Tom Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man was, I think, a richer experience having seen Chris & Don: A Love Story. It’s a documentary about the relationship between A Single Man‘s author, Christopher Isherwood (best known for writing The Berlin Tales which inspired Cabaret) and his partner, artist Don Bachardy, and worth watching in its own right.

A Single Man is almost too formal of a film, every bit of color precise in a way that rivals the desaturation of Medicine for Melancholy. Eight months after the death of his partner Jim (Matthew Goode, rocking an American accent), George Falconer (Colin Firth, aging well) has decided to kill himself. The film is strikingly internal, though not claustrophobic for that. We follow him through his last day, through what he knows are goodbyes, through the weight of memories & the brief shining moments that, with a flash of color, literally brighten his day. The film maintains the ending of the novella which I think is a mistake, but aside from that, it is perfection.

Since I complain about American gay film so much, I must acknowledge that Mr Ford has pulled it off; A Single Man is first and foremost a film about grief. It’s not divorced from sexuality — there are several heartbreaking moments about the gay experience in the 1960s — but it’s a film first and a gay film second. It’s about time, and it’s ironic, I suppose, that it’s based on a novella published over 40 years ago.

(On a side note, it took me half of the movie to figure out who Nicholas Hoult reminds me of, now that he’s all grown up. Answer? Colin Morgan. Or perhaps Colin Morgan if he had a sandwich. Hoult’s pretty thin too, but Morgan can injure himself on his own cheekbones.)

The full version of Red Cliff is actually two films, totaling over four hours. For the Western release, it’s chopped down to two-and-a-half hours. There was a representative at the screening I attended, asking people on their way out how they liked they film. I was tempted to respond, “nice and all, but I’d like to see the whole thing someday”.

The full release can’t fix all of the problems, like that it features one of the dullest sex scenes I have ever seen (quite a feat considering it features Tony Leung), and it would be bound to include even more trite scenes (such as the classic alliance-building scene of one blade of grass easily broken, but several woven together can resist). It would, however, spare us the horrible English voice-over at the beginning, and could perhaps give more power behind the many great action sequences.

John Woo is, after all, masterful at action, but perhaps not at scale. The film is gorgeous (I loved the paper lanterns rising), the battles are clear and not difficult to follow (and have some great maneuvers with only a little wire-fu), but we just aren’t made to care all that much most of the time. Takeshi Kaneshiro’s military strategist is a lot of fun, and of course Tony Leung would be worth seeing in a dramatic staging of the phone book, but it’s just not enough.

If you want to see Leung break your heart in wire-fu, rent Hero. To see him & Woo work action magic (with Chow Yun-Fat), rent Hard Boiled. For Kaneshiro, try House of Flying Daggers or Chungking Express & Fallen Angels.

I was sorry to miss this documentary at SIFF, so I was pretty stoked that they booked it at SIFF Cinema for the fall. Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love introduces us to Ndour, who is a compelling performer, and his family and band members who are all characters in their own right.

It follows his success as a musician, as well as the strength of his Muslim faith which he chooses to express beautifully in the highly-controversial album Egypt. It raised a big question for me, though, that the documentary tried to avoid: namely that the extreme reactions to the album in Senegal melted away once (spoiler!) it was honored with a Grammy, giving it outside recognition. It just made me go hmm.

I almost can’t be objective about this film. Wong Kar-Wai is one of my top five favorite directors. Tony Leung is probably my favorite actor working today. Takeshi Kaneshiro is just darned pretty. But, screw it. Who wants objectivity in the first place? So I will say this: the only reason Chungking Express isn’t one of my top five (or even ten) films is because WKW followed it with Happy Together and In the Mood for Love. Also, Chungking Express itself is probably best viewed as a double feature with Fallen Angels, the third linked story.

As it is, Chungking Express is a film in two halves, two linked love stories. Kaneshiro’s cop is trying to stop time, one month after his girlfriend broke up with him. Faye Wong is cleaning up Leung’s life and her own, waiting until they’re ready for each other. It’s all set among bright lights and rain and the bustle of the city, impressionistic & quirky in the best of ways.

A beautiful, funny, romantic movie. Thank you, Metro Classics, for showing it.

I am pretty sure that Sunday afternoon’s screening of An Education was the first time I’ve ever had to stand in line at the Egyptian for a regular run movie about straight people. Amazing. But there I was in that line because I’ve basically been obsessed with seeing this movie ever since I first saw the trailer. It was worth the wait.

Carey Mulligan is the stand out discovery of the film, which should be no surprise at all to anyone who remembers her as Sally Sparrow in the Doctor Who episode “Blink”. (I say this with no sarcasm at all. She was one of the very rare one-off characters I wished desperately could stay.) Her Jenny is the 16 we all rather wish we had been, pretty & clever, seeing through some things entirely and others not at all.

She meets Peter Sarsgaard’s David, who charms us as thoroughly as he charms her. He charms her parents even more, as really what Jenny wants isn’t David but the world he’s showing her: Paris & restaurants & dancing & excitement & beautiful friends (Rosamund Pike & Dominic Cooper). Marvelous, with a perfect tone throughout.

According to the IMDb page, Orlando Bloom dropped out a week before filming and was replaced by Dominic Cooper. Bless, sayeth I, because Dom did more with that role than Orlando could ever dream of. Olivia Williams, long a favorite of mine, is a gem as Jenny’s English teacher, and Emma Thompson is a force of nature as the headmistress. Excellent all round.

Roger Ebert posted a link to a piece in the Guardian by Lynn Barber, the author of the memoir upon which the film is based. Best to be read after seeing the film, however.

The Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival was last month, but. Here’s the thing. I find it pretty hard to get excited about it because there is so much crap queer film. Plus, a huge part of the program is comprised of shorts, and there are many, many more crap short films than there are short films worth seeing. Add to that the fact that the majority of American queer film is terrible, so you can also cross off a whole bunch of features.

Since I’m a member of SIFF, though, I got some free ticket offers, and I went to two of them. First up was the awkwardly-titled The Man Who Loved Yngve, a sweet Norwegian coming-of-age film (high school kids in a rock band!) that just happened to include a gay love story. It wasn’t a perfect film, but it was exactly what I look for in a queer movie, namely, a movie with characters who happen to be queer. Just like life. It won the juried award for Best Feature, so I guess it was a good one to opt for!

The second film was the sing-a-long West Side Story, which was fantastic of course. It’s one of the musicals I was obsessed with when I was a kid; I wore out the soundtrack & I owned a book that contained the script for it and Romeo and Juliet, so it was just neat to see it on the big screen, and neater still to see it with a largely queer audience.