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As promised, here is the comic strip. That's supposedly me in the second panel, giving the voidling a solid thwacking. By the way, I don't know how I managed to wear capes in two panels. Everybody knows (especially if they've seen The Incredibles), capes can be harmful to a hero's health.

During Cinequest, I saw two films. I contemplated using the word only in the previous sentence, but considering how busy I was last week (working, volunteering, sleeping, and wondering where the rest of the time went), I'm amazed I managed to see any movies at all. One day, I'll take the entire week off and wander from screening to screening like some of the hardcore festival-goers I've seen.

Rene Hjerter (Pure Hearts) was a darker film than I expected. The star, Anders Matthesen, is a Danish comedian, so I thought he might play a more lighthearted character. I was mistaken. Like Jim Carrey or Robin Williams, Matthesen uses this movie to show he can be something other than funny, namely serious and disturbing.

The story is about Kriss, a mental ward patient, who is obsessed with Linda, a character in a 1930s film called Pure Hearts (a movie within the movie). He and his buddy, Willy, watch a videotape of the movie constantly. The only problem is that it's an incomplete copy and neither of them has ever seen the ending. Kriss is also obsessed with the story of Noah. He hates it and claims it's the reason he stopped reading. He believes Noah should have been more selective about the animals he allowed onto the ark - saving the good ones and leaving the evil ones behind. When the videotape is confiscated, Kriss and Willy escape to find the real Linda, a.k.a. Ulla Vilstrup in the real world.

At its core, this is movie about how we view life, which is like Kriss's copy of Pure Hearts. It's incomplete and nobody knows the ending, but that doesn't stop people from having their theories, letting those theories shade their views of the world, and acting as though their theories are fact. The film asks us to explore those theories by examining the motives behind our actions, challenging the views we hold, and questioning our beliefs of right or wrong.

Monster Camp is an entertaining documentary that explores the world of live action role-playing games (LARPs). In particular, it spends a year with a group in Seattle that plays NERO, which is like World of Warcraft (or Dungeons & Dragons) brought to life.

Instead of making fun of the participants, Cullen Hoback, the director, seeks to understand them. Why do they play? What do they gain from the game? The answer to the first question is pretty obvious. People play because the game is fun and it offers an escape from real life. The answer to the second question is more difficult because it depends on what people are escaping from in the first place.

By trying to honestly portray them, Hoback both reinforces and debunks the D&D stereotype. Yes, there are the slackers (a.k.a. permanent escapees) who aren't employed (and aren't seeking employment) and play Warcraft all day at the expense of everything else (work, family, health), but they aren't the only ones who play. To me, the more compelling participants include the man who learned to be confident "in game" and applied that confidence to his career "out of game"; the quirky son and father duo who bond by playing the game; and the wheelchair-bound seamstress who enjoyed sewing costumes and used the game as a means to temporarily forget her disability.

What was most amazing was the amount of effort and planning it took to make the fantasy a reality. It's a lot of hard work and the people who make the sacrifices so others can have a weekend of fun are pretty incredible. I can see how somebody might get burned out and actually see reality as an escape.

All in all, Monster Camp is a fun peek into a different world and if it (or Pure Hearts) appears at a film festival near you or manages to obtain distribution, I'd recommend seeing it.

Movies I missed that I hope will come out on DVD include The Namesake, Military Intelligence and You, and Maskot.

I had intended to include a comic strip at the beginning of this post, but I haven't finished coloring it yet, so keep an eye out for it later this evening.

Earlier today, I was volunteering at Cinequest. It's the only time I can wear a bright red shirt without feeling self-conscious. This year's design has an exploding light bulb on the front across the chest and the word "Cinequest" on the back across the bottom (or in my case, my bottom).

Today was the first time I was stationed at the San Jose Repertory Theatre, which is right across the street from Camera 12, the festival's main venue.

It had been a most ordinary day until the gentleman depicted in the comic strip showed up at the box office.

I have yet to see a film this year. I'm hoping to see two at the end of this week: Pure Hearts and Monster Camp.

Downtown San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival returns in three weeks. It runs from February 28 through March 11. This year's theme is Revolution.

Earlier this week, the program guide came out online and in the San Jose Metro. I grabbed a copy of the paper on Tuesday and have been slowly going through the listings and highlighting the films I want to see.

This will be my fifth year attending and second year volunteering at Cinequest. While I'm looking forward to seeing a few movies, I'm actually more excited about helping out. Last year, I got a rush working in the box office. Normally, selling tickets does nothing for me, but add in the festival atmosphere and it gives me a buzz.

Off the top of my head, there are two Cinequest-related blogs I know of:

• Cinequest's Blog - the official one written by event organizers.
• Cineblog - festival film reviews by Ealasaid and Fred Crowe.

If I find any others, I'll add them to the sidebar.

Cinequest finished on Sunday. For devoted movie enthusiasts, the film festival was a twelve-day cinematic excursion. For me, it was the traveling equivalent of two weekend getaways bridged by a long stay in Workland.

I don't know how some of the more avid film fanatics were able to do it. Most of their waking hours were spent sitting in theaters, watching movie after movie, immersing themselves in film. I like movies well enough, but I don't think I would have the stamina. A day of movies? Perhaps. Twelve days of movies? I'm thinking overdose.

As a movie experience, this year's festival was so-so. That probably had more to do with the movies I chose to see than with the movies actually offered. If I were to rank the four I saw from most to least favorite, this is how the list would look:

• An Enemy of the People
• Clear Cut
• Loop
• Frozen Land

An Enemy of the People was an adaptation of an Ibsen play of the same name. Loyalty was one of the film's major themes - loyalty to self, loyalty to family and loyalty to community. In the story, the main character tries to stay true to all three, but events within and beyond his control ultimately force him to choose one above the rest. It was a well-paced, well-acted film. It was also my finale for this year's Cinequest, which was good because it would have sucked to end on a movie I disliked.

As a side note, when I first went through the festival guide, I hadn't set out to watch movies from one particular country over another, but as it turned out, two of the four films I saw were from Norway (Enemy and Loop). What's scary is that it should have been three, but I accidentally switched the plots in my head between Frozen Land and a film called Kissed by Winter. Frozen Land, by the way, is from Finland, so I apparently had an unconscious craving for Scandinavian flicks this year.

As a volunteer experience, this year's festival was great. I took shifts both weekends, working as a greeter, an usher and a ticket agent. Of the three, selling tickets in the box office was the most fun.

The box office felt like the hub of activity. From there, I could gain a sense of the festival as a whole, which was important to me. The best times corresponded with the busiest (and most stressful) times, when movies were showing on all screens and lines of moviegoers materialized out of nowhere. If I volunteer next year (and I definitely hope to), the box office will be my first choice.

Cinequest 16 begins in three days. The nearly two-week long film festival runs from March 1 to March 12. I only grabbed a copy of the program guide last Thursday as I passed Camera 12 and only went through the movie listings yesterday. I know the guide is available online, but there's something about sitting in a busy cafe, reading descriptions printed on paper and physically circling potential picks that I like. For a few moments, I can pretend to be cultured.

Of course, for me the fun is in the planning. It begins with the pen and program guide and ends with a spreadsheet to help me avoid scheduling conflicts between movies and pesky "obligations" like work, meals and sleep. One additional obligation this year is volunteering for the festival. I just heard from the coordinator and I'll be helping out at the box office for a few hours over the next two weeks.

As I went through this year's offerings, I noticed I had become much more finicky. In 2003 and 2004, I easily found ten movies I wanted to see. I didn't end up liking all ten of them, but I at least gave them a chance. Last year, only five movies made the cut for potential viewing. This year, I again only found five I was willing to pay nine dollars to see and that number dropped to four thanks to a timing conflict.

A more positive spin might replace finicky with discerning, but the fact remains that my tolerance level has lessened, which makes me less receptive to potentially good films. I'm not happy about feeling like I've become somewhat closed-minded because that isn't who I want to be. The only thing I can think of to remedy the situation is to go through the guide again and ask myself why I don't want to see certain movies. Perhaps a theme will present itself. If I can see what chains are holding me back, I can break out of them.

Anyway, here are the four films I hope to see:

1. Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon
2. An Enemy of the People
3. Frozen Land
4. Loop

This isn't a picture of the San Jose Museum of Art. Well, it is, but it also isn't. No, this is a picture of the triangle at the northern end of Cesar Chavez Park, where a statue was supposed to stand.

In 1987, Mayor Tom McEnery and the city commissioned two statues: one historic, one modern. The modern one, known as Figure Holding the Sun, stands in front of the Museum of Art. The historic one, the Fallon statue, originally intended to stand here, now stands in Pellier Park, on the edge of downtown, by a freeway.

The statue depicts two horsemen. The one in front, representing Thomas Fallon, is shown raising the American flag. The one in back represents an unknown rider. It�s meant to memorialize the moment, in 1846, when Fallon announced that San Jose was under American rule.

While both statues went through the same approval process, only the modern piece was unveiled in 1988. The Fallon statue, embroiled in fifteen years of turmoil, wouldn�t see the light of day until 2002. Why? This is the question the documentary, The Search for the Captain, attempts to address.

On Saturday, we drove downtown to see the movie. It was showing at the Repertory Theatre, across from Camera 12 where most of Cinequest is playing. We never made it inside though. In front of the box office was a long ticket line and dozens of protestors blocking the way. It was an intimidating scene and I decided to avoid it all.

Yesterday, driven by curiosity, I dropped by the Camera 12 box office and purchased a ticket for the 9:30 screening of the film. Later, I made my way through the protestors and found a seat in the front row of the theater. The place was completely packed.

I recognized a number of people in the audience and quite a few people in the movie itself. Most of those interviewed were former city council members and other notable citizens prominent in the late eighties and early nineties at the height of the controversy.

At the center of the story was Tom McEnery, San Jose�s mayor from 1983 to 1988. He received the most screen time for two reasons. First, he was one of the statue's primary advocates. Second, the filmmaker is his daughter, Erin.

Surprisingly, the controversy surrounding the Fallon statue has little to do with Thomas Fallon. The man, as far as I can tell, led a rather ordinary life. True, he raised the American flag and was one of the city�s early mayors, but that�s pretty much it. He never killed anyone or committed any acts of bravery. He lost three children due to illness while traveling to Texas, went through a messy divorce and was prone to drinking later in life.

The controversy, rather, seems to surround McEnery and three of his opponents. McEnery, while mayor, was a major advocate of downtown redevelopment. Through his vision, the city built the Convention Center, the Children�s Discovery Museum, the Tech Museum and the Arena. All were bold and successful moves, but they came at a price. To build everything, the city razed existing "slum" neighborhoods and relocated a large Spanish-speaking population.

The move made McEnery unpopular with Mexican-Americans and highly unpopular with a man named Salazar, who rose up against the mayor�s proposal for the Fallon statue. Salazar, who attended yesterday's screening, called the mayor a racist and claimed the artwork was discriminatory and offensive to Mexico and Americans of Mexican descent. Thomas Fallon, he claimed, was a conquistador and equivalent to Hitler. They were false claims, but politically and racially charged enough to paralyze a city council uninformed about history and obsessed with political correctness.

McEnery�s second opponent was a career community activist by the name of Napoli. Anything the city proposed, she opposed. If the city wanted to build a new library, she was against books. If the city wanted to build new schools, she was against children. So, when the city wanted to build the Fallon statue, she was against that, too. She felt it was a waste of public funds. She would later be directly responsible for the city spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional statue relocation and storage expenses.

The mayor�s last opponent was his successor, Mayor Hammer. The two had a falling out when Hammer ran for mayor in 1988 and McEnery refused to endorse a candidate. Once elected, Hammer was unwilling to confront Salazar or Napoli on the issues. Instead, she let McEnery�s statue sit in an Oakland warehouse for eight years.

Finally, in 2002, with a new mayor in office, the city erected and unveiled the statue. They did it quickly and quietly in the hopes that no one would notice. Nobody did. Most citizens of San Jose have no clue about Fallon, McEnery, the statue or the controversy. The Search for the Captain isn't an unbiased account of local history, but it's a decent starting place for the curious.

Cinequest 15 is coming to San Jose in three weeks (March 2-13). I already went through this year's offerings. Maybe I'm being too picky, but I had trouble finding ten films I'd definitely want to see. Ten is the magic number for discounted tickets. Here is my preliminary list of must-see movies:

• Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley - I recently saw Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, a great documentary about They Might Be Giants. It blended interviews, live performances and music videos to tell a story about the men and their music. By the way, they'll be on Conan O'Brien this coming Tuesday. For a while now, I've heard reverent whispers about Jeff Buckley and want to see his story and hear his music.
• Chlorox, Ammonia and Coffee! - With a large ensemble of odd characters and interwining storylines, this Norwegian film sounds like it could be smart, funny and poignant. Plus, I refuse to believe that any movie with coffee in the title can be bad.
• Passages - This one sounds like it could be an intriguing coming of age tale set against the backdrop of mainland China. It'll be a nice appetizer just as the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) begins (March 10-20)
• The Search for the Captain - A former mayor's daughter made this movie about a controversial statue in San Jose that finally saw the light of day (three years ago) after sitting in an Oakland warehouse for over a decade. It looks like it could be an interesting lesson in local history, culture and politics.
• Tales of Intransigence - How does one tell an old story, but make it feel fresh? What makes a story compelling? This is a film about storytelling and there's something extremely appealing about that. It also contains a horse-drawn sleigh and a bright red minibus, two promising signs in my book.

March is all about movie madness, but with a little preparation, there can be a method to the madness. Now I need to check out what films SFIAAFF is showing.

Cinequest wrapped up this past weekend. It left me with a good taste in my mouth. I came away with a greater appreciation for independent films and a real admiration for the independent filmmaker. Now I can't wait for next year's festival.

For me, the filmmakers have the same appeal as some of the stellar unsigned bands and musicians out there. They may aspire for commercial success and a wider audience, but their focus and efforts are firmly rooted in their art and vision, while they still have creative control.

Honestly, I would be surprised (but extremely happy) if any of the films I saw receive distribution for mass consumption. It is strange, but some of their appeal stems from the very fact that they aren't commercially successful. They have yet to be tainted by a major studio media blitz.

I wasn't bombarded with television commercials, radio spots, billboards, newspaper ads or email spam to see these movies. The only hype came in the form of a producer or director handing me a postcard in person, encouraging me to see his or her film. It seems so ridiculously simple and low tech, but to me, it was refreshingly personal and effective.

Just for future reference, the movies I saw over the weekend included Violin, Book of Rules , 7 Songs, You Got Nothin' and Burning Annie. Only two days after seeing ee perform live, I recognized a few of their songs being used in Book of Rules, which I thought was just bizarre.

Last night was nice. We had a small and simple dinner before seeing Klepto, one of Cinequest's digital movies.

The film is about a girl with an obsessive-compulsive habit of shoplifting watches, CDs and anything else that will fit into her purse or pants. She encounters a seedy department store surveillance guy who attempts to make her steal for him. It was a suspenseful story with amazing visual and audio clarity.

The director, producer and primary cast were on hand to see the movie's world premiere. The real treat came after the film, when there was a question and answer session. It was my first one, so it was exciting to learn about how the story was developed, the digital filming process, and how the director did all of the editing on his home computer.

After seeing that film, I wouldn't be surprised if I become paranoid about store security cameras, imagining that prying eyes are watching and taping my every move.

It officially began last Thursday, but I didn't see my first film until Friday night. Over the weekend I saw four films: Daughter from Yan'an, Ripples (Sazanami), 25 Kids and One Dad and Mr. Rookie.

Instead of me trying to recap the movie plots, I found a decent review that summarizes them all. Unlike mainstream movies, they don't have nice (or overblown), dedicated websites.

I could identify with many of the themes that each movie touched on to various degrees. The views expressed about family, saving face, respect and acceptance are very similar to the ones my mom and my grandparents hold. It was a little freaky, in a few cases, seeing those similarities played out on the screen and not just at home.

Ripples, which was the most stylized of the four movies, really caught my attention. Compared to other films I've seen, this one was refreshingly slow and quiet. Most scenes went something like this...

View of an empty hiking trail is shown for ten seconds. A young woman walks up the trail and disappears around the bend in about five seconds. For another ten seconds, the camera remains focused on the empty trail.

The whole effect was one of isolation and loneliness. I don't think there were more than three people in any one shot and the dialogue was minimal.

The audience reaction wasn't very positive. Most people were yawning and checking their watches halfway through, which made me more determined to relish the "tediousness" of the film. Others were frustrated with the inability of some characters to communicate, but those were the ones that I could sympathize and relate to the most.

As a typical movie experience, the film was rather unsatisfying. But from a personal perspective, it was quite endearing.

In the spirit of trying something new, I will be attending my first film festival this weekend.

For more than a decade, Cinequest has presented a film festival in San Jose. It features a few world premieres and a number of independent, international and student films. Since almost all of my movie experiences have been through mainstream theaters or rented videos, the festival should be exciting and eye-opening.

It runs from February 27th through March 9th and takes place in a couple of different venues like the Camera Cinemas and the San Jose Repertory Theatre. With some careful planning and some possible sprinting, I'll be seeing ten movies over the next two weeks.

Half of the movies I plan to watch are part of the Pacific Basin Showcase, which highlights films from China, Japan, Vietnam and India. It is perhaps a token effort to feel more in touch with my cultural heritage, a cinematic companion to the stories I've been told and the books I've read.

A few of the movies I chose are digital films that will be shown with state-of-the-art digital projectors. Very fancy. I wonder if it will be a mind-blowing experience, like the first time I saw an IMAX film. I think that one was about dolphins and I had a distinct swimming feeling during the entire viewing.

I should note that whenever I actually talk about or write about upcoming plans, something always seems to thwart them, which would explain a few trips and hiking excursions that fell through this year. So I mention this whole thing in a rather hushed tone, checking over my shoulder, with my fingers crossed.