As the behemoth 421 film festival better known as SIFF enters its second full week, I offer some more reviews of films that are playing between now and the end of May. Some reviews were carried over, if they have screenings coming up. I hope it uncovers some hidden gems and makes navigating the festival slightly less daunting. I think there’s some great stuff screening soon, like Tiny, Wiener-Dog, and Disorder.
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BANG! The Bert Berns Story (2016, USA, dir. Brett Berns and Bob Sarles, 94 minutes)
This is a loving portrait of one of rock and/or roll’s great, unsung songwriters and producers. Bert Berns died in 1967 at 38 (from a heart failure). 2016 is something, though, of a big year for Berns, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year and now this documentary (co-directed by his son Brett) seeks to ensure his name has the same timeless longevity as his music. Berns wrote or co-wrote “Twist and Shout,” “I Want Candy,” “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love,” “Piece of My Heart,” and a host more. His label, Bang Records, was also the home to Van Morrison and Neil Diamond (among others). There are some great rock stories here (especially one great one about “Hang on Sloopy”), and Paul McCartney, Solomon Burke, and others (Steven Van Zandt provides the narration) make time to sing Berns’ praises.
- May 30, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 8:30pm
- June 1, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 4:30pm
Chucks (2015, Austria, dir. Sabine Hiebler and Gerhard Ertl, 93 minutes)
This Austrian film is a definite crowd-pleaser, as it has already won the award for most popular film at the World Film Festival in Montreal. It’s also a pretty great movie overall. Mae (played by Anna Posch in a star-making performance) is a street punk kid. The film is named after her favorite article of clothing, her late brother’s Converse shoes. Her hooliganism catches up with her and she’s sent to an AIDS clinic to work as community service. There, she falls in love with Paul, a patient at the clinic who saw his diagnosis as a radical change from the life he thought was perfect up until then. It has a nice soundtrack that made me want to reach for Shazam often and the acting is great, so, I say thumbs up. (* Important note: I had gotten an advance screener of this movie and was able watch it at home, as was the case with many of the movies shown below. Don’t actually try to use Shazam while in the theater. The punishment if caught using your cell phone is swift and severe. Go here instead.)
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May 24, Lincoln Square (Bellevue), 8:45pm - May 30, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 9:30pm
Disorder (2015, France/Belgium, dir. Alice Winocour, 101 minutes)
A tightly-wound Afghanistan veteran with PTSD takes a job guarding the wife of a wealthy (but corruptible Lebanese businessman, as the PTSD limits his post-war options. It’s only supposed to be for two days, while he’s away to seal a deal whose details he’d prefer remain scant. Matthias Schoenaerts plays Vincent, the veteran turned bodyguard and he becomes drawn to the stunning Diane Kruger. The movie is slow-moving and slow-burning, and that increases the tension as Vincent struggles to find if Jessie, the wife, and her son are in grave danger, or is his PTSD causing paranoia. Alice Winocour pulls you into her story while you feel empathy for Vincent and sympathy for the situation Jessie finds herself in. The last half hour is an exciting sequence that pays off.
- May 26, SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 9:30pm
- May 27, Lincoln Square (Bellevue, 4pm
Finding Kim (2016, USA, dir. Aaron Bear, 82 minutes, World Premiere)
At a time when North Carolina is involved in a shitstorm of their own making by trying to restrict restroom access for transgender people, a movie like Finding Kim feels revolutionary because Kim is simply telling his story. Kim is a Seattleite that begins transitioning before his 50th birthday. Kim is forthright with the camera about his insecurities about transitioning, how his friends will react, how his body will change, coming out as trans to his parents, and his ambivalence with being part of the lesbian community. {As an aside, I’m just putting this out there, but TERFs can go to hell and stay there.} There’s a nice balance between highlighting Kim’s transition while mixing interviews with Buck Angel, Dan Savage, Calpernia Addams, and Carmen Carrera for some historical context and insight. The point isn’t to show how remarkable Kim is (though he’s easy to like onscreen) but to show how he wants to feel normal and happy. We need more stories and more movies like this.
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May 23, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 6:30pm - May 31, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 3:30pm
Finding October (2016, USA, Nick Terry, 77 minutes)
This is a sweet love story/road trip movie that surprised me just with how much I enjoyed it. Ben (director Nick Terry) and Russell (Michael Harrison Ward) are best friends who embark on a road trip so that Russell can propose to his girlfriend and Ben can be there to document it with his camcorder. Early into the trip, they meet hitchhiker/drifter Emma (played by Karin Terry), who eventually teaches them about life once Russell accepts her, after fighting with Ben to keep her out of the car. The usual hijinks ensue with every impromptu road trip (they get robbed, they run out of gas, they let the car battery die), but as the ride went on, I found myself drawn to the Emma character and hoping she’d share more of her story. As the movie went on, I became more engrossed in the movie and by the time it was over, I found myself really affected by the movie. But that could’ve just been someone chopping onions nearby.
- May 30, Shoreline Community College Theater, 6pm
- June 2, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 8:30pm
KEDI (2016, Turkey, dir: Ceyda Torun, 79 minutes)
KEDI is a neat and fun documentary about cats (and their owners) in Istanbul. It’s really charming because it follows different cats throughout the ancient city and talks with their owners and other cat lovers about felines’ mystical powers. One person said taking care of cats helped cope with his nervous breakdown and that they’re the reason he’s happier than he’s ever been. Another pointed to how a cat alerted him to an abandoned wallet that happened to contain exactly the amount of money he needed in the short term. What made the movie so charming, I think, is that it lets common Turkish people tell what makes their pets so remarkable, in what happens to be one of the world’s holiest cities. Despite considering myself both a dog person and an nonbeliever, I really, really love this quote about the differences between cats and dogs: “Dogs think people are God, but cats don’t. Cats know that people act as middlemen to God’s will.”
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May 21, SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 11am - May 28, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 3pm
- May 30, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 12pm
Long Way North (2016, France dir. Rémi Chayé, 78 minutes)
Long Way North is a wonderful French animated film about a young girl who is part of Russia’s 1%. She doesn’t believe reports that her famous explorer-grandfather has died, so she finds his itinerary and joins an expedition to the North Pole to find him and his ship. It has almost everything that I’m looking for in a film: class struggles, adventures, arranged marriages, bodies being frozen to death, and more. While there are some darker themes that run through its brief 78 minutes, it’s easy to see this being a family favorite because of the protagonist, Sasha, being an inspiring young female lead. Plus, the animation is wonderfully drawn.
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May 21, Pacific Place, 11am -
May 22, Lincoln Square (Bellevue), 1pm - May 29, Renton IKEA Performing Arts Center, 1pm
The Olive Tree (2016, Spain, dir. Icíar Bollaín, 98 minutes)
The Olive Tree is a wonderfully charming (if somewhat uneven) family drama from Spain that centers around three generations of a poor, Spanish family. The family has a tree that is over 2000 years old, and it is likely its most valuable possession. A dying grandfather is protective of it, while his adult children see it as the best effort to provide some stability to the family. Alma, the granddaughter, loves her grandfather and sees getting rid of the tree as something to rip apart the family. When she learns that the tree is now owned by a German multinational corporation, she embarks on a road trip to get it back. She tells a few lies along the way (and makes a few friends that we don’t see enough of), to acquire a truck and some loved ones to make the trip with her. There are some great moments of comic relief and the scenery is beautiful.
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May 22, Majestic Bay Cinema, 8:30pm - May 29, Renton IKEA Performing Arts Center, 5pm
- June 1, SIFF Cinema Uptown, 6pm
Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell (2016, USA, dir. Martin Bell, 86 minutes, World Premiere)
If you haven’t seen the 1984 Academy Award-nominated documentary Streetwise, it’s cool. Just watch this and we can meet back here in 90 minutes.
OK, let’s proceed.
Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell looks at the life of one of the more memorable street kids featured in 1984 Academy Award-nominated documentary Streetwise, “Tiny,” the thirteen year old prostitute, many years after that movie was released. What made Streetwise so heartbreaking for me was that the children who ended up homeless on the streets by either choice or circumstance, could have come from nearly any family. Tiny provides a look at how one person continued to struggle throughout adulthood. Tiny, or Erin Blackwell, is now a mother of 10, whose children have been in and out of her life. It’s equally heartbreaking to see her children who want the same as everyone else, a better life, but are aware of the factors working against them that are often beyond their control. It’s not an easy film to watch, but it is an essential one, and a uniquely timely and relevant one.
- May 29, Pacific Place, 4pm
- May 30, Pacific Place 11am
Wiener-Dog (2016, dir. Todd Solondz, 90 minutes)
Todd Solondz’s newest film is the type of black comedy who find the Coen brothers’ darkest movies too bright and cheerful. It follows the life (or lives) of a dachshund through four different vignettes, from a young cancer survivor to the return of Dawn Wiener (played by Greta Gerwig, reprising the role Heather Matarazzo made famous 21 years ago), to an unpopular and self-imploding college film professor (Danny DeVito), to an aging Ellen Burstyn (a national treasure always and forever) who reflects on her life while her granddaughter stops for the first time in years to borrow money. I thought the movie was brilliant, occasionally moving, and entirely fucked up. A handful of people have asked me if I thought they’d like it, and I’m not sure. It gleefully scrambled my brain. If you’re looking for a nice story about Man’s Best Friend, maybe seek an alternative.
- May 29, SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 9:45pm
- May 30, SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 4pm
