confessions of an amateur cineaste

Now we know why Tyra is not rocking Dillon TX these days. She found herself pregnant, fled town, got a job working for Dennis Quaid, of all people, as a waitress in a last-stop diner in the middle of the desert. What desert? Who cares? She’s hooked up with Quaid’s son, a dude named after a car, not because she loves him or anything, but he’s willing to take care of the baby. Whatta guy.

At the same time, an inexplicably tattooed Paul Bettany has crashed to earth in LA (of all places), where he chops off his own wings & stitches up the wounds. Hard core, one might think, but still no Stephen Maturin. He loads himself up with weaponry (just like a good Boondock Saint), has a brief spat with another angel (who has the Master’s Excorcist-like knack for taking over other people’s heads), and speeds off for same diner.

Is he desperate for pancakes? No. No he is not, and more’s the pity, because they have a short stack for a mere $3.75. He is there to protect the baby! (This is not a spoiler. In fact, I could summarize THE ENTIRE FILM and still not spoil anything.) Protect the baby from what, you might ask?

God’s army. Which is? Zombies. Yes, essentially. Zombies sent as a second flood to eradicate mankind. Zombies! Zombies driving cars! Zombies carrying balloons! One zombie with a paper bag over its head for no apparent reason! And my favorite zombie, which I will not give away. You’ll have to go and make a guess.

Legion might be my new favorite movie. It’s so hilariously bad, I think everyone should see it. It’s essentially a Sci-Fi film, with (maybe) a slightly larger budget. More explosions. About the same level of script, which is to say, essentially no script at all. Acting ranging from a game effort all things considered to straight up camp. Cinematography that must have cost a whole buck and a half.

I want the soundtrack, so every time I give a nearly touching speech, angels will sing, and every time I walk down the hall at work there will be Chanting of Doom.

It’ll be amazing. But do you know what is even more amazing? That my beloved Mr Bettany has done a second feature with this director. It’s called Priest, and comes out in August. Want to know what it’s about? Of course you do! Per the IMDb: “A priest disobeys church law to track down the vampires who kidnapped his niece.”

PAUL BETTANY IS A PRIEST. THERE ARE VAMPIRES. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?

Plot? Well. Better luck next time.

(No, you didn’t miss it, I *am* five movies behind. I lack patience.)

I saw stuff! It ruled! I am going to see lots more starting tonight, though, so let’s catch up right quick.

* 3:10 to Yuma. I liked it a lot, but didn’t *love* it. I hadn’t paid much attention to casting beyond the obvious, though, and was delighted to get so much Dallas Roberts. He’s worth seeing in anything.

* Dan in Real Life. I hit this free screening because I kinda dug a lot of people in the cast & because all the music was done by Sondre Lerche. It’s your standard romcom, but I thought it had charm. You have to know, though, that I am a sucker for any sort of performance in a film, and this one had a family improv-round-the-piano *and* a family talent show. Pure win, so far as I am concerned, especially as one of the brothers is played by Norbert Leo Butz.

* Lust, Caution. Eagerly anticipated by me, obviously, as I am a huge Tony Leung fan. And that Ang Lee guy isn’t bad either. I read a lot of mixed reviews before I went, and they’re all wrong. It was an utterly gorgeous film, it did not feel nearly as long as it was, and the critical obsession with the sex in it says a lot more about the critics than it does about the sex.

* Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Hello, awards season. Beautiful film, unsurprising to anyone who saw the first one. I’m still just utterly delighted that we got a sequel at all, and it’s marvelous. I’m looking forward to the inevitable special edition of the two films.

* The Darjeeling Limited. Oh Wes. Thank you. At this point I don’t adore it like I do Rushmore & Tenenbaums, but I really like it a lot and am looking forward to seeing it again. I’ve read a lot of meta on Anderson this week, but most of it has been really reductive, some to the degree you’re wondering if people are seeing the same movies. The obvious example is criticism of the treatment of India in Darjeeling, which tends to skip over little things like facts, and also that the film is clearly critical of the brothers’ use of India. Basically, I want to shake authors and ask if they’re paying attention. If Anderson’s weird about anything (and lord knows he is, and that’s why I love him) he’s weird about *women*. Discuss. (Also, Adrien Brody is painfully attractive. I’m just saying.)

* I saw Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix while recovering from jet lag, so I don’t have anything useful to say about it, except that Neville rules. I’m going to try to catch it on IMAX, if I have time.

* The advantage of not seeing a lot of genre films is that when something like Sunshine comes along you miss all the references and enjoy it on its own merits. Which were mighty. Sure, the science makes no sense and the ending has the hint of cheese. Doesn’t matter. The film is *gorgeous*.

* I do go in for some popcorn films, and as such, The Bourne Ultimatum was by far the three-quel I was most looking forward to. Worth it, as it delivered fully on its promise of awesome.

* Then, to the surprise of no one more than me, I caught a free screening of Superbad. What the trailers don’t tell you is that it’s all about the relationship between Seth & Evan, and their angst about going off to different colleges. It is funny and sweet and crass (particularly Seth) and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. In that, I thought I would only like it for my strange affection towards Michael Cera, but I wound up laughing kind of a lot. So there.

…and now we are caught up. Yay!

Now that the film festival is over, the shiny new SIFF Cinema has started regular programming. They kicked off the summer with the Noir City festival, of which I caught four titles:

* Woman on the Run, starring Ann Sheridan. I’m not sure why it was titled that, as it was the husband on the run, not the wife, but noir titles have me generally befuddled. It’s a standard plot, as he’s on the run after witnessing a murder, but I really enjoyed it, and the final amusement park scene was *highly* effective. I’ve got the shivers again thinking of it.

* It was paired up with Pitfall, as each film described a marriage on the rocks. Pitfall was from the man’s point of view, a fellow stuck in the ideal life who puts a foot out of line and encounters Raymond Burr as the heaviest of heavies.

* Desert Fury was Technicolor noir… which doesn’t quite work for me. I think I might have enjoyed it more if I had taken it as straight-up camp. It certainly works better from that perspective, especially Eddie and Johnny’s relationship & the subtext rapidly becoming text.

* Leave Her to Heaven was another Technicolor noir, with Gene Tierney as a cold-blooded murderess. It was good stuff… except for the ending. Damn Hollywood.

Free previews for the win!

* Nancy Drew was totally fluffy and charming. I like Emma Roberts anyway, and I thought it was a slick move to transport the story to LA, to cut down on comparisons to the books. I mean, it’s a teen movie, not Oscar fodder. But I dug it. Nancy Drew = v resourceful, and I totally need her Guide to Life.

* I really wanted to love Ratatouille (It’s a Pixar movie! Starring a rat!) But… I didn’t. I liked it a -lot-. The rat was great, the story was cute, the animation was, seriously, stunning & beautiful. Plus, Peter O’Toole as the eeeevil critic! But the character of the young chef that Our Rattie Hero hooks up with totally irritated me. Especially his insistence on calling Remy “little chef” for the entire film. I know, it’s dumb, but it totally grated.

* I went to Day Watch because it was free and I thought it would look cool on the big screen. I am still not certain that the series makes any sense, but it looks awesome, and I love the way it ended. Also, there was some fun genderfuck in this one, which got laughs from the audience, but I really didn’t feel the film was playing it that way.

* Lars von Trier’s new film The Boss of It All… is an office comedy. I know. The trailer is basically the best thing ever… “from the director of [many seriously depressing films] comes an office comedy”. I thought it was very funny, but it being von Trier it is pretty wanky in regards to many things, including comic film, the stage, & corporate culture. I will probably wind up buying it, though, because Jens Albinus is brilliant in the role of the actor chosen to play “the boss of it all”.

* Far and away the most awesome SIFF experience was the world premiere of Blood on the Flat Track: Rise of the Rat City Rollergirls. Basically the entire league was at the movie, all dressed up and excited beyond belief. I have never been to a screening with that kind of energy before. It blew Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings midnights out of the water, for serious and true. Objectively, it would have been a stronger documentary if it had included some outside voices, but who cares? It’s derby! It’s awesome! It was clearly a labor of love, as is the entire derby culture. For. The. Win.

* Press around Confession of Pain has made a lot of the connections to Infernal Affairs, but sadly, it isn’t as good. I was in it for Tony Leung & Takeshi Kaneshiro, and they were both worth the watching. It’s definitely not the sort of role I am used to seeing Leung in, and that was awesome. It was a fine story & good cinematography, and of course the cast was great, but the story didn’t zing with me like IA’s did.

* My last film was probably the best, The Bubble, a queer-themed film set in Tel Aviv. It starred the charismatic Ohad Knoller (who played Yossi in the heartbreaking Yossi & Jagger) & was excellent all-round except I look forward to the day when Fox makes a queer film where no one dies. Though at least in his films, people die because of politics & war rather than their sexuality, which is a nice change.

…and, that’s it for this year! Coming soon — three free previews, and a whole whack of titles from Netflix. Rock on.

* Antônia, a Brazilian film about the rise of a four-girl hip-hop group. It’s not as much a making-of-the-band as a straight-ahead drama, and the music is awesome.

* Hula Girls was one of my favorites of the festival, which shouldn’t be a surprise, as it’s your standard “underdog group moves towards successful performance” story, and I am a sucker for that. A group of Japanese girls learn hula dancing for the Hawaiian-themed tourist center to save their town economy. It may not be original, but it is utterly charming. On a technical level, it looked very much like it had been filmed in the 60s, which was a nice touch.

* The Big Combo and The Damned Don’t Cry made up the noir double feature, and both were well-worth seeing with a full house. Good times.

* Dasepo Naughty Girls was just ridiculously fun. A South Korean film based on a web comic, it is totally crazy and colorful, a musical which makes not a whole lot of sense but is a blast just the same. I was totally charmed.

* Red Without Blue might be my favorite of the festival so far. It’s a documentary about a set of identical twins, where one is transgender (MTF) and the other is gay. It’s a beautiful film, and though it doesn’t push some issues as much as it perhaps should (I suspect this is because the filmmakers knew some of the family before filming), it’s a moving look at the family. Initially intended to be just a look back at their past, it evolved into the story of the family now, moving towards Clair’s decision regarding surgery. The changes in the views of the parents I found particularly moving. Two of the directors were present at the screening, which was lovely, because we were able to get an update on the subjects of the film.

* And finally, Spider Lilies, a Tawainese film about memory and loss, and, oh yes, tattoos & lesbians. I didn’t love it like I wanted to — it was always on the edge of touching me and never quite making it — but I absolutely adored that it was a film featuring gay characters moving towards a relationship, that was not at all about being gay. It could have been very nearly the same story featuring a straight couple. There were no coming out stories, none of the tropes associated with American queer film. There was guilt surrounding a sexual experience, but I never had the impression that it was because she was gay. It was because it meant that the character was not with her family at the time of a tragedy, and she would have felt the same effect if she had been with a boy. (Also, now I really want a tattoo.)

* Death at a Funeral is a tightly-written, beautifully acted farce. Good comedy is hard to do well & generally painfully underrated. I went to this one largely because the cast included Alan Tudyk & Peter Dinklage, and both were marvelous.

* Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle was a package of experimental short films reworking found audio, video, and/or dialogue. My favorite concept was “For a Blonde… For a Brunette… For Someone… For Her… For You…” which was a karaoke-style short, with the audience playing a role. It was a really cool idea, but I wish that they had chosen a scene with dialogue that was easier to pick up on the fly, though. I also enjoyed “Sunbeam Hunter”, which used images from Boy Scout handbooks. I did NOT enjoy “Asmahan”, because I didn’t get it at all, being unfamiliar with the source. I was not alone here; the entire audience seemed to be slowly revolting. Anarchy of stifled giggles! This being SIFF, there were two directors in attendence, but of course they were directors of films far too experimental for me.

* No Regret was a Korean film about an orphan & his developing relationship with a well-off businessman. I am not terribly interested in American queer film, but other countries can provide a different perspective, and this was no exception. It went a bit weird for me at the end, but I’m thinking it’s a first feature sort of error, and am willing to forgive it.

* The Cloud is a teen romance - slash - nuclear accident film. It reminded me on some level of Wristcutters, for sticking a genre in a particularly unusual setting, though I didn’t love it as much. It was pretty awesome, though. I felt like it got a little long towards the end, but I don’t know what I would cut. Really fantastic cast, and possibly my favorite of the festival so far. The IMDb boards hate it because the love story isn’t in the book. Which says to me that the book is a completely different story, and wow, I so do not care. Seriously, people. Whatever.

* Black Sheep had a sold-out midnight screening. Awesome. It’s genetic modification gone wrong! Killer sheep! At the preview they said it was in the tradition of Peter Jackson, and that is absolutely true, a gore-fest of a black comedy that knows exactly what sort of film it is. Great fun.

More from the Janus festival:

* The Seventh Seal. At first I thought I had made a terrible mistake scheduling a film about death at the end of a really long day, but I was totally taken by surprise by how accessible it was, as well as by the amount of humor. That’s not to say it isn’t a grim film, but it is beautiful & full of humanity.

* Wild Strawberries was simple & beautiful, sad but also hopeful. It’s the one in this set that I am most likely to revisit in future.

* Fanny & Alexander. Sprawling, moving, lusty, colorful. We got the short (3 hour) version in Seattle, but I’d LOVE to see the full 5+ hour version. Luckily it’s available in the Criterion edition, so someday, maybe.

It’s been such an amazing experience getting to see all of these films on the big screen! Television just doesn’t cut it, folks.