...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.