I went to the Maryland Film Festival the past weekend. It really was great. The opening night shorts were fabulous. “Little Gorilla” was about a boy conquering his fear of the monkey bars. It sounds boring, but it is actually a wonderful film with superb acting on the part of some 5 and 7 year-olds. There is almost no dialogue and the story is told through the facial expressions of the kids which are spot on. “Two Hands” is also a brilliant documentary on pianist Leon Fleisher who lost the ability to move his fingers on his right hand. However it goes on to tell about how some surgery allowed him to start playing with two hands again. It’s an amazingly thorough and emotional documentary that does a great job of condensing everything into 18 minutes.
“Dante’s Inferno” was a remake of the original using modern day political and pop culture figures as the damned. Everything is done in the style of puppet theater using only hand-drawn paper dolls and no CGI. Oh yeah and Dick Cheney is in the ninth circle of hell.
The best came on the closing night with “Rocket Science”. The film is about a high school policy debater with a stutter. What makes it so cool is that it was filmed in Maryland at high-school debate competitions (like the ones I go to. There is even a scene where you can see the Loyola bus with it’s blue stripe). The film is excellent and will be released in mainstream theaters August 10. It’s extremely well told and really grabs you emotionally especially in a scene with a cello and piano cover of “Violent Femmes” “Blister in the Sun” overlayed with images from the Kama Sutra. It’s a wonderful story. Go see it.
Anyways it was very good
Things I’m working on:
1. Debate cases for nationals
2. Studying for exams
3. Porting a text-based game to the Apple I
4. Writing a script for a film
