Now in theaters, plus SIFF part four

06/01/09

At last Summer Hours, one of TVOR's favorite recent films, is in wider release. This French film about a family dealing with a house full of possessions has real humans in it, who act like humans. It's wonderful.

TVOR also liked Departures, from Japan, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film earlier this year. It's not the best, but it's still worth seeing. It's a real crowd-pleaser, and somewhat emotionally manipulative, but TVOR went along with it and didn't mind being manipulated. It's also a film that's very audience friendly, even if some in the the audience are dubious about subtitles and foreign films in general.

And if you're in Seattle, Sita Sings the Blues is still playing! This is amazing and wonderful news, and anybody who can make it to the theater should do so.

And now for some brief blurbs on films coming up at SIFF:

Patrik Age 1.5--nice entertaining Swedish film about a gay adoption that does not go as expected.

Passing Strange--Spike Lee's film of the musical. Very nicely done, on beautiful HD video. It sounds great too.

Welcome--TVOR liked this French film about illegal immigrants trying to get across the channel to England very much.

Fear Me Not--TVOR also really liked this Danish film about a man participating in a drug trial.

Kabei--Our Mother--another nice Japanese film, a family saga.

Tahaan--A Boy With a Grenade--don't bother.

Black Dynamite--very silly, very funny parody of a 70's blaxploitation movie.

What's On Your Plate--good documentary targeted at kids about a couple of kids investigating what's in food, and where it comes from.

Il Divo--an Italian film about Prime Minister Andreotti, with wonderful visuals and sound.

Mommy is at the Hairdresser's--very good French Canadian film about a family under a lot of stress.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies--a French parody of spy movies, free and outside at a park. What could be better?

Hooked--tough Romanian film about a couple and a prostitute who insinuates herself into their relationship.

Gotta Dance--a documentary about a group of senior dancers who do hip-hop at New Jersey Nets games. What's not to like about that?

With a Little Help from Myself--a portrait of an immigrant from Africa trying to survive in Paris and keep her family going. Very good.

Yet more SIFF--volume 3

5/27/09

Some upcoming films at SIFF--

TVOR particularly liked the Danish film Fear Me Not, which is showing again. She also thought Kathryn Bigelow's Iraqi war film The Hurt Locker was excellent.

The Headless Woman, La Cienaga, Snow, The Firm Land, and Captive were interesting and also good.

Melodrama Habibi and Carmo, Hit the Road are pretty decent as well--not great, but not a bad time at the movies.

You can skip La Mission. It's not terrible, but not particularly interesting either.

She's already warned you off a few others, and won't repeat herself.

Those of you not in Seattle are on your own right now. Just try to make good decisions.

SIFF 2009--part 2

5/25/09

Here are a few more quick comments from the trenches for upcoming SIFF screenings--

TVOR's top choices: Still Walking, Quiet Chaos, Il Divo, Welcome, The Market--A Tale of Trade, OSS-117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, Kabei--Our Mother, The Hurt Locker, Snow

TVOR also thought these were worthwhile: The Headless Woman, La Cienaga, Mommy is at the Hairdresser's, Hooked, Captive, The Cove

Not bad: Terribly Happy, Melodrama Habibi, My Dear Enemy, Carmo, Hit the Road,

Teetering on the edge: My Suicide

And the ones that didn't work for TVOR: Bluebeard, In Your Absence, El General, Tahaan--A Boy With a Grenade


There are more wonderful archival films coming up at SIFF too--like Coppola's The Conversation. Wow.

SIFF 2009--part 1

5/23/09

The Seattle International Film Festival has just begun, and already TVOR is way, way behind with her comments. First, the non-festival related stuff for non-Seattle people:

If you live in a city where the lovely French film Summer Hours is playing, go see it. It's the best thing TVOR has seen for a while. And if you've already seen that, try Kabei: Our Mother, from Japan. It's not quite the film the first is, more melodramatic, but still worth seeing. If these films haven't come to where you live yet, make a note of them.

Now, for the SIFF notes. Here's what TVOR knows about what's playing the first few days of the festival, all based on her own viewing:

Top choices: Summer Hours, Departures, Quiet Chaos, Still Walking, Treeless Mountain, The Hurt Locker, Snow

Also good: We Live in Public, Captive, Hooked, The Cove, Tulpan

Not bad, but missable: Terribly Happy, My Dear Enemy, Melodrama Habibi, The Higher Force, Carmo, Hit the Road

Flawed, but you probably won't hate yourself...then again, you might: Tahaan-A Boy With a Grenade

TVOR hasn't seen any real stinkers showing in the first few days, although they could be lurking.

And then there are those archival choices, wonderful old films on the big screen during SIFF: Sunset Boulevard, The Third Man, etc. You could always do a lot worse than watch an old classic like one of these.

More later.

Sita is singing in Seattle

5/14/09

TVOR is very excited. Her favorite little lost movie, the film that just couldn’t get distributed because of copyright issues, has somehow managed to get a brief run in her very own city. People of Seattle, go to the Central Cinema from May 14th to 20th and watch Sita Sings the Blues! You’ll be glad you did.

TVOR went on at length about this film in her April 4th blog entry. She won’t go through the whole thing again so here’s an abbreviated version: 1) she really liked the film and thinks you should see it and 2) it’s not getting distributed and 3) you need to grab your chances to see it whenever you can.

If you aren’t in Seattle or can’t get to the Central Cinema, you can go to the film’s website and get various links to stream it, download it, or burn it on a DVD. You can even buy a Sita T-shirt. There’s a good chance you’ll want one after seeing Sita Sings the Blues.

Here's the link to the film's website: http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

Good movie alert!

5/7/09

There are some things worth seeing in theaters! You may have to look a little, but if you're lucky, you'll find them.

Revanche
Written and directed by Gotz Speilmann
This Austrian movie (and really, how many of those have you seen?) was nominated for an Oscar, but has taken a while to get released in the United States. TVOR liked it a lot. It's sort of a moody thriller and sort of a low-rent heist story, but mostly it's a movie that goes in unexpected directions. TVOR went into the film not knowing much about it, and recommends you do the same. She thinks you'll be glad you did.

Sin Nombre
Written and directed by Cary Fukunaga
This is the first feature-length film by Cary Fukunaga, a young American director. To make things more interesting, he made a film taking place in Mexico and a couple of Central American countries, entirely in Spanish, using nonprofessional actors. This is not a guy who's afraid of a challenge. And the film works. The two central characters are both traveling north through Mexico on the roofs of freight trains--a young woman trying to make it to the United States from her home in Nicaragua, and a Mexican gang member running from his former "homies" who are now out to kill him. Sin Nombre covers a lot of ground, both geographically and thematically, with these characters, and does it really well. The film looks great too. Fukunaga managed to get some money to make it, and it's beautifully shot on 35mm film.

Il Divo
Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino
As is frequently the case, New Yorkers get to see really wonderful foreign films before the rest of us--except, that is, for those of us lucky enough to spend time at film festivals. Il Divo opened there last week, and we can only hope that those of us in smaller cities get to see it before too long. (In the mean time, TVOR recommends that you attend your local film festival.) Il Divo tells the story of Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti who held office off and on in the 1970's and 1980's, and is generally assumed to be corrupt, and responsible for the deaths of many. Naturally, in 1991, he was appointed senator for life. This is no standard biopic, however. The film looks like an American gangster movie, in the tradition of The Godfather or Goodfellas, and is one wonderful piece of cinema. It's very stylized (in a good way), and is wonderful visually and in its use of music. There are many characters--government ministers, victims, bad guys (or combinations of all three). You're unlikely to know who many of these people are, but don't worry, just go with the flow. You'll have a ton of fun.

Sleep Dealer
Directed and co-written by Alex Rivera
This time, filmgoers in Los Angeles as well as New York get a jump on the rest of us (except, of course, for those film festival die-hards). This little under-the-radar film is a Mexican science fiction movie that non-fans can enjoy. No spaceships, no androids, no intergalactic battles. Just a futuristic story with a great idea. It takes the idea of Mexican workers doing the United States' dirty work in fascinating directions. Not everything about this film works (this is the director's first feature), but it's definitely worth checking out. When (or if) it comes to your city, of course. Or, eventually, on video.

Goodbye Solo
Directed and co-written by Ramin Bahrani
This guy is the current big deal in American cinema, which is interesting because most people have never heard of him. TVOR really likes his movies--if someone is going to be anointed the savior of American film, he seems like a good choice. It helps that he's articulate, seems nice, and does good Q&A's--TVOR has seen him in action. He also seems unlikely to sell out to Hollywood any time soon. Now, about Goodbye Solo. It's the story of a charming Senegalese immigrant, working as a cab driver in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the relationship that develops between the cabbie and one of his fares, much to the displeasure of the other man. It's also about the world (and world view) of the cabbie and a bunch of other things too. This really is a lovely film. TVOR doesn't want to say too much more. Just see it.

Adventureland
Written and directed by by Greg Mottola
Here's a film you can probably actually find playing all over the country, but you'd better act fast--it's been out a while and theater operators will probably push it out of the few remaining theaters it's playing in soon, in order to make room for the big summer movies. This story, set in the 80's, follows a recent college graduate who, because of family financial problems, ends up working in a sorry-looking amusement park instead of spending the summer traveling in Europe with his buddy. Needless to say, he is not happy about that development, and only reluctantly gets drawn into the world of the park and the lives of the other employees. It's a sweet (but not icky-sweet), gentle film and you should see it.

The Soloist
Directed by Joe Wright
TVOR has mixed feelings about this one. The movie is based on the true story of the relationship between Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist, and Nathaniel Ayers, a schizophrenic living on the streets of LA. Mr. Ayers was once a talented musician, but his disease forced him to drop out of Julliard and give up the cello. This type of movie is just a recipe for disaster--you would expect it to be some sappy thing with a phony, uplifting, feel-good ending. Well, it's not that. It doesn't entirely work, but it's not that. First of all, it has Robert Downey Jr. as Steve Lopez. Thank God. TVOR would watch him do just about anything, and true to form, he elevates his material and is wonderful in the role. Jamie Foxx is good as Mr. Ayers, although not nearly as interesting to watch. A superb actor playing a regular old flawed human is so much more interesting than a good actor playing a disabled character. At least that's what TVOR thinks, although the people who give out awards tend to disagree. Anyway...the film treats people with schizophrenia more realistically that some movies (A Beautiful Mind) but some of its segments trying to show what Mr. Ayers is seeing and/or feeling just don't seem to work. Ultimately, it's not a bad film, but not that great either. See it if you want to. Especially if you're a Robert Downey Jr. fan. But keep your expectations in check.


On video:

Earlier films by Ramin Bahrani are Man Push Cart, about a Pakistani immigrant and Manhattan street vendor, and Chop Shop, about young parent-less Latino immigrants, living and working in Queens. These two movies and Bahrani's new one are all about immigrants, striving to get along and improve their lives, but don't think they follow a pattern. The three films are very different, and each has its pleasures.

Gret Mottola's earlier films include Superbad and The Daytrippers--very different from each other, but both entertaining and well-made. Superbad is the rare adolescent male comedy that even grown up people (including grown-up women) can enjoy. The Daytrippers is a road movie in which an entire family, plus hangers-on, piles in a the family station wagon to investigate suspicions of one daughter's husband's infidelity.

Jesse Eisenberg, very good as the lead in Adventureland, has a couple of earlier films that TVOR really liked. In The Squid and the Whale, he's the older of two sons whose self-absorbed parents' marriage is crumbling, and in Roger Dodger, he's a kid whose absolutely sleazy uncle (Campbell Scott) takes him out, looking for sex. Really.

The Wrestler and Frost/Nixon are out on video now. Both are nicely done films, with wonderful lead performances.

Now in theaters, on DVD, or coming out of your computer

4/4/09

The Class
The Class follows a French high school teacher and one of his high school classes over the course of a school year. It's not a documentary, it's a narrative film based on a memoir by the same man who plays the teacher, a fictionalized version of himself. Oh, and the students in the class play are not played by professional actors, either. This may sound a bit confusing but the result is an engrossing story of a dedicated yet imperfect teacher trying to educate a group of teenagers with various backgrounds, capabilities, and levels of interest.

Two Lovers
This movie is about real people and real emotions and as such is kind of a melodrama. And TVOR doesn't mean that in a bad way. Those of us who are real people take our problems and the decisions we must face in life very seriously, even if they don't involve car chases, extraterrestrial bad guys, or international conspiracies. At least TVOR's don't--so far. Maybe yours do. Joaquin Phoenix is just about perfect as a man who has ended up living with his parents and working in their dry cleaning shop. He's depressed and bi-polar. Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw are the two women he's drawn to (or shoved toward, as the case may be). The acting, especially by Phoenix and Isabella Rossellini as his mother, is wonderful (if Rossellini does not win supporting actress awards for this, there will be some serious injustice going on) and the script and direction by James Gray are excellent. There's an overly convenient incident toward the end that TVOR has a quibble with, but she'll let it go.

Duplicity
This corporate espionage caper is also a romance with a bit of screwball comedy thrown in. In other words, it's a little hard to categorize. Tony Gilroy is an established screenwriter whose first directing effort, Michael Clayton, was none too shabby. This is his second effort, and he's two for two. Clive Owen is ex-MI6 and Julia Roberts is ex-CIA (yeah, I know--they're probably prettier than real-life spies, but this is the movies, after all) and they both end up working for large consumer products corporations whose CEOs hate each other's guts. There's wonderful witty dialog, flashbacks, and some plot elements to figure out (do bring your brain to the theater for this one) but it's not so complex as to be a problem. Clive and Julia are very good, and lovely to look at. The supporting cast is good too, although perhaps not as lovely as the leads. Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson play the duelling CEOs--and that is to be taken almost literally. Do not be late for this film, as the opening credits are not to be missed.

Sunshine Cleaning
This film is moderately entertaining, but the acting is better than the plot or the script or much else about it. It's sort of a comedy, sort of an empowerment through cleaning up crime scenes story, sort of a heartwarming recovering-from-what-your-parents-did-to-you story, sort of...well, it's sort of a jumble. But as TVOR said, the acting is good! Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Clifton Collins, Jr., Steve Zahn, even Jason Spevack as the requisite cute kid--all are way better than their material.

Everlasting Moments
Swedish director Jan Troell was kind of a big deal in the U.S. during the early 1970's, when The Emigrants and The New Land were released. They won awards, were nominated for Oscars, and were even pretty popular in theaters, considering that they featured the dreaded subtitles. Now, you can't even get them on DVD.

So it's nice to see that Mr. Troell is still at it, almost 40 years later. His new film, Everlasting Moments, is the story of a woman and her camera in Sweden in the early 1900's. She's a wife (of a guy who is not the ideal husband) and mother (of numerous children) who finds something special when she starts using a camera she won in a raffle. Any way TVOR would describe this film would make it sound corny so she won't say too much. The film works as a portrait of a place and time as well as a story of family relationships and the relationship between life and art. It's probably about some other things, too. And yes, it's beautifully shot. It's about a photographer, after all.

12
This is a reworking of Twelve Angry Men. It's not like your average Hollywood remake, though. 12 is a Russian take on this story, where the accused is a Chechen teenager on trial for murdering a Russian officer, who is also his adoptive father. Director and co-writer Nikita Mikhalkov (he acts in the film as well) comes up with twelve jurors who are a cross-section of Russia today, and puts them in an old high school gym while they deliberate. Although the word "deliberate" makes the process sound a bit more dignified than it is in the film. A warning--this is a long film (over two and and half hours). It is, however, engrossing and entertaining and worth the time spent.

Katyn
This film is based on historical facts--facts that were lied about for decades. It's the story of thousands of Polish military officers who were murdered by the Soviet army in 1940. As the icing on the cake, the Soviets later blamed the massacre on the Nazis, pushing the date forward so it would appear to have happened while the Germans occupied Poland. Andrzej Wajda's film Katyn tells this story (in narrative, not documentary form) by following a group of these officers and their families as the horror of what has happened to them is compounded by the official lies and rewriting of history carried out by the post-war Polish government. The movie isn't as wonderful as TVOR would have liked it to have been, given the story it is based on, but parts of it are very effective. She can forgive the rest.

Silent Light
This film takes place in a remote Mennonite farm community in Mexico (apparently this place really exists). One of the farmers is convinced that he has ended up with the wrong woman, a situation complicated by the fact that he has seven children by the wife in question. There's not a whole lot of plot here, but there is a whole lot going on as we settle in and get a feel for life in the community and the crisis that this man and his family are dealing with. Silent Light is gorgeous to look at and listen to, and mostly acted by amateurs from the Mennonite community. The limited dialog is in an obscure Mennonite dialect that sounds sort of Germanic. Except for an occasional stop sign, you'd never know you were in Mexico.

The following movies have been out for a while, but may still be hanging around in theaters:

Gomorrah
This Italian film about organized crime in Naples (the real name of the group is the Camorra--the film's title is a play on words) is a good one. It's not a romanticized view, and is about as non-Godfather-like as it could be. This is not a criticism of The Godfather--TVOR loves The Godfather. (At least parts 1 and 2.) It's just that this is a different animal. There are no Shakespearean arcs to the story, no tragedy or nobility. Instead, this film, based on a nonfiction book, is about organized crime that takes over an entire neighborhood and permeates all business activity. The criminals are a pretty unimpressive lot, not given to introspection. The filmmaker, however, takes the story and makes it about more than just a group of crooks in a city in Italy. Life is very cheap in the world of this film, but surprisingly, the amount of violence the audience sees on screen is relatively low. Gomorrah is one to see.

The International
TVOR had hope for this film. The director is Tom Tykwer, who made Run, Lola, Run, The Princess and the Warrior, and Heaven, all of which TVOR really liked. The cast is made up of actors who can act, people like Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. The film isn't terrible, but it's not great either. It's a cerebral thriller that isn't particularly thrilling, and not as cerebral as it would like to be. It's pretty nicely put together, though, and there's an entertaining shoot-out at the Guggenheim Museum (actually, it's a replica, but it's still a cool shoot-out). Just keep your expectations moderate, to minimize disappointment.

Gran Torino
Dirty Harry gets old. That's basically what Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood's latest movie, is about. Clint was good as Dirty Harry and he's good as Old Dirty Harry, too. In fact, the whole movie is not bad. Unfortunately, though, much of the supporting cast just doesn't have the acting chops to pull it off. TVOR understands that there probably aren't large groups of Hmong actors around from which to cast some key roles. But it would seem that perhaps a bit more could have been done to make these important characters more convincing.

Video Notes:

2008 theatrical releases are continuing to be available on video. If you haven't caught them yet, TVOR particularly recommends Milk, Rachel Getting Married, Frozen River, and Let the Right One In, all of which she's talked about in earlier posts. The following are also worth checking out:

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist--a tale of Nick and Norah, two high school students who have only just met, and who spend one night traveling the streets of New York City in search of a band, Norah's misplaced drunken friend, and some other things, too. They do it with a soundtrack of some very cool music in this sweet but not icky sweet little tale. A movie about teenagers that grownups will like too.

Tell No One--this is a tasty French thriller about a man who, eight years after his wife's murder, starts getting strange messages and indications that his wife may still be alive. There are all sorts of interesting characters and mysteries within mysteries, but the complexity doesn't get in the way of the fun. Our hero spends a fair amount of time trying to evade the police, and the whole thing has sort of a Hitchcock feel--in a very French way, of couse.

The House Bunny--this film is definitely in the "guilty pleasure" category. Ana Faris plays a Playboy bunny who gets thrown out of the Mansion and has to find her own way in the cold cruel world. Naturally she finds her way to a college campus where she gets a job as a housemother in a sorority house about to be shut down because the remaining few unattractive, loser girls can't get any new pledges. She finds this spot after being rejected by the house full of beautiful, popular girls. What will happen? There aren't many (if any) surprises in this story, although the quality of the script and the acting are pretty surprising, as well as the sweetness of the story. This movie is not great art, but it sure was a lot of fun.


And, coming to a computer near you:

Sita Sings the Blues

TVOR loved writer/director/animator Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues when she saw it at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2008. So did everyone else she knows. Theaters were packed, and some people not given to seeing movies twice in a short period of time actually planted themselves in more than one screening. It was the kind of movie TVOR wanted to recommend to her friends, except she couldn't because it never got released. Why, you may ask? Well, copyright problems. The film is an animated story sort of following the Ramayana and sort of about the break-up of a contemporary marriage, with songs by Annette Hanshaw, a blues singer from the 1920's who basically no one has ever heard of. The problem was the songs by the obscure singer, which were copyright protected. Nina Paley didn't have the money to pay for the use of the songs, and no distributors wanted to pick up the tab either. So that was that, except for film festival screenings, where the film met with much acclaim, and the random PBS showing, as somehow copyright issues do not apply to public TV. If you don't understand this, neither does TVOR. Anyway, this very strange but wonderful little movie has been denied to most of the world.

There has been progress, though. Ms. Paley scraped up some money (partly raised online), paid for the rights, and the film is available for download at http://sitasingstheblues.com/. For free. Yes, it's amazing but true. You can watch in on your computer screen or burn a DVD for no money whatsoever. TVOR hasn't actually tried this yet, but she hears from competent friends that it works, and she's sure you can figure it out. Given the film's torturous path to digital distribution, though, it would be nice to throw a few bucks Nina Paley's way if you like the movie (which you will). You can also get T-shirts, mugs, and other trinkets with the Sita graphics. Every little bit helps, and we want Nina Paley to keep making original and wonderful films like Sita Sings the Blues.