Waiting for the Man is basically Waiting for Godot except with a beaver and a sheep...and tired dialogue...and that's about it. What novelty there is in this wears out way before it's over. This was made by the same guy who did Phil the Alien, which was shown the previous night, which makes me glad I skipped it. Five out of Ten.

Kings of Christmas is a documentary short subject on a bunch of guys living in New York City who go way out in the decoration of their houses for Christmas. This is an amusing piece. I had to note that one of these guys is actually an electrician, which means that at least his block won't be shorted out by all this excess. Eight out of Ten.

Days Like These is a shot-on-video comedy about some poor shmuck trying to get to a date and encountering obstacles in the form of a smiley face pin, a cup of expresso and a case of the runs. It's a real goofy piece that likes to constantly flash back minutes, days, and even years backwards to illustrate how certain obstacles came to be. Cute. Eight out of Ten.

And now on to our documentary and feature.

I, Crumudgeon (Production Company Site) is a documentary about, simply, famous grumps and why they are the way they are. These many interviews are led by the director Alan Zweig, a self confessed crumudgeon himself who takes many times to talk to the camera about his past experiences.

I actually had really high hopes for this one, but it all kind of fell flat for me. I think one of the biggest mistakes of the film is that there are never any subtitles to indicate who the person is being interviewed. This may seem like a small thing, but any flow to the film is broken by the fact that we have no bearings with any of these people. I only recognized Comic book writer Harvey Pekar, former Kids in the Hall Scott Thompson, and Andy Rooney (who appears in exactly one clip compared to the multiples of all the others, and in that one only expresses bewilderment at what Zweig is trying to do here).

So what we have is a roundtable of people bitching about their lives of bitching. Zweig does try to put some form to the work on occasion, such as his repeated question to several subjects about the "Emperor Has No Clothes" story, but it's not enough. There are amusing anecdotes and stories here (most memorable is one guy describing how he could start developing a positive outlook on life if it weren't for the existence of jetskis), but it's not enough to hold it together. In it's current incarnation, the film should be at least 30 minutes shorter, and that's still providing they put in subtitles to identify people. Oh well. Six out of Ten.