Here we are again, on the verge of the annual marathon known as the Seattle International Film Festival. (Keep track of The SunBreak’s ongoing festival coverage on our SIFF 2014 page.) SIFF 2014 officially kicks off this monster of a film festival for the 40th time beginning with an Opening Night Gala tonight at McCaw Hall featuring Jimi: All Is By My Side (Oscar-winning writer/director John Ridley will be on the red carpet, but don’t count on Andre 3000 playing the afterparty). By the time all all is said and done with The One I Love on closing night, the 40th annual SIFF will have run a full 25 days, and that’s not even counting the weeks of media/uber-passholder screenings in advance of the fest (and the “best of SIFF” showcase that’s likely to follow). So get ready and don’t show up to the festival looking like a n00b. SIFF like a pro, courtesy of our time- and fest-tested tips.
OPENING NIGHT CHATTER
Josh: Let’s start with Opening Night. Chris, in your Face the Music roundup, you mentioned that you stayed to see Jimi: All Is By My Side. What’s your verdict?
Chris: Oh I hate to say this, but it is bad. Really, really bad. First of all, it had to be rewritten because Kathy Etchingham said that her portrayal was way inaccurate. Hendrix also hits her in the face with a telephone in the movie and she swears that never happened. There are a lot of “artistic liberties” taken here.
Tony: I’m reserving my judgment until I get a look at it, plus Hendrix is one of my music-nerd Achilles Heels, so I likely won’t be able to speak to all of the movie’s inaccuracies. But the polarizing reaction from you and others has me massively curious.
Josh: At least you get to hear some great Hendrix music?
Chris: Oh, actually they couldn’t secure any of the rights to use Hendrix’s music, which is kind of necessary in a movie about Jimi Hendrix, no? Instead, they try to cover up this fact with Hendrix performing a Beatles cover, which, admittedly is pretty cool in its execution.
Tony: It is really strange that a lot of great ’60s artists–The Who, Small Faces, even US garage-punks The Seeds–surface on the soundtrack, but no Hendrix. Then again, securing those rights would’ve likely decimated the movie’s budget.
Chris: And they’re not even really an ancillary part of the movie the way that The Rolling Stones, The Animals, or The Beatles are.
Josh: Well, at least there’s Andre 3000?
Chris: I consider myself a big Outkast fan, but I think Andre 3000 was miscast. He never really looks comfortable trying to replicate how Hendrix played guitar and this movie covers Hendrix in 1966 when he was 23, and Andre turns 39 in a couple of weeks. He just doesn’t look like a 23 year old in this movie.
Josh: Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Any redeeming qualities if you can ignore all of the inaccuracies?
Chris: I did enjoy the film as a snapshot of what London was (maybe) like in 1966. I’m just really particular about biopics and how they treat their subjects, so this one really bothered me. This has been a controversial one from the beginning.
I don’t want my antipathy for the film to overshadow SIFF itself, which has a lot of movies I really am excited for and a handful of great movies I already have seen. Plus, the opening night party is always a lot of fun. I do understand that programming the opening night movie is difficult, and it seems like an obvious choice for SIFF (directed by Academy Award-winning screenwriter John Ridley, it’s a biopic of a Seattle-born music legend, this screening is just before Outkast plays Sasquatch), but the movie just has too many problems to overlook.
Josh: Hmm. Thanks for braving this one for the team. Perhaps I’ll head straight to the party to get a jump on the food and drink lines.
MISCELANEOUS FORECASTING
So, what are your must-sees at SIFF this year? [and/or most highly recommended]
Josh: Ever since I starting reading about Richard Linklater’s 12-years-in-the-making project, I’ve been super excited to weep openly during Boyhood, so I’m very excited that it’s getting the Centerpiece Gala treatment. I also squealed audibly in a cafe when paging through the SIFF guide and seeing that they’ll be doing a screening of a recently-restored print of Last Year at Marienbad. It was mind-bendy on DVD at home, watching a gorgeous print in a theater is high on my list. I’m always interested to see what Xavier Dolan’s up to; so Tom at the Farm is high on my priorities list. Similarly, like Linklater’s Before Sunrise, Sunset, and Midnight series Cédric Klapisch is revisiting the exchange students that we first met in 2002 in a Barcelona boarding house. L’Auberge Espagnole is a weirdly foundational movie for me, and the follow-up Russian Dolls was incredibly sweet, so I’m perhaps unreasonably thrilled to check back in with these characters (this time in New York, in Chinese Puzzle).
Tony: I’m totally with you on Boyhood, Josh. The trailer took my breath away at the SIFF press launch, and Linklater’s pretty damned consistent in the first place.
In addition to the Marienbad reissue, I’m also excited to see Nicholas Ray’s 1952 rodeo drama The Lusty Men in pristine 35mm. There’s also the revival screening of The Pawnbroker, which showcases one of Rod Steiger’s most controlled and brilliant performances.
SIFF 2014’s doing an awful lot to inflame my genre-nerd glands to the point of bursting. The Midnighters look super-strong: The Aussie chiller The Babadook has been generating much great buzz around the geek campfire, Why Don’t You Play in Hell promises an energetic wrinkle in the usual Yakuza fireworks, Zombeavers serves up (yup) living-dead dam-building mammals, and as for Willow Creek–well, it’s a Bigfoot movie directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Sold.
A lot of the strongest-sounding genre entries play beyond the Midnight Adrenaline alleyway. Sabu’s Miss Zombie, with its nods at social satire sharing space with the gut munching, should be interesting, and there’s always room for another elegant historic vampire flick in my book, so Story of my Death, in which Casanova hangs out with Dracula, has my interest piqued.
The horror flick I’m most excited to see, though, is one that I suspect will only appeal to a niche crowd (even more so than usual). It’s The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears, a Belgian/French co-production by Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet. I fell head over heels for the directorial duo’s debut, the 2010 giallo-influenced dark fairy tale Amer, when it played SIFF that year. Its strangeness–too arty to appeal to horror hounds, too gory and feverish to capture the art house crowd–reportedly emerges fully-formed in this new effort. I’m expecting atmosphere and style dense enough to cut with a knife, and I can hardly wait to see it.
Chris: I think the film I’m most excited to see is Lucky Them, the new movie from Megan Griffiths, who is a local treasure. Her last movie, Eden, was one of my favorite films of SIFF when it screened in 2012. It was such a compelling, and well-directed film. Plus, she was wonderful to interview when Eden played at SIFF, so I couldn’t help but be excited for her next project, whatever it might be. That it’s about a music journalist (played by Toni Collette!) and a documentary filmmaker (Thomas Haden Church) looking for a music legend that seems to have disappeared means I really can’t miss seeing it. The Egyptian will be packed on May 23 but I’ll be getting there early for that one.
SIFF always does a really great job programming documentaries, and I could very easily see myself watching dozens of them this year. I really enjoyed Nancy Kates’ Regarding Susan Sontag. It’s a really great story of the author and how she became one of the twentieth century’s leading cultural critics. Sontag was always worth paying attention to, and her Notes on “Camp” was hugely influential on me when I read it, as was Fascinating Fascism, which I only read more recently. Patricia Clarkson narrates, too.
I’m also anxious to see The Search for General Tso. One of my favorite books in my collection is my signed copy of Jennifer 8 Lee’s history of Chinese food called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles (she signed it, “May the fortune cookie be with you”). This movie expands on the chapter on General Tso’s chicken from the book as Lee produced this documentary (with Ian Cheney directing). The challenge for me will be making it to one of its three screenings. I know Jay will have a lot more to say about the movie in the coming days.
Weird Convergences?
Josh: Well, there’s a movie called Belle & Sebastien and God Help The Girl (directed by Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian) that are entirely unrelated. I saw God Help the Girl at SxSW this spring and found it just impossibly charming. It felt like an alternate universe story of the beginnings of a band that I love, set in the world of Tigermilk, with girl-group inspired musical numbers. I’m going to try my hardest to see it again since it has a couple of SIFF showtimes.
There are also two Romain Duris–Audrey Tatou vaguely romantic comedies, the aforementioned Chinese Puzzle as well as the oppressively whimsical Mood Indigo from Michel Gondry. I wanted so badly to adore Mood Indigo that I was bummed for days about not falling in love with it.
Josh Takes a Deep Dive into the Programmer Picks
One of my favorite source of guidance about what to see at SIFF is the data provided directly by the programming team. For the last several years, they’ve published a document that shares each programmer’s favorite films at the festival. Of the 271 feature films in the program a whopping 127 merit a “pick” from at least one of the nineteen members of the programming team (from Assistant Programmers all the way up to Artistic Director Carl Spence; Managing Director Mary Bacarella remained silent on her favorites).
You’d have to be a Fool to contemplate seeing 127 films in 25 days. But applying the wisdom of crowds, the runaway favorite among the “programmer picks” Ari Folman’s animated-live action hybrid The Congress, which showed up six lists. Anything with that broad of support among the programming crew merits a spot on my festival agenda. Tied for second-most beloved, with four votes each are: The Babadook; Me, Myself and Mum; and Tangerines.
If you’re filling up your cinematic 20-pack, twelve films — 20,000 Days on Earth (Nick Cave!), #ChicagoGirl – The Social Network Takes on a Dictator (teenager vs. al-Assad!), The Double (Jesse Eisenberg vs. Jesse Eisenberg), Grand Central, Jealousy (Père Garrel directing son fils, encore), Of Horses and Men (the mighty & tiny ICELANDIC horse! not a pony.), Rags and Tatters, Seeds of Time (crop diversity heroics!), Starred Up (Cook from Skins goes to jail!), A Street in Palermo, Tom at the Farm, We Are the Best! — secured the affections of three different programmers.
Another way to navigate the festival is just to movie-stalk a programmer whose judgment you trust. Maybe they give great intros or recommend a film that works for you. Although we haven’t built the Buzzfeedesque quiz to determine your compatibility with a given programmer, if we setting up a movie date among the programmers, Assistants Virgile Heitzler and Camille Madinier are the most cinematically compatible: both included Abuse of Weakness, Jealousy, Longwave, Me, Myself and Mum, A Street in Palermo, Tangerines, and Tom at the Farm on their lists.
Geographically, the programmers were fairly equitable with their picks. Although the United States (n=42), France (n=11), and the United Kingdom (n=9) among the most represented, but not significantly out of proportion with the overall festival composition. However, when we turn to the geography of the imagination, programmers were fittingly most fond of the “Oasis of Originality” — collectively 71% of the movies in the Creative Streak Mood were picked as at least one programmer’s favorite while “Sci Fi and Fact” was perhaps a bit underloved.
OK, We could look at data all week, but there are movies to see. Let’s get to those time-tested pro-tips:
PLANNING
- Seattle is a town that loves a line; so plan at least a little bit ahead. Get to know the new SIFF website well (Go ahead and add a calendar link to your home screen). For extra credit, check to see if guests will be at the screening for a Q&A, for timing and scheduling purposes, if not for celeb-watching, and monitor the various SIFF feeds regularly for updates, so you’ll have the heads up before a screening sells out.
- The festival is stuffed with galas, parties, and events; if you want an occasion to wear your fancy filmgoing outfit, splurge on a party ticket and spend some of your SIFF time mingling over cocktails instead of whispering over popcorn.
- In terms of choosing what to see among the 435 films from 83 countries (198 features, 60 documentaries, 163 shorts), you can navigate through the the festival’s official programs and competitions, or take a touchy-feely approach and follow your heart to a programmer-curated set of “moods destinations“.
- If you’re still stumped, take a look a the Programmer’s Picks. These are the people who watched all of the movies at SIFF, plus hundreds that didn’t make the cut. Anything that remains memorable to them after months of immersion, scheduling, and tough choices have to be pretty solid choices.
- SIFF has a ton of information on its website and lets you create an account to buy tickets and build your own festival agenda. However, My SIFF is pretty much an isolated island as far as social networking goes. If you want to share your schedule with friends, you can send it to them by email, but that’s about it. At this point, SIFF’s resilience to networking has almost attained a sort of retro-charm.
- While your schedule and your online presence might not be b.f.f.s, SIFF hopes you’ll interact with them on Facebook & Twitter, where we can all work together to make #SIFForty happen.
- Free printed guides should be at your friendly neighborhood Starbucks. Luddites can use the guide’s two center pages, which contain the whole festival’s schedule, a 25-day strategy manifesto.
- Once the festival starts, you can buy a commemorative catalog. The glossy pictures and longer descriptions make almost every film look more compelling, and the giant book makes a nice souvenir/scorecard/autograph book.
BUYING
- Consider buying in bulk. Ticket packages cut down on service fees and can be cheaper than individual tickets.
- Flying by the seat of your pants and getting into a film via the standby line is a complete crapshoot — don’t count on it for a popular film. But if a miracle does occur, those tickets are full price and “cash preferred.”
- However, it doesn’t hurt to try your luck with whatever happens to be playing on whatever night you happen to be free. Not every screening has an interminable line, sometimes those scary-looking line is just hard-core SIFFers with time on their hands and/or an ingrained sense of promptness, and many times you may walk right in to a half-empty theater. It’s the chance to experience seeing something you enjoy on some level, if only just a window to a different world/experience than what you’re used to. GIVE IN to the festival.
- Head to a SIFF box office to get your tickets in advance and avoid an extra line at the venue for will call. If you must pick up tickets at will call, try to drop in between screenings and have them print all of your pre-ordered tickets at once.
ATTENDING
- If you’re particular about where you sit, there’s no such thing as arriving too early. Expect every screening to have a long line and a full house. Still, as long as you have a ticket, you’ll have a seat. If you’re a passholder, you can usually show up about 20-30 minutes in advance of the screening and still get a good seat. Ticketholders, try 30 min. All bets are off in the case of movies with big buzz. In that case, take whatever seat you can get, but just sit down already. There’s not going to be some magical super-seat in the theater if you scour the entire venue.
- Be prepared with umbrella and light jacket. Bringing some snacks is acceptable, but don’t be That Guy who sneaks in a four-course meal.
- Find your path of least resistance. For example, at the Egyptian, nearly everyone enters the theater and goes to the left. So break away from the herd and go to the right.
- Bathrooms! (Ladies, I’m mostly speaking to you, unless you’re a dude at a dude-heavy midnight screening.) It’s a good rule of thumb that the further away the bathroom is, the shorter the line. So the third floor bathrooms at the Harvard Exit are much more likely to be free compared to those on the second floor. Another way to avoid the line is to either head straight to the restroom as soon as you get into the theater, or wait until the lights go down and the SIFF ads start. You’ve still got about 7 minutes of ads, trailers, and announcements before the film begins.
- Consider subtitles. If your film has them and you’re not fluent, find a seat with a clear view of the bottom of the screen. Aisle left or right is generally a good bet. The seats on the center aisle (exit row) at the Egyptian have tons of room to stretch your legs, but the raking of the theater flattens out for the aisle, so you’re likely to have an obstructed view of the subtitles if anyone of average height or above average skull circumference sits in front of you.
- If you’re a passholder, the queue cards are back to give you a place in the passholder line. SIFF staff start handing them out about 30 minutes before showtime to figure out (and limit) how many passholders they’re letting in to the venues. Passholders who show up after the supply of queue cards have been exhausted will join the huddled masses in the standby line.
EXTRACURRICULAR
- If you’re on foot, trying to see multiple films in a row, and want a little brisk exercise between screenings, the sweet spot is the Egyptian. It’s a walkable distance from the Harvard Exit, as well as Pacific Place. The Egyptian is also right next to a Walgreen’s, if you need water, snacks, or eye drops after 12 hours of movie viewing.
- Alternately, if mobility isn’t your thing, Lower Queen Anne is basically a film buffet with SIFF’s three screens at the Uptown theater and their Film Center on the nearby Seattle Center. Festgoers who usually stick around the Downtown/Capitol Hill area theaters (Pacific Place, the Egyptian, the Harvard Exit) will want to plan some extra travel time accordingly: the roster of SIFF entries playing the Uptown is just too diverse and strong to ignore. However, heading to Queen Anne leaves you reliant on Seattle’s not always timely bus service. Might we suggest the monorail? OR GONDOLAS?
- Speaking of theater eats and drinks, Bloombergites will be happy to know that most of the theaters have semi-secret human scale snack options on the menu (though the only way to get an actually small soda is often when paired with an actually small popcorn). At Pacific Place, it’s the “light snacker,” it exists at the Landmark chain under a name unknown, and at SIFF, it’s blissfully and accurately called a “small”. Maybe it’s not the best economic value, but some of us have no impulse control and limiting portion sizes is the only way to make it out of this festival un-brined.
We’ll see you at the movies! Keep track of the SunBreak’s SIFF coverage on our SIFF 2014 page, plus news updates and micro-reviews on Twitter @theSunBreak.