The Well – Kristian Petri's documentary focuses on Orson Welles and the years he spent in Spain, expanding his waist size, tripling his chin count, and making films that never came close to being finished (like The Merchant of Venice, Treasure Island, and the cursed Don Quixote).  Petri's task is to visit the people and places Welles encountered, as well as capturing both lost footage and visiting the Citizen Kane creator's final resting place: A sealed well on the property of legendary bullfighter Antonio Ordoñez in San Cayetano.

The Well is packed with clips from some of those unfinished pictures, but also contains shots of Welles filming them (and a very odd scene involving Welles and a duck in some kind of weird staring contest), in addition to more driving scenes than Broken Flowers.  Petri takes care to drive home the obvious: Welles was a walking enigma.  What else would you call a sloppy perfectionist?  A director who would obsessively watch some of his footage over and over again, and never even process others?  We're also treated to interviews with folks who knew Welles personally (like cult director Jess "Jesus" Franco, who worked as Welles's second-unit director on Chimes at Midnight and the ill-fated Quixote, and now has about three teeth) and others he merely berated for taking food away from him too quickly.

Warning: The Well contains some very non-PETA-friendly footage of bullfights, but I feel that is offset by some hysterically translated subtitles, which seem to indicate Kane's infamous "Rosebud" was really some sledge.  Obviously, this is a must see for fans of Welles, but any film buff would certainly dig this doc.

Pavee Lackeen – If you don't know anything about Travellers, but think they might have something to do with a bad sci-fi film, you're going to be awfully confused watching this debut from Perry Ogden (no, they're not an insurance company, either).  Travellers are, apparently, like an slightly more permanent Irish version of Gypsies.  If this offends any of PSB's Gypsy or Traveller audience, blame the movie, which never really offers a decent explanation.

The story is told through the eyes of 10-going-on-32-year-old Winnie (Winnie Maughan), who is suspended from school for fighting, huffs petrol, is a petty theft, and has both an alcoholic mother, a brother in the clink, and eight other siblings, with whom she shares a tiny mobile home.  The fatherless family is waiting for the Council to find them a nice house in a nice neighborhood before they're evicted from their crap wagon.  I'll let you guess about whether the ending is happy or not.  Couldn't get into this one, even though I love me some Irish accents thick enough to warrant subtitles.

Gabrielle – Patrice Chéreau's (Cannes winner for Queen Margot) latest was definitely today's lowlight, despite the presence of Isabelle Huppet (I ♥ Huckabees).  Based on a Joseph Conrad short story, Gabrielle is about an upper-crust French couple from the early 1900s.  Sure, they throw great parties for their bourgie friends, but that's merely a pretty veneer covering their incredible unhappiness, mostly with each other.   It doesn't help that their the biggest bores on two wheels, either.

Actually, I'm not sure I've seen two people this unlikable since Affleck and J.Lo were together.  Additionally, Gabrielle offers lots of Nirvana-like (in volume alone) quiet/loud/quiet music that could probably wake the dead (or, as it was in my case, the sleeping).  Chéreau did fill the movie with some nice but dizzying long shots, though.

Angel – You never get a false moment in a Jim McKay film.  His pictures – the ones he produces and the ones he writes/directs on his own – have a consistent realness to them that you won't be able to find from any other American indie filmmaker.  With Angel, McKay drops us into a story that is already in progress.  There is no beginning, no middle, and no end.

The titular Angel (Jonan Everett), a high school senior in Brooklyn, has recently been kicked out of his house because he won't obey his father and join the Army.  He ends up bunking up at the home of his married but depressed counselor (Rachel Griffiths).  Angel is slowly learning everyone in the world is an asshole.  She's having trouble coming to terms with being three-months pregnant even though she comes off as motherly as Brenda Chenowith.  They're a match made in heaven, but they don't make sweet, sweet love.

McKay, who directed and co-wrote Angel's script with Hannah Weyer (a short film award-winner at Sundance), once again pulls unbelievable acting from unknown (especially juvenile) talent, with Everett's gritty, heartbreaking performance echoing, if not topping those found in films like Raising Victor Vargas and George Washington.

Citizen Dog – It'd be super-easy and super-lazy to say Citizen Dog is a Thai version of Amélie, and it's late, so that exactly what I'm going to do.  Same kind of narration (from Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, who festival audience might remember as the writer/director of 6ixtynin9), same kind of whimsy, same kind of kooky supporting cast, and same kind of boy-girl connection you know will eventually occur.

This time, however, we focus on the boy (Mahasamut Boonyaruk), a recent arrival in Bangkok who works at a sardine packaging factory.  When he loses his finger at work, and tries to hunt it down in one of the millions of tins shipped to stores around Thailand, Dog's story is off to the races.  Along the way, we meet a zombie motorcycle taxi driver, a chain-smoking teddy bear, romance novel characters come to life, and a grandmother reincarnated into various animals, and many more.  And there's also Jin (Saengthong Gate-Uthong), a beautiful maid (everyone in Thailand, apparently, wears patches bearing their job titles) who's quirky enough to possibly be considered insane.

I liked Dog a lot, but it's numerous musical interludes grew grating and did little other than padding the running time of a film with a story that didn't have much meat on its bones.  A few times, they even had me reaching for a non-existent fast-forward button.