According to SAGIndie Magazine, the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck is one of the five favorite film festivals in America. I’ve been going for seven years now, and it’s amazing to see how it’s grown in that time. And I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Never once in all the years I’ve attended, have I ever been even mildly inconvenienced. This Festival is incredibly well-run, a miracle when you’re dealing with an all-volunteer project. The Waterfront Festival is an incredible achievement, and we Michiganders are so lucky to have access to a world-class festival like this one. Based on my experience, I think this might have been the best-attended festival yet – the venues were packed on a regular basis. Still, they managed to accommodate our swelling numbers and make it look easy.

Now, it’s been my experience that every year, I end up disappointed in at least one movie. Considering that I usually see 8 or 9 total, that’s really not that bad. This year I ran the gauntlet of 10 movies, and I’ll tell you right now, I was happy with all of them. My tastes ran a little lighter this year, because I decided that I don’t want to see anything that is described with the phrase “coming of age” or the word “bittersweet”. That’s where the disappointments have been in past years, after all. And I can’t pretend to have seen everything – I couldn’t find a spot for the much-anticipated documentary Fierce Light, and while World’s Greatest Dad was the hot ticket this year, it stars Robin Williams, which automatically makes it a no-go for me. But that’s the great thing about the Festival – they have a lot of movies. When I can see ten in two days and still not finish my to-do list, that’s a power lineup.

So let’s just get to some reviews. Today, I’ll look at the movies I saw on Friday, in an unprecedented marathon of sitting down and looking at a big screen. Tomorrow, I’ll cover the Saturday films, including the buzzed-about Humpday. Most of these movies have websites, and I’ll link them where applicable. Check them out!

Weather Girl

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say I was briefly angry because Weather Girl stars Tricia O’Kelley who appeared on Gilmore Girls a few years back as the woman who Luke married on a whim. So I’m still a little bitter. But this comedy turned out to be delightful, even though I’m not sure that I should be using words like ‘delightful’. O’Kelley plays Sylvia Miller, a “sassy weathergirl” on a Seattle morning show who has an on-air meltdown when she learns the show’s anchor has been cheating on her.

After her career suicide, she ends up living in her brother’s apartment and coming to grips with some harsh realities – she has no job, no savings, no boyfriends, and her friends all kind of suck. Yes, it sounds like a romantic comedy set-up. And yeah, that’s sort of what it is. But fortunately, it’s propelled by a really clever sense of humor and a very funny cast.

O’Kelley kind of reminds me of Judy Greer – she’s really expressive and can land a punchline with the best of them. She also can play exasperated without whining, which is really nice. In a perfect world, she should be the person they call for Jennifer Aniston roles. It’s her likeability that really grounds the movie – even if you don’t like romantic comedies and/or can see the plot coming from a mile away, she’s so much fun to watch that you won’t even care.

There’s a pretty great cast backing her up, too. Mark Harmon plays the lecherous anchor, and grosses it up in a way I didn’t expect. Jane Lynch knocks it out of the park as always, Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) gets some great bits, local boy Ryan Devlin has a well-done supporting role as Sylvia’s brother, and Patrick Adams is a genuinely funny love interest. There’s also a performance by Jon Cryer that is absolutely hilarious. Even if I didn’t like the movie, Jon Cryer’s scene still would have made it work seeing.

Weather Girl is solidly funny and aggressively likeable. It’s a straight-out fun movie, and if there’s any justice, we’ll see a lot more from Tricia O’Kelley (and writer-director Blayne Weaver) in the near future.

The Baker

This was one of the big hits at the Festival – it’s an action-comedy about an assassin who decides to retire as a baker in a small English village. Only it takes the townspeople about two minutes to realize his actual line of work and start taking out contracts on one another. But Milo the former hitman doesn’t get it, and thinks they’re all really just ordering cakes. Also, he doesn’t know how to bake. It’s clever and ridiculously charming, and I loved it.

Damian Lewis, who was fantastic in the recently-cancelled Life, heads up the cast. The rest of them are pretty well unknown, but they all have great character actor looks – you know, like they’re actual townspeople. There’s a young explosives fanatic named Eggs, who thinks being a hitman sounds pretty great. There are the next-door neighbors who torment each other with property damage all nigh, one of whom, inxexplicably, has a Hitler mustache. And there’s the poor, henpecked fishmonger, whose wife is one of the most horrifying characters I’ve seen onscreen in a good long time.

I don’t want to say too much, since there’s so much fun here. However, I should mention that there’s a hilarious sex scene involving the use of food. It starts out with items that make sense, until they’re finally just breaking eggs over each other in a fit of ecstasy. And there’s a great fight to wrap up the movie between Milo and one of his former competitors in the killing-people game. This movie was just so much fun.

I should also mention the short that preceded The Baker. It was one of the most popular pieces at the Festival, as determined by me while eavesdropping on people for two days. The Deposition of Lou Bagetta is the story of the Mob’s worst hitman, and an immortal snitch. Amazingly, the punchline has nothing to do with either of these things. Lou Bagetta made me laugh harder than anything else I saw in the two days.

American Harmony

Here’s a little hint for you: You will never see a bad documentary at the Waterfront. And I’m not just talking about how they have a habit of showing eventual Oscar winners, like March of the Penguins or Man on Wire. They’ve always hosted excellent documentaries, major or minor. One joy of the Festival is always finding movies about people obsessed with something you didn’t even know people cared about. American Harmony is about the strange world of barbershop quartets. Specifically, the International Championship of Barbershop Singing.

Did you even know that was a real thing? It is, and it’s apparently huge! There’s Max Q, a barbershop “Super Group”. OC Times, the teen heartthrobs. Newcomers the Vocal Spectrum, and many more. It’s absolutely mind-blowing. There’s a hysterical scene featuring a Japanese OC Times groupie. I didn’t know there were barbershop groupies. And on the other hand, while OC Times tours and performs every weekend, one of the members makes ends meet as a manager at a Chick-fil-a. One of the recurring themes is the disconnect between their mega-stardom in the world of barbershop and their complete obscurity everywhere else.

The story of Max Q is particularly fascinating to me. If a quartet wins the championship, that group can never compete again. Max Q is made up of members of past winning quartets, seemingly with the intent of forming the greatest barbershop group ever. And yet, they just can’t win. They just keep taking second place, and it’s a source of endless frustration to them.

You’ll be completely absorbed in something you didn’t know existed. There are some genuinely interesting individuals, and you even get to see some really enjoyable performances. It’s a really great story, and even though it’s about something that we may not totally get, the performers are never the butt of the joke. Well, except for the guy who nicknamed himself “Awesome Joe”, but he’s got it coming.

Waiting for Ophelia

You know, I would have avoided this movie like based on the seemingly pretentious title. However, star Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa Simpson) was in attendance, and I do not pass up the chance to meet members of The Simpsons voice cast. I’m glad I saw it, because Ophelia is funny and insightful and really good.

Smith plays Caitilin, a woman who’s in a long-term relationship with no hope of marriage. Her boyfriend, labor activist Jonah (played by writer/director Adam Carl), doesn’t believe in marriage. On their “anniversary”, they plan a dinner with some friends and relatives, and things start to unravel.

Jonah’s sister brings her boyfriend, an ex-con. And by “ex-con”, I mean, he got out of jail that morning. Also in attendance is Jonah’s friend Bart, who hasn’t told anybody that his wife, the titular Ophelia, has left him. While they wait for Ophelia to show up, everybody’s issues come to the surface.

The important story is that of Caitlin and Jonah, and it’s really well-handled. Intelligent adults talk about their problems, and they do it in ways that you haven’t heard one thousand times before. The resolution is both satisfying and reasonable, and there are times when the dialogue is absolutely beautiful without being overly florid. It’s fine writing.

The performance by Patrick Day as ex-con Jude really has to be noted. This guy is hilarious! Everything out of Jude’s mouth is funny, and he gets some amazing monologues. I particularly loved his lengthy rant about Wheel of Fortune vs. Jeopardy. And not only is he funny, but his scenes bring the movie back whenever it starts to drift into navel-gazing.

I’m glad that I’m so Simpsons obsessed, because otherwise I totally would have passed this by. I would have missed out, because Waiting for Ophelia is funny, touching, and insightful.

Pulling John

I wrapped up the first day with a documentary about competitive arm wrestling. The sport has been dominated for years by John Brzenk. He actually appears in Sylvester Stallone’s arm-wrestling movie, Over the Top and even got his own action figure out of the deal. He’s semi-retired, and everybody wants to take a crack at the undefeated champion.

It’s a matter of national pride in some cases. The United States is the only industrialized country that doesn’t have government funded arm wrestling, so American dominance is a sticking point for some. Alexey Voevoda, a giant Russian who might be the real Ivan Drago, wants to bring the title back to Russia. In training footage, we see him arm wrestle three guys simultaneously. And win. In case you weren’t sure, that’s awesome.

Then there’s Travis Bagent, a cocky young guy from the South, who wants to beat his hero. Meanwhile, John’s trying to get back into shape for the competition. He’s in his 40’s now, which is usually the age when athletic careers end.

This one snuck up on me – arm wrestling isn’t that visually interesting after the first or second time you see it. I didn’t realize how caught up I was until Travis and Alexey faced off, and then it hit me how emotionally involved I’d gotten in the piece. It’s really excellent and surprising.

That’s it for the first day – we’ve got another five movies tomorrow, so come back for Day Two!