Action!

The beach is good for many things, but culture is rarely one of them.

So after getting settled in and having dinner with a good friend on a patio where we saw three army planes fly overhead in formation, I was ready to be stimulated.

The James River Filmmakers Forum was just the ticket.

A bar, free popcorn and a roomful of talent ensured a stimulating way to spend the evening.

I even had company, sitting down next to a woman who told me she "lived on the bay."

And yet here she was on this Saturday night.

Surely there was a story there.

Further nosiness revealed that she lives in Whitestone, has no husband or boyfriend (so usually cooks Punjabi for herself) and drove in because she'd previously seen the work of Fabian Rush, one of the filmmakers screening tonight.

From me, she wanted to know what I thought of Deco, how often I came to the Northern Neck and if I was a filmmaker.

All this and popcorn gratis.

Tonight's event was dedicated to long-time James River Film Society volunteer James Parrish, not because he's dead but because he's moved on to other film-related projects.

His honey-coated southern drawl will be missed.

Screened first was Fabian Rush's "DWAM," which he described as resulting from making his nightmares into short, surrealistic films.

A horror film, in other words, that captured the mood and essence of a dream.

This one was about a woman who lives alone in the woods (always a bad idea) with a wolf/dog and what happens when she begins to hear demonic sounds at 3 a.m.

Nothing good, I can assure you.

For something completely different, we then saw an installment of the Dodd Brothers' web series, "The Drunk Skeptic."

Centered around two PBR-drinking guys (ergo, set in Richmond), this episode was called, "Pick Up Your F*cking Trash."

A slacker comedy, it involved one of the guys being hit by a car, only to have his head cut open and beer inserted.

On the plus side, they reattached the top of his head and he came back to life.

Just for the record, both of the first two films featured characters with nose rings.

I don't know if it means anything, but I thought it was worth noting.

Next up was "Anxiety Dream," an experimental film by Jeff Roll, organizer of the Filmmakers Forum.

He told us beforehand that the idea for the film came about because his apartment had been burglarized a decade ago, resulting in years of waking up and walking around thinking he'd heard something.

The dark and moody black and white film was his tribute to silent-era German Expressionist films.

Afterwards, to lighten the mood, he told us that the menacing figure in the film had been played by the guy who was now tending bar in the back of the room.

From there, we went to a documentary called "The Bugler's Statue" by Les Owen.

A musician in an army band, Les is also the video producer for the U.S. Army band in Washington.

His film concerned the creation of a statue of a bugler to go in the visitors' center at Arlington Cemetery to represent the Arlington experience.

The army chose an actual bugler who was sent to a studio in NYC where, over the course of a day, they made casts of his face (complete with pursed lips for bugle-blowing), legs (wearing tights), torso and hands (one of which they forgot to grease first, meaning when they removed the cast, it took the hair off his hand, too).

As much as I know about casting sculpture from art history classes, I'd never seen the process done and it was fascinating to watch.

One of the pieces in the studio was of Jefferson, the same one done for the Virginia State Capital, so there was even a hometown touch in the film.

We took a short break to mingle, visit the menacing bartender and regroup before seeing the final film, "The Coward," by far the longest movie we saw at 27 minutes.

Filmmaker Joe Duca said he'd been inspired to make a modern silent film because of his love for Impressionism and his lack of money for microphones.

It was abundantly clear by this point that in order to make films, one must have a sense of humor.

Set in 1945, the black and white film concerned a group of soldiers acting badly and the consequences of it.

At first, I thought the soldiers all looked impossibly young but it soon occurred to me that that's reality, especially back when men would lie about their age to enlist sooner.

A couple of times during the film, there was a glitch and the images froze for a second or two and you could feel the tension in the room as people held their breath to see what was next.

We kept hoping our hero would man up and take control, but, alas, it wasn't to be.

By the end of the screening, I'd been reminded of one thing.

The beach may feed my soul but I need the city to feed my head.

Taking the pulse of the filmmaking community made for a really good mind meal.

If only it could lull me to sleep like the waves.

It's What They Wear Underneath

With the James River Filmmakers Forum, you are guaranteed variety.

That means 16 mm and video. It means comic fables and music documentaries. It means shorts and clips from longer works. It means stories about dating and self-mutilation (not related, by the way).

At tonight's screening at the Visual Arts Center, it meant five films (or parts of films) and a good-sized crowd to take them in.

The first two shorts by Robert Massa,"Margaret" and "Cora," were from a series about women and their neuroses.

Because they were done on film, the images were just beautiful. Interestingly, some of the film had been developed in the filmmaker's bathroom.

The main character in "Cora" was a cutter and, in a truly odd twist, so was the actress who played her. It was an unsettling thing to learn after the fact.

"Treezilla" by Joey Tran and Shawn Hambright used paper cutouts and a pipe cleaner tree monster to tell a cautionary tale about over-sized trees gone bad.

A lot of the dialog had a dry wit to it, surpassed only by the sound the raging tree made, which we learned was a combination of screaming and burping.

Some things they can't teach you in film school.

We only saw fifteen minutes of Les Owens' "The Silo Effect: The Treehouse Sessions" because it was a 47-minute film.

It documented local band The Silo Effect's three day recording session at Sound of Music Studios.

Made by the father of one of the band members who was a professional musician for over thirty years before taking up filmmaking, the documentary served as a tease to a bigger story than we got to see.

The youngest of the filmmakers was Thomas Bell, a senior filmmaking student at VCU.

"The Gauntlet" was a humorous take on speed dating (shot at the Empress, of all places) and the issues inherent in any kind of first date when so much can be read into what people say.

And don't say.

From the overly agreeable yes man to the over-confident studly type, the film exposed a variety of male stereotypes and what their behavior means.

There were also a few female cliches like the girl obsessed with her ex and the bitch who wouldn't cut any guys any slack.

Even the credits were funny, with one that said, "Thanks to all the extras who forgot to give us their names."

It was quite a leap from there to Tamara Eastman's historical documentary, "Birthing a Colony," a film about how different the experiences of women giving birth in the Virginia colony were depending on their social class.

Indentured servants and slaves had it worst, not surprisingly, often having their babies taken from them before being thrown in jail or sold.

But as the film showed, any woman was at risk giving birth in a time where childbirth frequently killed mother or infant or both.

I always stick around for the filmmakers' panel after the screenings, because, cutting and burping aside, you never know what fascinating tidbits you'll hear from the filmmakers.

For example, when some women are talking about an attractive guy one of them saw, the first question they ask is, "Is he in a kilt?"

When women like that start a production company, they name it Is He in a Kilt? Productions.

Fact.

So I guess if I ever start a production company, it'll be called Is He a Good Talker and Kisser? Productions.

Prediction.