the girly who shall end all girls

I've gone back to prioritizing films on my list that have limited passholder screenings available.

Strawberry Mansion
i started doubting this one after about five minutes, so i tried an experiment: i set a 20 min timer. still wasn't into it when the alarm went off, quit watching. there was some cool stuff going on - near future, dreams are being recorded and taxed for their content. of course that means a high percentage of the film is "dreams" and i am not the target audience for that.

it was packaged with a short that i liked quite a bit, The Other Morgan.

Writing with Fire
solid doc about a group of Dalit women in India who run a newspaper, and their move into digital content. the film covers two national election cycles and the effect that the Modi government has on life in their state. fun to see them go from being unsure about how to use a smartphone to running a youtube channel with hundreds of millions of views.

Son of Monarchs
this was packaged with a 27 min short that did not appeal and within a few minutes i could tell that i should fast-forward to the feature. one distinct advantage over the theater.

immigrant story: he doesn't fit in back in Mexico because he left, and he feels a bit alienated and homesick when he's in NY. his hometown is a monarch butterfly migration destination, and he's a scientist doing research on the color of butterfly wings. lots of great imagery of monarch colonies in the wild and of insect research getting done in the lab. it's a good film (has already won awards) but is more about feelings than plot.

Started the day fighting a headache, so it was a no subtitles day.

Will come back to edit this properly, but

Chuck Connelly: Into the Light
Doc about an agoraphobic artist (so good). now i'm curious about a previous documentary about him that chronicles how he got to where he is now. in the present he's clean and sober, but he's not leaving the house much and it is full to the rafters with his paintings because he's never stopped. and damn, they're good. i still have no idea what he's living on since he doesn't seem to sell them.

This Town
New Zealand comedy, first "walkout" of the fest. like Eagle vs Shark from many festivals ago, this seemed like it should be comedy gold - dude acquitted of murdering his family in a small town tries to date again while an ex-cop convinced of his guilt keeps working the case. but like Eagle vs Shark it fell completely flat for me, probably because i don't know enough about New Zealand culture to get the jokes.

Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir
Doc about Amy Tan, will be on American Masters, watch on PBS if you like Amy Tan. she has an interesting background and it highlights how much her life and family feeds directly into her fiction.

All Sorts
Washington-made quirky comedy about an underground filing competition. this had a lot going for it, but really needed more polish to be more than a curiosity. it was completely outshined by the short that played before it, Sing Along if You Know the Words, a sweet and funny vignette of a man with social anxiety navigating a dinner party with friends. i hope this one pops up on Vimeo so that i can share it around.

other passholders started watching at midnight; i started when i got off work. i'm planning to do two films most weeknights and as much as i can stand on the weekends.

Riders of Justice
my pick of the festival, did not disappoint. i fell in love with Mads Mikkelsen + Anders Thomas Jensen with Adam's Apples. i would honestly probably watch Mads Mikkelsen read the phone book, but this one is what i come to the festival for - found family, black humor, meticulous structure, and murder, all in one glorious package. Mads is rocking a glorious beard and at one point an ugly Christmas sweater complete with bells around the neck. yay.

Super Frenchie
this year's extreme sports biopic, a genre which i am a total sucker for. dude is a ski base-jumper. yes, that is just as crazy as it sounds. watch him do insane shit! watch him get hurt just like you knew he would from the trailer! watch him come back because that's what movies are made of! he's charming, they appear to live in Oregon, and there's so much gopro happening. (i was fascinated by how many cameras were coming off of his body and all the different places to mount them.) i would have liked it more if i had seen it on a movie screen, there's something about that vertiginous helicopter footage of mountains when the images are actually towering above you. worth an afternoon on the couch sometime, but you should just watch The Dawn Wall, a much better example of the genre.