Film and Reviews Celebrates A Milestone...

This post marks the 100th post of the Film and Reviews blog.

This is as good a time as ever to mention that the Maryland Film Festival has posted its schedule:
www.mdfilmfest.org

The lineup of films this year promises to be very interesting. I want to put in a good word for my friends at the Alloy Orchestra, especially Ken Winokur, who offer an excellent variety of accompaniment to silent films. This year's is a real treat-it's LONESOME, with Emil Jannings, and directed by Paul Fejos. This rare silent is a hard one to find, and I look forward to hearing the Alloy's new score.

The Maryland Film Festival remains the only festival to feature an evening of shorts for the opening night presentation. I encourage everyone who is serious about filmmaking, criticism, and film history to attend this shorts program. Short filmmaking has seen a real boon in recent years, especially since the advent of YouTube. Some will argue that online distribution is quickly rendering festivals obsolete, but I wanted be so quick to dismiss the festival venue out of hand, as it offers a valuable forum for feedback, something that does not always happen in online forums, unfortunately. The shorts program promises to offer many new and interesting ideas, and the future of film distribution lies in that format, rather than the two-hour narrative feature, so the idea of showcasing shorts really places the Maryland Film Festival in the vanguard of the cinematic frontier.

I will provide updates with more information as it becomes available. And also look for my reviews of selected films that I catch at the Festival this May.

Thanks to the regular readers of this blog for keeping me motivated to make it to post #100!