Funny, because while I wanted to see this movie, I just didn’t feel like it when Sky wanted to go. I was in a weird mood where I knew I ought to go to the movie, even if I wasn’t stoked about the effort. I have now seen 3 amazing films when in this exact mood:
1) Silent Light
2) True Grit
3) Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Watch the preview:

Apart Together (directed by Wang Quan’an)

The early afternoon was great. We drove down to Renton for it — it was showing in a high school’s theater. This show got extra points for the adorable high school boys who were selling goods from their Home Ec class before the show. Excellent. The movie (Apart Together) was a very sweet, subtle film about the reunion between a couple who were separated almost a lifetime ago. I loved seeing all of the shots of life in Shanghai and the dynamics between all of the family members. Highly recommended.

Ling Feng (as Liu Yangsheng) and Yu Lan (as Qiao Yu-e)

After the movie we took advantage of being in Renton (it’s a rare thing) and went to Naan-n-Curry. The first time I saw that familiar sign up here in Washington I did a double take and make Sky stop the car. It turns out they opened up one restaurant here in the Seattle area. The Naan-n-Curry shops in San Francisco are usually pretty grimy and in shady areas (but still tasty). This one is on a decrepit Main Street and is a little nicer than its SF counterparts. The food is amazing and it’s the only really good Indian we’ve got up here, so we drive 30-40 minutes once in awhile just to eat there. We had a delicious lunch.

I sat out (or rather laid out) the movie at home and instead got a massage. I had a wicked neck crick and found a massage place that was open, had appointments available, and was just a few blocks from our house. I win! I got a blessedly mellow and pain relieving massage which did me a world of good.

Without (directed by Mark Jackson)

The late show was a movie filmed on Whidbey Island, which is similar in culture and population to Vashon Island, where some of Sky’s family lives. Without had a promising premise: girl with broken heart is taking care of a vegetative man and goes crazy with boredom and loneliness. The execution wasn’t too great, though. Lots of nice shots and some interesting moods, but overall the film (or the director) didn’t see to know where it was going. Sometimes that’s okay, and even makes for a more interesting narrative; however, it didn’t work in this film.

Joslyn Jensen (as Joslyn)

So one “yes” and one “no” which seems pretty par for the course when it comes to SIFF. Sometimes I get frustrated by the duds, but then again, I’ll never forget that I first caught Marwencol* @ SIFF, so sometimes it’s definitely worth it.

UP NEXT: I’ll be writing about a fantastic movie that I saw that wasn’t in the film festival. Hint: it made me cry like a baby.

*If you haven’t seen Marwencol yet, GO FIND IT. It’s out on DVD now, so you can get it at the library or from Netflix. Seriously, you will not regret it.

The piece itself, Kontakthof, looks amazing. I’ve never seen it in full but now I want to hunt down a copy of Pina’s group performing it. Seeing the kids try to work through the emotions and motivations for some of the more powerful scenes was pretty fantastic. They had no relation to the piece and didn’t know where to start in connecting withit. At first they were so set against it, saying things like “We don’t understand what’s behind this,” but with the help of the rehearsal directors (and former company dancers) they soon realized they could make the moves and the characters their own.

At first watching the kids learn the steps was a bit painful — you could tell the directors wanted badly to just position them this way or that way, but soon they learned, and it occured to me that coltish kids with lots of energy and no training are kind of ideal for modern dance training! They don’t mind being awkward – they don’t have ballet training to fight. They want to please. They are ready for the molding. Another fun thing to watch was how they progressed from not being able to really touch one another without being super embarassed and uncomfortable to being able to paw, fondle, grope, and lean on one another with no problem by the end. That kind of body intimacy takes on a new level when you think of the variety of ways in which teens touch but don’t touch.

The teens, who attend different schools and come from all sorts of different backgrounds, all live in Wuppertal, Germany. I loved watching the teens grow in confidence and make friends across different groups. Quite a few were refugees, which made for some gripping (but not sappy) interviews. The movie didn’t go into how the kids were selected or how the project was advertised – I’d be curious to know more about that aspect.

We were both taken by the super rad Wuppertal Schwebebahn or “Electric Highway Installation (Floating Tram), Eugen Langen System” – a crazy hanging tram that takes the kids to and from practice. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love the Internet. Before I did some Googling, I thought of it only as “that weird tram thing” but now I have a NAME IN GERMAN and also photos. Snazz.

A trailer and more info is available here: http://www.performingartsconvention.org/artists/id=127

So I was pretty primed for this movie experience. I didn’t rush out and see it because in a way, I was saving it for when I really needed a little goodness. After a stressful couple of weeks, it was time. Sky met me after work and we ushered into the almost empty theater. We were totally enveloped in the story, the world, the everything.

I’d heard or read a few different reviews, most of them positive. Some of them said the movie was flat or too “genre”y. Which — I mean, what does that mean exactly? What’s wrong with a genre? Others complained that the language was too whimsical or overwrought. I loved it. I’d read somewhere that the book is exactly like that, and I think I’ll put a hold on the book for that reason.

The movie kept me on the edge of my seat, completely. I was so taken up in the story, in the language, in the beeeauuutiful cinematography (those swirling snowflakes!) that I felt completely taken away. Like a Calgon bath, but I was dry. Sky and I kept looking over at each other with wide eyes. What’s going to happen next? This is so exciting!

“I do not care a thing about guns — if I did, I would have one that worked.”

Everyone was great. Even the horses were great. The scenery? Great. The humor? Great! Great, great, great. This movie was pretty much what I fantasized about when I was a little girl and wanted to go on adventures and be brave. I didn’t think it was flat, and I think it was a Coen Brothers movie, through and through. They haven’t dissapointed me yet, those guys.

Also? How could I not love a movie that features a crazy old dude in a bear skin?

7 girls on a holiday...

Movie poster

It’s kind of like “A Hard Day’s Night” collided with an episode of Benny Hill, with some Dario Argento thrown in. And probably a musical like, say, “The Music Man” recreated in the 1970s.

Sky and I watched this on a rainy Sunday afternoon and it was just perfect. I could watch it again, actually. Too bad it’s overdue!

Desk Set : watched last Friday w/ Katie & Sky
This movie wasn’t half as fun as I thought it would be. I love me some Katherine Hepburn, or at least I thought I did, but I spent much of this movie confused because she was laughing her crazy head-thrown-back New England laugh and I didn’t understand what what so godamned funny about the plot. Maybe you had to be there. The clothes were great and I took some small pride in the fact that the librarians were better than a machine (even if they were rattling off complex, memorized answers just like robots most of the time). Anyway, this is one of those LIBRARIAN movies that you’re supposed to watch and so I watched it and I think Party Girl should be our group movie if we get to vote on it.

Divorce Italian Style (Divorzio all’italiana if you’re being fancy): watched last night w/ Sky
This movie was hilarious and I really enjoyed that they made a totally hot lady (Fefe’s wife) look “ugly” by giving her a unibrow and a mustache. Those hips were out of this world. Also the weird dubbing was pretty great and I loved all of the clothes and I’d like to live in a castle now.

Visual Acoustics: watched tonight w/ Sky
This film has been selling out @ Northwest Film Forum – so much so that they were showing it in both theaters tonight. It’s a documentary about Julius Shulman, a world famous photographer who is best known for capturing modern architecture in Southern California: Case Study Houses, Palm Springs, etc. He was a swell guy and the documentary had a lot of great footage of him visiting with all sorts of people: previous owners of houses, new owners, and architects. Shulman was a pleasure to watch, and his photographs were amazing. That’s about all that was good about this documentary, though. There were all sorts of woozy special effects, random Jib Jab style animations, a not very cohesive story line and weird edits throughout. It seemed more like a really long Power Point presentation (with some video thrown in) than a film. A few times they didn’t give names of people who were talking until they’d been on screen for a minute or so – super frustrating.

It wasn’t an awful documentary, but it wasn’t a good one, either. I’m a connoisseur of the documentary film, and it makes me cranky when I see half of Seattle lining up to see a mediocre one when there are so many AMAZING ones slipping under the radar every day. I also take issue with people who assume documentary making is easy, or easier than making a fiction film.

* Brain is stuffed due to entirely new job in entirely new place which I don’t really want to talk about because I’m still trying to reconcile myself with the fact that I have an entirely new job in an entirely new place

Indian Pizza is life changing

Eating: Italian Food. I’m on an Italian kick, or something in the Universe is consistantly directing me towards tomatoes. I made a huge lasagna last week, Jaime and I hit up both an Indian Pizza joint (Zante’s, amazing) and a Greek Italian restaurant while I visited, and last night Sky made us a delicious batch of fettucine alfredo with crisped kale and onions on top – mmmm. Sweets. I finally visited the fabled Miette in the Ferry building. I brought back some cookies for Sky, but ate some delicious macaroons and an Old Fashioned cupcake while there. Man oh man.

Playing: I’m not a big game player, but Jaime and Mike introduced me to Plants vs. Zombies and I played all 60 minutes of the free trial version with Sky watching and giving me tips on where to plant stuff. He’s even less of a gamer than I am, so that was pretty fun.

Listening:

• The Replacements’ Don’t Tell a Soul
• Magnetic Fields: i – this album was in the car when I drove to Half Moon Bay, so I’ve got the songs running through my head

This actress' facial expressions and body language were just amazing

• The Hangover (2009) – this was funny, watched it with Jaime in SF (I also thought it was clever that the Hooker With a Heart of Gold character literally wore a gold, heart shaped pendant)
• Spring Breakdown (2009) – Jaime and I rented this straight-to-video based on a recommendation from Bitch magazine; I think we needed to be drinking wine coolers, as the reviewer recommended
• Extract (2009) – watched alone in SF, cute, but I was sleepy and maybe would like it better awake
• World’s Greatest Dad (2009) – it was nice to see Robin Williams not playing a nanny or some other family-friendly character, wish he’d let go a bit more (I love CRAZY Robin Williams)
• Nights of Cabiria (1957) – we watched this last night; it made being an Italian hooker seem romantic and sweet

Wow – two hookers in one post, sweet.

I tried to watch all of the original Grey Gardens a few weeks ago, but couldn’t get through it. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me – this was supposed to be one of those seminal, amazing, cult-audience-having sort of films. A documentary that changed the face of documentaries.

The fact is there was too much yelling in the original – I couldn’t hear what either of the Edies was saying most of the time because of the talking at the same time/yelling at each other setup. I did enjoy the fashion and the accents, though.

I watched the new version of this story last night. It recreates some of the original footage as well as presenting much of the lead up to the documentary – how the Edies got to where they were. It was fascinating, and I was totally flabbergasted with how well both Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange embodied the Beales – the mannerisms, the tics, the accents, everything! It was uncanny. And awesome.

The costumes were what got me, though. I couldn’t stop staring. The getups that Little Edie came up with when she had just a few pieces of clothing were so clever – it’s not surprising to learn she was a fashion plate when she had more at her disposal. Apparently the director did all sorts of research on the ladies and learned a lot of their back story based on “clues” dropped in the documentary. Fascinating.

So I guess I’ll be one of those unhip folk who like the remake more than the original. I’m sure the former is a better piece of film work and I’m sure it did change the face of documentary making. However, the latter was more fun to watch and suited my mood.

• my posts are not inciting enough
• my posts are not exciting enough
• you do not like the light aqua background of this website and have decided not to read it anymore
• I’m not updating enough

So in order to address some of these possible issues, I’m going to post more. More frequently, that is.

Today for your reading pleasure, is a very quick review of a movie we saw Tuesday night. Moon was playing @ the Harvard Exit, so Sky met me at the library and we grabbed some tasty cold food at Byzantion before shuffling into the air conditioned theatre.

I didn’t know anything about the movie going in to it, and I think that made for the best experience. So I won’t tell you anything about it except that: a) it’s got Sam Rockwell in it, playing a character named Sam, which I found kind of disctracting, and b) it’s directed by the spawn of David Bowie.

Sky and I didn’t get into the swing of things until late in the festival last year, so this year we tried to get a jump on it. Last Thursday we decided to see whichever film looked best that night. The winner was I’m Gonna Explode, which was conveniently playing just a few minutes from our house.

Maru and Román, two teens in I'm Gonna Explode

We totally lucked out in the festival draw. The movie was fantastic: a great, modern teen love story set in Mexico. The characters were rich, the soundtrack was great, and I really enjoyed the pacing and camerawork. My favorite thing about the film was the depiction of the teens – they were saavy, hip, and weird. I feel that so many portrayals of non-Americans don’t show any individuality, they are so based on cultural stereotype. So that was refreshing.

I also enjoyed the depiction of a sexually awakening girl – she wanted to do it, but was freaked out about doing it, and didn’t want the guy to expect her to do it, even though they both kind of knew he did. It was all very layered and enjoyable to watch. Thumbs up!