With apologies to Sergio Leone, it seems appropriate to judge the inaugural Vail Film Festival in terms of the good, the bad, and the ugly. We'll start with "the ugly" to get that out of the way. Anytime a new festival starts, there's always the question of why the world needs another one - after all, there are more than 400 film festivals per year, and Colorado already has legendary festivals in Telluride and Aspen ... so how is Vail differentiating itself in terms of programming? The Vail Film Institute founded the festival to "encourage artistic innovation, to promote new and creative filmmaking techniques" (among other goals), but there wasn't anything particularly innovative or creative about many of these films (that's not to say they weren't good films, just that they weren't groundbreaking). The festival had also promised to show a collection of unaired TV pilots - a move that would set it apart from other festivals - but they ended up only showing a few pilots, and those weren't promoted very well ("That's something we'll foster for next year," said festival co-founder Scott Cross). Also, the festival's awards were confusing ... I asked several filmmakers if their films were in competition for awards, and if so, if there was a jury, and nobody really seemed to know. After the fest ended, co-founder Scott Cross told me that the festival's screening committee had picked the winners. To add to the confusion at the awards ceremony, the publicist for LA DJ got on stage to proclaim that the film had won the audience award; even if the festival didn't condone the LA DJ gang taking the stage, they should have at least clarified later that NO film had won an audience award (there was no audience voting ... something else to think about for next year).

The "bad" parts of the equation were more logistical - last-minute hotel mixups for guests, uninformed volunteers, lack of communication with the press and public (the film catalog didn't provide any info about a director's past films, and in some cases didn't indicate who the stars were or whether or not the film was a premiere), and problems staying on schedule. I won't dwell on those because you pretty much expect such problems at any kind of inaugural event. And in some cases, the schedule headaches turned out to be beneficial. For instance, when the festival oversold tickets to John Schultz's When Zachary Beaver Came To Town they decided to start the film about a half hour late so they could move to a larger screen - a benefit for both the filmmaker and the audience.

And, finally, onto the "good" - because there really were some impressive things that this first-year event pulled off. For starters, they scored the North American premiere of Richard Linklater's brilliant Before Sunset away from more established festivals. Also, the town of Vail seems like a very natural home for a festival - there are plenty of resorts to host visitors, the public transportation is fabulous and free, and there seems to be plenty of sponsor money to support an event in Vail. (Oh yes, there are also the famed ski slopes). In addition, the festival welcomed a large and enthusiastic group of filmmakers and film industry experts to this first event, and festival organizers did live up to their goal of choosing films that were very independent - aside from Before Sunset their selections were either from smaller, non-corporate-owned indie companies or were without distribution.

"We saw all these directors struggling in the indie film world, we thought there was a need for another a truly independent film festival where people could show their work," said Cross, who along with his brother is an actor and screenwriter. "We wanted to encourage truly independent filmmakers, to encourage that discovery."
  Of all the films I saw during my long weekend in Vail (the festival ran April 1-4), my favorite was Red Light Go a stylish and energetic documentary about New York City bike messengers. This doc, which premiered in December at MoMA's Documentary Fortnight, enters the subculture of a tight-knit group of bike messengers in New York City as they discuss their livelihood and also compete in street "Alleycat" races. This well-done doc puts a human face on a group of folks that are usually ignored (or maligned). Frantic scenes of a Halloween Alleycat race were particularly thrilling.

Another crowd-pleaser with a lot of heart was John Schultz's When Zachary Beaver Came To Town based on the award-winning kids novel of the same name. Jonathan Lipnicki turns in an impressive performance as a young Texas boy coping after his beloved neighbor and his mom leave him. He's distracted when the "world's fattest boy," the titular Beaver, shakes up the small town. There's nothing edgy about this film, but it's very solidly done (in terms of both directing and acting) and there's nothing to stop it from becoming the next successful feel-good family film.

Also stirring up buzz with its sold-out screening - and especially with its series of local parties and events - was LA DJ a feature film directed by Thomas Ian Nicholas of American Pie fame. Nicholas co-wrote the story with his brother Tim Scarne, about two brothers who leave their trailer park with dreams of becoming famous DJs in Los Angeles; they end up ruining some bar mitzvahs instead. The film dragged at times, and some of the humor was obvious, but still LA DJ offered quite a few laughs and strong performances from Nicholas, Scarne, and newcomer Caleb Moody as the lovable idiot Larry.

Even with its shaky areas, this festival is definitely worth keeping an eye on. Co-founder Scott Cross told indieWIRE that this year's event attracted more than 5000 attendees, and that even though they had a lot of learning to do this year, they felt it was a "phenomenal success" for a first outing. "Most of our sponsors are excited about coming back for the second year," he said. "The town of Vail and Vail Resorts and the local community are excited about what this festival can become. I think we can become a major film festival."