They’re probably still cleaning up balloons and glitter from last night’s #LightTheSIFFUp (#ItsAThing) Opening Night Gala, which means that we’re at the true dawn of SIFF ’16’s first proper weekend. As is customary, there’s an embarrassment of riches to choose from.
Special events this weekend include a Saturday Night Film and Party for Indignation (Pacific Place, 6:30 PM; party at Il Fornaio) and a Sunday Afternoon with Molly Shannon (Egyptian, 4:30 PM) featuring an interview and a screening of her new film, Other People.
Below, a few ideas from your friendly neighborhood SunBreak SIFF Team on how to dive into the great big festival.
Tony’s Picks:
Per usual, there’s plenty to love on the SIFF docket this weekend. From my cramped perspective, I count at least five other films that merit inclusion on your must-see list for these three days, but here are the ones that intrigue me most on an instant-gratification level.
The Last King. Yeah, director Nils Gaup helmed a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee back in 1988, but I’ll totally cop to the fact that the big draw for this Norwegian period saga is the promise of some serious, visceral battle scenes with a twist. You had me at ‘sword fights on skis,’ SIFF.
May 20, 2016 Majestic Bay Cinemas 7:00 PM
May 23, 2016 SIFF Cinema Egyptian 9:30 PM
The Blackcoat’s Daughter. Osgood Perkins (yes, Norman Bates’s son) directs this snowbound shocker that’s been generating some serious buzz around the horror-nerd campfire.
May 20, 2016 Lincoln Square Cinemas 8:30 PM
May 21, 2016 SIFF Cinema Egyptian 9:30 PM
Carnage Park. Anyone who’s taken a half-glance at this website likely knows my deep and abiding love for all things warped and grindhouse, so this latest thriller from prolific writer-director Mickey Keating looks to be right in my wheelhouse. It follows two bank robbers who wind up accidental quarry for a certifiably psychotic Vietnam veteran sniper (Pat Healy, one of the best character actors working genre flicks today), and Keating already proved in Ritual and Pod that he can deliver the low-budget genre-movie goods.
May 20, 2016 SIFF Cinema Egyptian 11:55 PM
May 22, 2016 SIFF Cinema Uptown Festival 9:00 PM
Death by Design. Get ready to experience a bout of serious consumer guilt for toting around that tablet or smartphone with Sue Williams’ reputedly solid and eye-opening doc on the high price–environmentally and on a human level–of consumer electronics.
May 21, 2016 SIFF Cinema Uptown Festival 12:30 PM
May 22, 2016 Lincoln Square Cinemas 6:00 PM
Love and Friendship. Blah, blah, blah, another Jane Austen adaptation, blah, blah. Except this one’s directed by wry wit Whit Stillman (late of Last Days of Disco and Metropolitan), and it gives Kate Beckinsale a chance to remind the world she’s a pretty damned good actress when she’s not shoehorned into bondage gear in crappy Underworld sequels.
May 21, 2016 SIFF Cinema Uptown Festival 5:00 PM
May 22, 2016 AMC Pacific Place 4:00 PM
A Scandal in Paris. SIFF 2016’s revival screenings are off to an auspicious start with this 1946 Douglas Sirk opus. One of the twentieth-century’s greatest cinematic rakes, George Sanders, plays a Gallic con man who somehow finagles his way into the role of Paris’s Chief of Police. Douglas Sirk’s more colorful 1950s melodramas like Imitation of Life and All That Heaven Allows have earned heaps of revisionist cache (and a rep as key inspirations for Todd Haynes’ Carol and Far from Heaven), so seeing Sirk’s style in its early stages of evolution should be fascinating.
May 22, 2016 AMC Pacific Place 1:30 PM
Josh’s Picks:
I’m also excited about a few of Tony’s picks — in particular, Love and Friendship if only because the pairing of Whit Stillman and Jane Austen seems too obvious to have taken so long. I’m hoping that the movie takes some of the sting out of the wait for Stillman’s delightful pilot for the Cosmopolitans to get a series order from Amazon (it turns out that now that the movie’s in the can, work on the show is underway again).
I was also happy to see that Microbe & Gasoline, which Chris reviewed favorably, was given an extra last-minute spot on the schedule tonight. Even when Michel Gondry doesn’t completely work for me, it’s always a worthwhile dive into whimsical cinematic creativity.
May 20, 2016 SIFF Cinema Uptown 7:00 PM (new screening)
May 21, 2016 Majestic Bay Cinemas 1:00 PM
May 23, 2016 SIFF Cinema Egyptian 7:00 PM
Weiner. Of the two movies with Weiner in the title playing at this year’s SIFF, this is the one about the bulge in the aptly-named congressman’s shorts that was inadvertently tweeted around the world. [The other is Todd Solondz’s Weiner-Dog). Aside from having the inside track on Carlos Danger’s political meltdown, this well-timed documentary features Huma Abedin who remains a prominent advisor to Hillary Clinton.
May 20, 2016 SIFF Cinema Uptown 4:30 PM
May 22, 2016 SIFF Cinema Uptown 4:30 PM
Closet Monster. This is a gay coming-of-age / coming-out story whose description includes terms like “whimsical fantasy”, “Cronenbergian body horror”, and “talking hamster”. Reviews from TIFF suggest that the whole pile of insanity might add up to something worthwhile. I’m willing to give it a shot since the kid wrestling with his sexuality while working at a hardware store is played by Connor Jessup (who was among the best parts of this year’s phenomenal American Crime) and the hamster is voiced by Isabella Rossellini.
May 20, 2016 SIFF Cinema Egyptian 9:30 PM
May 23, 2016 SIFF Cinema Uptown 8:30 PM
Chris’s Picks:
The Mads Are Back: Glen or Glenda? As I mostly spend my time descending into becoming an old crank, I don’t see midnight too often these days. Yet, I may have to plan for a late nap and some caffeine because missing “The Mads Are Back,” Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff from “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” doesn’t sound like much of an option. The two MST3K vets have been traveling the country, riffing on b-movies, and on Saturday at midnight, they take their turn with Ed Wood’s classic ode to crossdressing, Glen or Glenda?
May 21, 2016 SIFF Cinema Egyptian 11:55 PM
Warehoused (Almacenados). This Mexican film seeks to update “Waiting for Godot” by setting it in a warehouse while a grizzled veteran who is getting too old for this shit and an FNG wait for a delivery that may or may not arrive. That sounds like something I go through whenever I order something shipped by UPS, but with fewer friendships being developed. I’m told Warehoused won the Audience Award at the Morelia Film Festival, so people seem to be digging it. That’s good enough for me.
May 22, 2016 AMC Pacific Place 11 9:00 PM
May 24, 2016 SIFF Cinema Uptown Festival 3:30 PM
May 28, 2016 Renton IKEA Performing Arts Center 3:30 PM
The Lovers and the Despot. Just reading the description of this movie from the UK sounds crazy enough to me. I may need to head over to the Eastside to catch its first screening. “A real-life espionage thriller about a famous South Korean director and his actress wife who planned a daring escape after being kidnapped and forced to work as the personal filmmakers of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.”
May 21, 2016 Lincoln Square Cinema (Bellevue) 1:00 PM
May 23, 2016 SIFF Cinema Uptown Festival 9:30 PM
Keep track of the SunBreak’s SIFF coverage on our SIFF 2016 page, plus news updates and micro-reviews on Twitter @theSunBreak.