Cinequest is coming

For anyone in the Bay Area who is a big movie fan Cinequest is a must. The annual film festival runs Feb. 23 to March 7 this year and all the venues are in downtown San Jose, making it easy to hit a few movies in one day.

I've been to Cinequest quite a few times (and even wrote about it for the paper) usually taking in a shorts program and feature film. I've also attended quite a few of the Maverick Spirit Award events, where a filmmaker is honored for pretty much being super cool. The Maverick Spirit events I've attended have honored Lili Taylor, William H. Macy and Edward James Olmos. I am totally psyched about this year's honoree, Benjamin Bratt, and will be buying tickets as soon as I figure out who wants to go with me.

One of my favorite things about the film festival is that I get a chance to see some short films, which are hard to come by most of time (although I guess maybe YouTube has kind of made them more accessible.) The Cinequest staff organize the shorts into like categories so there is usually a comedy shorts viewing, among others. A couple year's ago one of the films was by Ed Helms and he played a Zombie-American fighting against discrimination. It was pretty funny and there is a hint of his turn in "The Hangover" in that performance.

One year I saw a shorts program that was entitled "Mind Benders." It was basically short films with unexpected endings. This year some of the shorts programs included "Through the Eyes of a Child" and "More Than You Bargained For."

The festival also has a variety of feature films and even has workshops for aspiring filmmakers. The worst thing about the festival is trying to decide which events to go and in the past some of the events have been a bit disorganized - it is run largely by volunteers after all and movie fans can get a bit rabid when they are fitting for front row seats to see someone like Edward James Olmos or William H. Macy.

I will probably stick to a few events this year, but I haven't looked over the program well enough to know which ones I will select. Check back in February for an update.