32 films, live concert launch inaugural Blue Whiskey film fest

Blue Whiskey what???It's a new local film festival created by Fremd High School grad Michael Noens, and he intends for it to grow in popularity and become a major destination on the fest circuit.The first Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival starts Wednesday with a series of music videos and a live concert featuring Mount Prospect talent Chris Petlak, all at the Fred P. Hall Amphitheater, 626 E. Palatine Road, Palatine.Thirty-two features and shorts will be shown starting Thursday at the Cutting Hall Performing Arts Center, 150 E. Wood St., Palatine. The festival continues through Saturday, July 24, then wraps Sunday, July 25, with an awards brunch at the Hotel Indigo, 920 E. Northwest Hwy., Palatine.Among the highlights will be Schaumburg filmmaker Brad Hansen's delightful John Hughesian comedy "Drivers Ed Mutiny," filmed in the Northwest suburbs and across the United States. (I saw it at the Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival in Iowa, and it's more than a hoot. It's six hoots! More hoots, more fun!)Blue Whiskey will also present the Illinois premiere of "The Exploding Girl," a drama about a college student struggling with epilepsy.Also up: Roselle resident Ashley Alysa France's film short "Best Friends," about the struggles of living with a loved one suffering from Alzheimer's disease.An all-festival pass costs $40. Afternoon or evening sessions cost $12. If you'd like to join the Saturday dinner buffet, add $15, or the Sunday Awards buffet brunch for $20.Go to http://bwiff.com or e-mail programming@bwiff.com for info.Saddle up, partner!Join me and film historian Raymond Benson for "Saddle Up and Pass the Beans," a special summer episode of Dann Raymond's Movie Club. We'll be talking about the greatest westerns ever made by Hollywood, and those western knock-offs made in Spain by Sergio Leone during the 1960s. We'll have clips from "Shane," "High Noon," "The Searchers," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "The Wild Bunch" and, of course, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," plus others. Hey, free admission! Join us at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Vernon Area Public Library, 300 Olde Half Day Road, Lincolnshire. Go to vapld.info or call (847) 634-3650. Don't forget the cowboy hats and spurs.Reel Life review: 'Wild Grass'French director Alain Resnais - who at 88 now gets "Revered" attached to his name like an official title - directs the offbeat stalker romance "Wild Grass" with a nostalgic blast of smoother-than-silk tracking shots and impeccably framed close-ups.I'm as much a sucker for old-fashioned cinematic devices as the next pretentious film critic, but they're not enough to pump up the thin whimsy of "Wild Grass" with its meandering storyline, subtle creepiness and odd main characters.The plot kicks in when a dull, middle-aged Frenchman named Georges (Andre Dussollier) discovers a discarded stolen wallet in the parking garage. When he returns it to its owner, he falls for her: Marguerite (Sabine Azema), a single dentist who possesses an explosion of red hair and a passion for piloting old airplanes.Marguerite freaks out over Georges' pressing attentions and calls the cops, who fail to talk Georges out of his need to woo the poor dentist.Meanwhile, Marguerite begins to fall for Georges, even though he's happily married with two children. (This is a French romance, remember?)Both main characters get annoying voice-over narrations, and both often imagine themselves doing the opposite of what they really do, an idea already explored to its comic lengths in "(500) Days of Summer.""Wild Grass," based on the novel "L'Incident" by Christian Gailly, is a movie in love with movies. (An old theater showing war movies serves as a visual centerpiece.) As much as I would love to be in love with a movie in love with movies, I'm not."Wild Grass" opens today at the Music Box Theatre, Chicago. Rated PG. 104 minutes. #9733;#9733;1/2False20001333See clips from great westerns, including "The Searchers" starring John Wayne, when Dann & Raymond's Movie Club comes to the Vernon Area Public Library. False