Pomona Film Festival Rivals Cannes, Almost
By Lori DesRochers
Staff Writer

Intoxicated by the possibility of meeting real movie stars and filmmakers (or perhaps by multiple glasses of wine and slices of brie), eager students clamored into Rose Hills Theater Monday evening to view the senior projects of this year's Media Studies majors. Though technical difficulties required relocation to Crookshank, viewers were eventually treated to five hilarious, thoughtful and altogether entertaining films.

Austin Shepard's The Last Five Minutes Or So opened the evening on a light note. Billed as a "postmodern Alice in Wonderland," Shepard's film depicted a variety of possible outcomes for a girl's life as she poises on the brink of death. Though bogged down by a slightly contrived concept, Tiffany Jacobs-Quinn's performance as the lead actress in multiple incarnations of herself was ultimately effective and winning. After opening the film with a sassy rendition of "These Boots Were Made For Walking," Quinn makes her way through a taquito assault, a mess of cell phone users only speaking in vowels, the discovery of tea and Coca-Cola, and a handful of similarly quirky scenes.

Sarah Takashita's film, Nationality: USA, Ethnicity: American, explored the topic of Asians as perpetual foreigners in America. As a second generation Japanese American, Takashita found it troubling how many times she was asked, "Where are you from?" and discovered that the answer "America" isn't enough. "Being an American is a matter of the heart," narrated Takashita, her voice a watery gurgle amongst the confident Europeans she encountered.

Weaving together interviews with clips from movies depicting Asian stereotypes, Takashita left us with an insightful look into perceptions of America and its inhabitants. Images of water and sea creatures permeated the film, symbolizing the plight of Asian Americans as they float between two continents and across racial boundaries. As the film is entirely set in Prague, it would have been helpful to be given a sampling of Americans' viewpoints and stereotypes, but even without direct quotations, we came away feeling as if we already knew what we would hear.

Jonah Goodman's mockumentary entitled The Making of White Chocolate had the audience in stitches from the opening scene. Following the format of Best in Show and Drop Dead Gorgeous, Goodman's film took a close look at the key players involved in the filming of a blaxploitation film called White Chocolate. From interviews with the overly zealous director to backstage footage of hilariously combative rehearsals, the audience was quickly smacked in the face with the absurdity of the genre and its creators.

Clips from familiar films like Shaft and Cleopatra Jones helped to illustrate the parallels between the blaxploitation of the past and the present. Goodman declared that he wanted his film "to show that we haven't changed," and related the goal of his work to everything from racist police to the portrayal of Asian Americans in the media to the secondary position given to women in society.

Bryce McDavitt's Brother from the Backwoods, an examination of homosexuality and Los Angeles, contrasted with the other films at the screening in its quiet presentation and understated style. The film consisted of four interviews regarding a journey toward self-discovery and reinterpretation of identity as the four subjects come to terms with homosexuality and the beginning of a new life.

Though the interviews initially begged for tighter editing, the length and persistence of each story soon becomes the film's greatest strength. The time lavished on each individual's train of thought allowed the audience to be drawn closer than expected, and the subtle connections between the four stories blossomed. Like the delicate violin solos juxtaposed with images of concrete freeways and merging traffic lanes, the colors of each portrait began seeping into each other; the raw and brutal with the sweet and sentimental.

Colin Platt's March 19th: The Last Stand of the American Empire ended the night on a politically charged note. A collage of war footage, news clips and still photographs were tied together with Platt's compelling narration that condemned Bush's actions in Iraq and made a persuasive plea for Americans to wake up and start discovering the truth that the media so often obliterates. In this film, Bush was attacked for "committing one of the worst crimes imaginable," and every image of our smiling president brought giggles from the audience. Though Bush was made to look the fool, it was clear that Platt also feared for the reputation of American citizens as "the most selfish, myopic and arrogant individuals on the planet."

By the end of the last film, the crowd had thinned considerably, but the remaining audience for Platt's film readily jumped at the chance to engage in a dialogue about the film's message. The spark generated from the film should be reason enough for Platt to consider his film, and the evening, a success.