aspect of the movie is the sound. Any good horror movie has impeccable sound, eerie and disorienting, and uses this to put you on edge. A Tale of Two Sisters uses sound in an almost hyperrealistic manner, forcing you to concentrate on every little noise that surrounds you in that darkened theater. A true feast for anyone who appreciates these kinds of films.

Black Mor's Island: A French animated movie about a young man's quest for his own pirate ship and treasure that he is sure exists somewhere on the open seas. A decent movie made worse by a "reader" -- someone who read the subtitles for any young children in the audience. A completely unnecessary practice that completely affected how everyone saw the movie. The 10 year old girl sitting next to us even complained about the reader. In the end, it was an entertaining movie, but not something that I am going to beg any of you to go see.

The Human Touch: I didn't see this, but my wife did. She went with a friend and reported back that it was an "artsy" movie that was entertaining and fascinating. She wants to talk about it, so I assume that I will end up seeing it at some point. Because a friend went with my wife, we only had two tickets and the showing was sold out, I had to drag myself to go see "Team America: World Police". Now that is a movie. Go see it. Now. But only if you like humor. Actually, only if you like edgy, almost obscene humor that mocks anything it gets its arms around. As for The Human Touch, I don't think that it has a marionette sex scene, which makes all the difference in the world.

Let's Play: The one movie that we didn't get to. We had tickets, but Jesus, folks! Can't we get a break? Why do you make us go to all this stuff? We just want to sit back and relax a little. And you keep making us do all these things that we are truly enjoying. It's enough to make a person sick. Especially if they catch the flu. So we missed this collection of children's short movies. But we still made it to 13 of the 14 movies we had tickets for. Not bad, if you ask me.

Lightning in a Bottle: Concert movies are not my favorite movies. While I can appreciate the energy and excitement of a live concert, movies about these concerts are really only for the most diehard of diehard fans. I was interested in Lightning in a Bottle, but I wasn't expecting to be overwhelmed by it. I was overwhelmed. It was a fascinating concert movie about a Blues retrospective that took place in New York City in 2003. Part of Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues, this concert examined the history of blues music through the voices of legendary blues singers and their contemporary counterparts. I was captivated by both the music and the presentation. If you have any remote interest in music, I believe that this is a concert film that you must see. If not in the theater, be sure to grab the DVD when it becomes available.

The MVFF Closing Night Gala: This was the closing event of the film festival. We wanted to participate in something other than just the films and decided that this would be a satisfying conclusion to 11 days of movie bliss. Held at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, we were treated to a selection of fine foods from local caterers and restaurants, wines and mixed drinks, and live music from Lightning in a Bottle, performed by some of the artists from the concert. We were lucky enough to make a swap (long lines at the bar prompted one guest to offer their seats for our attempt to order drinks for him) and end up sitting with one of the actors from a film in the festival. The seats were front and center near the dancing area and we had a nice view of the entire venue. It was a relaxing, fun evening that was a perfect cap on the festival.