Why was he late this year? Totally Derek's fault. But I'm finally getting around to posting the pieces sent to me, and Garcia has my gratitude for this piece. We at Fanboy Planet must support the festivals and events near us in the Silicon Valley.

I’ve been going to Cinequest every year since 2001. I’ve been taking a full two weeks of vacation to go and work hard announcing films, hang out with filmmakers and just plain watch a lot of movies, and every year it’s harder to ease back into the tub that is my regular life.

This year’s Cinequest was different from any other year I’ve gone. There were fewer films that I just had to see. I wasn’t working nearly as many hours. I had a movie in the fest (The Last Woman on Earth, starring the wonderful Kate Kelton) and all of that added up to a weird two weeks.

As always, I give out these little awards, and this year is no exception, so here we go:

Best Ego Boosting Reaction- My Five Seconds of Screen Time in The Last Woman on Earth.
I produced Last Woman and had a brief part in it as well. I basically did one physical joke and it got a laugh from the full audience at The San Jose Rep. I still got it! You can see The Last Woman on Earth at IFC Media Lab (ifc.com)

Best Reaction to a Film- Walkout by Edward James Olmos
When you gather a packed theatre like the California (total seat count: 2000), and then show a film about the Mexican-American walk-outs of the 1960s, you’re sure to get a great reaction. The crowd that gathered to see Walkout (starring Alexa Vega of Spy Kids as well as that guy who played Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite) was so enthused that everything that happened on screen was gold and they gave it back. It was hard not to get swept up in the momentum, and if Eddie hadn’t been there waiting for his Maverick Spirit Award. It reminded me of the stories of the original Rocky with people reacting to the finale like it was a real boxing match.

Best Opening Night Film EVER!- Thank You For Smoking
Typically, the Opening Night Film for Cinequest has been a little movie, once in a while a really good little movie, but seldom is it one that’s as much fun as Thank You For Smoking. Directed by Ivan Reitman’s kid, TYFS is now in theatres and is well worth a view. I thought Santa Clara County’s own Aaron Eckhart was great as Nick Naylor and that my man William H. Macy was jut as good. Add to that a weird script that took the perfect amount of liberties from Christopher Buckley’s source materials and you have the best opening night film I’ve ever seen.

Best Short (Silent and Old)- One Week
The last two years, Cinequest has been showing silent movies on Friday nights. This year they opened with Metropolis, which sadly I missed, and then they did a Buster Keaton affair the second Friday. The feature was Seven Chances, which was remade as The Bachelor a few years back by ...Chris O'Donnell? The short was called One Week, in which Buster and his new bride had seven days to build a house from a kit. It was really funny with all the stunts you’d expect from a Keaton film.

Best Short (Mindbender)- The Marionette
I was lucky enough to get to Holly and Wayland, the creative team behind one of the most twisted films you’ll ever see. The Marionette was a story of an actor who liked to play games with his wife and his intern. It’s a weird and crazy, dark and creepy film that you have to see to understand.

Best Short (Comedy)- The Last Woman on Earth
Did you really think I’d say anything other than that?

Second Best Short (Comedy)- The Method
Maybe it was the fact that it was buried in a bunch of shorts that tended towards the depressing, but The Method (not the Julian Kheel Method, which was also hilarious, but the other one) was a funny story about a guy who robs a Coffee Shop as a part of the plan to win an acting role. Solid and really funny.

Best Documentary- Andrew Jenks Room 335
If you’re ever looking for a film to understand what real old people are like, find a copy of Andrew Jenks. It’s the story of a guy who Spurlocks himself into several weeks in a retirement home. He forms strong bonds with many of the residents, including a tough and comically mean old dude name of Bill. It’s a great doc and one that should be seen by everyone. On par with some of Cinequest’s best docs, like Spellbound and Story of the Weeping Camel.

Best Party- Closing Night
Seldom do any of the parties disappoint, but this year it was an amazing closing night. Everyone was there, flirting happened, the food was top notch and the outfits were cleavageful. Impressive!

Best Mind-Blowing Feature- Next Door
It’s hard to say a lot about Next Door. It’s Norwegian and it’s bizarre and it’s so weird you kinda forget that it’s a psychological thriller the whole way through. It’s easily the best twist-ending I’ve seen in ages and it’s so much fun. There’s a sex scene that just makes you wanna do the nasty and fight someone. Trust me, you’ll think so too.

Best Short- The Lookaway Life
In one of the strongest Shorts programs we’ve ever put together, The Lookaway Life is the story of a man who is so ineffectual that he can’t argue with his wife. So naturally, he hires a hooker to fight with him. It’s strange but the film, which deals with no only the man’s troubles but with the hooker’s expectations, is so powerful and intense that it takes a while to get used to the level of emotion and then make the swing out of a fantasy into the real world hotel room where it all happens. Powerful filmmaking.

Best In Fest- The Mindbenders Program
OK, here’s the weird thing: I don’t think I saw a single feature film that hit me so hard as all the Mindbenders did together. When we were programming these, we were purposely choosing films that would make a regular viewer go ‘What the…” and we managed to pull that off. There films about torture (The Marionette, A Through M) and about action (Lucky) and about Furry Animals and B-B Guns (The Second Death) and even about the Eye of the Bear Tiger (Keep It Real, Dawg). Strange, bizarre and worth every second. People watched out at various times, sometimes over content and swearing (Phone Next Grandma was one filthy piece of work at the 1.3 Aristocrats level) but no one fell asleep because the material was that out there. What makes that more amazing is that the show started at Midnight.

Another year come and gone and a powerful effect was left on me as always.

Chris Garcia