The 1st Timers Guide to Cinequest

You've lived in San Jose for years but last went downtown during the Clinton adminstration. You heard about Cinequest from friends and family and seen the guides around. Last year you even picked one up and leafed through the list of hundreds of hard to pronounce titles. 

But this year is different.  This year you're gonna see some movies, dammit.

Sound familiar?

The first question people ask us when they find out we blog about Cinequest is  always

"What Should I Watch?"

It's a great question so we're tackling it here and we will just give out people this URL when they ask us in person. The short answer is anything that looks interesting to you. Even if you don't love love love a Cinequest movie you've helped support independent film and made the world a slightly better place. Kudos to you. Below are our recommendations for sure thing guaranteed good times*.



I WANNA SEE SOMETHING...

FUNNY
Ceremony
Movie star Uma Thurman should help get your significant other to join you. The trailer has a quirky Wes Anderson style. Awkward funny good times.

SILLY
Super Hero Party Clown
Made by filmmakers from SJSU. A test screening at last year's festival played well with the rowdy sold out crowd. BYOB (Bring Your Own Beer)

SCARY
The Dead
A zombie horror movie set in Africa. BYOB (Bring Your Own Brains)

WILD
Bad Behaviour
Looks kinda like Natural Born Killers set in Austrailia. Less Woody Harrelson, more dingos. Yeah, we made a dingo joke about Australia. Deal with it.

TOUCHING
Rosa Morena
Same sex couples, black market adoptions, subtitles. Do you enjoy any of these things? If so see this movie.


TERRIBLE
Plan 9 From Outer Space, Now in 3D!
The dumb fun of a truly awful movie meets cutting edge cinematic technology. Can't wait.


MAGICAL
Mystico Fantastico!
If there's a formula for getting us interested in your film it's gotta include putting an exclamation point at the end of the title. We love that kind of stuff!

WTF
22nd of May
Bombs, shopping malls, angst ridden security guards, more subtitles. Totally our kind of thing.


And there's our primer for Cinequest first timers.
Buy tickets early if you really want to see something here.


Want more recommendations? Head for our genre previews and dig in.
We'll talk more next week.

*good times guarantee null and void if you're a lame