Jim Brunzell III

The thoroughly entertaining Found Footage Festival is headed back to Minneapolis, once again to bring you some of the funniest head-scratching oddities that were recorded and produced for the VHS video. Founders Joe Pickett (The Onion) and Nick Prueher (Late Night with David Letterman) frequent thrift stores, garage sales, dumpsters, and even submissions from fans; and travel across the country to showcase the most absurd and zaniest footage while adding commentary to each video segment in their live show. However, this time around, they have teamed up with FOUND Magazine; the two will go toe-to-toe to determine whether found notes or found videos will reign supreme this Monday at the Heights Theatre.

When writer/director Drake Doremus (Spooner and Douchebag) walked into the hotel banquet room for our interview, he was nothing but smiles—as he should be. Doremus has been receiving huge accolades since his third film, Like Crazy, won the grand jury prize for U.S. Dramatic Competition and a special jury prize for lead actress Felicity Jones at the Sundance Film Festival this past January. Already in the room waiting for Doremus, actor Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Terminator Salvation) was doodling on a white paper canvas drawing a funny face and was adding comments to his artwork. He asked me if he should add anything to his drawing. I had nothing to add to Yelchin's drawing.

The 2011 Flyway Film Festival in Pepin and Stockholm, Wisconsin will be taking place this weekend, October 20-23. I’ll be heading down not only as a film patron, but for the first time, I’ve been asked to be on a film jury: the Narrative Feature jury. I’ve twice been on regular government jury duty, but I’m guessing this will be more fun than sitting in a cramped room with a bunch of strangers deciding someone’s fate. Being on a film festival jury will still mean sitting in a (dark) room with a bunch of strangers but at least we’ll be enjoying ourselves watching some brave foreign and American Independent films, with many haven’t screened in Minnesota or Wisconsin. I’ll be on the jury with filmmaker Gary King (FFF 2010 selection What’s Up Lovely) and Pepin, Wisconsin resident and founder of the popular Harbor View café, Stuffy Stevens.

TORONTO, ONTARIO—At the halfway point of my Toronto International Film Festival experience, I changed gears and put my head down: my goal was to see as many films as possible over the next four days. I got shut out of three films that opening weekend and missed out on seeing others while I waited in “rush” lines for what turned out to be popular films at the festival. It was wonderful standing in line talking to everyone about what they had seen or what they were excited for, but what I really wanted was to capitalize on the chance to see more new work from undiscovered talents or potential Oscar frontrunners.