Last month was the third AFI (American Film Institute) Dallas Film Festival, and for the second year, Ed and I attended several films. This is a really fun thing to do. Many of the films have question and answer sessions following with the director, writer or actors.

Here are my mini-reviews of the films we saw:

The American Trap This is a conspiracy theory film about (surprise!) the JFK assassination. It was a different take on it though – it wasn’t told from investigative angle a la Oliver Stone’s ‘JFK’, but as it ‘happened’. It was also a theory I had never heard before. But if you see it, you have to pay attention. It’s complicated and you need to make sure you’re keeping the characters straight. It also didn’t help that we were in the very front row and had to crane our necks. We both liked it though, it was well done with nice suspense. Unfortunately, the screening we saw didn’t have any Q&A after.

Against the Current Ed thought this movie about a man who swims the length of the lower Hudson River was going to be a documentary, but it wasn’t. It was sad and funny, and the acting was good, particularly Justin Kirk. It also starred Joseph Fiennes, Elizabeth Reaser and Mary Tyler Moore. After the movie, writer/director Peter Callahan and Justin Kirk answered audience questions. Kirk is hilarious even without a script.

The 2 Bobs I was looking forward to this one because Tim McCanlies, the writer/director of it was the writer of ‘Iron Giant’ and writer/director of ‘Secondhand Lions’, and because it was a comedy about the videogame industry. It was pretty disappointing though, more stupid than funny. McCanlies was there to answer questions afterward, and seemed apologetic about the film (they didn’t have the budget they thought they’d have, it’s not completely done yet, he just wanted to try something different). Unless this one is reworked, you can skip it.

Animation Competion Because I’m a big fan of animation, we always go to the animated shorts showing. There were eight shorts this year, seven in the competion. The eighth was by Henry Selick, who was the director of ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ and ‘James and the Giant Peach’, and the writer/director/producer of ‘Coraline’. The short was pretty good, but really only included because Selick was in the audience, as he was attending the festival to receive an award. He and Georgina Hayns, who was in charge of puppet fabrication, answered question afterward, and they had one of the actual Coraline puppets with them. After the talk I ran into them in the lobby and asked Georgina what Coraline was made of and how her eyes were animated, and she showed me (part of her face comes off, move the eyes, shoot a frame, replace the face). That was really an unexpected treat. And Ed had a urinal conversation with Henry Selick, whom he had not even heard of before that night.

My absolute favorite animated short, by the way, won the competition. Here it is … ‘Chicken Cowboy’! This cracks me up everytime I watch it, especially the cat. The gunfight is great.  Watching it on Youtube won’t compare with seeing it on a big screen, but you can at least pop out and watch it fullscreen.

Leapin’ Lizards!