Undaunted by the arrival of spring weather, Team SunBreak followed SIFF‘s call, getting inside theaters to soak up screening during the festival’s final weekend. Below, we weigh in with our picks and pans of the festival films we saw over the weekend.
Audrey spent the weekend with two fine Americans: American Faust is a comprehensive look at the Bush administration through the prism of Condeleeza Rice, and really it’s a brilliant study of one woman putting power before all other things. By the end, you both pity and hate Condi for her version of the American Dream. Meanwhile, American: The Bill Hicks Story chronicles the rise of the outspoken controversial comedian, using tons of rotoscoped photos, home videos, and interviews with friends and family to really get to Hicks as both a caustic comedian and an intensely loved individual.
MvB: A science-fiction film from Switzerland, Cargo was notably short on novelty, mashing up bits of the Matrix with Blade Runner’s off-world colonies, but Anna-Katharina Schwabroh has an off-beat charm, and the idea of P-Patchers as terrorists of the future is delightful.
Johnnie To’s Vengeance stars French singer Johnny Hallyday in a black fedora and trench coat, and with a bullet in his brain. Honor, brotherhood, and going down in a hail of bullets and blood packs is the order of the day. A stunning Kurosawa-like set piece employs of bales of recycled paper.
The documentary Plug & Pray surveys the spectrum of techno-belief, from the spooky Raymond Kurzweil and his dreams of cyborg life, to scientists working on AI for military or commercial applications, to Cassandra-like professor emeritus of computer science at MIT, Joseph Weizenbaum, who owns the movie. Ostensibly about thinking gadgets, the film demonstrates that it’s what people think that still matters most.
Morgen saw the world premiere of Miss Nobody: The cinematography reminded me a lot of the television show Pushing Daisies, as did the overall feeling of the movie. The characters were a little over the top and bigger than life. It gave the film a lot of charm and I enjoyed the storyline quite a bit. It was somewhat predictable, but really fun to watch and the ending was better than expected. Adam Goldberg and Missi Pylegave fantastic performances in supporting roles as well.
Tony embraced the spirit of glutting oneself at the buffet before the food’s all gone, and pigged out on cinema for SIFF’s closing weekend:
Protektor is a WWII love story that follows a Czech radio correspondent and his glamorous, flirty Jewish movie-star wife as they navigate the emerging influence of Nazi Germany on their homeland. The movie sports a great art-deco look and it’s edited/shot with arresting style, but the relationship at the core never quite engaged me like I wanted it to.
In the IMAX epic The Wildest Dream, modern-day mountaineer Conrad Anker climbs Mt. Everest, retracing the route of and replicating the conditions endured by British adventurer George Mallory in 1924. The movie touches on deeper emotional and philosophical questions than your average IMAX flick, drawing interesting parallels between Mallory’s relationship to his wife and that of Anker’s with his own spouse. And if the movie lets that psychological complexity take a back seat to the grandeur sometimes, well, IMAX is first and foremost spectacle-porn…
The Hong Kong shocker Dream Home wants to have its bloody cake and eat it too by simultaneously throwing spurting blood and social commentary at its audience. In her obsessive quest to obtain a mortgage on a high-end Hong Kong flat, a young woman takes to brutally murdering several of the building’s occupants (what better way to drive bidding rates down?). The premise is rife with possibilities, but the tone is wildly uneven: One minute you’re watching a dippy party guy’s disembowelment played for gallows giggles, the next our murderous protagonist is dealing with the failing health of her mesothelioma-wracked former abuser of a father. Gore fans, though, will have a field day.
I really enjoyed Howl, the Allen Ginsberg biopic directed by Times of Harvey Milk directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. James Franco made an effective Ginsberg (anyone who’s played James Dean and Ginsberg in the space of just a few years deserves mad props), and the movie eschews standard beginning/middle/end bio-pic structure by zeroing in on the obscenity trial surrounding Ginsberg’s poetic masterpiece, Howl. The only liability: Ginsberg’s words are sometimes accompanied by CGI animation that puts a pretty glaring pull date on the movie.
You gotta love the directness of a movie title like Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives, but it’s easy to go into it thinking it’s gonna be a Troma-style rib-nudging camp-fest. Thankfully, it’s got sharper teeth than that. Director Israel Luna’s made an honest-to-God gut-level grindhouse action opus here–think Death Wish with a more fabulous wardrobe–without neglecting the humor. It captures the patina of a grindhouse flick amazingly well, and there’s a sense of righteous outrage underneath the surface that makes it much more cathartic and empowering than the GLAAD protesting blue-noses out there would have you believe.
Last but not least for me was Vengeance, the new Johnnie To gangster epic in which a French restaurateur (Johnny Hallyday) enlists a trio of hitmen (led by HK action mainstay Anthony Wong) to avenge the massacre of his daughter and her family. It’s a purely formulaic set-up–think the Magnificent Seven minus three, combined with (again) Death Wish–but it’s beguilingly shot,darkly witty in places, and peppered with twists and wrinkles worth their weight in gold. Hallyday–with his lived-in face, watery blue eyes,and Mephistopheles goatee–is a revelation as a worn-down protagonist with much more of a history of violence than he initially lets on.
Josh: Hipsters presented a relentlessly delightful technicolor wonderland of outstanding costumes, infectious pop songs, and commendable choreography. Set in 1950s Russia, the film opened bleak with a communist raid on a non-conformist party, complete with a chase sequence and brutal destruction of hairstyles and wardrobes. However, once its straight-laced hero is turned onto the jazz-loving ways of the candy-colored Hipsters, everything takes a turn for the free and easy. Despite the Soviet oppression, the adversities are minimized or swept aside in song. The lack of dramatic tension in a time and place where a saxophone was deemed nearly as dangerous as a switchblade, felt surprisingly unproblematic given the gleeful presentation.
Similarly, Micmacs, the latest from Jean-Pierre Jeunet forewent character study for Goldbergian contraptions. Bazil, scarred literally by the product of one weapons manufacturer and emotionally by another, falls in with ragtag band of junkyard misfits united by their quirks. Together, they conspire to pit a pair of warmongers against each other in a delightful revenge scheme. Although I never felt especially invested in the characters, the handcrafted beauty of the film, its sprightly pace, ingenious engineering, and near-constant humor put it near the top of my list of most enjoyed festival films.
I Kissed A Vampire, well, sucked. From the first scene and notes of tween screams of love for the stars, it was obvious that I was far outside the target audience for this near bloodless autotuned teen musical, whose two-hour running time provided an unwelcome glimpse into eternal life.
I was less distracted than Tony by the animated parts of Howl. Not having ever read the entire poem beyond its famous opening notes, I was thoroughly impressed by the film’s structure and by James Franco’s portrayal of Ginsburg. Rather than following the poet from cradle to grave, the biopic instead celebrated the poem itself, with interludes for interviews and cuts to the famous obscenity trial, which was stocked with lots of famous faces in small roles.
The stark story of mass migration among Chinese laborers during the new year holiday season in Last Train Home recalibrated my definition of holiday travel hell. I agree with MvB on the matter of Swiss space drama Cargo. It recycled a a whole lot of sci-fi themes in a pretty package, with a few unintentional laughs along the way.
Like Tony, I admired The Wildest Dream. The IMAX spectacle induced sweaty palms at altitudes low and high. The footage of Mount Everest was outstanding and the danger of even the modern climbing sequences infused the historical sequences with a true sense of risk. Some of the Commonwealth’s most famous voices provided narration and readings of the correspondence during Mallory’s expedition, making the documentary enjoyable on several fronts. While I simultaneously longed for an unlikely reveal and wished for more realism in the depiction of the actual support staff needed to make such an ascent, the pairing of Ankers and Mallory’s stories made for gripping cinema.
Finally, closing night selection Get Low provided a roomy showcase for the ample talents of Bill Murray, Robert Duvall, and Sissy Spacek. Taking the form of a fable set in old-timey times, the levity of an ornery hermit coming in from the woods to plan a funeral party to be held before his death is counterbalanced by his agony over the secret that kept him in exile for forty years. That the final reveal seemed less shocking to modern audiences doesn’t diminish the strong performances by the leads.
And that, plenty of glasses of rum-infused fruit juices, and swarmed plates of small snacks at the Pan Pacific Gala brought an end to another successful festival. Anything you especially loved or hated during closing weekend? Share your rants or raves in the comments.
I feel like it’s rare to see people walk out during a SIFF film, but I saw three or four do just that during Howl. I didn’t, but I didn’t love it either. Never being a fan of animation, I did my best to ignore it and listen to the poem I’d never heard fully. Franco did do a great job with the role and I’d have liked to have seen more of that. Probably couldn’t have done much more with the obscenity trial portion (I don’t know exactly how long or drawn out the actual trial was), though I’d have watched more, as those notable actors featured there (especially Jon Hamm doing the closing argument) were enjoyable in their roles.
The Wildest Dream was interesting and entrancing but some parts seemed better suited for the big screen than IMAX. Sweeping scenic shots of Everest in which it seems to say “Don’t f*&$ with me”? Rad. The more emotional moments with Anker, his wife, Mallory, and his wife? Not quite right for such a huge format in my opinion. But still, great stories with intriguing parallels. Just really made me NOT want to climb large mountains.
Did anyone see Paris Return? I had a ticket but couldn’t make it and thought it looked like it might have been worth seeing. No French films for me this year… *sniff*
I was interested in Paris Return, but I lost my movie-going mojo there at the end with all the sunshine, and skipped it. :(
Actually I kind of liked Cargo in so much as it was content in its old school ness and not cutting and jumping in rapid fire quick edits like most modern movies (aka terrible movies). It’s like a movie that unfolds on Hawaii time or something. I admire that about it. Loved how everyone at the Egyptian started cracking up in unison with me during the one Titanic type moment in space near the end (No Spoilers).