PFF & Cinefest09 - DAY 1

So, here I am again, all Press Passed and rearing to see what gem's come out of this year's festival!

The opening night film (500) Days of Summer opened to sold out crowds for both showings. It's being billed as an "anti-romantic" comedy, okay, it's not a "chick flick", but adorable chemistry and hopeful ending, spell romantic comedy in my book.

On the surface it's a simple enough contemporary story of boy meets girl at work, falls madly in love, thinks she's the girl of his dreams, until girl breaks boy's heart.

However, what makes this film unique and highly entertaining is Joseph Gordon-Levit's earnest humor and Zooey Deschanel's maddening, yet so appealing quirkiness. Adding to this are creative touches of unreality, smoothly interjected. For instance, the marking of time with sparsley drawn day slates, which allows for the story to be told like memories, just slightly out of order, a buy able sound track (a la Garden State), And I was particularly taken by a split screen scene of love's expectation vs love's reality.

First time Director, Marc Webb and Screenwriters, Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber were in attendance for a Q&A.

This boyish duo puts me in mind of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's entree onto the scene with Good Will Hunting. The (500) Days of Summer creators are friends and admit to writing the piece cathartically for Scott, the shorter dweebeier one, to get over two major heartbreaks. Both the women represented by Zooey's character have seen the film, and both gave their approval, but neither wanted to get back with him.

Rating: Pretty Middle Toe

Running off now to the Opening Night Party at Park Hyatt Bellevue for complimentary Stella and Bluecoat Gin...

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