There are certain benefits to living in Michigan. Of course, at this exact moment I can only think of one – the annual Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck. In its 12th year now, the WFF has been recognized as one of the best film festivals in America, and deservedly so. Besides the consistently strong lineup of films (the WFF hosted the Midwest debuts of American Splendor, March of the Penguins, Man on Wire, Napoleon Dynamite, and many more), the Festival just runs like a dream every year. I think this was my seventh year attending, and in all that time I’ve never had a problem or been inconvenienced or seen any signs of impending collapse. The volunteers do an amazing job of keeping it running smoothly. Every year has been an absolute blast, and you really should go whenever you get the chance.
This year, I noticed fewer filmmakers and performers in attendance – probably another symptom of the flailing economy, but it was as much fun as ever. (It’d be hard to top meeting Yeardley “Lisa Simpson” Smith last year. And as it turns out, Yeardley apparently liked the Festival enough that this year’s program listed her as a major donor. That’s pretty awesome on everybody’s part.) I caught ten movies in two days, and over the next three days, I’ll be reviewing nine of them.
Unfortunately, I actually fell asleep during one film. That’s partly a combination of movie fatigue and allergy pills, but also because the movie in question was not very good. I’m not going to review it or even mention the name here, because that’s not really fair of me. It’s entirely possible that the middle section was amazing and I slept through it, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. That said, here are my first three reviews from the Festival.
