And the Winners Are...

And so another Seattle International Film Festival has come to a close. The stars have flown back home, the movie houses are going back to their regularly scheduled summertime fluff and the staff over at Cinema Seattle breathes a sigh of relief that they've managed to get through another 25 days of movie-going hysteria and didn't collectively collapse from exhaustion.

Personally, I don't know how they do it. I love film, adore it to the point just the thought of not being a part of this community is enough to reduce me to pools of blubbering hysterics that's more than a bit childish, but even I have trouble making it through all three and a half week of the festival with my sanity intact. This event isn't a sprint, it's a marathon, and only those with the stamina to endure the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright miraculously bizarre day in and night out are the ones who keep coming each and every year ready - begging, even - for more.

With almost 300 feature-length films (not to mention nearly another 200 shorts, forums, events and parties), it is impossible to see everything. Usually I can make a pretty good go of it catching most of the festival's must-see items. All that said, I didn't make it to the Golden Space Needle Audience Award-winner for best film, German director Doris Dörrie's (Men) latest curiosity Cherry Blossoms - Hanami. I did make it to the runner up film, however, Courtney Hunt's sensational and moody Frozen River (which also won the Lena Sharpe audience award for best female director), and I can't fault ticket and pass holders in the least bit for becoming so completely enamored with that particular one in the least bit.

Other Golden Space Needle winners included Best Actor Alan Rickman's sly and beguiling turn as British wine impresario Steven Spurrier in the otherwise pleasing if slight closing night film Bottle Shock, newcomer Jessica Chastain's fiery and fiercely magnetic performance in Dan Ireland's disappointingly infuriating Jolene for Best Actress, and Jordanian filmmaker Amin Matalqa took home the trophy for Best Director for his wonderfully entertaining dramatic comedy Captain Abu Raed. Can't say I disagree, audiences going a long way to erasing last year's almost disgraceful mistake of giving Daniel Water's an award for his rather forgettable comedy Sex and Death 101.

For me, SIFF 2008 had much to adore. I saw what I believe to be hands-down the year's best film in Fatih Akin's (Head On) brilliantly moving drama The Edge of Heaven, the movie a poignant, multi-layered masterpiece worthy of repeat viewings. Also on the narrative side, Alan Ball's (HBO's "Six Feet Under") explosively compelling Towelhead refused to pull punches and offered up a coming of age satire sure to spark endless debate, Tarsem's (The Cell) visually resplendent The Fall took my breath away and then some, The Duplass Brother's (The Puffy Chair) quirky and imaginative Baghead was a suspense and laugh-filled surprise, I had a blast watching the Danish Harry Potter wannabe The Island of Lost Souls, absolutely adored Russell Brown's talkative The Bluetooth Virgin, thought both Colin Hanks and John Malkovich stole the show in the sometimes hysterical The Great Buck Howard, and the shatteringly emotional New Director Showcase Grand Jury Prize winner Everything is Fine immediately cemented Canadian filmmaker Yves-Christian Fournier's as a talented newcomer worth keeping an eye on.

On the non-fiction end of things, my two favorites were Nanette Burstein's American Teen and Yung Chan's Up the Yangtze. Audiences, however, disagreed slightly and awarded Denny Tedesco's solidly entertaining biography of the best back-up band you've never heard of The Wrecking Crew with the Golden Space Needle for Best Documentary, while the Grand Jury Prize in the same category went to Isaac Julien’s fascinating (if a bit too bland for my tastes) look at acclaimed the late iconoclastic British filmmaker Derek Jarman, Derek. Other doc highlights included recent Oscar winner Alex Gibney's (Taxi to the Dark Side) Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Symons' excellent Don't Ask-Don't Tell piece Ask Not, the steriods epic Bigger, Stronger, Faster*, the absolutely absorbing multi-decade gay romance Chris and Don: A Love Story, the beguiling German treatise on the world's smallest particle Dust and the sometimes stunning Hurricane Katrina piece Trouble the Water.

There were some missteps, of course, but none of them rose to quite the level of infuriating ignominy as David Wain's brutally horrific The Ten did last year. Still, Dario Argento's latest The Mother of Tears was pretty darn bad, as was Roger Spottiswoode's turgidly well-meaning epic The Children of Huang Shi. Also not making the grade were the annoying French sci-fi mind-bender Chrysalis, C. Jay Cox'z anemically plotted gay marriage comedy Kiss the Bride and good have done without a good half hour of Jean-Paul Salomé's (Arsène Lupin) WWII epic Female Agents. Most surprising was the stunning collapse of Tom Kalin's (Swoon) fact-based Savage Grace even though it contained one of the great tour-de-force performances of acclaimed actress Julianne Moore's entire career.

Overall, howver, this was a good SIFF, sometimes even a magnificent one. There were highs, there were lows and, like always, there was everything stuffed to the gills right in-between. In short, I may be exhausted (too little sleep mixed with too much Diet Coke coupled with far too much stale popcorn over a 25-day period will end up doing that to you) but, now that all is said and done, I wouldn't have it any other way. Even better, I can't wait until 2009 to do it all over again.

The Final Friday

And so we come to the end.

Funny thing, as this last Friday of the festival dawns it doesn't really feel like the end. In fact, what with Seattle's fabled Cinerama Theater joining as one of the screening venues and a whole slew of talent in town to talk about their premiering motion pictures it almost feel a little bit like the beginning all over again.

Yet no matter how I wish it were otherwise, this really is it. Tomorrow the solid if unspectacular Bottle Shock has its closing night gala screening, the awards get announced at press conference Sunday morning and a bunch of long-awaited films finally get their screenings. Pictures from the likes of Dan Ireland, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, Johnny To, Bernard Campan and Jean-Paul Salomé debut, while the Seattle Symphony breaks out the orchestra for a once-in-a-lifetime showing of Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky.



I'm excited for just about all of it. Movies that I finally get to see include Ireland's Jolene, Hark, Lam and To's Triangle, Salomé's Female Agents, the Katrina documentary Trouble the Water, the French sci-fi mindbender Chrysalis, Courtney Hunt's Frozen River, the Italian mystery The Girl by the Lake, the controversial U.K. erotic thriller Donkey Punch, Alex Rivera's ambitious U.S. debut Sleep Dealer and, if I can somehow fit it in, Aditya Assarat's Wonderful Town.

But there's plenty else to see. I'm interviewing Alan Ball about his fantastic (and highly unsettling) dramatic comedy Towelhead tomorrow (as well as Bottle Shock writer/director Randall Miller), and in just about a half an hour I'll be heading down to the W Hotel press offices to speak with Olivia Thirlby, Josh Peck and writer/director Jonathan Levine about their highly entertaining coming-of-age 1990's melodrama The Wackness. Other highlights include Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Tennis Shoes, a special presentation of John Cassavetes' immortal classic Faces, the supposedly stirring German drama Love and Other Crimes, a second screening of The Island of Lost Souls at the Cinerama (which I might just have to break down and see a second time) and a repeat showing of Russell Brown's excellent The Bluetooth Virgin (which, coincidentally, I interviewed both Brown and legendary actress Karen Black for yesterday - more to come on that front hopefully tomorrow).

Personally, I can't wait. After enduring the decidedly underwhelming video game banalities of The Incredible Hulk and being hit with a flurry of okay, if not even remotely exciting, screening here at SIFF, it's fantastic to have so many richly deserving titles to get all worked up about. As last weekends go, this one is shaping up to be one for the record books.

I can't wait.

Visual (Effects) Musings

Yesterday I saw The Incredible Hulk. Unsurprisingly, it is filled to the brim with special effects. Lots of them. Just about every second of the film. In all honesty, I don't think there is a single frame that doesn't showase them.

What's funny is that one of the chief complaints of the Ang Lee's Hulk was that there were far too many special effects and that none of them looked any better than what you'd find in a high-end video game. Considering this Edward Norton version of the signature Marvel comic book character has the exact same problems (although, admittedly, they are still better than those in Lee's film), I still can't help but wonder if people are going to be any more excited about the movie then they were back in 2003.

This all relates back to SIFF far more clearly than you'd probably imagine. Tonight I saw the delightful (if a bit too thin) The Island of Lost Souls out of Denmark and it has visual effects up the whazoo. This fantasy/adventure about a couple of teenagers (Sarah Langebæk Gaarmann, Lasse Borg) forced into battling an evil necromancer (Lars Mikkelsen) after the girl's little brother (Lucas Munk Billing) is possessed by the soul of a long-dead warlock who helped defeat him a century earlier, the movie is a sprightly and spunky good-natured surprise virtually impossible to resist.

But that's not what got me thinking. There are CGI effects in this thing pretty much beginning to end and they are every bit as good as just about any Hollywood creation I've seen over the last couple of years with very few exceptions (Iron Man comes to mind, as do 2007's Zodiac, The Bourne Ultimatum and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). Movies like this one, like Paul Verhoeven's Black Book and like Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement, can't help but make you wonder what the heck is going on. Studio movies cost hundreds of millions of dollars and they still look like video games. These ones are made for fractions of the cost and feature effects so good you almsot don't even notice they are there.



Lsiten, I'm not entirely sure what my point is here other than the Hollywood excuse for broken budgets has little to do with visual effects and everything to do with executives feeling the best way to fix a broken script is to throw money at the problem and hope it all works out. While I know this isn't exactly news (and while I'm just as unsure what I'm really trying to get at here by pointing it out) it is festivals like SIFF that really showcase just how glaring this idiotic reality really is. It's annoying, and for all The Incredible Hulk does tend to get right I'll take the unabashed thrills, chills and delightfully well-written spills of The Island of Lost Souls over that one again any day.

In the "Bag"

Filmmaking siblings Jay and Mark Duplass are the kind of guys you can't help but like. Direct, charming, self-effacing and absolutely as sharp as tacs, these two directors know what they're doing and aren't afraid to talk about it. No two ways about it, I like them, and after spending 30 minutes (give or take) with the pair earlier this afternoon I can't imagine anyone else feeling any different.

I was there to talk about the duo's follow-up to their acclaimed debut The Puffy Chair, the highly unusual and decidedly different four-character drama-slash-comedy-slash-thriller Baghead. A solidly effective low budget B-movie with an ingenious (and very well earned) third actor twist, this is one of the only pictures I can ever recall watching and having a fellow critic accidently slap me smack-dab right in the face because something on-screen startled her. Of all the pictures Sony Pictures Classics has sent to this year's SIFF (The Children of Huang Shi, The Wackness, Brick Lane, Frozen River and When Did You Last See Your Father?) this one just might be the very best. Granted, I still haven't seen two of those, but off the ones I have watched the Duplass' brothers opus is the one I definitely can't stop thinking about.

It's a simple enough premise. Four barely working actors; Chad (Steve Zissis), Matt (Ross Partridge), Michelle (Greta Gerwig) and Catherine (Elise Muller); head off for a weekend in the country at a secluded cottage to write the script for an independent feature which will launch all fo their careers and hopefully make them stars. Things begin to get odd when a mysterious stranger appears outside wearing a paper bag over his head. That mystery grows dangerous as the weekend comes to an end, the true motives of the disturbingly quiet masked figure putting all of them squarely atop the razor's edge.

"One of the crew members of our last feature The Puffy Chair, I don't remember who it was, had the idea that a bag on someone's head could be scary," said Mark during our mid-afternoon chat up in the SIFF hospitality suite in the downtown W Hotel. "[They] came up with the idea while we were trapsing around the woods shooting and we were all having this conversation about what is the scariest thing you could think of. His response was about sitting in your living room, reading a book, it's quiet and you look over at the window and there is a guy with a bag over his head staring back at you."

"We all started laughing and saying it was pretty funny, and then we all ended up having nightmares that night thinking about it," he laughs. "We were all talking about it the next morning at breakfast and were like, yeah, that's fucking terrifying. But, then, you know where you're out [in the woods] it's a real rural area and there are a lot of windows and there's no one else around and there's nothing you can do, and we suddenly got really excited about the idea that it could be both funny and scary at the same time. That's where the real inspiration came from, being scared but being annoyed at yourself at the same time because you're scared over something that on the [surface] seems just so stupid."

"The way that our collaboration works is that it's really hard to make a movie," adds Jay speaking about how the pair manages to work so closely together with such apparent ease. "It's kind of like the two of us equals one actual filmmaker, and I don't want to run down a road that Mark doesn't want to go down. It's painful enough, a struggle enough, trying to do it [make a movie] with it being just the two of us and we want to make sure that we're both connected on it, that we're both excited about it, because I think that's what keeps us going through the insanity of making Independent Films."

"There are those moments when we're behind the camera together and we're looking at each other and realizing that something amazing is happening. And we connect on that. Really, that's what [making movies] is all about."

The movie opens in limited release at the end of July, so look for my full review and the rest of the interview over on the main site at that time. Until then, keep an eye out for Baghead. It isn't going to change your life but it is going to make you laugh, get you to think, get connected to some wonderfuly flawed personalities and force you to jump up out of your chair in deliciously primitive tension. Just don't slap the person next to you when you jump in your seat due to all the simple, alomst old-school scares. Take it from me, getting whacked in the face at a movie theater hurts!

The Great Colin Hanks

After recieving raves at Sundance, the highly pleasing star-struck comedy The Great Buck Howard had a gala screening on Friday night. In attendance were both writer/director Sean McGinly and up-and-coming star Colin Hanks.

The movie is a hoot, and while I can't do a full review what I can say is that this tale of a former college kid (Hanks) looking for direction in his life who ends up becoming the assistant for a once-famous mentalist ("I've been on The Tonight Show 51 times!") Buck Howard (wonderfully played by John Malkovich) as the entertainer readies a massive trick which will hopefully catapult him back into the national limelight. Along the way he learns about life, makes friends with an acerbic publicist (Emily Blunt) and tries to not let his angry father's (real-life dad Tom Hanks) displeasure as to his dropping out of law school get the better of him.

It reminded me quite a bit of the slightly similar 1982 Richard Benjamin minor classic My Favorite Year. That film was also about an aging celebrity trying to re-ignite a stalled career, the picture earning a much-deserved Oscar nomination for star Peter O'Toole and gave Mark Linn-Baker (who would go on to star in the television sitcom Perfect Strangers) one of his few decent theatrical roles.

I got the opportunity to sit down with Hanks a couple of hours before the local premier of his film and I asked him about these similarities. "That was actually, ironically, one of my favorite movies growing up as a kid. I absoluely loved that film. I was actually kind of honored when people [mention] that. I actually get excited when somebody mentions that because, for me personally, that was a really important movie from my childhood that I watched like every day."

"And, yeah, I can sort of see it. Same sort of vibe. No disrespect to [Mark] Linn-Baker but I hope I don't end up on Perfect Strangers. But, in all seriousness, that's a movie that's endured. It was a really funny film. And I hope we can achieve some of the same success. These movies last forever and they always seem to find an audience somewhere. Hopefully people will really like it."

"I just think [Buck Howard] is a delightful little movie and I tend to like those kind fo films that are just so entertaining and where you can notice all these small little things all the people do to make [you] laugh. But then, it takes very little to make me laugh. Well, not very little, I just find myself laughing at the little tiny things here and there, and if there are enough of those little tiny things and enough big things that I just think are really hilarious."

"And I just think everyone's so damn good in it," he continues emphatically before adding with a trademark deadpan smirk and a slight chuckle familiar to a certain two-time Academy-Award winning actor Hanks has known his entire life since birth, "myself excluded."

I'd have to disagree with that last statement. This is the best the actor has been, and also the first role he's had since his debut in Orange County that's really allowed him to showcase his talents. I'll have more of this interview (along with a full review) on the main site when The Great Buck Howard opens in theaters later this year.

In other SIFF news, I had to endure one of the more annoying midnight movie experiences the festival has probably ever given me. The new Takashi Miike (Audition) creation, the weirdly disjointed East meet West and goes back East Western Sukiyaki Western Django, had its premier, and it was definitely one of those movies where I quickly foudn myself wanting to be anywhere other than in my theater seat.

Not so mcuh because of the film itself (although, it must be admitted, that even for the always unusual and more than a bit unhinged Miike, this one was pretty awful), but more because of the idiot fan boy sitting next to me. Packed in like sardines due to a virtual sell-out, the gentleman to my left was one of those bizarre rubes that litterally laughed or made comments and giggled madly at everything. Every. Little. Thing.

A Man walked across the screen - he laughed.

A Person gets a sideways glance from an adrongynous gunslinger packing a samurai sword - he laughed.

A twangy guitar starts playing on the soundtrack - he laughed.

A close-up shot of a red and white rose - he laughed.

A wooden sign saying, "Nevada" - he laughed.

A dorkily dressed Quentine Tarantino, in a cameo, starts resciting a nonsensical poem in fractured stereotypical broken Japanese-tinged English while also attempting to maks a ridiculous Southern Accent - he laughed.

Okay, that last one was actually kind of funny (Tarantino not being remotely a decent enough actor to pull off Miike's intended satire even remotely well), but I'm sure you get my point. It didn't matter what was going on up on the screen, this guy was going to laugh and chortle and snort over and over and over again for every single second the movie was playing. It annoyed the living hell out of me, and at a certain point in the film I was starting to wish I had a Colt Revolver of my own so I could put myself out of my misery.

As for the movie itself, it didn't really work at all, the director not achieving anywhere near the acidic balance and ingenuity needed to make his satirical Kurosawa meets Leone meets Hawks meet Ford meet Eastwood mash-up work. There are some fantastic images (especially some of the highly inventive gory ones) and a couple of the jokes are actually kind of funny, but overall this thing is just sad, and for a filmmaker as talented as this one is I'd really hoped for a little bit more than this blank-filled misfire.

What else? The elegantly layed sci-fi thriller from Spain Timecrimes was one heck of a lot of fun, while the Colin Firth-Jim Broadbent (unfortunately titled) drama When Did You Last See Your Father? was solid if not quite as emotionally moving as it probably should have been. I also finally got to see the Danish entry Fighter and was more than impressed, while the extremely dark black comedy Choke (based on the cult novel by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk) showcased another sensational performance by the always great Sam Rockwell (so amazing in David Gordon Green's Snow Angels) that's one of the best of I've seen this festival.

REVIEW - "The Bluetooth Virgin"

(Note: I don't normally do full reviews in the Blog but I'm making an exception this time out. The film has its World Premier next Thursday, June 12 at the Harvard Exit. I suggest intelligent viewers go to one of the SIFF ticket offices and buy themselves a seat right now.)

There have been lots of films about writers. We’ve been depicted as boozers, crazies, eccentrics, messiahs, heroes, villains, idiots, saviors, mystics, savants and just about everything else in-between. You name the character trait, and at some point in time we’ve been used to fit the bill.

The reasons for this are many, of course, but when you strip away all the layers and get through all the bull I think the basic truth is that, for better or for worse, those of us who write for a living (or, in most cases – unfortunately including my own – try to write for living) are more than a bit egotistical, maybe even narcissistic. We like to be the stars of our own story, the ones with all the insight and the smarts to overcome disability (many times created by ourselves) in order to achieve something close to magnificent.

The new movie The Bluetooth Virgin has its World Premier next Thursday evening during the closing days of this year’s Seattle International Film Festival and it, like so many other pictures during this last century of film, is about writers. Specifically, it is about a screenwriter, David (Bryce Johnson), and his magazine editor best friend, Sam (Austin Peck), and what happens when the former asks the latter to look at his latest piece of work.

What happens is that Sam doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t want to hurt his friend’s feelings by telling him so. But David, eager for affection and affirmation, isn’t a complete idiot, and after a few forced pleasantries on the golf course he soon realizes all of his friend’s fawning praise is being played far too close to the vest, the truth finally coming out in waves of bitter confusion with the potential to leave both men hurt.

There’s more, and to go into it all would really end up spoiling some of the fun, so in fairness to writer/director Russell Brown I think I’m just going to end the description there. What I will say is that the 80-minute feature is structured like a series of one act plays, each one taking ideas and concepts spoken about in the sequence prior and then twists and turns them in a way which will leave viewers curious to see what happens next.

But it isn’t this somewhat stage-bound structure that I want to talk about. After the first scene between David and Sam it is more than readily apparent the filmmaker has no intention of escaping the theatrical artifice he’s assembled for himself, and one I got used to the pit-pit-patter of everyone’s constant dialogue I was more than willing to forgive the somewhat tired My Dinner with Andre vibe the whole thing couldn’t help but keep giving off.

What did interest me is just how eagerly Russell attacked the notion of writer as narcissist. Rarely has a fellow artist of the pen and paper (okay, keyboard and mouse, but I’m sure you get my point) spoken with such naked honesty about his own profession. We change our personalities on a dime in order to deflect criticism, morphing over and over to suit the meanings and definitions others attach to our work.

And when the criticism becomes too much to bear? We deflect, push it aside and then try to find away to attack the very person we asked to give their opinion in the first place. If they’re going to kill our baby then we are sure as heck are going to do are damndest to at least try and wound theirs, and even with longstanding friendships in play all bets are off when a work near and dear to our hearts is given the evisceration by someone we profess to trust.

All of which probably sounds odd coming from the pen from a professional critic. My job is to do exactly what it is I hate to receive myself, my personal pen as pointed and as eviscerating as any I’m sure (just look what I did to poor Adam Sandler and his latest misfire You Don’t Mess with the Zohan for proof). Yet, we all exist on the same wavelength, the same vibe, and while the majority of us go out of our way to hide it criticism, even the constructive kind, can hurt and even if we put up a magnificent façade trying to signal otherwise the truth is still buried for all to see right there in the very center of our hearts.

The Bluetooth Virgin nails this mentality and hammers it right to the wall. The pain, the self-doubt, the insecurity, the anger, all of it resides deep within these two characters and watching them evolve as they deal with it was far more fascinating and enthralling than I had originally thought it would be. There were times here I was Sam, others where I knew I was David, and by the time it was over I couldn’t help but nod my head satisfaction over what it was I’d just witnessed.

Not that it would have probably worked out that way had Russell omitted the glorious final few minutes of his motion picture. Not to reveal too much, let’s just say that for all this angst and ego talked about above there is nothing like having someone have a deep, multifaceted and profound connection to your work. All the pain, all the heartache, all that and more becomes worth it with the glint of a heartfelt smile from a fan moved to admit how much what you’ve created has meant to them.

All artists feel this on some level, and no matter our medium there is a truth here that is absolutely inescapable. The fear of failure and revulsion can keep many of us from doing the work we could probably be capable of accomplishing otherwise. In all honesty, that very same dreadful uncertainty and lack of confidence is why I’m still slaving away for almost no money for an internet website and not trying to find other, better paying freelance gigs. Embarrassing, yes, but true, and watching the movie I almost couldn’t help but sadly realize it.

The flipside, though, is that I’ve also felt the euphoria. I’ve been to that place both Sam and David reach at varying points in the film and it is the one thing that keeps me going even when I get down that I’m not making more money or being read as widely as I would like. Like I said, The Bluetooth Virgin knows these thoughts, embraces these emotions and is unafraid to pull any of its punches while looking straight-on at them. In the end, while the film might be about writers, anyone who’s ever dared to do a single thing creative is going to find much grab on to here and I for one hope they’ll see this very fine movie and get the chance to do so.

"Panda" - monium

The new DreamWorks family film Kung Fu Panda had its local premier Sunday morning at SIFF, but I actually didn't get around to seeing it until last night and let me be one of the first to say (at least here in Seattle) that - move over great big lovably angry green ogre - but this tale about a karate-chopping overweight bear might just be the best animated feature the studio has ever produced.

Still held by review embargo until Thursday, what I can say now is that this action-comedy comes ever-so close to Pixar level creativity, energy and excitement. Heck, I'd go so far as to say it rivals both A Bug's Life and especially Cars in all three of those departments, the movie a bubbling burst of effervescent joy I pretty much loved beginning to end.

And that animation! The silly trailers and commercials don't even hint at how dexterous and remarkable it truly is. Every detail, every color, every shape, every movement is remarkably precise. This might be the most sensational looking cartoon epic since last year's instant classic Ratatouille, the film as much a feast for the eyes as it is for the funny bone. Again, I'll go into it all in more detail in this weekend's reviews but just know here and now Kung Fu Panda is a fun family winner worthy of hoots, hollers and long-lasting bursts and loudly chattering applause.

In other SIFF news, I watched two films from Asian wunderkid director Johnnie To (Exiled), one of which I loved while the other I found to be nothing more than an intriguing disappointment. The latter was Mad Detective, an odd bit of black comedy, buddy caper and film noir co-directed by Wai Ka-fai that offered up many curiously inviting possibilities onlyto ultimately do nothing of note with them. The central character, a neurotic - maybe schizophrenic - former detective named Bun (Lau Ching-wan) who can see a person's inner personality as if it were a fellow human being standing right alongside of them, is completely fascinating. He's like Monk and the girl from "Medium" combined, only the certifiably crazy version, and if someone decided to make a television show about him I'm almost completely positive I'd watch it in an instantaneous heartbeat.

But the film loses its footing during the final stretch, forgoing all the intriguing aspects of both the chracter and with his relationship with a younger detective (ably played by Andy On) in need of his help. While the final offers a couple of genuine surprises, and while the last shot is certainly a shiver-causing enigma that leaves the viewer with plenty to think about and mull over, the ultimate resolution is still so forced and, at times, distasteful I can't say I walked out of the theater with anything close to approaching a smile on my face.

On the flip side of the equation is To's much more straight forward (and yet ultimately much more satisfying) noir piece Sparrow with Simon Yam and Kelly Lin. A drama about a group of pickpockets seduced and manipulated by a beautiful femme fatale, this fast, furious and kinetically entertaining drama isn't much of a stretch for the director but it does show a delightfully playful side to the filmmaker's usual strum and drag. It reminded me a little bit of a oddly appealing combination of Stanley Donen's Charade and Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, and while the film doesn't reach the timelessly classic status of either of those landmark entertainments that doesn't remotely change the fact it is still one of the more breezily entertaining SIFF entries I've see up to this point so far.

Today's slate is like a martial arts lalapalooza. First up is Paramount Vantage's The Foot Fist Way followed up by the Danish entry Fighter and finished up with Chilean action epic Mirageman. Hopefully, this rainy Seattle Tuesday will turn out as good as my (somewhat) magnificent Monday did. Yesterday was two for three, and I for one will take those king of numbers each and every day of the week.

Eye of the Beholder

I haven't seen a film at this year's SIFF as beautiful as the Ausralian surfing melodrama Newcastle. Basically a coming of age story about two brothers, one of whom is dealing with his sexuality and the other trying to step out of the shadow of their former surfing phenom older sibling as he attempts to embark upon his own career, who ultimately must face a tragedy and find some way to overcome it without destroying both themselves or their family, the movie isn't exactly anything we haven't seen numerous times before.

But that photography! Cinematographer Richard Michalak and his four-person water photography team do an absolutely magnificent job of bring the beauty of both the sport and of the local to luminously dynamic life. Every time the movie hits the waves my eyes literally popped right out of my head, the camera bobbign and weaving over and under the waves like a porpoise knifing through the currents before making an energetic leap towards the heaven only to crash back into the sea after its majestic arc into the air has come to its end.

"[Richard and I] basically set up a science, an approach, as to how we were going to shoot this," said writer and director Dan Castle during a brief post-screening chat. "I really wanted this surf film to be different than any other surf film that I'd ever seen. I wanted every shot to be tehre for a reason, every cut to be there for a reason. We set up this whole logic that every shot would be from somebody's point of view, I wanted to make a film from the surfers' perspective from in the water so that [the viewer] was experientially inside the water with these guys."

If that was what Castle was going for, without any sort of question or hesitation he absolutely nailed it because every single surfing or underwater moment in Newcastle feels alive in ways I'm not sure I've ever seen before. I really did get the feeling I was right there with these guys, their euphoria, their apprehensions, their tensions, thier playful giddiness, all of it came through so loud and so clear I'm sure the smile on my face was beaming so brightly it probably annoyed a few of my fellow audience members.

Too bad the rest of the picture is hackneyed tripe not even worth talking about. Let's just say that, for all the director's talent in orchestrating these monumental - almost transcendent - surfing scenes, his ability to do anything new with the melodrama running through the tale borders on the anemic. The film is "One Tree Hill" only on water and sporting a twangy accent, and for all its mesmerizing images when all is said and done Newcastle is unfortunately still nothing more than a bit of an underwhelming mess.

In other film festival news, I saw another good documentary, this time a locally produced effort about the Seattle Burlesque scene called A Wink and a Smile. It's weird when you watch a movie and suddenly discover you know one or two (or, in the case of this film, four or five) of the participants, but after that silly, almost embarassing moment of self realization passed I was able to focus on the movie and watch it for what it was.

Thankfully, what it turns out to be is a highly entertaining journey into feminine stereotypes, confidence and the ability to grab people's perceptions with both hands make them something distinctly your own. Considering how much I tend to wilt into corners at parties and sit on bar stools and observe when I go out with friends a part of me can't help but wonder if I'd have the courage and strength of will to do what these dynamic ladies do, and while I doubt I'd never take the Bourlesque 101 class the documentary concerns itself with just the thought there is one here in the Emerald City can't help but make me feel even better about myself and my place of residence then I maybe did before.

As the clock striked 11:30 p.m. here I have come to the conclusion that, even with so much more to write (I haven't even mentioned Ben X, see it, Epitaph, skip it, or Blind Mountain, find it and watch immediately, yet, and I also want to give you a preview of the great interview I conducted with some of the guys from the wonderful new L.A. story Garden Party I conducted over the weekend), but I'm having so much trouble keeping my eyes open I should probably call it a night. Tomorrow has a kid-friendly kung fu fighting animated panda, Johnny To's latest crime (this time also blackly comedic) epic Mad Detective and Hong Kong drama Sparrow that hopes to channel the spirits of Cary Grant and Stanley Donen. I'm feeling good about each of them, so here's hoping I get a good night sleep tonight so I can have a great time at the movie theater tomorrow.

Seven Days Down - Seventeen to Go

The last few years I had always taken the first weekend - Memorial Day weekend - of the Seattle International Film Festival off. I'd go play softball, head home to Spokane to see the family or zip over to Portland for a quick weekend of rest and relaxation with friends before the three-plus week grind of SIFF took its hold upon me.

Not this year, and for the first time in what seems like ages I finally feel I can look back on the first week of the festival with a much clearer and cleaner eye than normal. I've seen a lot - last count, 33 films and documentaries (which admittedly includes a couple of Hollywood big-ticket items like Indiana Jones IV, Sex and the City and You Don't Mess with the Zohan) - and looking back surprisingly an awful lot this year has been really, really good.

(Believe it or not, my total doesn't even come close to some festival goers. Thanks to the three weeks of press screenings before SIFF even began there are some out there who have seen 50, 60 even 70 films so for at this point, and if their rate of viewing continues at that pace they might just see almost all of the 300 or so feature-length presentations the festival offers. Obviously, I love film - probably far more than the next girl - but that's just crazy talk. C-R-A-Z-Y T-A-L-K, I say!)

Looking back at what I've seen up to this point, much like last year the documentaries almost can't help but be a cut above just about everything else. Nanette Burstein's (whom I am having the pleasure of interviewing later today) American Teen and Yung Chan's Up the Yangtze are the two standouts, but they're followed quite closely by Christopher Bell's steriod piece Bigger, Stronger, Faster*, Hartmut Bitomsky's giddy look at the microscopic world of Dust, Tina Mascara and Guido Santi's beautiful Chris & Don: A Love Story and Johnny Symons' explosive (and highly entertaining) "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military piece Ask Not.

On the narrative side, the clear standout is Fatih Akin's exquisite and absolutely mesmerizing Edge of Heaven. The more I think about it, this might just be the best film I've seen in 2008 so far, all of its multiple tangents and layers building to something so beautifully and explosively emotional I can't stop thinking about it. It is a movie of strength, power and heartbreaking originality with characters so rich and genuine I felt like I almost new them. For me, much like Ghost World, Once and American Splendor in Seattle festivals before it this feature is quickly turning into SIFF's most magical offering, and something tells me I'll be waxing poetically about it for some time to come.

But it hasn't been the only think I've loved up to this point. Other great highlights include Tarsem's visually speldiferous The Fall is a lyrical adult fairy tale full of fiery passion and heartfelt brio, while Baltasar Kormákur's Icelandic mystery Jar City left me coldly shattered with its story of frigidly emotional human isolation. Other highlights have included the visually stimulating anime enterprise Vexille, French-Canadian entry 3 Little Pigs, Yves-Christian Fournier's engrossng Everything is Fine, Stuart Gordon's odd man-in-a-windshield piece Stuck, the almost unbearably tense Columbian thriller PVC-1 and the rambunctious and engaging character study Garden Party.

The best thing about this first week is how few actual misses there have been. There hasn't been anything like last year's putrid stinker The Ten, only Dario Argento's The Mother of Tears failing to offer up anything of real value or interest. Granted, I have been disappointed, most notably by Savage Grace. Thankfully, even that unfocused muddle had Julianne Moore making somewhat worthwhile, her fiercely determined and ferociously carnal portrait of a woman looking for status and love easily one of the finest performances I've seen all year. If anything, the worst thing I've seen so far has to be the aforementioned Zohan, and while I can't say too much now what I can admit is that this supposedly "comedic" monstrosity might just be the worst film of Adam Sandler's entire career and I was in horrific pain trying to watch it.

The other news of the festival at this point is the passing of both comedian Harvey Korman (just last night!) and Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack. I'm still kind of reeling a bit from this double-barrel shocker (especially as to it relates to the latter figure), both of them offering up entertainments during my childhood that helped me down the career path I now follow. No two ways about it, each of these fantastically talented men will definitely be missed.

You Can't Have "Sex" Again

Watching Sex and the City last night I was struck at just how much the show, and now the subsequent movie, really push a consumerist message of buy buy buy more more more that's actually kind of scary. Carrie Bradshaw and the rest of the girls may by as tight-knit a group of girls as any of the very best of the best friends you have ever known, but their unwavering desire to have the best clothes, carry the latest bags or wear the newest shoes (the latter a yen I can't help but admit to as well) more than a little but jarring. Viewing the film last night I couldn't help but wonder, in a world of $4.00 gasoline and skyrocketing food prices is this message of spend just for the sake of spending really the one we should be listening to?

Granted, the original HBO show was about more than just that. These were real women who talked about real issues with a direct frankness not usually found on television. It was refreshing and invigorating. More, it was also about time, Sarah Jessica Parker and company blazing a path so wonderful it became virtually a call to action and an anthem of exhulatation for women both across this country as well as around the globe.

Unfortunately, if Sex and the City the movie proves anything at all it is the old axiom that sometimes you just can't go home again. As nice as it is to see Carrie, Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) again enduring almost two-a-half-hours of them is almost a virtual impossibility. I'll talk more about it on Friday in my review but, for now, just know that while some of writer/director Michael Patrick King's zingers and one-liners blissfully hit their mark, more often than not this is an overly contrived and frustratingly meandering slog heading to a forgone conclusion that's neither surprising or enchanting.

All that said, both Cattrall and Nixon are donwright fantastic, and Davis has a moment at about the one hour mark that had me squealing with glee. It still doesn't make this well-healed (seriously, the shoes are fantastic, and so are the handbags) drama any easier to digest, but for at least a few blissful moments the magic of the show materializes I remembered why I adored these women so much once upon a time. The sex may not be great, but the foreplay has its moments, and I guess as I myself finally enter my 30's that's pretty much going to be par for the course.

Back in the world of SIFF, I had the great pleasure and honor to interview Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Darkside) about his lates documentary the enthralling and fascinating Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. It was as pleasurable interview - if far too short of one - as any I've had so far this festival, the filmmaker waxing poetic about how he chooses projects, what keeps him motivated as a filmmaker and on the glorious mysteries talking about one of the 20th Century's greatest writers can't help but conjure up. The film doesn't release for quite some time so you'll have to wait until then, but I can still give a little bit of a preview for you to enjoy.

"We were finishing [Taxi to the Darkside and Gonzo] in ajoining cutting rooms, and actually that was a lifeline for me to be able to go from the seat of torture to Hunter Thompson next door. That was a relief. Not that I was originally supposed to be doing them simultaneously, but that's just the way it worked out. [Gonzo] took a lot longer than I had originally thought it would."

"It was like hearding cats, to round up all the people who we wanted to be in the film, to get Johnny Depp to do the narration and also to pour through a tremendous amount of material, which initially we thought was going to be all in one place but turned out to be scattered all over. While we had cooperation from the estate, there were still all these bits and pieces every where, so just marshalling that material than walking through and then trying to make deals so we could include it, all of that turned into being a hugely difficult process."

"But, why does he still resonate to people today? I think there are a couple of reasons. First of all, I think we live vicariously through Hunter. He's a wild and crazy guy, he's the guy who does it all, he's the outlaw we all secretly want to be. I think there's that. Also, I think it's because he's the truth teller. He's the guy who gores every sacred cow in his path, who's not afraid to make fun of the rich and the powerful and who does so in a way that's hilarious. This is not a guy who is so full of himself he doesn't enjoy a good belly laugh. That's the key to his writing. It's angry but it's funny."

It looks like Magnolia is going to hopefully start releasing this film across the country this July, so look for more of my interview with Gibney on the main site right around then.

Sad News

I learned Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack sometime about mid-afternoon yesterday. The thing about film festival audiences, usually they are highly educated on a cinematic level and the news of his passing went through the audience I was seated with like proverbial wildfire. Most couldnt quite believe it, and even though he was sick more than a couple of people I spoke to about it were absolutely certain he was going to battle on and make at least a couple of more films.

I knew he had cancer but didn't realize it was bad enough to take his life 72. Pollack was in Seattle back in 2006 for his masterful documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry and I had the glorious opportunity to speak with him for a couple of blissful seconds after a screening. He was so warm and accommodating with a fierce intelligent burning behind his eyes. Standing there with him you knew you were in the presence of a man who seriously knew his stuff and I can only wish I would have taken the time to press the film's publicist a bit harder for an interview.

I'm not going to go into it too much (the most eloquent article I've seen on Pollack can be found at Hollywood Elsewhere written by Jeffrey Wells) but what I will say is that, for me at least, my favorite works from the director were his raucous 1982 comedy Tootsie and the 1975 Robert Redford thriller 3 Days of the Condor. The former, in particular, gets me every time I watch it, the film building so beautifully and with such expert precision and passion it would take my breath if I weren't already laughing so hard. I also loved Pollack as an actor, his performances in Michael Clayton, Changing Lanes, Tootsie and especially Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut as rich and as satisfying as anyone else's in each of those magnificent motion pictures.

Back in the world of the Seattle International Film Festival, I saw a great one last night and I'm hoping general audiences are going to get the same opportunity. On the surface, Columbian director Spiros Stathoulopoulos' thriller PVC-1 sounds like nothing more than an intriguing trick and little else. A group of criminals burst into a peaceful family home turning the mother into a human time bomb after placing a piece of pvc piping around her neck, the whole thing shot in one continuous 85-minute take. No cuts. No edits. No stops. One single gosh darn take.

The thing is, Stathoulopoulos' picture goes beyond this simple premise and with the cute idea and becomes something chillingly disturbing. The tension produced is almost unbearable, the film building and building until it unleashes a climax such of raw, unadulterated power it left me shocked senseless. While the shooting style does give everything a bit of a theatrical staginess at times, overall this is a picture you absolutely cannot take your eyes off it. It is a movie I doubt I am going to forget, this journey into darkness and terror unlike anything else I've experienced this year.

Other than that right now there isn't too much else to report. I had a great interview with Children of Huang Shi, a movie I didn't particularly care for (although I did admire a couple of the performances and a few of the individual scenes), director Roger Spottiswoode I hope to have live over on the main site in a day or two. I also watched the engrossing German documentary Dust and was alternately amused and totally grossed out (and also suddenly felt the glaring need to clean my apartment) by its saga of that small pesky particle which makes the feather duster such an important invention.

Today might be interesting. I'm interviewing Alex Gibney later this afternoon about his engaging doc Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, and I'm hoping to make it to a 9:30 showing of Alexi Tan's supposedly quite solid 1930's gangster movie Blood Brothers. The question mark is the pesky press screening of Sex and the City I have to attend at 7:00. The film is a whopping 140 minutes, the distance between the theater showing it and the one screening Tan's thriller a good ten to twelve blocks away so I'll definitely be hoofing it after Sarah Jessica Parker and company get finished guzzling their Cosmos.

"One of the most touching love stories..."

Chris and Don: A Love Story is a documentary about two men and the three-plus decade relationship they shared with one another. These men were noted writer Christopher Isherwood (his Berlin Stories became the basis for Cabaret) and famed artist and portrait painter Don Bachardy, thirty years his lover's junior. Starting in 1950's Malibu these two shared a life together as openly as any you would see today, their commitment to one another no less profound or inspiring as any straight relationship you've ever heard stories about.

The film goes into release starting later this Summer, and I'll get into it more fully in a review then, but as for now just know that this is a pricelessly mvoing documentary that is richly satisfying and deeply emotional. There is an ethereal timelessness to the pair's love story that really forced me to look again at how I view relationships between people, and for anyone that thinks gay marriage can't work or is some sort of genetic impossibility I herby give you two men how, not only prove that statement wrong, did it decades before the idea that California could ever legalize marriage between people of the same gender was even a twinkle in some vocal activist's eye.

While I personally don't consider myself gay (can't say I've never thought about other girls, it's just the idea of giving up guys is as alien and as weird for me as those things come), looking at a film like this can really broaden people's horizons and open their eyes to the possibilities love has to offer. Committment isn't easy, but if these two could do it in an age when they could have severely harmed (or worse, kiled) for doing so gives me hope that I can maybe do the same someday in my life.

I sat down with the directors of this movie, Guido Santi and Tina Mascara, this morning to talk about the making of their film and how seeing it all come to fruition has affected their lives. It was a glorious forty minute chat that I hope leads to an equally fantastic profile piece a bit later on. As say later because, unfortunately, the film doesn't open in Seattle officially until this August, so for those interested in reading a complete article you'll have to wait a little while until it hits the pages of the SGN and the feature section of MovieFreak.

But I am not above posting a few highlights from our conversation. Hopefully you'll find them interesting. Even more important, I hope you take the time to see the pair's movie. It's very, very good and I seriously doubt anyone in the right mind is going to be even remotely disappointed.

On first coming up with the idea for the project:

Guido Santi: "I had a chance to Don Bacharady about 17-18 years ago when I arrived in the States from Italy. We became friends and I remember one night at a dinner party he showed this this beautiful footage he shot with Chris [Isherwood] in the 1950's and I thought, this is incredible. I was surprised nobody had told their story as this is one of the most touching love stories I'd ever heard. One day, Tina and I were talking and I interested her to Don and we decided make the movie, decided to put it on the credit card and make the documentary about this beautiful relationship."

On spending so much time with Don Bacharady:

Santi: "It's a film about the past. It's more much difficult when you work on such material. Don deserves about 90-percent of the credit [for this]."

Tina Mascara: "I mean, he's the film. He's amazing."

Santi: "Yes, amazing, that's right. He is a fantastic man and a fantastic storyteller. He makes you laugh, he makes you cry. In the film, you go up and down with him, and I think that is because Don was willing to be so intimate with us."

Mascara: "There were days when he was really really on and their were days when he wasn't really on, and on the days he was one we had more material then we knew what to do with. Everything he said sounded so amazing, and it was hard for us to actually take only the bites there were the important parts of the story because there was so much that he would say that would hit us over the head."

On not implicitly relating Chris and Don's story to recent political and social events:

Santi: "Our film is political in a different way. You can be political without being overt. I think, their life together for thirty years, is a major statement. The statement is the relationship."

On using animation to visualize the 'Kitty and the Horse':

Mascara: "I feel the animation is just so important because I don't think you really get the magical, secret life that was for them unless you play it really big. We read a few letters [in the film], but there was correspondence between them for twenty years in these character voices. It as important to show that visually in some way."

On living as an openly gay couple in the 1950's and 60's:

Santi: "It is dificult even now for a homosexual or a lesbian couple to live a normal life and for them to have thier rights and knowlesge recognized, but I think back then it was even worse. I think that if Isherwood were alive today he would be incredibly happy of all the battles that have been won by the gay and lesbian community. But, for them, living life was the greatest statment."

Mascara: "That's what they thought. I think in the 60's and 70's, when gay rights were coming into being, I think Chris was critized for not being involved in the active marches and that sort of thing. But I think his point of view was I'm always there to show up and talk about it and that I'm writing about it in my work and I am not hiding it [my relationship with Chris]. What more statement could there be then that? He was completely conscious that he was contributing. He did contribute and this relationship is proof of that."

On sitting down with Leslie Caron:

Mascara: "We went to Paris to interview her, and we were lucky because Don created a connection for us and she was automatically open [to us] because of her friendship with Don Bacharady and Christopher Isherwood. She was an honor for me. I saw Gigi and An American in Paris and I was, as a kid, jsut loved her. She's a movie star. It was incredible."

Santi: "I think her interview for the film, in my opinion, is the best because she gives such a personal touch to [Chris and Don's] story. When she talks about the last time she saw Chris and she remembered what he told her, it is such a poignant moment. It was amazing."

On Don's reaction to the film:

Mascara: "He generally travels with us and I wish he would have been here because the Seattle audience is just amazing. He would have been really, really blown away. But on his first time watching the film he cried. He laughed and he cried."

Santi: "We showed it to him about a year ago in March and we were terrified because it is his life, it is his legacy. I remember after he was reacting in a spelendid way, and that was the most euphoric moment so far. To show your work, to show four years of your life, and have the main subject of your film approve it, it was touching for me. I was so happy that night."

Again, I'll have the full interview available at Moviefreak in August. Until then, it's now time to get back to SIFF. I've got more movies to see today and tonight (which hopefully all be better then the anemic offerings I suffered through yesterday), and if I don't get going soon I just might miss out on another winner.

One Day Down...

...only 23 more to go.

Seriously, though, as first days go diving into SIFF I could have done a heck of a lot worse than this one. In fact, I saw my first bona fide masterpiece of the festival so far, writer/director Fatih Akin's mesmerizing The Edge of Heaven. This three-part overlapping stunner left me completely knocked cold by its sheer mesmerizing majesty and brilliance, it's final scene a poetic tome to hope, regret and forgiveness virtually impossible to forget.



Seriously, movies do not get better then this. What the filmmaker has accomplished here transcends simple explanations and short recaps, the film so magnificent I can't wait to actually put pen to paper and write a full review. Considering it is now just past 2:00 a.m. here in Seattle, however, don't expect me to do that now. Just know that this is one of the first truly outstanding feature films SIFF has up to now offered up. While others have come close (and I mentioned them in my last blog entry Thursday morning), this one instantly ranks as one of the best I've seen in 2008, only the beautiful independent winner The Visitor and the Romanian mind-blower 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days ranking ahead of it right now at this point on the theatrical calendar. For those attending the festival, there is another screening on Sunday. I suggest you check it out.

Otherwise, my first day of a four-in-a-row SIFF marathon worked out pretty well. While I'm not exaclty a huge anime fan, I have to admit Fumihiko Sori's Vexille was damn amazing at times. He and his team of storytellers (the same ones who made the acclaimed Appleseed) have really crafted something visually stunning, some of the images of a dystopian Japan evoking the timeless imagery of Frank Herbet but mixed with a cybernetic recoil that's got plenty of kick. While it does't necessarily make a lot of sense, this Robotech meets Mad Max meets Ghost in the Shell meets The Matrix animated epic has energy and bravado to burn. I couldn't take my eyes off of it, and even when it get so darn silly I wanted to laugh my eyes were bursting so far out of my head the giggles just never made it out of my voicebox.

Speaking of giggles, it might just be officially time to mourn the passing of a true horror icon and legend. Dario Argento's latest gross-out epic The Mother of Tears, the final part of his Three Mothers series which began with his classic Suspiria and continued with the eerily grotesque Opera, is a flat-out howler (and I don't mean that in a good way). There are more unintentional laughs here than can be found in reruns of "Knight Rider" or "Baywatch," the midnight crowd I saw it with almost dying in hysterics in pretty much all the places they were supposed to be screaming in terror.

Not that the Italian master has completely lost it. There are a couple of his trademark tracking shots that just ooze creepy tension, and some of the blood and gore has that usual Argento relish no one else can even come close to matching. But the whole thing is just so unrelentingly dumb (even more so then usual) and makes so little in the way in sense you almost get the feeling they were making it up on the spot. True die-hard fans of the director may want to give this one a chance when it makes the art house rounds later this Summer. Everyone else, meanwhile, should probably do their best to avoid this one like the proverbial plague.

Thankfully, daughter Asia is also in The Last Mistress, and while she gets to look like a complete fool in her daddy's horror epic, for French director Catherine Breillat she gets to be treated like a movie star. In all honesty, I'm not really sure why I decided to take the time to watch this one in again, but something compelled me to make this period piece of infidelity, sex and lies my first repeat of the festival. While I admit the film played a lot slower on second viewing, I was still captivated by both the actress and her costar Fu’ad Ait Aattou, the pair having a lusty chemistry that at times is so freaking hot I couldn't help but blush uncontrollably.

That's really all there is to report right now. I'm tired - dead tired - and need to get some sleep before I attempt a six film marathon tomorrow. Not sure I'll be succesful, it's still early in the festival and I don't know if I have the stamina yet for that much bad popcorn and Diet Coke, but I'm certainly going to give it the college try. Besides, I'm really looking forward to Yoji Yamada's Love and Honor tomorrow afternoon at 6:30 p.m. and the delightful looking animated tale Nocturna first thing in the morning at 11:00 a.m. If I'm going to be out that early I might as well make sure I catch the two screenings between the ones I want to see. It would only be the right thing to do, after all, and when have I ever not done the right thing?

(NOTE - That was me being sarcastic. Please don't take that as a real question and start emailing me. Uness you're emailing to ask me out. Then messages are perfectly fine. I might not respond, but I'm sure I'll get a kick out of the messages. Thank you.)

...and so it begins

It's opening night of the festival and I can't help but feel breathlessly excited. The start of every SIFF just makes me giddy with enthusiasm. While I know the next 24 days will be chaotic and stressful (and filled with far too little sleep and far too much Diet Coke), they are also just tingling with bewitching possibility. Will this be the year I catch another American Splendor? Another Ghost World? Another Brothers? Another Once? Only time will tell, and just the thought I could find another instant classic like any of those makes me as giddy as a schoolgirl madly blushing after her first effervescent kiss with the school stud.

Granted, I'm not entirely jumping up for joy this morning. While I am happy tonight's opening night attraction Battle in Seattle has attracted huge names to walk the red carpet (Charlize Theron, Martin Henderson and director Stuart Townsend, amongst others, are scheduled to attend), the biggest Seattle has seen since we premiered Mel Gibson's Braveheart back in 1995, I'm more than a little bummed I couldn't score a press invite to either the screening or the afterparty. It's the first time in years I've been snubbed, and while I totally get it (Moviefreak.com isn't exactly The Seattle Times, after all) the fact it happened still can't help but bruise my ego just a teensy little bit. Besides, I even had the perfect dress picked out for the event and now I won't get to wear it in pictures standing next to Theron. My mother will be ever-so disappointed.



All kidding aside, there is the press conference with the film's stars and its director today at 2:30 which I'm hoping to make it to, and I can always line up in the press row to take pictures of everyone's red carpet arrivals. Can't say I've ever done that and there is always a first time for everything, right? Besides, if I can't get a picture with Charlize then the next best thing is to probably snap one of her (at least, in my world it's probably the next best thing - I can't really comment on if it would be in yours).

As for the festival itself, unlike previous years where I've had trouble making the early press screenings before regular screenings commenced this year I've actually been able to fit in a few things. Quality, for the most part, has been very good, and while nothing has blown my socks off a couple have at least come close enough I definitely hope audiences take the time to track them down and check them out.

Chief amongst these are the two documentaries, Up the Yangtze and 2008 Sundance favorite American Teen, and Tarsem's visually audacious (and emotionally poignant) fantast The Fall. While none are perfect, each is richly satisfying filled with so much cinematic goodness I can't help but smile. In fact, along with Errol Morris' shattering Standard Operating Procedure the docs are easily the finest I've seen so far this year. Both offer up unique and engaging storylines filled with truth and resonance, and watching them left me moved - for completely different reasons - almost beyond words. Up the Yangtze is particularly satisfying, the final shot of a new canal as haunting an image as I've seen in ages. I'll be interviewing the directors of both films in the coming few days so expect more on both of them after I do.

As for The Fall, director Tarsem (whose last film was the Jennifer Lopez thriller The Cell), working under the aegis of producers David Fincher and Spike Jonze, supposedly took a decade to bring his masterful interpersonal period adventure to the screen, and while more times than not this usually spells disaster here it is almost cause for celebration. Not since Pan's Labyrinth has an intensely dramatic fantasy carried such weight and poignancy, and while it doesn't quite match Del Toro's masterpiece it comes just close enough I couldn't help but be impressed. The picture goes into wide release next Friday so I'll dig into more in my review then. Just know that, as far as the first weekend of the festival is concerned, this one isn't just a movie to search out it's one to break down doors in order to see.

I've seen more than these three but I'll go into them more closer to their SIFF showings. I will add that French director Catherine Breillat’s The Last Mistress, playing tomorrow at the Egyptian Theater, is a virtual must-see. I loved it, and while some of the others I've spoken to about it find it a tad overwrought and a little hyperactive for their tastes I personally feel this is one of the more explosively entertaining corset-busting period epics I've seen in quite some time. Those deciding to skip it will definitely be missing out.

On a side note, those considering skipping a part of the festival to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this weekend please don't feel at all bad about doing so. Forget the naysayers, I found the Man with the Hat's latest adventure (after 19 frickin' years!!!) to be hugely entertaining. The picture doesn't make a lot of sense (and, admittedly, ends rather anemically) but it's sure one heck of a lot of fun during its running time. In fact, if I wasn't so completely consumed by SIFF I'd head out and see it again for a second time myself. Sometimes sequel expectations can be met, it just took a man with a bull whip and a fedora to do it.

SIFF Unleashes Its "Battle" Cry

Okay, I admit it, Memorial Day weekend in Seattle is my favorite time of year. Better than Thanksgiving, better than Christmas, heck, it’s even better than my birthday, and the reason for all this enthusiasm and glee has nothing to do with the Summer holiday. It’s SIFF time, and for 25 days starting in May I become a giggly, bubbly enthusiastic cinephile literally bursting at her fetchingly beguiling (and oh-so girly) seams.

For those not having the first clue what it is I’m talking about, that four-letter acronym up above is the shorthand for the Seattle International Film Festival. It’s the largest and most attended event of its type in the United States, and while Cannes, Toronto and Sundance get most of the hype our little cinematic party has been chugging along since 1976, growing in both size and scope each and every year since its launch.

This 34th annual version promises to live up to that statement. Beginning Thursday with the opening night gala presentation of the star-studded WTO riot drama Battle in Seattle (Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Rodriguez, Ray Liotta, Channing Tatum and Martin Henderson, amongst others, star), and finishing up June 14 at the Cinerama with local premier of the spirited wine melodrama Bottle Shock staring Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman, Chris Pine, Freddie Rodriguez, Rachel Taylor and Eliza Dushku, the festival has over 400 screenings, forums and events to get even the most jaded movie lover excited.

Like what, you might ask? Well, for Seattle residents there are definitely some choice locally produced picks, the chief highlight maybe just being the documentary Bailey-Boushay House: A Living History which chronicles the history of one of the city's most beloved nonprofit organizations. For everyone else, there is also recent Best Foreign Film Academy Award nominee Mongol from Kazakhstan and accaimed director Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains), the critically acclaimed German drama The Edge of Heaven (winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival), the latest genre-busting winner from cult Japanese director Takashi Miike Sukiyaki Western Django, the eery looking French sci-fi noir Chrysalis, the South Korean ghost story Epitaph and the star-studded U.S. comedy The Great Buck Howard with John Malkovich, Emily Blunt and Tom Hanks. Also from Germany comes the world’s first gay zombie movie, Otto; or, Up With Dead People, a sure-fire midnight movie cult sensation if there ever were one.

All in all, SIFF 2008 will showcase films both big (DreamWorks’ latest animated comedy Kung Fu Panda premiers) and small (Bangladesh’s On the Wings of Dreams is a tiny little picture I’m going to be seeing if only for the simple fact it is, well, from Bangladesh -- when the heck do you ever get to see something from Bangladesh?) with plenty of in-between (Alexander Nevsky gets an archival presentation with accompaniment from the Seattle Symphony, F.W. Murnau’s timeless Sunrise screens at the Triple Door, John Waters will be here talking about making movies as a Hollywood renegade, Sir. Ben Kinsley gets a lifetime achievement award and there’s a big Gay-la screening of everyone’s favorite former 90210 resident Tori Spelling’s latest effort Kiss the Bride) to keep viewers of all ages excited and inspired.

Other notable events include more entries in SIFF’s Face the Music series, an afternoon chat with Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham, the return of the ever-popular Fly Filmmaking Challenge, the oh-so-quiet and on the hush-hush Secret Festival, the slam-bang Midnight Adrenaline and the always exciting Films4Families series. Also returning in 2008 is the Planet Cinema program which presents documentaries and features with environmental themes, while the Northwest Connections program highlights 11 films with roots right here in the Pacific Northwest, many of them premiers.

As for me, I’ll be hitting one or more of the venues each and every day of the festival. While I’ll still be checking in with the latest Hollywood has to offer (can’t miss Sex in the City, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted or The Happening after all), mostly I’ll just be sitting in a theater sipping on Diet Coke, munching stale popcorn and watching world and independent cinema come to life on the type of gigantic stage it seldom gets to see but so often richly deserves.

Like I said before, this is as good as it gets, but like Christmas, Thanksgiving and my birthday, the sad fact is it only happens once a year. Hopefully you’ll get the opportunity to make the most of it. I sure as heck know that I will.

- Portions of this column reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle