Something SIFFy This Way Comes
The Seattle International Film Festival starts May 24. All 405 films. Tickets are on sale to members right now; hoi polloi, this Sunday. New this year is that if you buy a multi-ticket package, you can then order tickets online to the specific films you want to see. That is thanks to POP, who do SIFF's website.
We learned this at the SIFF press launch yesterday, in their new digs in McCaw Hall. We went because they said there was going to be a screening of a bunch of previews, and stumbled into a free lunch. All the Capitol Hill film glitterati were there, like Annie Wagner and Charles Mudede from the Stranger -- and a bunch of other pallid people. We drank some SIFF-personalized Jones Soda.
Gary Tucker, the communications director, gave us some how-to-be-good-media instructions, and then Artistic Director Carl Spence and Managing Director Deborah Person got up to speak. Sodium pentothal couldn't make us sum up exactly what Carl was doing up there, besides regurgitating information in our press kit. Then Deborah got up and listed sponsors for 10 minutes. The sponsors listed in the press kit.
No overall message about this year's festival, no talk about a theme, no story angles for the kick-off -- no, wait, there was one. Carl did mention what a huge deal the festival was (in terms of films shown and attendance) and how people in Seattle didn't really know it. It couldn't have been a more Seattle-style approach: rather than simply state how significant the fest is, the story was how Seattle isn't aware of how significant the fest is: "WHY DON'T YOU RESPECT US?" First, SIFF, you must learn to respect yourself.
We'll review the previews after the jump. We're thinking alphabetically.
The Banquet: Ornate costumes, martial arts choreography, and Zhang Ziyi -- Feng Xiaogang is the director. There's a power-hungry Empress and a subtitle has the word "vile" in it. Another subtitle is, "You really know how to please a woman, brother-in-law."
Black Sheep: Voiceover about medical experimentation. Cut to a sheep. We're still thinking Dolly when there's a chomping flesh-of-sound. Lots of that. The preview is basically that one -- admittedly funny -- joke over and over. Looks like a zombie-movie plot but with carnivorous sheep instead of zombies.
The Boss of It All: Lars von Trier has made all sorts of films. Now he's made...an office comedy? That's not good, for a preview to make you wonder whether he has succeeded. An actor is sent in to portray a boss when the boss is delayed and something ensues. Not outright laughter, though.
Confession of Pain: This looks like a fairly strong Chinese police drama. It's got Tony Leung in it as Detective Hei. (Carl mentioned earlier that it's by the same people who did Infernal Affairs, which The Departed is based on.)
Day Watch: If there was a special effect *not* used in this preview, we missed it. The voiceover said something about the Sons of Light fighting the Son of Dark for a mystical Chalk -- actually a piece of chalk, we saw it later! There was Matrix-y time/space distortion, distressed film stock, people shattered into CGI little bits of stuff.
Evening: Claire Danes. Vanessa Redgrave. Toni Collette. Natasha Richardson. Glenn Close. Meryl Streep. Were we ever surprised by the black latex and swordplay! Ha ha! No, actually, it's touching tale of a older woman's memories and her daughters' emotional somethings. They had us at Claire Danes. ZOMG.
Goya's Ghosts: Milos Forman directs the story about Goya (the excellent Stellan Skarsgard) and his muse (Natalie Portman), who is called a heretic by some Inquisition heavy (Javier Bardem) to get even with Goya, and who is tortured and has a pretty rough time all around. Randy Fucking Quaid is King Carlos IV. Holy shit.
Moliere: We'd already seen this preview at the Harvard Exit. Maybe you have too. This might be a good movie about how Moliere, the French playwright, in desperate circumstances, lives out some of the experiences behind his Tartuffe and becomes a legend, but the preview clearly wants it to be a movie about Shakespeare in Love's box-office take.
The Signal: This was the worst preview ever. Lotsa really fast jump cuts. What was it about? There's a signal. That's all we got.
Superbad: We love this movie for returning George Michael Bluth to us. It's also got Freaks and Geeks' Judd Apatow as a producer. The preview is outrageous, awkward teen-dating stuff with a teen Odd Couple looking for action. Lots of physical humor, like when the one kid accidentally headbutts his date and she yells "WHAT THE F--" just like they do in the commercials only they're usually saying "SH--" when the cut comes.
La Vie en Rose This film is also being previewed around town currently. It's about Edith Piaf, the French singer. The preview is strictly for the older arthouse crowd who a) know who Edith Piaf is, and b) care.
