Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a ton of reader reviews from the Seattle Film Festival. Looks like it has gotten off to a great start! Hope all you coffee drinkin' tree-lovin' folks are having a blast up there! Maybe I'll join you next year! How about we start off with a few reviews all bundled together, including Woody at his hippy-best, Guy Madden at his weirdest and some New Zealand horror?
Hi, Harry. The more I think about the opening night film, The Notebook, the more I love it. Maybe it's because of the high I was still on from that movie, that I wasn't able to come down to really appreciate the three I saw yesterday. Or, maybe they all just sucked:
Go Further
Woody Harrelsen and crew go on a West Coast tour promoting S.O.L. -- Simple Organic Living. Should I not find it amusing how that's also the common acronym for something else? Anyway. Ron Mann's safe, meandering documentary follows a big bus that reads "Voice Yourself", starting at UW in April 2001, as Woody speaks to crowds about being at one with the environment, not destroying it -- or, as he says, "How to live with a light footprint." I wonder if the people who come to listen aren't there more because of his celebrity than his message. We see a lifestyle in practice: yoga, eight hours of cycling per day, eating only raw foods (and, the occasionaly avocado chocolate cream pie). Which is all fine and good, and obviously we should take better care of ourselves. But, the film doesn't have enough passion behind it to do more than nod, and move on.
Have I mentioned how crappy the photography is, yet?
Saddest Music in the World
I little of Guy Madden's film goes a long, long way. It is Depression Era Winnepeg, the "world capital of sorrow", and Lady Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) has a plan: she will host a competition to find out which country indeed has the saddest music in the world. The winner gets $25K, and since prohibition will soon be over and everybody's already so.. well, depressed.. they can come to Canada to drink away their sorrows and spend their hard-earned. The movie has a unique look, and it's loaded with oddball moments -- none odder than Maria de Medeiros admiring an elderly man's deaf ear. Or, when Rossellini dances on glass legs filled with beer. And, I don't believe I will ever hear the line, "My tapeworm is irresistible" again in this lifetime. But, it all adds up to nada.
No point; just strange for the sake.
The Locals
Two New Zealand dudes hit the road to surf and hook up with babes, and instead cross paths with a farm with some very wierd inhabitants. Turns out SIXTH SENSE and THELMA & LOUISE actually _don't_ work together in the same movie. I had no idea. There's a lot of driving around at night, getting stuck, and wandering off into one place after another they ought not be. Don't go expecting gore and gratuituous sex, cuz there ain't none. Slow, effective at times, but very hard to get into.
J-Man
Up next is a look at DIG!, a film of which I have little knowledge. I'm not a music person, but this doc did win the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, so we know that it's at least of measurable quality... Here's the review!
I had the pleasure of watching Dig! this evening at the Seattle Film Festival. 7 years of footage that tell the tale of indie music bands The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Both bands admire each other's music and have charismatic singers as leaders of the band. For those of us who have heard the Dandy Warhols we know to some extent what will happen. The Warhols have achieved some degree of success around the world and well I doubt most of us have heard of the Brian Jonestown Massacre.
The movie starts out showing footage of the bands on and behind the stage. Both bands party and aren't too afraid to let you know they do. The shot of a table with about 20 lines of coke on it attests to that point. It is around this point where lead singer of BJM (and for all intents and purposes THE band himself) Anton Newcombe makes some pronouncements about his abilities that you quickly come to understand this guy thinks he really is the second coming.
The movie goes on to show footage of both bands individually and together. They have an odd admiration, like, respect, and competitive hatred of the other. As you see The Dandy Warhols increasingly gather their commercial steam worldwide the Brian Jonestown Massacre goes 180 degrees the other direction. Anton is a hand grenade set to go off whenever a lucky break is looking over his shoulder. Scenes showing both bands getting caught by the police with drugs while on tour tell you almost everything you need to know about the directions the bands head and the levels of self destruction we witness.
There are some fascinating scenes of arguments and physical fights between the band, the band and the audience, the band and their manager... you get the picture. Also is some damn good music. I already own some Dandy Warhols and music and I will be buying some BJM after this. Anton may be the most miserable son of a bitch on the face of this earth, but the man knows how to make music.
This movie won the Grand Jury Price for documentary at Sundance and it
was well deserved. Director Ondi Timoner was on hand for a Q&A
afterwards with the audience, unfortunately I had other places to be.
If you like rock music at all and have ever wondered what it would be
like to be a fly on the wall with THE quintessential indie band run to
go see this one.
Ahhh, AZUMI... beautiful, beautiful asian cinema goodness...
Went to a midnight screening at the Seattle International Film Festival last night, and was absolutely blown away.
I am a fan of Versus, as it has some of the coolest dialogue and most imaginative action (especially the zombie head) of any film, big-budget or otherwise, that I've seen in the past five or ten years. A friend told me that Kitamura's new film was showing at the festival, and I made damn sure that I was there to see it.
And it's amazing.
Azumi weighs in at the other end of the scale from Versus, as a period piece with no supernatural stuff, few guns, and a strong female lead. Also, the plot verges on comprehensibility, which is more than I can say for everything surrounding the Forest of Resurrection. The links that it does share with Versus mainly have to do with characterization, in that it seems Mr. Kitamura loves to caricature everybody who isn't the lead. Which is fine with me. I think that often it leads to stronger action set pieces, and often a good amount of characterization slips underneath the cartoon-like exterior of many of the bad guys Azumi faces on her journey.
Ah, right, plot. Azumi is a female assassin trained from birth by a repentent old soldier who wishes to end all war in Tokugawa Japan. Honestly, to go any further would spoil the first major surprise of the movie, which is a biggie.
Honestly, though, most people will compare this to Versus, and that's ok, since it contains a lot of the same awesome camera work, imaginative special effects, and moments that surprised the sold-out audience I was with into applause. The action's great, even if the cool stuff's weighed towards the end a little, and I think I even felt a twinge of emotion for the characters. Also, there're some genuinely funny moments, especially those that deal with the assassin dressed all in white. Who, by the why, is a really awesome, if ridiculously effeminate, lead villain. I don't know anything about the background of this film, but he feels like the closest any movie's ever come to having a direct translation of an anime or manga villain into film.
It's based on manga I've never read, but I'd guess Azumi doesn't change much.
The final word is that although Versus had a couple cooler moments, and is generally the cooler movie, this definitely ranks as the better all-around film of the two.
If you use this, call me Mr. Suit.
And for the final word from Seattle, I give you a man I hate with a passion... not only does he have tickets for the big DONNIE DARKO DIRECTOR'S CUT screening, but he also got to see lovely, lovely Jena Malone in person... Ah, be still my beating heart... Anyway, this wanker has the good word on SAVED!, a flick that played down in my neck of the woods (at SXSW) to mixed reviews... What'd this Jena-stalking maniac think?
Hello Harry,
Being the first premiere of a film I have ever been to I was pretty excited to see SAVED! But that wasn't the only thing that had me excited about this film, it was the fact that someone finally had the guts to make a movie about a teen Christian high school girl who gets pregnant and her and her friend's reaction to what to morally do with the situation as a Christian.
Now, first off, before we go any further, I want to let people know that am hardly religious and don't practice any kind of faith but that doesn't mean that I am not spiritual. There does seem to be a higher meaning to things but I am not sure what it is. Now with that said I can continue. I have encountered several super religious people in high school and college and also people who practice but, how to put this nicely, don't advertise. SAVED! seemed to be straight from my accounts with the super religious.
To make this clear here and now, anyone who sees this movie as a hateful piece of work must have been watching another movie or just plain hasn't seen it. It was more of an awareness message that people need to be more understanding, especially the ones who preach it everyday. Its funny how closed minded people can be when they think only one way is right and we all have to follow that one example, but there are billions of people so that brings differences and not everyone is going to be or act the same. So it's silly to expect everyone to talk and act in the same manner. Also as the times change, so should religion.
To me, it would be like trying to run the United States on the same Constitution that was written back in 1788. The world is ever evolving and so do people with their ideals and behaviors, and that should reflect how religion should adapt and change too. Now its nowhere fair to say that religion hasn't changed, but there are some issues that are presented in SAVED! that seem like they should be re-evaluated on how religion handles these certain issues.
Now I saw this film at Seattle International Film Festival and it was the official world premiere so the director Brain Dannelly, producer Sandy Stern, and actresses Mandy Moore and Jena Malone were attending. They all introduced the movie briefly and then let the movie roll. Through the viewing the audience loved the movie the whole way through, plenty of laughs and good reactions to the subject matter. So it was a great environment to see the film in instead of seeing it with a theater full of fundamentalist Christians.
Once it was finished they all jumped up back on stage for a quick Q and A and everyone stuck around to hear it and people had somewhat meaningful questions. My attention was mainly focused on Jena Malone because I am a bit obsessed (should I be admitting this?) and she moves like a Mexican jumping bean! Jesus Christ that woman couldn't hold still for a second and was hopping every which way!
But when any question was directed at her she was very well spoken and she had very detailed answers. So detailed I cant even remember what she said. As for the other questions, I did manage to pull my attraction away from Jena for a brief moment and listened to Brain Dannelly and Sandy Stern explain that the film was made for only five million and shot in 28 days in Vancouver.
The film was fist going to be shot in Florida, they had sets built, costumes ready to go, actors four days away from getting there, and then they never got their money to start filming. The reason they seemed to hint at why was that the studio got cold feet about the subject matter and pulled out at the last second, but then a studio in Vancouver picked it up.
People asked how Dannelly was inspired to make the film and he said he went to a Christian elementary, a catholic high school, and Jewish summer camp and that seemed to be reason enough. Also the research he did for the film was to log on to Christian chat sites as "Christian Teen", watch non-stop TVC, and go to many Christian school rallies so it seems he did do his fair share of homework for doing the movie.
There was a Gala event afterwards where people were going to go talk more about the movie with the four guests but you needed to be 21 to get in and I am a few months shy. But oh well, I was feeling really good because this was the first time ever got to hear what a director had to say about his film in person right after the viewing. Now I am just getting pumped up for the next SIFF world premiere that I DO have Gala passes to. Just a little movie called Donnie Darko, so I hope to be back for that one if i even get posted I am
KomodoWizard (and i sound like i am 8 years old!)
