Something new — a competitive element — but otherwise there wasn’t much difference between this and any other East Van showcase I’ve been to. Hosted by the hilarious John Cullen (who was only a tad like the last couple hosts) to make the evening interesting, help with presenting films, and calm down the excessive mingling.
The music videos, including Sina Nazarian’s Where I’m From were done very well. Moving on with the films, Disappeared and Call For A Good Time were ridiculous in my opinion. Other movies like Do Not Go and Basketball Game, were creative and very artistic. Then there were films with interesting plots and driving ambition like Wrestlers Only (which starred a friend of mine), Getting There, and Never Steady Never Still.
But the one that everyone was talking about at this one happened to be a short film called Vehicular Romanticide. For those who didn’t catch enough about it from my quick simple review of it from VSFF, the film is a narrated story by a young woman named Jennifer (Lauren Donnelly) who is practically the plainest woman in existence. Like most women, she wants to find a guy who’s perfect for her in every way. But where online dating usually turns the next movie scene into your basic couple chatting at a restaurant, she finds a new way to hunt men down: by running them over with her car. This has yet to be proven successful until one fateful night when she runs over a man by accident and ends up taking him home so she can take care of him and he can be all hers.
I’ve already seen this twice, but I can see why it was the most discussed during intermission. The story, despite being crazy, still is interesting and funny, and the characters have very interesting personalities as well. Interestingly enough, Vehicular Romanticide also won all three awards at this showcase (Best Acting for Lauren Donnelly, Best Cinematography, and Best Short Film) making it seem like there wasn’t a whole lot out of competition at this event after all. I guess we’ll see what happens at the next event on October 23. Maybe the judges will be a bit more variable in decision making.