SIFF #18 - And then there's the Moviepie awards...

Some overall comments about SIFF 2008. Maybe it was just me, but were the films actually better this year? I know that SIFF was tightening its belt--for the first time there weren't "more movies than ever on the planet, all in three weeks!" (although, don't get me wrong, several hundred is still plenty). Perhaps the 50 less movies were actually the stinkiest ones that the programmers thankfully cut for our benefit.

There was less schwag for sale (no lunchboxes, stickers, tote bags, etc.), and there were less parties. With this streamlining, especially with the venues mainly limited to the Uptown, SIFF Cinema, Pacific Place, Egyptian, and Harvard Exit, I found the fest much easier and less stressful to get around. I only used my car twice (for films that got out past 11pm), and actually rode the Monorail twice as well! Otherwise, I just did fine on foot and bus. All in all (counting carefully), I saw 33 (I just recounted!) movies and/or SIFF-related events. Not as many as last year, but I liked most of what I saw this time!

My faves of the fest:
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (narrative), Man on Wire (documentary)

Breakout performances:
Tannishtha Chatterjee of Brick Lane, Andrew Garfield of Boy A

The Ponette award for making tiny children "act" by threatening to stone them:
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame

A trend of "real-life" documentaries that blur the line of reality and drama:
American Teen, Up the Yangtze

Surprisingly not stinky (not GREAT, but not stinky!):
Battle in Seattle

Favorite short film:
OK, I only went to one shorts compilation, but LOVED the twisted and funny The Pearce Sisters (unsurprisingly from Aardman Animation). I was delighted to see it won a jury prize!

Fabulous archival presentations:
In the Land of the Headhunters, Sunrise w/ The Album Leaf, Alexander Nevsky w/Seattle Symphony

Hottest actors of the fest who showed up in person:
Real-life couple Sophie Hilbrand and Waldemar Torenstra of Summer Heat

If you can't get a good film, don't bother with the Gay-La:
Kiss the Bride

Random acts of kindness:
To prove that I needn't waffle on the last evening of flicks, a kind fellow gave me his extra ticket to Timecrimes for free, and a woman offered (literally one second too late!) to sell me her discounted ticket for my last film, The Wrecking Crew.

Most fun to be had during SIFF:
OK, alright, alright, I'm cheating here... but I'll have to say, sneaking away from the fest the second weekend to go have cocktails with a pack of friends and see the Sex and the City movie. I have no shame!

And finally, weirdest Capitol Hill postering during fest:
The "orange level" lice epidemic posters all over Pine Street, supposedly courtesy of the Seattle Health Department (turned out it was a hoax, at least as far as health officials were concerned)

(To see my ratings of all my SIFF 2008 movies in one place, go here.)

So! Until next year... [checking pockets, looking at watch, whistling to pass the time, thinking I should be somewhere], see you at SIFF Cinema!

SIFF #17 - SIFF 2008 Golden Space Needle Audience Awards

Best Film Golden Space Needle Award:
Cherry Blossoms – Hanami, directed by Doris Dörrie (Germany)

The remaining top ten audience favorites (in order)
Frozen River, directed by Courtney Hunt (USA)
Fugitive Pieces, directed by Jeremy Podeswa (Canada)
Captain Abu Raed, directed by Amin Matalqa (Jordan)
The Drummer, directed by Kenneth Bi (Hong Kong)
Summer Heat, directed by Monique van de Ven (the Netherlands)
Letting Go of God, directed by Julia Sweeney (USA)
Late Bloomers, directed by Bettina Oberli (Switzerland)
Bliss, directed by Abdullah Oguz (Turkey)
Michou d’Auber, directed by Thomas Gilou (France)


Best Documentary Golden Space Needle Award:
The Wrecking Crew, directed by Denny Tedesco (USA)

The remaining top ten audience favorites (in order)
Great Speeches From a Dying World, directed by Linas Phillips (USA)
Man on Wire, directed by James Marsh (UK)
Accelerating America, directed by Timothy Hotchner (USA)
Creative Nature, directed by John Andres (USA)
Emmanuel Jal: War Child, directed by C. Karim Chrobog (USA)
Trouble the Water, directed by Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (USA)
Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane that Crashed in the Mountains, directed by Gonzalo Arijon (France)
Good Food, directed by Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin (USA)
They Killed Sister Dorothy, directed by Daniel Junge (USA)


Best Director Golden Space Needle Award:
Amin Matalqa, for Captain Abu Raed (Jordan)

The remaining top five audience favorites (in order)
Courtney Hunt, for Frozen River (USA)
Nina Paley, for Sita Sings the Blues (USA)
Dorota Kedzierzawska, for Time to Die (Poland)
Nic Balthazar, for Ben X (Belgium)

Best Actor Golden Space Needle Award:
Alan Rickman, for Bottle Shock (USA)

The remaining top five audience favorites (in order)
Nadim Sawalha, for Captain Abu Raed (Jordan)
Andrew Garfield, for Boy A (UK)
Zdenerk Sverák, for Empties (Czech Republic)
Greg Timmermans, for Ben X (Belgium)

Best Actress Golden Space Needle Award:
Jessica Chastain, for Jolene (USA)

The remaining top five audience favorites (in order)
Catinca Untaru, for The Fall (USA)
Melissa Leo, for Frozen River (USA)
Danuta Szaflarska, for Time to Die (Poland)
Melanie Diaz, for American Son (USA)

Best Short Film Golden Space Needle Award:
Felix, directed by Andreas Utta (Germany)

The remaining top five audience favorites (in order)
Sleeping Betty, directed by Claude Cloutier (Canada)
Bailey-Boushay House: A Living History, directed by Terence Brown (USA)
Zoologic, directed by Nicole Mitchell (USA)
Spider, directed by Nash Edgerton (Australia)

Lena Sharpe Award:
Frozen River, director Courtney Hunt (USA)
This award is given to the film by a woman director that receives the most votes from the public.

SIFF #16 - Cramming on the last day...

Whooeee! I do always get that last-day panic at SIFF, don't you? You know, the monster fest is coming to an end, and heck, what if you missed what turned out to be your favorite movie, because you decided to call it a night early?

Let's just say that my favorite movie was most definitely not Bottle Shock (4/8), one of those lazy, typical, pleasant-but dull American movies that SIFF often uses as an opening or closing film. But apparently there is an audience for these films, because SIFF's Closing Night (on Saturday for the first time!) audience voted Alan Rickman Best Actor for his role as a Brit expatriate wine merchant in Paris who invites over the scrappy vintners from Napa in California in the 1970s to compete in a taste test with--yes--the French. Based on a true story, the scrappy kids took almost all (if not all) the major awards, including Chateau Montelena, run by Jim (Bill Pullman, as usual, pleasant but bland) and his son Bo (Chris Pine, with the most gawd-awful 70s shag wig I've ever seen). There is a token girl that only shows up to sleep with the two young men in the story (for no reason at all)... except that the OTHER one is Freddy Rodriguez, who is the film's only saving grace. Alas, his earnest performance as a 2nd generation Mexican-American who wants to be a master vintner isn't enough to recommend this flick.

I knew that I would have better luck with Alexander Nevsky (6/8), Sergei Eisenstein's "lost" film from 1938, depicting a fantastic battle between the Russians (led by Prince Alexander) and the German Teutonic invaders in the 13th century. Alexander, play by blond pretty-boy Nikolai Cherkasov, pulls together a ragtag army of peasants to defend Novgorod, with the fantastic culminating battle taking place on a frozen lake. The special presentation took place at the Seattle Symphony's home of Benaroya Hall, with the symphony performing Sergei Prokofiev's original score live, accompanied by a choir and soprano! I wasn't the only one surprised that it wasn't actually a silent film. During dialogue, the musicians would sit patiently, then be pulled in to create the impressive, sweeping soundtrack mainly for montage scenes of Russian majesty, with the regular folks banding together to fight the enemy. The soundtrack was BIG to say the least. The film was very good, but the live soundtrack experience was fabulous and memorable.

I didn't have tickets for the rest of the final afternoon, so decided to wing it. Last year I took the opportunity to catch the announced award winners when they filled the remaining TBA slots. I had already seen one of the films (see next entry, with list of winners), so instead caught, rather spontaneously, the Spanish sci-fi thriller Timecrimes (Los Cronocrímenes) (6/8). It is a tight, fun little time-travel film, which treats the accidental jumping back of a couple hours as just a scientific accident that this unsuspecting fellow Hector falls into. I don't want to give anything away, because getting there is all the fun (and you have to pay close attention, like in Memento). And, unsurprisingly, apparently Timecrimes has already been optioned for an American remake. Go figure.

So, what does one do when it is 9:00 on the last night of the fest? Why, race across town to SIFF Cinema for just... one... more. My last film of the fest was the charming documentary The Wrecking Crew (6/8), which profiled a group of session musicians in the 1960s Los Angeles pop music scene who created the studio recordings for a stupendous amount of hit songs. For instance, did you know that the Beach Boys did not play on the majority of their records? Song after song is revealed (the Righteous Brothers "You've Lost that Loving Feeling," the Ronettes' "Be My Baby," Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson," the Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'," etc.)--and all were performed by the same go-to studio musicians. Crazy! The film includes interviews with many of the musicians (the most famous of these studio guys was Glen Campbell, before he went solo), as well as big names like Cher, Herb Albert, Dick Clark, and Nancy Sinatra. The film is warm and friendly, as it was made by Denny Tedesco, whose late father Tommy Tedesco was one of the Crew. This doc ended up winning the Golden Space Needle for documentary, and was a nice, foot-tappin' film for the end of my festing.

SIFF #15 - Heat and ice

I present to you two of the hottest humans that I've ever seen in person:


Ah, yes, the extreme physical beauty of the two stars of Summer Heat (Zomerhitte) (6/8) graced the presence of the pale and pasty SIFF audience on this weekend matinee, along with the charming director Monique van der Ven, who has been a SIFF favorite as an actress in past years. Van der Ven brought her directorial debut to the fest, and it is an enjoyable summer thriller, taking place entirely on a vacation island in the Netherlands. A hot photographer (both figuratively and literally) named Bob (Waldemar Torenstra) is on assignment, taking pics of the local wildlife, and finds himself smitten with a lovely lass whom we first meet emerging from the waves stark naked. Beautiful Kathleen (Sophie Hilbrand) works at a bar, but mixes with some shifty gangster types who are involved in some shifty drug business. In the tradition of many thrillers past, the mix of a curious guy with a camera, plus lots of sexual tension, tends to get everyone in deep trouble. The film has the sexy feel of early Paul Verhoeven (whom Van der Ven collaborated with previously) or better Brian de Palma, and it truly sizzles with the fine chemistry of its lead actors who are, of course, a real-life couple. A funny note about the screening: Several audience members praised Monique van der Ven's past work as an actress, lamenting that some of her films were very very hard to find here. She said, "Well, I'll bring some of my DVDs next time, and give them to Scarecrow Video!" Of course, everyone loved that!

My next film of the day, the American indie Frozen River (7/8) has probably garnered the most buzz of the fest. I've heard people murmuring about this film left and right, and the first screening sold out. So I sacrificed the first sunny afternoon in weeks to check it out, and indeed, it is a fine film. Two women, a white woman and a Mohawk Indian, live on opposite sides of the reservation border. Because of their own independent desperate need for money (one to buy a double-wide after her husband took off to gamble the family's savings, another to reclaim her infant child being raised by well-meaning relatives) they begrudgingly becomes partners in a smuggling racket. They drive across the U.S.-Canada border over a frozen river to pick up illegal immigrants--a highly dangerous job, not just for the legal reasons, but because of the dangerous ice and conditions. It is an intimate drama of two women, who may not be so different, resorting to desperate measures for their families. It is extremely well-acted, especially Melissa Leo's fierce performance as a woman trying to keep her promises to her disgruntled kids who think she is going to work at the dollar store. Luckily, this film has been picked up for distribution.

SIFF #14 - Heavy metal and silent drama

I had a night off from SIFF, but I also happened to have a DVD screener at home of a movie that played the fest earlier in the schedule, so I'm sneaking this one in: Heavy Metal in Baghdad (6/8). Headbanger band Acrassicauda (Latin for “Black Scorpions”) are more than a bit unique in the heavy metal world: they are young Iraqi musicians that have doggedly been covering their most adored favorite bands (like Metallica and Slip Knot) and creating their own original songs, first under the shadow of Saddam Hussein's regime, and more recently in the middle of civil war and foreign occupation. These young men are smart, articulate, and love the universal glory of rock and roll. But in six years of existence, the band had only 5 gigs, including one put on by the filmmakers who had discovered them via long-distance communication. To see about 100 young men with black foreign metal-band t-shirts (that could get them arrested) gather to hear Acrassicauda in a hotel lobby (where the power goes out multiple times) is truly inspiring. Apparently the devil horns are universal, as is the headbanging--though these guys lament that they are not allowed to grow their hair long. Where the film hits hard though is after the guys leave Iraq one by one to Damascus, Syria for refuge. They get to see a close to final cut of the film, and their sadness turns to anger. In the film's final moments, the foreign filmmakers, who play quite a large role in the film, are humbly put into their place by these artists whose home has turned into a violent hellhole. Heavy Metal in Baghdad has a rock-n-roll casualness in its filmmaking, almost like a home video, but it is still thoughtful and interesting, especially if you are a music fan of any sort.

My favorite new SIFF tradition (can you call two years in a row a tradition?), is the commissioning of local rock band to do a new original score to a classic silent film. Last year Kinski created an ear-shattering score to Berlin: Symphony of a City, and this year Sub Pop's The Album Leaf (a new band to me) scored one of my favorite silent films ever, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise (8/8). These events are cool not only because the music and movie, but because they take place at the Triple Door, a dinner-theater club that usually hosts music and/or cabaret. We enjoyed fancy cocktails and a bunch of small pan-Asian style plates while The Album Leaf played their moody, gauzy soundtrack for the story of a country man tempted by a City Woman to do away with his saintly wife to run off with the vixen. It's a fabulous film, of course, and the score gave it a more spooky surreal feel than the first time I saw it.

SIFF #13 - Two countries collapse in shame

Taking a step back, I can see that my two film choices for the day has similar themes, despite wildly different situations. Both films portrayed disenfranchised people, kept in their place by those in power. But both films had central characters that fight back, even as all odds seem to be against them. One film took place in America, the other in Taliban-run Afghanistan. Surprising, eh?

My Hurricane Katrina story was that I flew out of the country hours before the monster storm hit the Gulf Coast (hearing bad news in the international press, and even worse news when I got home). I remember watching the airport news, with images out thousands upon thousands of red taillights of cars as New Orleans evacuated in advance. But not all who wanted to leave could. One of the great shames of that city, and this nation was that no public transportation was provided for those that had no way to leave the city.

Trouble the Water (6/8) is a fascinating account of a makeshift family, headed by the fierce and strong Kimberley Roberts, who not only weathered the storm in one of the poorest neighborhoods in New Orleans (which was flooded when the levees broke), but took care of her own in the aftermath. Kim had just bought a video camera for $20 the week before the storm, so had amazing first-person footage as her family and a handful of neighbors retreated to the attic of her house as raging water reached as high as a stop sign down the street. No one came to help. No one. Her brother Larry (a hero if I ever saw one), carried survivors one by one to a neighboring house that had a safer second floor. Their saga is interspersed with images from the media, that watched rather agog, and frantic (and haunting) 911 calls from people trapped in their houses with rising water, who are told, "No one is coming." The second half of the film can only suffer in comparison to the footage from the storm and its immediate aftermath, as Kim gathers survivors and goes north, but Trouble the Water is still an important and scathing document profiling just a few of the thousands of people that the U.S. Government abandoned in a time of their greatest need.

I had heard positive buzz about Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (Buda as sharm foru rikht) (8/8), but honestly thought that it was a documentary. Boy, was I surprised to find an intimate dramatic (and at times sweetly funny) story about one little girl named Baktay who just really really wants to go to school like the neighbor boy, her friend Abbas. Taking place in the gaping wound in the cliff side where the Buddhas of Bamyan once stood, the story is told entirely from the children's point of view (and these are LITTLE kids... Baktay looks to be 5 or 6 years old). Each task in her day is an epic journey: buy a notebook, survive horrific torment from Taliban-influenced boys "playing" war, and simply find the school for girls. All of the children are great, and little Nikbakht Noruz who plays Baktay, has created the most natural performance by a young tot since they tortured that little French girl Ponette onscreen (who cried big wet tears when her movie parents died). How do they make children act? Astonishingly, director Hana Makhmalbaf was 18 when she made the film! It's helps that she had the genes of a master filmmaker in her, but still, this film was amazing.

As a postscript to my evening, as I was walking down Capitol Hill from the Egyptian to downtown, I passed by several posters tacked onto telephone poles. The Seattle Health Department, by law, is required to tell the public that a Code Orange level warning has been issued for a LICE EPIDEMIC. What the f...?!?!?! These notices were conspicuously posted on Pine Street, in the area of lots of clubs, cafes and bars. Is the lice infecting club kids? SIFF-ers who have been sitting in too-close proximity to each other for a month? People who frequent coffee houses? Is this for real? Weird. (scratch scratch scratch)

SIFF #12 - Land of dancing bears and severed heads

Yep, I took another couple days off from SIFF. I must not be the only one suffering from film fatigue because SIFF was offering their members a 2-for-1 ticket deal for any screening between Sunday and Tuesday! Hopefully they were able to fill up some of those empty seats. I always feel bad for visiting filmmakers when there is only a sparse audience for their screening.

That said, the special presentation The Land of the Head Hunters (6/8) at the vast old Moore Theater was packed. This was truly a special presentation, as Edward S. Curtis' film originally had its world premiere at The Moore in 1914 (how cool is that??). Apparently there were only two surviving copies of the film remaining, both in bad condition, when the restoration began. The best of the surviving footage was taken from both copies, and when a piece was beyond saving, still images (both from the film, and from Curtis' famous photos) were inserted. This worked surprisingly well, though sometimes had unintended comic effect--specifically a moment where two warriors were wrestling atop a cliff, getting closer and closer to the edge. Then there was an abrupt cut to a still shot of one lone warrior peering down to the rocks below, supposedly at the carcass of the loser. This caused giggles in the audience.

The basic plot of the film is a love story ripped apart by warring tribes. The son of a chief loves the young woman in the next village. They decide to marry, despite the fact that she has been promised to the creepy Sorcerer. Our hero has an elaborate wedding party, highlighted by fantastic images of majestic canoes landing in the village, each with a dancer at the front of the canoe: an Eagle, a Bear, a Raven. But drat! The Sorcerer rounds up his own warriors, hops in a war canoe to the wedding (violently killing unsuspecting fisherman and clammers that happen to be in the way), and grab the girl. Don't worry though... the bride does manage to get rescued by her one true love by the end. And lots of severed heads are waved around triumphantly (the heads, by the way, looked like the size of coconuts with lots of shaggy hair... I couldn't help but think of that line from Jerry Maguire "Did you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds?")

The rest of the evening was warmly hosted by members of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nation from Alert Bay, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Their dancers, many of whom are descended from tribe members featured in the film (the audience audibly cooed when it was pointed on that one man was the grandson of Naida, the bride from the film), performed several numbers accompanied by thundering drumming and chanting. Their gorgeous costumes (I coveted the women's beautiful robes), dances, and fantastic wood masks (especially the clacking beak of the huge Raven mask) delighted the audience. I was reminded of what a great venue The Moore was, as a lone female singer's unamplified voice filled the air all the way up to the balconies. The Moore may be a little rickety compared to the lovingly restored Paramount Theater, but it is still a great place to see a show.

(For more information on the background of the film: www.curtisfilm.rutgers.edu)

SIFF #11 - Man on Wire, Lives halved

I have to say, this has been a great year for interesting docs at SIFF, and the captivating and inspiring documentary Man on Wire (7/8) is no exception. The film profiles confident, bold, and more than a bit crazy French acrobat Philippe Petit who strung a wire between New York City's barely-finished World Trade Center towers in 1974 and tightrope-walked between them (over 1350 feet, or 100+ stories above the street) as a sort of guerrilla artistic statement. The unbelievable story captivated the city and became front-page news across the world, in large part because of his group of friends (including French, Americans, and an Australian) who helped him secretly set up the stunt, and also carefully documented not only the event, but a huge amount of the preparation. The band of pranksters is interviewed in present time (they all now look to be in their 50s or 60s), and they recount their stories with bright-eyed enthusiasm like it was yesterday. It is a crazy, exciting story... one where the law was clearly broken, but no one got hurt, and the worst offense they could slap Petit with was criminal trespassing. It is a fabulous, inspiring documentary, and very uplifting.

My follow-up film for the afternoon was the indie Half-Life (5/8) which was a noble, though a bit wobbly attempt at dysfunctional family drama combined with a dash of sci-fi. It takes place in a perhaps not-so-distant future where coastal cities are flooded, solar flares cause curious electrical disturbances, and the local news is rife with violent stories (which is actually not really that different from our present reality). Mom Saura Wu (Julia Nickson-Soul) is seeing a younger man who also has designs on her adult daughter Pam (Sanoe Lake), with Pam's little brother Tim (Alexander Agate) caught in the middle. There is also a side story with Pam's friend Scott coming out to his parents, which overlaps with the Wu family's own drama. The film suffers from uneven acting, mainly on the adult male side. The women are all strong and more interesting characters, but it is really the performance of young Alexander Agate as Tim that stands out. He absorbs the drama around him, and escapes via fantasies that appear as animation in the film. His performance is quite lovely. It is also a great-looking film, and may get distribution after the film festival circuit.

SIFF #10 - Autocracy and alarms

On Friday, I decided to nix the idea of seeing three movies in a row, starting at 4:30 (after yesterday's sleepy incident). This meant I could sleep in a bit, and allow myself to get some kibble before my first movie at 6:30pm.

Strangely enough, I had actually recently re-read the 1981 teen novel The Wave by Todd Strasser. The story of a high-school teacher's experiment with turning his class into basically neo-Nazis was memorably adapted into an After School Special in the early 80s, but this is the first time it has been made into a theatrical film. The Wave (Die Welle) (6/8) adapts the story to the present-day (cell-phone texting, the internet, and all), and changes the setting to Germany (edgy!). Hipster teacher Rainer Wenger, with his leather jacket and Ramones t-shirt, is assigned to teach "autocracy" to students during project week (drat! he wanted anarchy!). To make a dull, retread topic more interesting (after all, haven't all the German kids learned over and over how evil Hitler and the Nazis were?), Herr Wenger decides to turn his class into an exclusive club (see? isn't this fun?). Heck, let's straighten our backs and stand when we speak. "Strength through discipline!" The kids get a buzz, and start to think they are special. They name their movement The Wave, and soon they are ostracizing those not in the group, until things start to turn violent. Let's just say things get out of control, and the ending of this adaptation is harsher (but sadly probably more realistic to modern times) than the original novel and TV version.

The Wave was based on real events in Palo Alto, California in the late 60s, and this screening was immediately made more powerful and fascinating because of the presence of the original teacher, Ron Jones (now retired), and a couple of the students from his class (now, I suppose, in their late-50s), Philip Neel and Mark Hancock. The students remarked how the experiment, gone horribly wrong, was something that they all remember very clearly, like knowing exactly where you were when you heard JFK was shot. One of them said he is making a documentary, having tracked down most (all?) of the original 28 class members. Forty years after the incident, they are all dying to speak about it. I can't wait to see that....

I was excited about my next film, Ferzan Ozpetek's Saturn in Opposition (Saturno Contro) (5/8). At SIFF a couple years ago, I love Ozpetek's Facing Windows, which not only ended up making me really weepy, but also won the Golden Space Needle audience award. Saturn is about a group of "polysexual" friends (I took that word from the official description), who have frequent dinner parties and are basically each other's surrogate family. But then one day young, handsome Lorenzo passes out at the table, and it turns out has had a severe brain hemorrhage. The film basically revolves around the friends dealing with the tragedy, as they hover around the hospital. I never, sadly, became too emotionally involved. Part of the reason was my hatred for the womanizing character of Antonio... because he was just an extension of the actor's same character in The Last Kiss! Maybe Stefano Accorsi is just too good at playing a conceited man-child.

But, you know, I never found out about how Saturn ends... when there was only about 10 minutes left of the film, the movie stopped, the lights flipped on, and a fire alarm started blaring, with a mechanical voice basically telling everyone to run for the exits. I got to go out the emergency exit, which snaked through a completely unlit hallway behind the screen, and go down stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs, until we all spilled out onto the street. As far as I know, it was a false alarm, but since it was 11pm, I wasn't about to wait around and find out since no one seemed to know what was going on. So I decided to call it a night.

SIFF #9 - I'm just feeling so sreepy...

There is always some point during the festival where your body simply starts to wear out and bone-numbing fatigue sets in. I think I hit that today. Now, I know many of you out there will scoff at the following complaints, but let me say this: I am not a morning person. Several days in a row I have gotten up pre-6am, to get to work by 7:15am, so that I could leave by 3:45pm, so that I could catch a 4:30pm movie. You see, unlike SIFFers out there that flaunt their full series passes and crow about how many films they've already seen so far, I actually have a full-time job, AND am trying to see 30+ shows. I've talked to several folks who've tallied in the upper double-digits how many films they've seen, and for the most part, they are A) Retired, B) Unemployed, C) Press (as in that is their "real" job), or D) On vacation from their "real" job. No such luck for me. What I'm really getting to is this: I fell asleep during my afternoon's first movie. (hanging head in shame)

If you've lived in the Seattle area at all in the 1990s, you'll probably remember the shocking story of the Rafay family in Bellevue, an East Indian family discovered brutally murdered supposedly by their 18-year-old son Atif and his friend Sebastian Burns. The boys were arrested for murder (with the motive to supposedly get insurance money), but they left for Canada. Long story short, almost 10-years later, they were finally put on trial in the US, and convicted on the basis of a secretly videotaped confession by the two, taped by a secret undercover branch of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police). The undercover agents are called Mr. Big, but may as well be called Mr. Soprano, in that the RCMP tracks down their #1 suspects, weasels their way into the suspects' lives under the guise of being a hot shot gangster-type, then eventually get the poor fellow to confess. Apparently, innocent men have confessed to crimes they didn't commit, under the fear of threats that Mr. Big made on him, or threats to harm or kill those close to the suspect.

Director Tiffany Burns, who is Sebastian Burns' sister, used to be a reporter for local news stations across the country, and Mr. Big (4/8) has the aura of local-TV reportage, complete with jarringly irritating TV-screen static transition themes (ugh). There is a lot of information in here, and it is fascinating to hear a top dog at the RCMP hem and haw (literally) his way through a phone conversation with Ms. Burns, pretty much incriminating the law enforcement agency with dirty tricks by refusing to talk about it. But the film doesn't have the convincing power of say Paradise Lost or The Thin Blue Line in entirely convincing us of the innocence of Rafay and Burns. It's like, "Look! These other guys were innocent in their Mr. Big sting, so that means Rafay and Burns are, too!" All in all, Mr. Big felt to me like it just scratched the surface of an interesting topic. If anything, it should convince a lot of folks that the crime needs to be re-investigated.


Feeling more perky and, um, well-rested, I attended the packed screening Brick Lane (6/8). There's been buzz around this film, and apparently a chunk of the audience had read the best-selling book by Monica Ali. I however, hadn't... so as a person with no expectations, I thought the film was quite good (I heard a few murmurs that if you read the book in advance, you might be disappointed in the movie). All the credit goes to the lead actress Tannishtha Chatterjee, who plays Nazneen, a Bangladeshi woman who left her small village as a teen to go be the bride of a man in London. After almost 20 years of marriage, her husband Chanu (Satish Kaushik) has lots of ideas, but is not very successful, much to the horrid embarrassment of their British-born daughters. Nazneen, being very traditional, is also very lonely. But when she picks up a job sewing clothes in her own home, she meets the handsome young delivery man Karim (Christopher Simpson) who takes a shine to her. Their illicit romance makes Nazneen blossom, but of course things can never be as easy as that. The film is completely carried by Tannishtha Chatterjee's performance. She is absolutely lovely, sad, wistful, and completely heartbreaking in the performance. You clutch yourself, only wanting the best for her. I was smitten.

SIFF #8 - Israel's Nazi...er... "corn" pulp fiction

I'm sure some of you out-of-town folks read this blog and think to your collective selves: Sheesh, why would a city have a film festival on the cusp of summer? When the sun rises at 5:13 am and finally sets hours and hours later at 9:03 pm? Wouldn't people rather be running around outside, skipping across lawns and running through the sprinklers until the sun went down? Well, kids, the following pretty much explains it all:


Other than the freak heat wave during the first weekend that coincided (gloriously) with the Folklife Festival, bringing hippies and their friends out from the bushes in the hundreds of thousands, and causing SIFF (and Indiana Jones) movie-goers to blink furiously when they emerged from the theaters... well, this has pretty much been the weather pattern. And did I mention that we've really had no spring to speak of this year so far, expect a couple fluke hot days? This blows, and people are getting cranky.

So, because it's cold and rainy, let's get back to SIFF'n...

One of the many nice things about film fests is that they usually unabashedly include some porny-type films, so why not try to catch a couple, just because you can? At work, since we all don't want to be inappropriate, we refer to this topic as "corn"... so my co-workers' eyebrows raised when I announced I was going to catch a flick about Israeli-Nazi-corn.

Stalags - Holocaust and Pornography in Israel (Stalagim Shoa ve pornographia re’ Israel) (6/8) is a fascinating, weird, and uncomfortable documentary. For a time in 1960s Israel, smutty porn books were available at local newsstands. Well, that is not so strange in and of itself, if you think about it. But these pulp paperbacks, called "stalags" (the Germans' name for "prison camp"), described dominatrix scenarios always with the same basic plot: It is World War II, and an American or British pilot gets shot down over enemy territory. He is captured by the Nazis, who all happens to be buxom, beautiful, severe women with shiny boots, tight pants, and snug Nazi uniforms about to burst. The SS women officers rape and torture their prisoner (which arouses him while causing him pain), then he manages an escape, but not before raping and killing his captors in revenge. Hm. These books were eaten up by the Israeli population, and were the sorts that were passed around sneakily in classrooms by schoolchildren. The readers believed they were written by Americans or English, but they were actually churned out by Israeli-Jew ghost writers. According to the film, this fetishizing was a result of the next-generation's being almost in the dark about the Holocaust, as the older generation (the survivors) absolutely refused to talk about it. As the stalags morphed, becoming more shocking, their distribution ground to a halt with the publication of "I was Colonel Schultz's Private Bitch". When it came to stories of male officers raping women, suddenly it wasn't sexy anymore, and the Israeli government banned the books. Check out more here: www.stalags.com

SIFF #7 - Jocks, nerds, and surfer boys

My screenings this second weekend of SIFF were admittedly light. I have to admit, my emotional energy (and excitement was focused on my Saturday Girls (and Boys) Night Out to eat, drink, then go see the new Sex and the City movie. Adults have to have some fun, too! In the meantime though, I managed to see a couple of teen-centric films at SIFF....

First up was American Teen (7/8), arriving on the wave of its success at Sundance. There were actually studio-types at this Saturday morning screening, wearing silly sheriff's badges hanging around their necks (ooo! scary!), plus we were warned they'd be scanning the audience with night-vision goggles or something during the screening. Whatever. As for the movie, American Teen is pretty fabulous.

Documentary filmmaker Nanette Burstein followed a handful of high-school seniors for the last year of school in small-town Warsaw, Indiana. In this one high school town, basketball is king, and the reigning prince is jock Colin, whose family is not as well-off as many in the town, so he's under pressure to play well that year to get a basketball scholarship. Hannah is the alterna-girl freak (to some at least), meaning she is artistic, funny, creative, and wants to break out of town when she graduates. Unfortunately, a boyfriend breaks her hear first, spiralling her into a month of depression and anxiety where she practically drops out of school. Jake is a band-nerd who wants a girlfriend more than anything, though he often shoots himself in the foot with his self-esteem issues. And finally Megan is the princess, and in the film, the mega-bitch. Yikes. Remember the mean girls from high school? Well, that's Megan. The film is funny, cringe-inducing, and occasionally heartbreaking, playing like a real-life re-enactment of The Breakfast Club (with a marketing campaign to match).

Sex and the City Night proved a great success (not that you asked), so I took it down a notch on Sunday and just caught one film. OK, well I actually attempted to see another film, Time to Die (Pora Umierac), which I've heard good things about... but the truth is, I didn't have my butt in gear and got there about 5 minutes too late. I didn't want to be THAT PERSON, coming in late, trying to find a seat in a darkened theater. I learned my lesson last year (see, Vickie?). So instead, I loitered in places like The Gap , Old Navy, and Value Village, touched a lot of things without buying them, then went to a coffee shop for an hour and read a book.

My only film selection today was Newcastle (4/8), a surfer-boy movie from Australia. If you want to look at pretty, tan, muscular white boys with sun-bleached hair, this is the movie for you. If you want to see astonishingly gorgeous photography of surfing, the film has buckets to offer. But if you want to spend your time with a main character and his friends that are almost all a bunch of pricks, well, that's Newcastle for you. Seventeen-year-old Jesse is a self-absorbed and apparently very talented surfer, like his older brother Victor had been, but Victor washed-out, and is now a mean loser. Jesse misses a spot (by one slot) on the local team that would be his ticket to getting discovered in the competitive circuit, and he sure can't seem to accept that the other guys might have been better. On top of that, his goth weakling brother Fergus seems to have a crush on Andy, one of Jesse's pals (perhaps Jesse's only friend who isn't an asshat). Jesse, his pals, and tag-along Fergus go on a beach camping trip for sun, sex, and surf, but when Victor and his thuggish surfer-pals show up to spoil the party, well, something bad happens. It is too bad that the film focused on selfish Jesse, who was almost completely unlikeable. I found sweet Fergus' infatuation with the friendly Andy to be a much more engaging (and less predictable) subplot. Plus, I have no idea who did the actual surfing, but not only was Andy a more pleasant character, but I found his style of surfing to be the most captivatingly gorgeous. Everyone knows that I kinda loved the surfer movie Blue Crush... but let's just say Newcastle is no Blue Crush.

[FYI: Bear with me, readers. I'll be taking a couple days off from SIFF now, you know, to catch up on things, life, and whatnot. But I'll be back, catching more movies later this week! Mark my words!]

SIFF #6 - Gay-la ghetto and shorts fabulousness

For the second year in a row, SIFF has hosted a "Gay-La", featuring a Film of the Gays, followed by a party afterwards. In theory, this is a great idea, and can often bring out (so to speak) an enthusiastic target audience. But it is unfortunate that out of all the movies out there, the Gay-La featured the disappointing Kiss the Bride (4/8) (then again, I would not be surprised if the pickings of Quality Gay Movies were rather slim). Now, you can count me a fan of director C. Jay Cox's last outing, Latter Days, so I had my hopes up for this film. There was actually early positive buzz for Tori Spelling's performance as a bride waiting to find out if her fiance will be lured by the wedding's surprise guest, his long-lost high school boyfriend. Alas, for me the film's two pretty-boy leads blurred together in looks for the first chunk of the movie, and the sitcomy quality of the writing (not to mention the music) didn't work for me. Some of the audience was appreciatively guffawing, but it only reminded me how the bar is set lower for gay comedies. But yes, Spelling gave a surprisingly warm performance, and the concept of trying to re-ignite a lost love (and obsession) from the past was a potentially good one. Too bad the movie was only so-so.

The next day, Friday, I got to work early to finish a project so that I could sneak off for a 4 o'clock screening ("Where the heck do you think you're going???" my co-workers gasped as I darted out early). I wanted to check out Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (6/8) which had a great and funny trailer, and has the potential to be this year's documentary hit. In the same funny investigative style of Michael Moore, first-time feature filmmaker Christopher Bell, a bodybuilder himself, delves deep into the world of steroid use in America. In 2005, the U.S. Congress spent more days (8) discussing steroids in baseball than they spent discussing health care and the Iraq War. What can you say to that? "It's America's pastime!" the senators cried, some of them passionately upset. Whatever. Are steroids proven to be bad for you? Everyone says so, but none of the interviewees seem to come up with concrete data. Are artificially bulked up athletes cheaters? Sure, it's hard to argue with that. But what is most moving about Bell's documentary are his profiles of his two brothers, a bodybuilder and a wrestler. They depend on steroid use to have a fighting chance to compete in their fields. But they are still not the best -- there is always someone bigger and stronger. It's the American way: no one wants to be second place. It is a fascinating (and entertaining) film.

Finally, to top off my work week, I hit one of the shorts programs, Friends and Family (6/8). Despite Seattle's The Stranger dubbing a whole weekend of shorts at SIFF Cinema "The Shorts Ghetto", I was reminded of that fact that there are many gems to be found in these screenings. A couple of my favorites in the program included Peter and Ben (7/8), an adorable documentary-like piece about a man and his pet sheep (it actually made me a little teary at the end), and the fabulous and twisted animated The Pearce Sisters (8/8), about two, well, homely sisters who pick up a fisherman who washed up on the beach (turned out this film was a product of Aardman Animations... no wonder I loved it!).

Of course the real reason I chose this particular screening was because my writer pal Joel Haskard's film Train Town (6/8) was included. It is a twisted little tale of two bickering men who run a model train shop, who take turns manipulating (in sick and wrong ways) the townspeople of their model train town. Good job, Joel... it was funny (and a little jarring) to see you up on the big screen for your cameo! :)

SIFF #5 - Revisionist history and twirling tassels

My Wednesday night o' SIFF'n featured, hands-down, the weirdest double-feature I've ever sat through. In short, I went from seeing truckloads of WWII Polish military officers get shot in the back of the head, execution-style, to modern smiling, fake-eyelashed, bedazzling women twirling tassels off their womanly assets. The transition made me rub my eyes a few times.

First up was famed Polish director Andrzej Wajda's Oscar-nominated film Katyn (4/8), a movie of great importance with a super-powerful climax that otherwise came across as muddled, disjointed, and rather uninvolving. Spanning from 1939 until after the war when the Soviets occupy Poland, several folks are followed, including a Polish general, an officer, a pilot, and the families/sisters/children that are left behind. None of the characters are explored with very much depth, and it doesn't help that some are children at the start of the film and are adults at the end. It is unfortunate the that film was only so-so, as it is obviously portraying a huge incident to the Poles, where 12,000 officers, scientists, intellectuals, and artists were massacred in the forest of Katyn by Soviets, who then turned the "official" blame on the Nazis when the war ended, literally rewriting history. The last 10 or 20 minutes are shocking and unbearable, showing the victims' fate, but everything leading up to it was unfortunately not too gripping.

In the corral of folks staying for the next film, I was not surprised to see at least one man with his head in his hands, mulling the sadness of the previous film. So it was a bit surreal when folks started pouring into the theater bedecked in glitter, boas, slinky dresses, and lots of feathers, to the tune of a very smiley woman working an accordion. The world premiere of the locally-filmed A Wink and A Smile (6/8) was obviously the hot ticket (comparable to last year's Blood on the Flat Track), with all the hipsters and their boyfriends and girlfriends and partners showing up for the party atmosphere. The film, featuring local burlesque star Miss Indigo Blue (a totally cute, charming, articulate, and funny host), follows a class of women taking Burlesque 101. The women share their insecurities (from body image, to self-confidence, to dancing skills, etc.), some tearfully, while they learn the tricks of the trade over six weeks. The film is a crowd-pleaser, with snippets of locally renowned burlesque dancers doing their acts (some are really fantastic and unique), mixed with interviews of the women, all of whom are interesting and endearing. I especially enjoyed the adorable 50-something mom (who incorporated whistling and birds into her routine), and the sassy taxidermist, who took the audience on a hilarious tour of the interesting frozen critters she was saving in her freezer (sorry, ladies, I forgot your names!). This film will be making the film festival circuit, and is fun and inspirational if you get a chance to catch it.

SIFF #4 - Past evil, fast trains, and other thrills

Per the recommendation of my TIFF'n pals Eric and Vickie, I picked up at ticket to the British drama Boy A (7/8). I didn't know much about the film going in, as it had been a long time since I had read their reviews (here, and here), but it turned out that this is the perfect kind of movie to see completely cold, as its mystery is slowly revealed. We meet a shy 20-something man being released into the world. He chooses Jack as his name, and it is unclear what his deal is. Is he in a witness protection program? Was he institutionalized? Did he commit a crime? He doesn't have basic social or living skills, seems younger than his years, but has a disarmingly sweet and trusting smile. He is set up with an apartment, placed at a job (that isn't given too many details about his mysterious past), and even gets a girlfriend. But there is an ominous tone to the whole thing, as bit by bit his past is revealed. Andrew Garfield, a young actor I had never seen before, completely carries the film as tormented and sweet Jack, and Peter Mullan shows up as his rehabilition contact, the only one who knows of his past. Boy A is a fascinating drama, with a completely fresh plot that I was wholly involved in. Hopefully you were able to catch it at SIFF, but otherwise it will be released in theaters later this year.

My second film of the day combined two things that rock my socks off: cold, wintery climes (in this case, Russia's Siberia) and trains (woo-woo!). There hasn't been a memorable train movie that I can think of since Runaway Train, but Transsiberian (6/8) will invoke some of the most enjoyable cinematic train thrillers. Woody Harrelson, doing his best "aw-shucks" American persona, and Emily Mortimer play Roy and Jessie, a married American couple returning home from a save-the-children volunteer stint in Beijing. They've decided to take the long way home, across the Asian continent on the Transsiberian Railway.

You know that all sorts of shifty things happen on trains, so their nice little jaunt takes a mysterious turn when they are joined in their cabin by a couple of backpackers, the shifty yet super-hunky Spaniard Carlos (the super-hunky Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega) and his quiet and nervous American girlfriend Abby (Kate Mara). Tension racks up with people getting left behind at train stops, drug runners looking for missing loot, detectives (including Ben Kingsley playing Russian) looking for the drug runners, and sexual tension excalating between characters. The film is as non-stop as a train hurtling across the dusky, snowy plains, and it was a delight to see Emily Mortimer get a complex role where she isn't a complete angel or victim. Ray may be as simple and good as he seems, but Jessie's got things in her past that she is not revealing. Transsiberian is a fun, claustrophobic thriller that had many in the audience (including myself) covering their eyes. And next time I'm on a train, I'm going to make sure the windows open. You know. Just in case.

SIFF #3a - Sir Ben saves the day

It was Day Four of the fest, and I had yet to be really impressed by any of the films that had gotten good advance buzz. Sure, Battle in Seattle was fine, and the other films were mostly watchable, but there were no films that I was excited about. Luckily today I finally scored two good films that I can highly recommend.

First up was the event A Tribute to Sir Ben Kingsley, which featured an special award for the man himself (the ubiquitous Dale Chihuly blown-glass thing-a-ma-bob), a Q&A, and a screening of one of Sir Ben's newest films, Elegy (7/8). Moviepie Jennifer and her pal joined me to see the Sexy Beast himself, and at least I was impressed by the film (my pals, not so much). In Elegy, Sir Ben plays an aging lothario with a put-upon adult son (Peter Sarsgaard), a fuck-buddy lover (Patricia Clarkson), and a best friend (Dennis Hopper) that he can B.S. with on things, life, and whatnot. What he doesn't expect is that a fling with one of his beautiful young grad students (played by Penelope Cruz) would turn him on his head and that he would actually fall in love.

I had read absolutely nothing about the film before going in, so found myself surprised not only with the cast as each appeared on screen ("OMG! It's Dennis Hopper! OMG! It's Patricia Clarkson!"), but also surprised that I was into the film almost immediately. Despite Penelope Cruz's odd hair transformation (from mousey Bettie-Page severe bangs to the suddenly luscious Penelope-hair we all know and love), I found it to be a believable and humble musing on what it means to age, both for men and women. Unsurprisingly, Sir Ben and all involved were excellent. He also turned out to be an accommodating interviewee, musing on his career from his days on stage, to his burst of fame with Gandhi, to his struggle to find a place in Hollywood after his initial success. I liked his view on acting (and life): the simpler, the better, using the metaphor of minimal brush-strokes to create a whole image. Despite artistic director and host Carl Spence's insistence that it was evening (I think he has already been in dark theaters too long), it was a pleasant afternoon with Sir Ben.

My second film arrived with a bit of buzz. A documentary, Up The Yangtze (7/8), at times almost feels like a drama because of its intimacy with its subjects. Canadian director Yung Chang was in attendance, and memorably introduced the film as "The Love Boat meets Apocalypse Now". The Three Gorges Dam has been slowly blocking China's Yangtze River, and will eventually flood areas 175 meters higher than its previous level, displacing 2 million people. The film mainly focuses on a poor farming peasant family who live in a ramshackle hut on the riverbank (in an area that will soon be covered in water). Because the family cannot afford to send their daughter to high school, she is instead sent to work on one of the river's tour-boats that cater to Westerners (with "farewell tour" cruise themes). The daughter Shui Yu is dubbed "Cindy" at work, and struggles with homesickness, learning English, and the responsibility of a job. The family's sacrifices at home are heartbreaking and haunting; the mother sobs, explaining that they can't afford to send her to school, and the father's gaunt humble face says what words don't. Cindy's story is contrasted with "Jerry" Bo Yu Chen, a co-worker who is handsome, 19, and admits he grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Their stories overlap with spooky images of abandoned riverside cities and the jovial faces of Western tourists ooing and aahing at the sights and their hosts. Up the Yangtze is a fascinating, moving film... my only criticism is that for those of us without the background knowledge, that the film could have offered some more big-picture explanation of the Three Gorges Dam project, and its intended effect on the countryside. Otherwise, I highly recommend catching the film when it hits the indie circuit this summer.

SIFF #2 - Hyped movies don't put out

I was pretty excited about the film selections I had lined up for my first couple days of true SIFF'n (Opening Night doesn't really count). On Friday night after work, I caught Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven (Auf der Anderen Seite). Akin is featured as one of this year's Emerging Masters, which is usually a good sign, and I've heard wonderful things about his film Head-On (which is also featured in the fest). Heck, I even got excited about the trailer for this film. But The Edge of Heaven (5/8) despite a lot of great qualities, didn't really grab me and spin me around like I was expecting.

The film is a collage of different characters whose lives are all only a degree or two apart, though they don't realize it. In Germany, an old Turkish man frequents a prostitute who turns out to be Turkish also. He is a widower, so offers to pay her to live with him, and sleep with him only. Alas, the old man's adult son Nejat ( Baki Davrak) isn't too thrilled with his and his dad's new domestic situation. An accident changes everything, however, and Nejat finds himself travelling to Turkey to search for this woman's missing daughter. The daughter Ayten (Nurgül Yesilçay) has her own plot line. She is on the run for being part of a radical political group in Turkey, ends up in Germany, finds a woman lover, then ends up in jail in Turkey after being deported. The stories end up criss-crossing, and the acting overall is fine, but I was a little disappointed that I wasn't more emotionally involved in their lives. I was intrigued by Baki Davrak's performance as Nejat, and found his character the most curious and interesting, but alas he was only one part of the collage. Overall, it was one of those movies that I admired rather than really enjoyed.


So maybe I would have better luck with Before the Rains (5/8) on Saturday morning. As the opening credits unfurled, things were looking good: A Merchant Ivory production! Linus Roache! Nandita Das! And the lovely Jennifer Ehle, who has been sorely missing in action lately! The story takes place in 1937, in British India as things are really starting to heat up. Roache is a white plantation owner named Henry Moores who has big plans for the countryside, but the local village is getting riled up with anti-British sentiment. His right-hand man T.K. (Rahul Bose) is Indian, but is completely loyal to his boss, whom he considers his friend. But the exposure of the (married) Moores' affair with his (married) house-servant (the always-lovely Nandita Das) tests the friendship between the two men, and exposes the true relationships between the British occupiers and the local Indians. British-India is a fascinating era for drama, and the film certainly looks lush and gorgeous. The acting is overall fine, but if anything, the film is predictable and is not as gut-wrenching as I was expecting it to be. It was all very... expected.

So, grumbly, I thought that The Home Song Stories (4/8) would renew my faith in my ability to choose great movies. I had heard about this film when I was on vacation in Australia in November, as it had just won a slew of the top Australia film awards. That could a) be a good sign, that it was the best of a good year in film, or b) not mean anything at all, that it was an OK film in a year of crappy selections. You can see where I'm going with this....

The ageless Joan Chen plays Rose, a nightclub singer in Hong Kong who hops from man to man (with her two kids) until she meets an Australian sailor, whom she follows to Australia. They get married, then she leaves him. She and the kids live a transient life for several years, then end up back in Melbourne where he ("Uncle Bill") takes the wife back. Alas, he is out on his ship for months, so Rose gets into hanky panky with the much younger Joe (Yuwu Qi). They set up house in her husband's home (with mother in law scorning on the sides), and all hell breaks loose in no time. This is a bleak family drama, where mom is unhinged half the time, and trying to kill herself the rest of the time. I mean, really, I think there are three or four failed suicide attempts among the characters until, well.... Despite the film's obvious earnestness (being based on a true story, that always makes me feel a little guilty), it was a bit of a drag. Dramatically it went on and on, and the inevitable conclusion came as a bit of a relief, not only to some of the characters, but to the audience as well.

Luckily, as it was a matinee, I could leave the theater and enjoy a beautiful, sunny, late-spring day for some rejuvenation, before jaunting off to meet with pals for eatin', drinkin' and pool playin' to restore my faith in humanity. Hopefully I'll have better luck with my movie selections soon.

SIFF #1 - A Battle in Seattle for Opening Night freebies

Shoot, it seems like a couple months ago that SIFF just ended, but here we are at the beginning of a new, month-long orgy of movie-ness that is The Seattle International Film Festival! Now, normally I don't go to Opening Night, mainly because no one hands me a free ticket (you have to admit, $50 is pretty steep). But this year was different for a couple reasons:

1) Buzz: SIFF has been advertising the heck out of this year's opener, Battle in Seattle (6/8), which has been building a huge buzz, mainly out of curiosity, but also because of Seattle's penchant for being a town of unabashed movie-star whores (bonafide superstar celebrities don't show up here often, so we get star-struck, all stammering and blushing). When it was announced that a bunch of the stars would be in attendance, especially glamourous Oscar-winner Charlize Theron, tickets to Opening Night were snapped up in a frenzy (while still maintaining our Seattle nonchalant cool).

2) George W. Bush: GW wants us to use our "economic stimulus plan" money to go shopping. You know, go out and buy cheaply made products from China and Indonesia from retailers that underpay their employees, and thusly revive our sagging economy. Well, I've decided instead to use some of what I call my "GD-GW" money to support local arts. The lucky recipient this week? SIFF!

So, slacker I am, I decided on the day-of to give Opening Night a whirl. Fate would decide whether I made it into the sold-out event. I got up at the ass-crack of dawn so that I could leave work early. Luckily, when I got to McCaw Hall at 5pm, there were only 4 people waiting for tix! I knew my chances were good. By 6:20pm, I had a ticket in my hand.

Let's just say, because of the obvious local interest in Battle in Seattle, the air was electric. As per usual Seattle events, there were folks all gussied up in their finest mixed with folks in hoodies, jeans and flip-flops. However, unique to this year's Opening Night were folks handing flyers like "RESIST The World Trade Organization" (www.realbattleinseattle.org) and unfurling banners that were used in the actual WTO protests in 1999. I'll bet it wasn't like this in Toronto!

After folks got shuffled into the huge, packed hall, and were subjected to the expected "thank our sponsors" bits, the celebs came out on stage. Director Stuart Townsend was joined by Michelle Rodriguez, Martin Henderson, Andre Benjamin (who, surprisingly, got the most enthusiastic applause), and, of course, The Charlize. A nice moment was when Townsend explained that at previous fest screenings, like in Toronto, one or two people in the audience would raise their hand and say, "I was there!" So he asked us: who was there at the WTO in Seattle? At least 2/3rds of the audience rose their hand (and the rest were probably still in the lobby drinking $12 glasses of wine). Townsend's response? "Oh, shit."

As for the movie itself? I'm sure everyone in the audience came prepared for the worst, donning their pointiest Skepticism Hats. Saddled with the dorky name Battle in Seattle and facing what will probably be their most critical audience, the filmmakers and cast were unsurprisingly nervous. But I have to say after a clunky start, the film actually got better. Some original footage is interweaved in the story (at the beginning, this is done quite poorly... a swelling crowd of thousands suddenly looks like a couple hundred, depending on if the actors are in the shot), and thankfully real Seattle sites are used in crucial scenes (we can spot Vancouver a mile away, and much of this film was shot there). It was strange to see The Paramount Theater so prominently used, as I walk by that building every day on the way to work. But I was impressed that they bothered, for the most part, using real, recognizable landmarks, which I know the Seattle audience appreciated.

The movie has a collage of characters, including Woody Harrelson as a Seattle cop, Charlize Theron as his pregnant wife who gets caught in the downtown melee, Ray Liotta as the mayor (who shows a bit more spine than our real mayor at the time, Paul "I am not a wuss" Schell), and Martin Henderson, Michelle Rodriguez and Andre Benjamin as protestors. The characters aren't particularly well-developed or even individually very interesting, and the dialogue is admittedly corny at times (Connie Nielsen has a thankless eyeball-rolling role as a reporter who suddenly gets a conscience), but as the film moves along and the situation gets worse, the overall tension of the big-picture situation believably builds. There are several scenes of police brutality that will make you wince, both physical attacks and images of peaceful protestors getting sprayed in the face by chemicals while sitting cross-legged in the street. Yikes.

Did the film deserve its standing ovation from the audience? No. But the movie is not bad, and won't need to be disowned by the city. At one point (I'm paraphrasing from memory here), Andre Benjamin's peaceful "save the turtles" protestor says, "A week ago, no one had even heard of the WTO! Now... well... they still don't know what it means, but they've heard of it!"

After the film, the cast and director came out for Q&A, and politely answered even the most expectedly inane questions from the audience ("How did your role in Battle in Seattle differ from other movies you've been in?"). Henderson won points for his passion and "fight the power" gusto, Benjamin was the most honest and charming, and Theron (who was losing her voice) has perhaps taken the most impressive action with her charity Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. And, well, Michelle Rodriguez drives a Prius. Guess you have to start somewhere.

As for my overall Opening Night experience? I had a blast. Was it worth $50? Of GD-GW's money... a resounding yes! Of my own money? No, probably not. I walked away with a couple program guides and the curious freebie of a jar of Fennel Salt from a sponsoring restaurant (other people looked excited, so I'm excited!). The post-party involved all 3,000 people pouring out into the courtyard area to fight over free cupcakes and put out even more money for more drinks (didn't drinks used to be included with the ticket?). I shoved one of the tiny cupcakes into my mouth, and fled. After all, the REAL fest starts on Friday....