A number of Wisconsin Film Festival movies will be returning to Madison as they enter wide release or for special showings. We will be highlighting them as they return as part of WFF2008 Encores

Loose Cannons: Campus Security tells the story of a miscreant gang of student campus security officers at a local University startlingly similar to UW-Madison… Protecting and serving become a bit of a problem for them when the football team’s playbook is stolen and their beloved mascot “Muley” is murdered in suspicious correlation with the university’s impending homecoming celebration. The plot thickens; these atrocious acts have not been set in motion by the rival school, but by an embittered domestic foe. Spencer Huntly. One of the very students expelled through the valiant actions of our bubbly campus-cop crew has come back to reek vengeance and reap reward with foul play, a nearly silent sidekick played by the director, and a new gang of thugs appropriately dubbed as the “Freshman 15”. The villain’s treachery can’t be contained by typical human angst; his vile plans, while immature in nature, are obscenely sociopathic. Yet, our “loose cannons” have no fear; their bravery delivers them through even the most elaborate fights and haphazard gun battles with alarming grace.

Sunday morning came early after the Nerdcore premiere the night before. Still, the Orpheum possessed one of my most anticipated films of the Wisconsin Film Festival, and neither the early start nor a hangover was going to keep me away.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss is the story of Wilson, a man that recently moved to Los Angeles to sell a screenplay. Wilson’s roommates Jacob and Min, encourage him to start dating and find someone to spend New Year’s Eve with. Wilson eventually gives in to his nagging roommates, and creates a personal ad on Craigslist.

The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins was provocative, challenging -- the type of documentary that doesn’t neatly sum up a subject but instead leaves the audience with a kaleidoscope of questions and opinions at its conclusion.

New Zealand filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly is in Rumbeck, a village in the wartorn region of South Sudan, to work on a documentary about a de-miner (yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like: someone who removes explosive mines for a living). One night near the campfire at the Westerner-friendly NGO camp where Brettkelly’s staying, she encounters a woman (Vanessa Beecroft, the film’s subject) talking about how she’s donating breast milk to twins in the village, and ultimately hopes to adopt the babies. At the time, Brettkelly was working on a project about international adoption, and asks if she could film Beecroft’s process, having no clue that Beecroft herself is an internationally acclaimed, experimental performance artist whose complex psyche would prove a far more interesting study, especially in contrast to the simplicity of their Sudanese surroundings.

It’s taken me a while to digest the nine movies I saw this weekend at the Wisconsin Film Festival (all documentaries except one). When the schedule first came out, I made ambitious plans to see five per day, fully forgetting how exhausting it can be to sit in a dark theatre for hours on end absorbing images and information.

Although I enjoyed every single movie I saw, here’s a rundown from least favorite to favorite film.

Footage Includes:
1. Filmgoer discussion of Loose Cannons, Garbage Warrior, OSS 117, Bon Cop Bad Cop, and El Ciudad de Sylvia
2. Interview with Nerdcore for Life director Dan Lamoureux
3. On top of the Orpheum

At the 2004 Wisconsin Film Fest, I had the pleasure of watching a Danish film called Reconstruction. I was only vaguely aware of its origin and didn't think much of that at the time. I wasn't as impressed with the lineup I selected in 2005 as I had been in 2004, so when 2006 rolled around, I took a look at what I had liked before to figure out what I'd likely enjoy again. Reconstruction came to mind, so I picked two Danish films to see that year: Kinamand and Adam's Apples.

Kinemand is the sad and slightly slow tale of a plumber who, after his wife leaves him, is befriended by the owner of the Chinese restaurant he frequents. The protagonist is a quiet, withdrawn man, but the actor portraying him communicates volumes about his feelings. After he marries the restaurateur's sister so she can become a Danish citizen, he falls in love with her anyway. Then she dies, and in the movie's most crushing scene, he doesn't bother denying to the nature of their marriage to the immigration officers who don't know she's dead.

Wisconsin Film Festival goers attending showings at the Orpheum may have noticed an odd occurrence happening on the wall of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Steven Van Haren had commandeered the marquee of the Orpheum to broadcast some short "films" he produced. In between the videos he would put up his Twitter page allowing him to communicate directly with the curious looking up from the street. We caught up with Steven and followed him up to the State Street overlook.

Speaking with Nerdcore For Life director Dan Lamoureux you can tell he cares deeply for the subjects in his film. That love and respect translates perfectly to the documentary that follows some of Nerdcore’s most prominent artists from their basements to the stage. Most importantly Lamoureux is introducing the world to the Hip-Hop sub-genre of Nerdcore.

At their best, puzzle movies are akin to the works of David Lynch, where the enigma to be contemplated is the movie itself, all those familiar little bits of cinema put together in a way that bends your brain. One level down from that would be movies like Christopher Nolan's Memento or The Prestige, where the movie's unusual subject matter provides a unique metaphorical handle with which to contemplate its larger themes. And then there are Riddler movies, where there's an evil mastermind who behaves like the Batman villain and makes the protagonist solve puzzles just for the sake of a clever-off. This is a more troublesome kind of movie, not only because masterminds can easily be preposterous characters, but also because the filmmakers want to woo you with the pleasure of puzzles while being dramatically obligated to conclude that you can't reduce life to silly games -- in the same way that, say, cable news's tut-tut coverage of sex is so salacious. Fermat's Room is a Riddler movie -- imagine a low-tech version of Cube, or Die Hard with a Vengeance as a one-act play -- but it's a ringer. Four mathematicians gather in a remote Spanish warehouse for what they are promised will be an intellectual gathering at which they puzzle over one of math's great unanswered questions. In reality, the room is a deathtrap, and the characters can only forestall their fate by transmitting via PDA the correct answer to riddles, while at the same time trying to understand why each is there, and who might want such vengeance on them.

Director Stuart Gordon snuck into the back row of the theater for the last 15 minutes of his movie Stuck. That he missed the rest of the movie would be a shame if he hasn't seen it with an audience as engaged as the one that packed the Orpheum Main Stage last night -- their synchronized gasps and groans would have been be catnip for a old-school provocateur like Gordon. He made his reputation on horror movies like Re-Animator and King of the Ants, but he's also got hardy theater chops -- his last movie starred William H. Macy and was based on a David Mamet play -- and it's this double-barreled approach that makes him a natural for a bloody melodrama like Stuck. In its first half, when it's particularly well observed about its lower class, sad sack characters, the movie is especially terrific, and it deflates a little when those characterizations thin out near the end. Nevertheless, for ripped-from-the-headlines fare, it's delicious.

As the line snaked around the Monona Terrace Thursday night, Tashai Lovington and Robert Lughai, assisted by several friends – one of whom was dressed as a chicken in a sequined yellow top a red cockscomb headband – passed out packages of peeps marshmallows and chocolate eggs. The silly atmosphere and charming sense of humor spilled into the theatre as well as onto the screen. With a room full of chicken enthusiasts, festival Volunteer Coordinator Jess Main introduced the world premiere of Mad City Chickens.

The film is inspired by a 2004 legislation change that allows single-family homes to keep up to four hens in the yard. The motivations for chicken ownership are explored in the film and include food production awareness as well a simple love of the animal. Chock full of sight gags and clichéd musical jokes (the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey accompanies a dramatic opening involving an egg the size of Earth), Mad City Chickens sets a fast pace from the beginning and never slows down. Interview editing is quick and deft and creates the illusion that the individuals are having a conversation with each other, instead of with the camera. Lughai mentioned in the Q&A following the screening that “everybody has a chicken story,” and I was surprisingly moved by the first-hand stories included in the film. Chickens chase away a threatening rattlesnake, survive factory farm conditions (and mass euthanasia by gas) to be rescued by chance by compassionate animal lovers, and delight and educate a young family of four.

When it comes to global warming, my koo-koo lefty mccrazy pants are put on and I start preaching to anyone that will listen, about the death of our planet, global restrictions and tax incentives to those that commit to lightening up a footprint. I told my libertarian co-worker this and his head almost exploded.

Why do I tell you this? Well, partly because I like to ramble, but also, when it comes to this subject, I believe in thinking big. And that is where Michael Reynolds, architect and star of the documentary "Garbage Warrior, comes in.

20 years ago Reynolds' started designing and building "self-sufficient" or "earthship" houses. They include:

In Operation Filmmaker, director Nina Davenport must have had a difficult time in the editing room. How do you turn thousands of hours of footage of a petulant, unpleasant man into a compelling documentary? By using it as a tool to confront the viewer's preconceptions and, at the same time, telling a parable about the United States' adventure in Iraq, she succeeds completely.

In 2004, MTV aired a clip on Muthana Mohmed, a film student in Iraq coping with the bombing of his school. Liev Schreiber saw the bit and invited Muthana to be an intern on the movie he was directing, Everything is Illuminated. Thinking it would make a good story, Davenport is hired to film his experience.

Skills Like This Director Monty Miranda hosted a question and answer session after the well-received showing of his independent film Friday night at the Wisconsin Film Festival. He was also joined by Brian D. Phelan who played Tommy. The below video starts off dark, but the house lights are turned on two minutes in. The first question in this video is asked by Girls Rock! co-director Shane King.