Results tagged “thehitchhiker”

At long last, after months and months of announcements and press releases, it's finally time to kick off the 33rd annual Seattle International Film Festival. Tonight's the opening gala event (7pm), held for the first time at SIFF's swanky new digs at McCaw Hall. This year's opening night film--Son of Rambow--much like last year's, falls somewhere in between previous year's selections, including the mawkish abomination that is The Notebook and the precious artsy genius of Me and You and Everyone We Know. Rambow won't be out in U.S. theaters until 2008, so this screening is way early, offering you the ability come next year to sigh and say to your lesser-connected friends, "Son of Rambow? Oh, I saw that last spring."

Oh Sundance, has it been a year already since last we ventured to your snowy, film-filled climes? We had barely touched ground before we heard the usual gripes: there's less free parking, more expensive tickets, and it was way better back in the day. Of course, this year there's also no Lindsay Lohan in attendance (thanks rehab!), and the big theme is "Focus on Film," which means, amongst other things, "My idea of 'celebrity' is the filmmaker who directed my favorite film at the Festival." Hear, hear. With that in mind, what we've seen in our first ~18 hours:

The Northwest Film Forum's been showing The Girl from Monday for a week now, but for tomorrow night's screening at 8pm, director Hal Hartley will be in attendance to introduce his latest work and hold a post-film Q&A. Since Hartley's veritable indie film royalty, this is a big geeky deal. The Girl from Monday has been dubbed a "fake sci-fi movie," but it's also a dark dystopian satire, a vision of the future where humans are traded like stocks, their value determined by sexual experiences. Sounds like a hoot. The film's showing sans Hartley through May 4th daily at 7pm and 9pm.