In three days, the Wisconsin Film Festival begins, and this year it begins with a bang (compared to the previous couple years anyway). To kick off the festival, there will be a screening of music video director and (according to the WFF film guide) Wisconsin native Marc Webb's debut feature film 500 Days of Summer. This film does appear to be a standard quirky indie romance, but the musical aspects (apparently, a couple dance numbers and two songs written by Regina Spektor) and the appearance of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are enough to make me at least moderately excited.This is the highest-profile film to play at the WFF is recent memory. So much so that Fox Searchlight, who picked up distribution rights after Sundance, put a halt on ticket sales well before the venue sold out. I guess they didn't want too many people to see it before its official box office debut on July 17. Luckily, I did get my tickets in time, and will get to participate in the Q&A with Webb and Gordon-Levitt who will both be in attendance. I will spend the entire time trying to think of a question to ask, and then will not ask it. Should be fun.
The rest of the festival seems to be pretty similar to previous years. This year, one of the categories is a focus on South Korean film. In my opinion, South Korea produces some of the best movies in the world, and make up the majority of my non-US film viewing. So, obviously, that is a very exciting category. Besides that I will be attending an assortment of other films throughout the festival, and post some thoughts and impressions as they come to me.
