For Your Consideration: This Week at SIFF
Now that Memorial Day weekend is past us, and Folklife and Sasquatch have played their last rain-soaked notes, it's time to focus on the things that really matter: SIFF films. Just for fun, go check out the SIFF 2006 profile on Flickr. It's got a lot of great pics, including a bunch of Jessica Biel looking vacuous and a dozen photos of Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. Dudes, we understand that you really like his gangster trilogy (Pusher I, II, III), and he's one of your Emerging Masters and all that, but seriously, stop slobbering his knob. A couple photos would've sufficed.
Seattlest applies our well-honed knowledge of all things cinema to the SIFF catalogue in order to point out some notable films playing over the next few days:
· A Soap This is one of the 14 films from Denmark being shown at SIFF as part of the Danish Spotlight. Winner of two major awards at Berlin (including the Silver Bear, aka second place), A Soap follows the blossoming friendship between Charlotte, fresh off a break-up, and Veronica, the pre-op tranny who lives downstairs. David Dencik (in town for yesterday's screening) as Veronica is startingly good, and the film's soap opera chapters and style (a character enters a room, something happens, the character leaves) keeps things interesting. (today, 4:15pm @ Pacific Place)
· Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon This documentary highlights a small logging town in Oregon, where education leads to more liberal values (natch), leading to some major in-fighting between the conservative old fogeys and those progressive whippersnappers. (tonight, 7pm @ the Egyptian; Thursday, 4:30pm @ Broadway Performance Hall)
· Anne of the Thousand Days Happy fun times for Anne Boleyn, who marries Henry VIII after his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Wonder how that turned out.... The 1969 classic will be introduced by local opera diva Jane Eaglen, who will recount what exactly this film means to her. (tonight, 8pm @ Harvard Exit)
· Carmen in Khayelitsha The South African remake of Bizet's classic opera is sung entirely in the local dialect of Xhosa. We've heard good things. (tomorrow, 6:45pm @ the Neptune; Sunday June 4th, 4pm @ Lincoln Square Cinemas)
· A Conversation with Stewart Copeland The drummer from The Police talks about his musical career before a screening of documentary Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out. We saw the film at Sundance, where Copeland was on-hand to discuss his experiences with the band. Copeland is a charming, laid-back guy with some great stories, and his footage, filmed when The Police were just starting to get big, is a pretty remarkable snapshot of a band approaching major fame. (tomorrow, 7pm @ the Egyptian)
· The King The reviews for the movie have skewed towards the mediocre, but if you find Gael Garcia Bernal as yummy as we do, it still might be worthwhile to catch this flick. (tomorrow, 9:30pm @ the Neptune)
· Half Nelson Expanded from an award-winning short film, this feature stars Ryan Gosling as an inner-city school teacher trying to change kids' lives, while also struggling with his own issues. (Thursday, 7pm @ the Egyptian; Saturday, 1:15pm @ the Egyptian)
· Hell A good friend of ours, who happens to be a major cinephile, has praised this film repeatedly. He knows our taste well enough to judge when we'll enjoy something, so we're going to have to see this French drama, in which three sisters come to terms with a traumatic childhood event. (Thursday, 9:30pm @ the Egyptian; Tuesday June 6th, 4:30pm @ the Neptune)
· Princess Raccoon We didn't go to the press screening of this film, but we heard a lot of people discussing it after the fact. It was described as "weird" and "twisted" and, according to one film-goer "the most messed-up film experience [he'd] ever had that didn't involve illicit drugs." What we didn't hear anyone say was whether or not this Japanese musical was any good. Judge for yourself. (Thursday, 9:15pm @ Pacific Place)
