The SunBreak » siff 2013

Talking Sommeliers and Cinema with the Director of “SOMM”

Tony Kay — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 02:34:18 +0000

SOMM opens at the SIFF Film Center tomorrow night (tickets here). It pulls off that oft-attempted but seldom-achieved goal of many documentaries: It introduces viewers to an obscure and exclusive subject with an inclusive and entertaining storyteller’s touch. Director Jason Wise’s debut feature offers a window into the secretive world of Master Sommeliers. Boiled down … Continue reading →

Post-SIFF 2013 Reflections, or Suggestions for SIFF 2014

Audrey — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:30:18 +0000

"From a consumer standpoint, SIFF 2013's consistency was a great thing. But that consistency almost became numbing sometimes. Very few of the films disappointed, but conversely that meant fewer surprises, pleasant or otherwise, for me."

A Chat with the Real (and Reel) “Girl with 9 Wigs”

Tony Kay — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:35:18 +0000

"The writing [...]helped me escape the mental battle. How do I use the time I still have left? Writing was a great way as well to build a bridge to the world, to be a little bit less alone in my experiences and my feelings."

SIFF What We Saw (The End)

Audrey — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 05:15:20 +0000

Without ever making the criminals sympathetic, Sofia Coppola nevertheless captures the way that the heady romance of new friendship, hunger for thrills among the entitled rich (but not super-rich), and a lack of impulse control combine to almost make their actions understandable. Even though it’s based on a true story and is told in interviews and flashbacks, The Bling Ring still held plenty of suspense, particularly as the clique of Hollywood strivers get more and more brazen with their string of celebrity robberies.

SIFF 2013 Closing Weekend Picks

josh — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 21:30:37 +0000

Well, friends, the finish line for Seattle's annual marathon of film is in sight. From tonight's event featuring the Maldives performing their new original score for the Wind to the festival's closing night gala for Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, we provide a few picks for how to spend SIFF's last three days in a film-consumption sprint.

SIFF 2013: What We Saw (Part 3)

Audrey — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 03:30:01 +0000

MvB: For sheer cinema, Laurence Anyways from Xavier Dolan takes the SIFF 2013 cake, so far as I’m concerned. At 160-some minutes, it’s a grand opera of a film, replete with arias from leads Melvil Poupaud and Suzanne Clément, enacting an amour fou. Dolan tells a gripping, affecting story about the costs of being true to thine ownself — if a quirk of nature has mismatched your gender identity with secondary sexual characteristics — but he also tries his hand at motion portraiture