Best of the fest

It's a sad reflection on the state of moviemaking when by far the most satisfying offerings in a festival program are the oldies. Apart from the rare pleasure of watching a crisp, 35mm print of Five Easy Pieces, other highlights included David Lynch's harrowing but brilliant 1977 debut Eraserhead, Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls (2000), Jane Campion's The Piano (1993) with a Q&A by star Holly Hunter, and Joseph Losey's touching, 1948 anti-war drama The Boy with Green Hair--whose star, Dean Stockwell, pointed out that we have made progress: not even the most rabid anti-war protestors last year were denounced as un-American and hounded out of Hollywood, as Losey was during the HUAC period. Other standouts:

Mitchellville

John Harkrider's seemingly over-indulgent and pretentious drama, starring the writer-director himself as a Wall Street lawyer who retreats into a fantasy involving a Southern town victimized by rapacious developers, overcomes its initial awkwardness to conjure a touching evocation of the rich (and almost lost) culture of the Gullah people of South Carolina.

Luck

With a surprise ending every bit as satisfying as Wayne Kramer's The Cooler and a glimpse into sports betting fever as on-the-money as Joe Pytka's 1989 Richard Dreyfuss vehicle Let It Ride, Canadian director Peter Wellington's 2002 compulsive gambling drama was a winner. Luke Kirby plays the lovelorn loser whose luck changes when he and his roommates become obsessed with betting on the 1972 Canada/USSR hockey series.