Little Rock Film Festival 2009: Final thoughts

Best Place for homestyle seafood: Flying Fish on President Clinton Ave

Best Place for politics, porterhouse steaks and homecut fries: Doe's Eat Place (For great conversation do like I did and bring Phil Donahue along.)

Best Dam Bridge: The Big Dam Bridge over the Arkansas River--longest pedestrian bridge in North America (I just like saying "Big Dam Bridge".)

Best Place for a late night burger and single malt scotch: The Capital Hotel Bar

Best Place for live music: Revolution Room--Paste favorite Claire Holley, Little Rock favorite American Princes, both on the same night

The last but not least of the films...

This beautiful documentary about four blind teenagers gives some realistic insight into the challenges these kids face. Chas (above) exudes charisma but has difficulties with the demands of finishing his senior year in high school. Meagan, on the other hand, loves school and looks forward to college. Isaac, blinded in an accident, learns to assimilate into a new home and school hundreds of miles away from his family. And Denise, the freshman, is a joy to watch as she emotionally celebrates her birthday with fellow classmates at the Texas School for the Blind. Occasionally interjecting A Waking Life-style animation director Keith Maitland lets his subjects do the talking--at school, home, work and play. His dedication to listening elicits profound thoughts from some fascinating kids.

What a cool, unexpected kick this film was. Director Eileen Yaghoobian has gone into the dark minds of poster artists asking how they come up with the strange, often times obscene, ideas for their posters that do more than just sell an event or concert. One of my favorites is for The Von Zippers with a collage of wanted-poster style black & white photos of the famous and infamous, each with a zipper over his or her mouth. The artist, Art Charney, disdainfully opines on each photo ranging from Oprah to Charles Manson. "The Dalai Lama, there's another guy that should shut the fuck up. Here's Mr. Niceguy, Tom Hanks. I wish he'd shut the fuck up, don't you?" It may be underground art but the film gives a cultural thumbs up to an art form that deserves more space in the foreground.