the girly who shall end all girls

on the 17 heading to Pacific Place. woman in cloud of perfume got off just before i lost the ability to avoid having a coughing fit. people like her are the reason i've stopped wearing perfume (although my love of smelly soap/shampoo/moisturizer continues unabated.)

on a day off from work, no matter what time my first movie begins, my sleep and get organized time will expand to fit. somehow, eating is never included in the get organized time. (somewhere, C is feeling angry with me, and he doesn't know why.) hopefully i can grab something more healthy than popcorn on the way in.

truefax: i cannot remember the name of the first preview i'm going to see, just that it's Argintinean and maybe a comedy? this is why i blog festival days - it helps to set them in my memory before they are overwritten by the next shiny thing.

Lovely Loneliness
Black Dynamite
Tahaan: A Boy with a Grenade Rembrandt's J'Accuse
The Hurt Locker

this is a relatively early night so that i can get some extra sleep before being back in the office tomorrow. (and see C, and maybe help to clean before D&D Friday.)

Lovely Loneliness was a waste of time. the buildings in whatever city it was in Argentina are really beautiful, and there's a nice cover of Karma Chamelon in the soundtrack. otherwise, Soledad (the title in Spanish is a pun on her name) is a stupid bint and the love story is slight. the humor is sparse. she didn't change, we learned nothing. meh.

Black Dynamite will be part of the midnight series, and is a fun midnighter-quality spoof of Blaxploitation films. it would be even better after a couple drinks. SPOILER boss fight with Richard Nixon! END SPOILER

changed my mind on what i was seeing next in order to have time to get some food. buzz on this one is mixed, but one of the people who liked it liked it in spite of Peter Greenaway, which is what i needed to hear. also, same theater as my next film. the house is packed. (probably all the art history majors in the city.)

Rembrandt's J'Accuse had high production values. otherwise, i was busy fighting a headache and didn't give it the attention it deserved. basically, Peter Greenaway makes the case for the painting The Night Watch being done to accuse certain members of the militia of conspiracy and murder. (and child rape. and scarring a girl's face? and a gay affair?) anyway, too tired to discriminate valid from dubious. i am now curious to learn more about the period, which is a good enough result. i wouldn't turn it off if it was running on the History channel.

i have a couple shots (of coffee, people, of coffee) in me now, and have an aisle seat in case the near-headache gets me or the movie sucks. this is one that i picked out from the catalog right away, so i have highish hopes. buzz is that people didn't care about any of the characters, which could be a problem, since it's a war movie. (another "is that a netbook?" conversation before this film. i've also noted that it makes people slightly less likely to sit beyond me in my row because they feel bad about disturbing me. i have an aisle seat this time, so this is particularly evident. it's actually easier to stand up with Bianca than it is to stand up with a book and keep my place.) the house manager asked us all to sing happy birthday to one of the volunteers. it was bad, awkward, and exceedingly sweet. hooray for SIFF. nearly start time. i've gotten to the point where i will type until someone appears to do announcements, since even after that there will be an eternal series of ads for SIFF, the 35 Club, CityArts, the SIFFter iPhone app, and another SIFF bumper. sometimes there is also a random preview for another film, not always one in the festival or even subtitled. (this was actually a fun excercise before Stella, where i got to test my French. i got the gist, happy about that.)

The Hurt Locker feels like truth. not that it told me anything revelatory about the experience of combat, but there is an excellent sense of seeing something real rather than the movie version. it's a bomb squad in Baghdad in 2004. their leader is replaced with less than 40 days left on their tour. mayhem ensues. it has one writer (who was an embedded reporter) and the director chose to produce independently to use less-known actors in the main roles (among other things). this creates a sense of immersion that i don't think would be possible if you knew the faces. shot in Jordan, with Iraqi actors, it really works.

took yesterday off from films in order to get really caught up at work. now i'm not leaving anyone hanging. fingers crossed that my phone doesn't ring. i chose to stay home the rest of the evening to have a leisurely dinner with C and cuddle on the couch. totally worth it.

today starts with a press preview, then (assuming the bus gods smile upon me) my first stop at the Harvard Exit and then on to back-to-back at the Neptune. three-film-rule be damned.

Cold Souls
Small Crime
The Higher Force
Hansel and Gretel

right now, coffeeannascone at Verite. there was someone here filming, i assume as part of the hype for Sweet Crude (the coffee shop is one of the backers). this stop confirms that Bianca is not always hibernating on lid close as she is supposed to. will be watching for clear repro conditions to pass on to the Kuki team. sigh.

i was reading a great science book, Proust and the Squid. i left the house thinking i had a good 80 pages left. guess what? over seventy of those pages are notes and index. buggerbuggerbugger i have nothing left to read and am lugging the dead weight of a hardcover library book for the rest of the day >:( i have a nice big TBR pile at home plus some magazines. sigh. i may have to buy a magazine today.

Cold Souls is in the vein of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich. it's charming and full of whimsical touches. an actor (Paul Giamatti) is having trouble in rehearsals for Uncle Vanya. following the recommendation of his agent, he checks out a soul extraction service. mayhem ensues. i enjoyed it. the first half of the film is richer if you are familiar with Uncle Vanya. (now i totally want to see Paul Giamatti as Vanya. damn.)

in my favorite seat at Harvard Exit. had an easy bus ride up, and a pleasant conversation with seatmates who admired Bianca.

Small Crime is a sweet, charming story of a young police officer on a Greek island who aspires to something more than handing out warnings for speeding. when a man is found dead at the bottom of a cliff, he begins to investigate. in the process he gets to know the island's most famous resident. it's a mystery/romantic comedy, deftly done. the teens to my left and the folks in their sixties to my right were all pleased. recommended.

on the 49 to the Neptune, making good time. hopefully i'll get to have a hot dog before the next one. pleased that word of mouth on yesterday, including the films that i planned to see, was very negative. i missed nothing!

the Icelandic vice-consul is a couple rows ahead of me. (the consulate is in an unassuming bu‎ilding about a block from my house.) i've been handed a slick magazine-sized Iceland promo brochure. looks like the screening is kind of sparsely attended. sad. i liked the Icelandic film last year.

the hot dog place by the Neptune has been replaced by a more general snack counter run by a Thai couple. the wrap i bought was delicious, cheap, and too much to eat in one sitting. i won't mind working my way through the menu - it means i will get to eat some vegetables in the next few weeks :)

The Higher Force was okay. it's an amiable slacker comedy about a small-time crook who lies to get ahead. i most enjoyed the German guy who only speaks English. a lot of the humor is about people aspiring to be something they're not (like the Icelandic hood in a tracksuit and cornrows). it's the sort of film i would find tiresome in English but the setting gave it charm.

the next film is Korean. i've heard mixed buzz on it. since it's my last of the night, if it's at all tiresome it will be a walkout. big groups of Korean young people coming in. we're already late to start and the director is supposed to be here. i would like to see C awake tonight. probably not going to happen.

director had a family emergency.

Hansel and Gretel: overgrown Twilight Zone episode meets Asian horror film. great design, great sense of freakiness and dread. it's about half an hour too long - it seems like about three scripts pasted together. (warning: child abuse plus horror violence against children.) great child actors, some well-done scares, not for me.

i have no memory of C leaving this morning. i slept hard, hit the snooze a few times, but still managed to catch the right buses and have a pleasant ride to the Egyptian, arriving just as the ticket holders were starting to pour in. still got a legroom seat. (didn't get breakfast, though. must rectify this. i have a break scheduled between this film and the next.)

today's slate: We Live in Public
Chef's Special
Terribly Happy
Warlords

(dude behind me asserting his hate of cupcakes can shut up any time now. i don't mind if he hates cupcakes, i do mind that he hates them because he feels the trend has passed. oh, and now he's comparing SIFF to Sundance. what a tool.)

We Live in Public is brash and loud, befitting its subject, Josh Harris. it chronicles the height of the dotcom bubble craziness, while showing us just how prescient Harris was. the core of the film is a chronicle of Quiet, an art project bunker in NYC where residents could do anything free of cost (food, drugs, sex, firing range) as long as they agreed to constant surveillance and signed their rights to that footage away. (sound familiar? i know there's at least one Big Brother fan on my flist.) it was at the end of 1999, so it was ultimately broken up because people told the police they were a millenarian cult. i'm guessing that he will resurface - technology has caught up with his ideas for internet television and constant surveillance. Harris was present at the Q&A, but he still hasn't seen the film. the current agreement is that he will watch it for the first time while being filmed...and then record the commentary for the DVD. they were trying to interview us as we left the theatre. after watching the film, one has very little desire to be on tape.

lovely brunch at Rosebud. i have no idea why i haven't been there before. (mrdorbin and southplains are here!) it's another beautiful day, so i walked down to Pacific Place, sat in a sunbeam, and used their public wifi to email back and forth with C. sometimes i really love living in the future.

the theater is pretty darn full. this is a Spanish comedy with gay themes so i shouldn't be too surprised. once again, being alone gets me a prime seat.
took forever to get started. and then, there was a trailer for El General. but the trailer ran very very much like the opening credits for a film. since i lived through a wrong print yesterday, i called out. and was wrong, but we all had a good laugh and then the feature started.
Chef's Special is overstuffed and melodramatic, in the vein of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. it's the story of a gay restauranteur whose life is complicated by the arrival of a hot new neighbor and his two children (in the wake of their mother's death). mayhem ensues. there were many-many predictable notes, but several genuine laughs and some smart writing for the kids. i liked it in spite of the barrage of slurs...if SIFF's selections are any indication, Europeans are all casually homophobic :/ recommended if you enjoy the sort of comedy where one member of the couple walks in on the other one in a compromising position, and the compromising position is really totally innocent.

in the Egyptian. and i admit that i don't remember what this one is supposed to be about at all. but i marked it as a keeper, and i definitely want to see the film that shows after, so it's worth breaking the three film rule. (wow, they let the ZonePerfect people inside the theater. i've just been handed a snack bar.)
Terribly Happy was excellently messed up in the way it seems only Danish films can be. take the initial premise of Hot Fuzz, then make everyone including the big city cop more creepy and flawed, never have a shootout. add bog and tabby cat. prepare to be surprised. i loved it. it was a bit of a slow burn at first, but it was designed with a building sense of dread and layers of strangeness that went into twists and turns that kept the entire theater gasping. not for the squeamish (but it has a Lynchian flair that makes me think it might be for buhrger.)

i'm settled back in a legroom seat getting ready for Warlords. i think this is going to be an overfull house. i've been waiting for an Asian epic, and the buzz on this one is good.

interesting time period - 1860s China - so the technology level includes rifles and cannon, but they're also fighting with polearms, arrows, and swords. seeing Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro together is a treat. (i have such a crush on Andy Lau. i'm not usually into the pretty boys, but there's something about him.) it's an interesting story, but in this case the film suffers from being based on a true story. what starts out as an underdog martial epic in the vein of Braveheart or Battle of Wits becomes a straight-ahead tragedy. the transition is a bit awkward. still, the underdog martial epic half has moments that were edge of seat, screaming and cheering awesome. Jet Li is particularly good, rising to the complexity of his character.

trying an alternate bus route home tonight. i don't think it was a true time savings, but i think it might be on a non-holiday weekday when the buses run more often. anyway, i would rather wait across from the Neptune than by the hole in the ground on Capitol Hill. (oh wow, we stopped in Wallingford and the smell of Molly Moon waffle cones just blew in the door. nom. why there are fresh waffle cones after midnight on a weekday is beyond me. or maybe someone has perfume that smells *exactly* like fresh waffle cone.)

shaken. left the house in a rush, forgot my pocket things (cash, id, etc) turned around, got them, arrived at corner to see bus across the street. when the walk sign on Market turned, i was off like a bullet right into the path of a car turning right. people were shouting at me and everything but i was completely oblivious. car stopped, everyone is okay, the bus driver let me on the bus at the light, i stumbled to a seat in the back.

at the Uptown. grabbed a cheeseburger at Dick's, decided chocolate would help me, trying not to calculate how many cents each concession stand M&M costs as i crunch them down. for some reason the Uptown is the home of passholders bitching - about customer service, too much handheld camera work, get off my lawn...

anyway, today's slate, chosen mostly to let me spend a solid bit of time with C at Folklife:
Rumba
Morris, A Life With Bells On
Stella

house for Rumba is pretty sparse. but it is a beautiful, beautiful day, so i expect casual attendance to be low.
d'oh, they started out playing the wrong movie. but now that i've seen the first few minutes of Fruit Fly i definitely want to go. leading with a musical number about riding public transit in San Francisco was brilliant.
Rumba is a nearly-dialog-free tour de force of physical comedy. a married couple of teachers go to a rumba competition. on the way home, mayhem ensues. saying much more takes away from the wonder of discovery. i knew something was going on when i saw how ripped the woman was. she's built like physical theatre artists are - all iron wire. damn. the scene where she's on one foot is just remarkable. very funny.

now i'm at Morris: A Life With Bells On. a bunch of Morris dancers just performed and are in the audience, which is going to be rough for quiet watching what with the bells on their legs.
oh, lovely. the film is a charming mockumentary, and it shows regard for Morris while poking fun at the inherent silliness of it. the showing ended with cheers. the rap over the credits is worth the price of admission.

settled in the Uptown for Stella, which is pretty full. i'm amused that someone in front of me is reading off the Cannes results from their iPhone.
Stella was a technically proficient film. i just didn't care for it. plus, i guessed early on that our tween heroine was going to end up getting sexually abused, and i wasn't wrong. thanks for nothing, French coming-of-age movie. i nearly walked out, but i thought maybe something would happen at the end. not recommended.

it was okay that i stayed, since C made a surprise appearance to whisk me home. hugs can almost make up for a lame movie.

transcribed
the smell of the leather journal is comforting, a tonic of peace and familiarity. i was supposed to have Bianca today, but all things that use batteries have failed me. (i failed them. phone never got attached to charger, Bianca was plugged into the spare battery but not into the wall...and open so not hibernating. it's been a stressful few days for me and it shows in the little things that slide.) i was up late with D&D last night but it was worthwhile. many hobgoblins died for my mental health.

C found my lost schedule. it turns out that i did have the weekend ready to go. so now i am in my favorite row at the Neptune (just under the balcony with extra legroom). this film is one i'm looking forward to, but the word of mouth on the quality of the print is bad.

today's slate: The Yes Men Fix the World
Tulpan
I'm No Dummy
Bronson (a maybe, depending on how tired i am)

i adored The Yes Men Fix the World. The Yes Men are a hoaxing organization focused on corporate responsibility. the film chronicles several of their exploits. watching this in the wake of reading a discussion on debunkingwhite about using humor and shaming in civil disobedience made me think harder about what i was seeing. what made the film for me was that The Yes Men question the value of their efforts. they recognize that they could be harming the people they set out to help and that their acts signify nothing.

there are questions that remain unresolved for me, the greatest being who finances these exploits? would they have helped more people by giving the money - spent on plane tickets, cameras, swag, props, etc - to the clinic they visited in Bhopal in the film? perhaps it is all worthwhile if they keep reminding people of the unresolved issues in Bhopal and in New Orleans, of the toll that we take every day on the environment that will be paid by our children's children.

this year SIFF brought back Talking Pictures, where they have local experts discuss the film. great choices - a UW history prof specializing in civil disobedience, and a Seattle U prof that teaches business ethics. so very cool to hear a discussion of The Yes Men related back to John Brown.

the film itself just rocks. it's a grand entertainment, but still a little thoughtful. the sugar is so very good that we may not notice what we swallowed until later. highly recommended - i expect it won't get a typical distribution ;) (this was the last Seattle showing, but it may be better to see it at home anyway. the digital projection at the Neptune is just as lousy as it was last year. dammit SIFF.)

Tulpan was film-festival good. we peer into an alien world, the steppes of Kazakhstan. as the programmers said, it reminds me of The Story of the Weeping Camel, but with a looser narrative arc. i think i missed a couple of early bits of important info, so the plot wasn't as clear as i would have liked. but really, this one was about seeing inside the yurt. will Asa get the girl and get to be a herder? if you won't be satisfied with "maybe" and the tractor decorated with porn cutouts, you might want to spend time elsewhere.

I'm No Dummy is a documentary about ventriloquists. high production values, great archival footage, and well-chosen bits of performances. it mixes clips with talking heads and manages to be both informative and entertaining. see it today for the Q&A.

Food Inc is one of those documentaries with a non-neutral POV. it's not flamingly so (like anything by Michael Moore or Expelled) but it does end with a What Can I Do About This?/Call to Action.

the film is firmly focused on the US and talking to US viewers about the way corporations have come to control what we eat. talking heads include Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. if you know those names, the film won't tell you much new information. if you don't know those names, then this is a slickly packaged and clearly presented argument for knowing more about where your food comes from and making informed decisions.

because i am a farm kid (and already familiar with Pollan and Schlosser's work) the segment that caught me was the one on Monsanto Roundup-Ready soybeans. since shortly after my family got out of the business, Monsanto's patented herbicide-resistant soybeans have taken over 90% of the market. because they have a patent on those seeds, it is illegal to save seeds to plant in the next season. because it's very difficult to isolate your non-patented plants from the patented plants in your neighbor's field, one can easily end up with Monsanto patented genes mixed into your old skool beans. and then, the sueing. there was a passing comment made that with the advent of the Monsanto engineered beans that the land-grant university research programs are withering. as far as i'm concerned, there's a whole documentary right here. the deposition footage of the Monsanto lawyers grilling the elderly man with the seed cleaning business (traveling from farm to farm with a machine that does prep for using saved seeds) was heartbreaking.

it would be a very good rental. (warning: full of butchering scenes both unsafe and safe. but if you can't stand to see that you should really rethink eating meat...)

finally made it to a preview today, Departures.

absolutely lovely. Departures is the story of a man's second career (preparing bodies for cremation) and how endings become beginnings. i especially loved the window into everyday life in an area of Japan that i had not seen before. the toughest thing about watching the film as an American is that there is a cultural taboo about dead bodies that we don't have. (yes, we think a job in the funeral industry is odd or undesirable. but we wouldn't tell a loved one that they were unclean or that they should quit that job and do something - anything - else.)

solid acting, nicely written, humor used sparingly and well. recommended.



it was good to see all the familiar faces, and to slide into old habits and rhythms. (alas, the new habit of bringing Bianca to write this entry was a failure - i managed to accidentally drain the battery. mercury retrograde 1, ironymaiden 0.) i ended up walking to work through the Market, which is always worthwhile.