Nothing makes one feel like a bonafide blogger than free WiFi. Cinecultist is currently in the Ikea lounge area of the Austin Convention Center after a screening, getting caught up on emails and checking in. All around us are earnest, badge wearing interactive and film folks tapping away on lap tops, drinking coffees, chatting and planning their next move navigating this massive festival. It's kind of awesome, the creative hub bub here at SXSW.
Last night CC watched the locally made, fiction film, Goliath, about a middle aged white collar worker dealing with his bourgeois rage and the loss of his beloved cat, and then today we caught the documentary We Are Wizards, about Harry Potter fans. So far we've been sticking with our initial navigation plan of seeking out off-the-beaten path movies, not films that are coming to New York in the next week or so. Both movies were worth seeing for their zany, home-grown qualities.
Goliath is a film directed and written by David Zellner, and produced and edited by his brother Nathan, with both brothers acting in the movie as well as other indie fixtures like Wiley Wiggins and Andrew Bujalski. It has an Office Space vibe, only with even more depressed, hopeless characters who endure soul crushing humiliations. Moments like the bureaucratic signing of divorce papers or the inane chatter in a break room full of imbecile dudes are played out unblinkingly and the resulting laughter is appreciative if also slightly embarrassed. The Zellner brothers are interested in fixating on situations we've all been in, and frankly it's slightly uncomfortable.
After the Zellners, We Are Wizards was a more buoyant and celebratory selection, delving into the world of Wizard Rock—bands devoted to performing original songs about Hogwarts characters—HP fan sites and other creative expression centering on The Boy Who Lived. After attending a few Union Square midnight extravaganzas for Rowling's books and movies, it was really intriguing to see folks from all over the country using post-modern expression to explore their love of Harry. A stand-out character in Josh Koury's documentary is Brad Neely, a geeky cartoonist for Super Delux who recorded his own audio interpretation/commentary for the first film. There's something about this wizarding universe and it's characters which he says allowed him to make his most resonant work. He tells Koury's camera, he still thinks about it all the time. Intriguing that in our pop culture saturated world, it's appropriation that can lead to truly satisfying creativity.
Just now, we saw film writer Dennis Lim walking past and chatted with him about his experience so far. This is Dennis's first SXSW too, and because he's serving as a documentary judge, he's parked here in the Convention Center for the day watching all eight of the competitors. We recommended that when he gets a break from movie watching to eat a meal at the South Congress Cafe. Cinecultist had a delightful brunch there this morning, complete with mimosas and cornbread muffins. Yum. We also ate an equally scrumptious cupcake from the Hey Cupcake airstream truck parked across the street. Oh Austin, you're so quirky.
Tonight, we have plans to hit The Toe Tactic premiere party and check out the advertised performance by Yo La Tengo. But before that we'll have to swing by the drugstore for some decongestant, Cinecultist is battling a bit of a cold or maybe allergies.
In a few short hours, Cinecultist will be winging our way from Newark, New Jersey to Austin, Texas, the site of the South by Southwest Film Festival. We could only take a couple of days off for the trip, and as we filled up our interactive film festival calendar yesterday with interesting screenings and panels, we realized it's shaping up to be a jam packed long weekend. Especially since we've heard such good things about Austin's bbq, tacos and margaritas from past festival attendees. Perhaps pulled pork will become our new go-to movie snack after this weekend.
Looking over the festival line up, Matt Dentler and his team have put together a great mix of mainstream new releases like the opening night feature 21 and Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo, with documentaries and small indies. On our list so far are two docs we'd heard good thing about at Sundance, Gonzo and American Teen. But Cinecultist also hopes to make some introductions to new filmmakers, so we definitely want to check out some of the short subjects, Emerging Visions and Lone Star States collections. Plus, we're hoping to do some film party schmoozing and film panel attending, so as we said, busy, busy, busy!
CC has packed the digital camera and the laptop, so we'll be filing dispatches all weekend long. If you'll also be in town for the fest or have some bbq/taco consuming suggestions, drop us a line.
Cinecultist quit the Eee Vee for the long weekend to see the sights in Boston. It was a mighty good time. Historic Irish pubs, tasty burgers, gamboling seals, navigating the T, and schooling Harvard Square geeks in trivia were all involved. Here is one of our favorite views from the trip, of the river from a top the Prudential building in their lovely lounge. They know how to have a civilized cocktail in Bean Town.
Don't these juices from a stand at the Red Hook Ballfields look utterly luscious? If you're based in the New York area but haven't been out to sample some pupupas, tacos, ceviche and tamales in Brooklyn make a plan for next weekend. Tasty goodness folks, and a perfect capper to a sweet summer.
In other Brooklyn news, Cinecultist says get thee to the new Williamsburg bar The Gutter asap for an evening of good beers and bowling. You can even do your best Jesus Quintanta impression. [Check out some pretty photos of the space from Gothamist.]
This post isn't movie related but rather concerns another Cinecultist obsession: good coffee, or more specifically good coffee in Seattle. A photo we had posted on Flickr from a trip to Seattle a few years ago has been licensed by a new cool travel website called Schmap. On the entry for one of our favorite places on Capitol Hill, Bauhaus, you can see the image above that CC took from inside. It's part of a customizable map of a destination, complete with nodes indicating restaurants, boutiques, and other points of interest for residents as well as visitors. Considering Cinecultist thinks of ourselves as a kind of walking schmap (go on, quiz us! we can't be stumped!), we're tickled to be a small part of this project. Check out the site and let us know what you think. There's a New York version too that we'll be having fun poking around.
Isn't there something terribly festive about a weekend just before a mid-week holiday? It's not like this weekend is anything special but next week is so abbreviated it makes you want to sing with joy. Also, the humidity broke in New York, so that's another reason today is happy day. Here's the Cinecultist's big no-holiday weekend plans:
- Watch the Netflixed DVD of Little Dieter Needs to Fly. CC saw Rescue Dawn recently which we thought was very disturbing and fucked-up-but-in-a-good-way. Now we need to know what Werner Herzog thought was the deal with Dieter before he learned the real deal about Dieter and made it into a movie with Christian Bale.
- Eat take-out and Tasti D-Lite. Summer makes us a little lazy on the cooking front and obsessed with low cal frozen treats that taste like fake mud pie.
- Relax by going to yoga class and getting a hot salt scrub at Bliss. Dry scaly skin begone thanks to lovely birthday gift certificates.
- Go to another New York Asian Film Festival screening. This one is of Getting Home which is from China and about peasants, if we recall correctly.
- Think about going to a screening of one of the Kino films at Lincoln Center which we recommended on Gothamist today.
- Potential Mitzvah: wander around in front of a theater playing Evening and try to persuade patrons not to spend their $11.75 on a ticket. Gawd, that movie blows and sucks, as Manohla Dargis more eloquently put it in her NYT review. Avoid, avoid, avoid!
- Maybe go to the Richard Serra exhibit. Maybe do a little shopping. Maybe take a nap. The possibilities are endless!
The New York Asian Film Festival began this past weekend, and on Sunday night amidst the residual brouhaha of Pride weekend in the West Village, Cinecultist caught a screening of I'm A Cyborg But That's Okay at the IFC Center. We've been anticipating Park Chan-wook's newest as well as the sixth annual fest from the folks at Subway Cinema and for the most part neither parties disappointed. Complex visuals and kooky characters from Park? Check. High energy programmer Grady Hendrix acting delightfully spastic as he introduces the film and gives away free stuff? Double check.
Unfortunately I'm A Cyborg, while containing a lot of great moments (including the part where one of the characters utters that bizarre and hilarious line we used for the headline), isn't uniformly as compelling as some of Park's previous work. Set in a mental institution, the two main characters are Young-goon (Su-jeong Lim, who played one of the sisters from A Tale of Two Sisters) and Il-Sun (Rain, a HUGE Asian pop star), who fall for each other while trying to cope with their mental instability. Il-Sun believes he has the ability to steal people's character traits as well as their prized possessions while Young-goon thinks herself a cyborg and chats with inanimate objects in the hospital like the fluorescent lights and the aforementioned vending machine. Of course because she's animatronic, Young-goon believes she needs to be recharged with electricity rather than refueled with conventional food, a theory at odds with the standard practices of a hospital.
Like in his previous films, Park's movies really take off when he enters his characters' warped perspectives. The sequence where Young-goon becomes the cyborg and takes out all of the evil "white 'uns" holding her hostage with her automatic rifle fingers is spectacular. It's just that some of the internal logic of the crazy people was tough to parse. Psychosis isn't really the most light topic, nor the stuff of obvious romantic comedy, so there are times where the craziness seems tacked on and solvable. There seems to be something disingenuous about creating characters with debilitating phobias and then implying they could just "make themselves better" if they really wanted. While we'd never try to expect a Park Chan-wook to be "realistic," it's usually at least believable and consistently compelling. In that respect, I'm a Cyborg isn't as powerful as you'd hope.
The rest of our screening schedule for the fest: on Thursday Takashi Miike's Big Bang Love, Juvenile A which stars jail-bait handsome Ryuhei Matsuda and includes a Mayan pyramid, a Chinese movie (tangentially) recommended by Grady, Getting Home next Sunday, and then Hula Girls, which is always a crowd favorite according to our friend William, the following Monday.
We've also been toying with the idea of finally buying a DVD copy of The Taste of Tea, which CC saw at NYAFF a few years ago. However our poor, belabored credit card isn't quite buying our rationale about the importance of supporting good Asian cinema with our American dollars.
Poor Seattle Maggie. She's been so busy with her exciting Seattle life that she's barely had any time for movies at this year's Seattle International Film Festival, an event Cinecultist heartily enjoyed attending with her when we both resided in that rainy city. However, SM did catch a few things of note, mostly chosen by how little they anticipated they'd have to endure "standing in line and crowds and running to get seats," and she haiku reviewed them. Here's some of her syllable-counting brilliance.
Manufactured Landscapes
China is quite big
Destruction can be pretty
Sleepy but gorgeous
The King of Kong
Monkey named Donkey?
Battles with machine and man
Wide grins in the dark
The Last Winter
Nature bares her teeth
Don’t turn your back on that corpse!
Ron Perlman is hot
Big Rig
Truckers have hard lives
Asphalt string wraps the country
Doug Pray signed our stub
Holy moly, the Cinecultist is exhausted. Today was the first day in nearly a week and a half when we weren't running off to a screening for the Tribeca Film Festival. It's been a fun few weeks, especially when we were actually hanging out down in Tribeca, but now CC's ready for a break from the movies, the parties and remembering to bring our festival pass when we leave the apartment.
Here's what we saw, and a brief review:
It's a weird mix of movies to see we know, and bear in mind timing kept us from some screenings we intended to catch. However, Tribeca is sort of an odd, hodge podge kind of festival, so maybe our selections were fitting for the spirit of the thing.
For ages, whenever Cinecultist walked down Houston Ave past Bowery, we'd look longingly at the "Coming Soon...Whole Foods" signs. But today on the way to a morning press screening at Film Forum, we did a little happy dance on the corner because our anticipation is finally over--the Whole Foods Bowery is now open for business! Later in the day CC and our friend (and fellow Eee Vee foodie) Adriane returned for a tour. Dear god, did you know they have a whole chilled room devoted to cheese? It's called the Fromagerie, no joke. Plus, the piles of beautiful produce, the local artisanal snacks, the counter filled with sausages and a counter of pomme frites complete with a sauces menu had CC salivating and planning summer menus galore. We're talkin' about some good eatin'. After ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the ground floor, we took a break with a coffee and CC took the above camera phone shot of the view up Second Avenue from the second floor cafe. We expect to be doing quite a bit of remote blogging from that spot.
They also have a sushi bar in that second floor cafe, which features an adorable conveyor belt. CC may try to go next week for lunch and pretend like we're Kirsten Dunst eating with Paul Bettany in Wimbledon. Silly we know, but it is a pretty awesome space that begs for romantic movie hyperbole. CC should also probably just start automatically setting aside a sizable chunk of our meager income to WF. It ain't cheap to shop there but boy, they have a great looking selection of products.
In slightly more movie related news, if you're a fellow NY movie goer, think about donating some time as a volunteer to this year's Tribeca Film Festival. You can still sign up via their website. Friends of CC who've done it in past years say it's a blast plus it's a great way to meet other local film fans while helping out the downtown fest.
Last night at the Museum of Modern Art, Cinecultist attended a special preview screening of Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a new movie about the Irish "troubles" which won the Palm D'Or at Cannes this year. Loach was in the house to introduce the movie and answer questions following (as pictured with a MoMA staff member), as well as cast members Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney and Mairtin de Cogain. It was unassuming English and Irishmen all around, with one more self-effacing than the next. Loach in particular is totally adorable, like a sweet grandpa you want to take home for a cup of tea and then debate the history of Western philosophy.
One thing all four panelists were incredibly passionate about though was this project, which Loach described as coming together quite naturally. The struggles for Irish independence was a topic he and writer Paul Laverty had discussed for many years off and on before deciding to develop it into a screenplay about two fictional brothers caught up in the fighting. Each brother represents a point of view and as the conflicts get more heated, their impulses to do "the right thing" gets harder and harder in the face of the horrible circumstances.
Like in Loach's previous films that CC's enjoyed Bread and Roses and Sweet Sixteen, he does an amazing job of illiciting nuanced and naturalistic performances from his actors. Cillian Murphy has had good roles before, but he's particularly wonderful here as a young doctor compelled to fight for his country despite his gentle conscience. Also, CC was pleased to note that in person Murphy's modest personality doesn't contain any traces of his creepy characters from Batman Begins or Red Eye. Apparently, Cillian is a nice guy who's just a really good actor. Go fig.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley hits US theaters a week from Friday.
On Sunday afternoon, Cinecultist went to see a screening of Factory Girl and based on the crowds in the lobby you would've thought Edie Sedgwick herself had descended on the Angelika. The Angelika has such an odd set up with their over-priced cafe on the ground floor and then the concession stands, restrooms and theaters on the floor below. When it's not too crowded these two areas don't matter too much, and actually the cafe is nice to sit in if you're early to your movie like CC was on Wednesday. We'd gotten coffee up at Think with just this plan in mind and sat reading, observing the packed lobby scene for about an hour.
Angelika has a pretty good line up right now, some Oscar nominated movies like The Queen or Notes on a Scandal that people perhaps haven't seen yet, plus some newer, much buzzed about movies like Factory Girl and The Lives of Others. Consequently, the Angelika staff had the moviegoers lining up, either to the left of the entrance or to the right, in these velvet roped areas. However, they held the lines there until about 5 minutes before the movies started and with all the people, plus the proximity of the start times to each other, there got to be quite a bottleneck. Also, certain people get antsy/cranky when they're not in their movie seats a good 15 minutes or so before the movie starts. It's confusing to be still waiting upstairs as the start time nears, they want to be on time and situated. The woman in line in front of CC even turned around to ask if she was in the right place because of it. This is after the staff has been announcing over the PA system where everyone should be every 10 minutes or so. Perhaps she thought the movie might start without her? Poor lady, she should've pretended she was an Edie Sedgwick, confident that the party couldn't start until she had arrived.
It's a popular New York movie obsessive past time to complain about the Angelika, and CC does it too, mostly because that subway rumbling from the 6 train is seriously distracting during the movies. The Angelika has a tricky situation on their hands; they're showing movies worth seeing right now and they're trying to handle the crowds but it doesn't seem to be working all that well. People cut in the line, there's a general sense of crankiness and it seemed to CC like a lot less people were going to the concession stand downstairs as they rushed into their designated theater. This can't be good for Angelika business cutting down on those popcorn sales.
By the way, how was Factory Girl, you may be wondering? Pretty good actually, considering that Weinstein Co. intended to release it before the end of 2006 but held it for legal reasons. Sienna Miller is just as lovely as you'd imagine she would be, and does come across as a compelling artist's muse. Though we were surprised that Bob Dylan's people objected to the "folk singer" character played by Hayden Christensen which is an obvious homage to Dylan. If anyone is culpable for Edie's demise in the movie, it's not Dylan but Andy. He basically turns his back on her because she deigns to fall in love with the heterosexual hunk played by Hayden. The film depicts Andy as rejecting anyone who doesn't remain in his orbit, treating him as the most important person in the world. For someone seemingly so self-hating, he's awfully narcissistic.
After seeing this movie, CC still thinks the most interesting woman at the factory was Brigid Berlin. She wasn't a waify lovely inspiring fashion trends like Edie, but at least she kept making art even after sublimating herself to Andy's creative dominance. Rent Pie In The Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story and you'll see what we mean.
It's a fact. Cinecultist is just getting too darn old to be staying up until 1:30 in the morning to see (not so) super secret shows at Mercury Lounge. Of course, buying a $10 ticket to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah play a tiny show to promote their new album was a total no brainer, but we're still pretty tired this morning. Our music blogger friends the 'gum and the 'vegan have some nice pictures up today. Heck, while we're at it with the music posting, Cinecultist would comment in response to the inevitable conversation about how this ranked on the scale of CYHSY shows, it was better than New Year's '05 into '06 but not as good as at Warsaw in '05. Sometimes, we have the lingering feeling that Alec doesn't actually sing all of the lyrics because he's sort of bored by his own songs. Regardless though, CC could be seen boogieing up 1st Ave last night around 3 am singing the chorus of "Satan Said Dance" not so quietly to ourselves.
In more movie-ish news, David Pogue reviews Netflix's new movie streaming service in the New York Times today. Brilliant development from the 'flix to offer real time streaming of some of their movies with your paid subscription, just get the Mac plug in set up a tout de suite!
Sorry kids, this is one of those lame blog posts where said blogger apologizes for being AWOL from their online perch. Blah blah blah, freelance writing for money takes up so much time, blah blah blah, holiday season, blah blah blah. You get the picture. Besides, if even freakin' David Bordwell* is entering the blogosphere, maybe the Cinecultist is now passe.
Nah.
Promises, promises: More postings soon, including an end of the year top 10 that's been churning around in our film obsessive noggin.
*True Story: CC bought Bordwell and Thompson's Film Art book a total of three times during our cinema studies days, each time completing the course which required it, gleefully selling it back to the bookstore and then cursing his name when it showed up on the syllabus yet again.
Sorry folks for the awol behavior this week, the Cinecultist is out of the country. We are currently in Italy visiting our family for the next week or so. We shall return on the 24th but in the meantime, postings will be intermittent. Check out our Flickr link for a few European photos, including 4 fun filled hours in the Amsterdam airport on a layover. Wheee!
One movie point of note from our trip thus far: The Devil Wears Prada as seen on a tiny screen from the back of an airplane seat is still as entertaining as on the big screen. In fact, it may be taylor made for such a low-fi exhibition.
Pictured above: The walkway from my parents' house down to the center of town.
But we love living here anyhow. It's just sad to look back. The month of September marks five years since Cinecultist moved to New York to study film, just as today is the fifth year anniversary of an incredibly tragic day for this city.
A picture Cinecultist took from the top of the Empire State building.
With the Cinecultist in full summer blockbuster movie binge mode, loyal readers who dig our art house coverage may be worried that our Pavlovian response to the flashy opening weekends may have rotted our brain. Not to worry, CC's still making time for the indie, the foreign and the academic strands of our movie fandom. Case in point the following three recent flicks:
- Funny Ha Ha (DVD rental). We can't quite recall why this ended up in the Netflix queue but needless to say we liked it's low fi, rom com charm. Starring Kate Dollenmayer as Marnie, it's about a slightly disaffected 24-year-old who's graduated from college but is feeling a little lost. She drinks too much, has a dumb temp job and has a thing for her friend Alex (Christian Rudder) who may or may not be single. Jeez, that sounds all to familiar to CC from our own salad days. This is one of those movies where very little happens, yet the smallest gesture or look between these very "real" characters communicates so much about their experience. Andrew Bujalski, we await the rest of your career with eager anticipation.
- Peacock (closing film at Brooklyn International Film Festival). Programmed by those crazy kids at Subway Cinema to close out BiFF and as an entry in their own festival (screening June 22 at 8:30 pm), it's a 2 plus hour movie about a family struggling through the Cultural Revolution. This may sound like snooze city but CC found ourselves quite engaged by this elegantly shot film which reminded us a bit of Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, though without the jokes. While we're still a bit baffled by what the appearance in the final scene of the titular peacock actually represents, we enjoyed the vignettes about each of the three siblings.
- Dead Birds (MoMA's To Save And Protect Festival). A few weekends ago, our friend Adriane shot us an email asking if we'd like to see a documentary at MoMA later that day. Only thing was, it was a 1964 ethnographic film about the Papuans in West New Guinea by Robert Gardner. Sometimes it's a good idea to just say yes to such a strange movie request, without any preconceived notions or expectations and this time was no different. Somehow Gardner was able to capture this ancient and seemingly untouched society on film, as the subjects deal with the continuing warfare between tribes and the customs associated with community and religion. Seeing a movie like this that's about a world so remote from our own makes us rethink all of our cultural assumptions of normality. If an anthropologist looked in our our lives from a different world would our beliefs and rituals seem as alien? While the god-like voice of Gardner's narration is a bit too omniscient for comfort at points, the fact that he's able to get that close to real fighting with spears is beyond impressive.
The birthday festivities are done and thanks to all who wished CC a happy happy. Especially those who helped us greet the dawn over a game of caps. We're a little bit hung over today, but we'll recover soon. Pictured above is our birthday cupcake (flavor: lemon) from Sugar Sweet Sunshine, official dessert provider for this year's celebrations, taken with our new toy, the Treo 650 on Tuesday. Yay for new toys, cupcakes and great friends!
P.S. CC's Dad pointed out to us a really, really, really depressing birthday movie: Pelle - The Conqueror (1987). Max Von Sydow (Lasse) and Pelle Hvenegaard (Pelle) "'The end of the 19th century. A boat filled with Swedish emigrants comes to the Danish island of Bornholm. Among them are Lasse and his son Pelle who move to Denmark to find work. They find employment at a large farm, but are treated as the lowest form of life. Pelle starts to speak Danish but is still harassed as a foreigner. But none of them wants to give up their dream of finding a better life than the life they left in Sweden.' This is an unrelentingly depressing film. At one point Lasse and his son are toiling away in the bitter cold in the fields and Pelle says to his father, today is my birthday. Lasse, who is a very loving father, though he looks to be the grandfather, says 'Well congratulations to you, this is your day.'"
Leave it to Scandinavian cinema to put it all in perspective. Thanks Dad!
Isn't it the funniest thing in the world when the tiniest things just make you happy? Cinecultist has been tallying up the little stuff today, and really, it's all good. Case in point:
- We figured out how to use the New York Public Library during our lunch break. The main branch is right near our day job offices, so we popped in today to register our new library card at the 40th and Fifth Avenue location and then check out our book for book club. Between this and those jury duty notices CC's been getting (and postponing) lately, we're really becoming a proper New Yorker.
- After work, Cinecultist hopped on the train to Lincoln Center for the 4th Annual Benefit for the Academy of American Poets held in Alice Tully Hall, courtesy of our gig with Gothamist. The $75 ticket (ah, press comps are the best) entitled poetry fans to readings from special guest readers Dianne Wiest, William Wegman, Mike Wallace, Wendy Whelan, Alan Alda, Oliver Sacks, Christopher Durang, Gloria Vanderbilt, Wynton Marsalis and Meryl Streep. There really is something to be said for poetry read aloud, especially by people with compelling delivery like this crowd. Marsalis's interpretation of Sterling A. Brown's "Ma Rainey" was a highlight, as he burst into deep, soulful a cappella part way through. Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? You do now.
- Our HBO On Demand has been all flooey and pixelated the last few days, so we called Time Warner tonight to ask what was up. Turns out, it's service wide with just HBO On Demand and they're trying hard to get it fixed as soon as possible. However, in the process CC decided to take the big plunge and switch to DVR while getting rid of On Demand. We hear this is going to change our life. But, it's been so long since we've modified our cable plan that it turns out we've been paying more than we need to for our service. Thus, this switch is not only giving us recorded Law and Order: Criminal Intent to our heart's fulfillment but we're also saving $16 to boot! How good is that?
- Finally, for dinner we stopped at our beloved St. Mark's Market and bought fresh flat leaf Italian parsley to sprinkle on our chicken sausage, spinach and garlic with whole wheat pasta. Have you chopped up fresh parsley lately? We highly recommend it -- it's like a burst of fresh springtime in your kitchen. The weather may be threatening a snow flurry tonight to dampen the lovely 60 degree days we've been having this past week but in Cinecultist's Eee Vee residence, it's decidedly spring.
There's a Chinese restaurant in our neighborhood called the Bamboo House and it's the cheesiest looking place ever, with dank looking interiors and sad, faded pictures of greasy looking dishes you could order posted in the windows. Cinecultist has lived in our apartment for nearly three years and we've never once thought about eating there. But apparently the cheesiness works to its advantage as the TV show Rescue Me shot there last night -- bad decor equals great television ambience.
CC kind of loves it when TV or movies shoot in the nabe, there's something so festive about a giant cherry picker parked on the street with orange cones blocking off the surrounding parking spaces. Also, one of these days we're totally going to help ourselves to some of that Kraft service they leave lying around. A box of fancy cereal or a pre-wrapped biscotti in the pocket would hardly be noticed, right?
The other aspect of walking past streets sets is the covert neck strain trying to see if you recognize anyone in the cast. Though this is made significantly easier if the cast is broadcasting their filmography to passersby. "Did you see Crash? I'm in Crash. Yeah, Crash." This guy yelled loudly as we passed on the way home last night. Dude, hate to break it to you but the cast for Crash is huge! Everyone and their mama is in Crash. Hell, even CC could say we're in Crash and some people would be none the wiser. However still chuckling about this overheard exchange, this morning we looked him up on trusty Imdb and it was trusty character actor Jack McGee, of course. Looks like he's been in nearly every procedural show possible on television plus some other random stuff like Basic Instinct, Scrooged and Showgirls. Ah, working actors -- god love 'em.
As the helicopter piloted out of the Waikaloa heliport this morning at 7:30 pm, the song "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins from the Top Gun soundtrack blared in our padded ear phones.
This guy at the Laua fish market probably gutted our dinner.
More images on CC's flickr page.
For those who visit this blog as a way not so much to read about film viewing and cinema news but to keep up on the life of one Karen the Cinecultist, you'll be happy to know CC is now on the Big Island of Hawaii enjoying a much needed week long vacation. Escaping the lingering Manhattan slush and stresses of the Day Job, flying over both land mass and ocean expanse, CC finally touched down in Kona yesterday morning -- though this was after delays cross country and an unexpected six hour overnight stay in Waikiki. The weather is a balmy 80 degrees, the sun is shining and we can see the ocean from the backyard of the house where CC is staying with the fam. Very good stuff.
Cinecultist might find some time this week to blog here in between walks on the beach, hours spent devouring novels and meals of fresh fish. Or we might not. We're letting it all flow just like the Hawaiians, kids. Until then Aloha and Mahalo. (That's "so long and thank you" to those of you still on the mainland.)
BTW, the vintage poster above from Gidget Goes Hawaiian is in honor of CC's plan to take a surfing lesson. Don't worry, we'll make sure there is digital proof via Flickr for your amusement next week.
In honor of sometime CC contributor Lisa's awesome costume at her party last night on the Upper East Side, we bring you the Punky Brewster picture at right. God, we loved that little plucky, color-blind orphan and her golden retriever puppy, Brandon. Cinecultist did not dress up after all, however we did carve two mini pumpkins, eat a cupcake decorated to look like a spider and went home with the jar of candy that we correctly guessed the number of pieces inside.
When most people think of Halloween, they don't think '80s TV though, they think horror movies. By popular demand, aka from our friend Michael who lurves horror movies, for Halloween we meditated a bit on the horror movies that kept us from the genre for many years.
This may sound like cinema sacrelige but it's only recently that we've watched things like the Shining or Psycho. And this was in an academic setting, though we still watched the scary bits with our eyes covered. Basically, CC comes from a long line of movie scaredy cats. Our Dad tells about how as a kid he hid under the chair during Bambi and there's many movies our siblings weren't allowed to see because we didn't want them to have nightmares. This is the prevalent philosophy in our household: that too many scary movies will disrupt delicate sleep patterns and that would be really bad.
At various sleep over parties, other six grade girls tried to get us to watch memorably schlock like Poltergeist III or Children of the Corn and mostly we spent the movie hiding behind an overstuffed chair. Perhaps we'd heard too many times that we didn't like scary movies that we never had the chance to decide for ourselves? Kind of like our dislike of nuts in cookies, a persnickety habit inherited from family members taste. For some reason, gore we're okay watching (like in our growing taste for Takashi Miike movies) but suspense is still something that brings out the skittish 12 year old in us. Oozing wounds? Fine. Something jumping out from the bushes? No. Thank. You.
Cinecultist comes to you ce soir from the scenic city of Montreal, where we've flown for the weekend avec our maman. Please excuse our incorrect French usage, our three years of high school francais is coming back in spurts and fits in this francophile town (also, we can't figure out any of the accent keys on this borrowed hotel PC, pardon!).
It's been raining all day here, and with the pervasive damp what else would there be to do but go to le cinema, bien sur? The concierge at our hotel, the Auberge de Vieux-Port (shout out for Rue la Commune!) recommended we go to the Pepsi Forum, a theater they converted from a hockey stadium into a movie cineplex. After a brief cab ride with our nice but mostly French speaking cab driver ("Forum? Rue St. Catherine? Le Cinema?" we tried to explain), we arrived at the converted mall. Everything in Montreal is mall-ish, what with the weather and all but as a New Yorker we're vaguely skeptical of anything so indoorsy. But the complex was fine, all in all. The movie tickets cost $10 Canadian and since we haven't really nailed down the conversion rate in our head, we're going to just say that's slightly less than in Manhattan. Though popcorn is still exorbident, regardless of the country, you'll be happy to know.
Seeing as our movie partner was our Mom, we picked a safe little chick flick to watch, In Her Shoes, the new Cameron Diaz/Toni Collette movie directed by Curtis Hanson. We can't recall if we ever read the Jennifer Weiner book the film is based on, though we think at some point we've read something of hers. Or maybe all of these plot lines about nice Jewish girls who are a little plain but love shoes and have complicated relationships with their family members all seem to blend together. Irregardless of the source material, this is a moderately amusing little picture. The performances by Diaz and Collette as well as the iconic Shirley MacLaine as their estranged grandmother in Florida, are all quite good. Hanson keeps the pacing relatively brisk and the final poetry reading voice over scene between the two sisters had us tearing up actually.
We think perhaps this is the only movie we've ever seen Diaz in where she actually appears to be acting, as opposed to just being cute or wiggling her butt around. She's not half bad at that, even in a movie that's really about girls who covet shoes and the boys who fall for them. Oh and self-esteem, the movie's also about that. So, we'll just throw in a "you go girl" for good measure and call it a night. That five course French dinner which ended in profiteroles and included the better part of a bottle of off-license red wine is beginning to corrode our critical thinking skills.
Bon soir, mes amis!
Au revoir, le Cinecultist.
After a long week, Cinecultist is looking forward to a few much needed days off. Especially since those days will be spent in our former home, Seattle. It's going to be three days of really good coffee coffee, eating, sleeping and hanging with the Seattle Maggie. Apparently, SM already purchased us tickets for a screening at the Northwest Film Forum of Raiders of the Lost Ark: An Adaptation, a DIY remake of the Spielberg classic that was hugely popular the last time it played in town. Sounds intriguing, no?
So enjoy your weekend and we'll be back on Tuesday cinecultists, bearing pictures and surely all hopped up on high quality caffeine.
As the Toronto Film Festival begins to wind down -- it ends today, Sat -- CC Toronto Correspondent has walked out on a film for the first time in the entire festival. The guilty flick? HOSTEL by Eli Roth. That it was tagged as a work-in-progress was the least of its problems. The cliches were offensive, the characters absolutely unlikeable and it was completely devoid of any humor. CC walked out before the one-hour mark -- and before the gross-out torture scenes began. The film left a very bitter aftertaste that proved to be quite toxic. It almost spoiled the day for CC if not for the very wonderful and delightful WALLACE AND GROMIT=CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT. It was a jolly good ride, and it heartens CC to know that there are still many filmmakers serious about their craft and giving the audience a good time. Who really needs more junk in this world?
That is all from CC from Toronto this year. See you again in 2006!
CC Toronto Correspondent has found one guilty pleasure at the Toronto Film Festival -- the riotous BAM BAM AND CELESTE starring Margaret Cho! CC has to admit to some degree of trepidation before going into the theatre. As some friends and fellow festival-goers wisely observed, the comedy could be a hit-or-miss affair, ie, it could turn out to be one painful dud. But, much to general relief -- and after some extensive jaw exercise -- CC is pleased to report that BAM BAM AND CELESTE is one outrageous ride of fun. Margaret Cho is Celeste, an overweight, goth punk fag hag who, together with her gay best friend Bam Bam (Bruce Daniels), are stuck in a small town in Illinois. They have been bullied and treated as freaks since high school. Salvation finally comes in the form of a reality show, Trading Faces, an inane makeover show. They make their way to New York, searching for their destiny. Fans of Margaret Cho will find familiar terrain in the film: She has worked materials from her stand-up comedy into the whole narrative (but seriously, who's watching it for a coherent story?). Her fag-hag status, racial discrimination, homophobia, even her beloved Korean mum (played by Cho as well) -- all receive a seriously uproarious workout. Of course, by the end of the film, the audience is supposed to embrace the uplifting message of accepting who you are and chasing your dream. But with a ride this much fun, who would not want to hop on it?
CC went to catch Matthew Barney's DRAWING RESTRAINT 9, which also happens to star his partner and muse Bjork. Bjork wrote the soundtrack for the film. CC had to leave after one hour -- not because it was bad -- but to rush to another screening. If you liked the CREMASTER series, then you would enjoy Barney's latest.
The film CC had to rush to was the Chinese musical, THE WILD, WILD ROSE. It was made in 1960 by Cathay Studio and starred the legendary singer-actress Grace Chang. The film was picked by Tsai Ming-liang as part of the festival's Dialogues: Talking with Pictures series. Tsai was also on hand to introduce the film. As was typical of the films from that period, THE WILD, WILD ROSE was melodramatic, overwrought and unintentionally funny at times. Some of the songs in the film went on to become classics in Asia. This was probably one of the films that inspired Tsai to make his "musicals."
CC Toronto Correspondent apologizes for a really tardy update on the ongoing Toronto Film Festival. CC has been here since 9/11, and has been busy playing catch-up. It's daunting to try to catch all 335 films showing at the festival, not least impossible. But this is definitely a film-loving city. Just look at all the people who turn out for the screenings, which can start as early at 9am! CC also wants to stress how impressively the whole festival is run, and how ultra-friendly the festival staff is. No matter how harried or hassled the staff may be, they ALWAYS respond with a smile. CC is even wont to believe that they truly care for the well-being of the festival-goers. CC has the mandate to catch Asian films here, but managed to slip in a few other films as well. These are CC's favorites so far:
-- EVERLASTING REGRET (dir Stanley Kwan). The latest from the director of ROUGE and CENTRESTAGE. It's adapted from a best-selling Chinese novel of the same name, and stars Cantopop megastar Sammi Cheng and Tony Leung Kar-fai. It seems that every time Kwan goes back in time -- in particular old Shanghai -- he comes up with a gem. EVERLASTING REGRET is absolutely beautiful and exquisite. It covers 40 years in the life of a woman as she weathers one lover after and another, and as Shanghai goes through momentous changes. Though many may say otherwise, CC thinks Sammi's idiosyncratic performance seems to gel well with the style of the film. CC was entranced by the film from the first reel to the last.
-- THREE TIMES (dir Hou Hsiao-hsien). Another masterful work from HHH. The film is broken up into three parts, each set in a different era. The film seems to have some self-referential points to previous films in HHH's oeuvre, and is held together by the gorgeous pair of Shu Qi and Zhang Zhen. It's coming to the New York Film Festival. Not to be missed.
-- SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE (dir Park Chan-wook). The highly-anticipated last part in Park's vengeance trilogy. Anyone expecting a KILL BILL kind of film will be disappointed -- and surprised. As slickly made as his previous films but considerably less gory and violent, LADY VENGEANCE made for a very satisfying conclusion. Coming to NY too.
-- WALK THE LINE (dir James Mangold). CC walked into the screening by mistake (was supposed to catch Iranian film IRON ISLAND), but it was by no means time wasted. Watch for a strong Oscar push for this film, especially for Joachim Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. They delivered strong performances, and they did all their own vocals! CC was absolutely floored by their singing.
Another round of films today!
This weekend Cinecultist didn't watch any movies. Instead we read books! Took naps in the grass! Went to a flea market! Drank lots of white wine! Drove around the Vermont countryside introducing the locals to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! which blared from the stereo. Unfortunately though, more relaxation equaled less movies. Unless you count the 20 odd minutes of Sixteen Candles that we caught on Sunday as we packed our bags and tried to help tidy up the house.
Here's what we observed, in that short span:
- Nobody makes movies like John Hughes any more. Some might call this a good thing, but CC finds it just sad. Texture, people. Character. Comic timing. Milieu. The Hughes-ster had it all. Each little throw away moment -- from Joan Cusack using her sweatshirt as a towel to Anthony Michael Hall unable to open the shop car door until Molly Ringwald pulls up the door lock -- is like a poem.
- Molly Ringwald's outfits in this movie are so for sale right now down at your local Urban Outfitters. Doesn't her top in the picture above look like something you could pop into American Apparel to pick out this afternoon? Crazy fashion trends.
The moral of the story? We're getting back in the saddle this week, promise. More movies, more obnoxious opinions to come. In the meantime, check out the adorable article about our newlywed friends in this Sunday's New York Times Vows section. And you thought they only wrote about blue blood Ivy League-types with finance jobs and perfect teeth.
On a Monday morning in mid-July, there's a few things that fall under that squeaky, shrieky headline for the Cinecultist.
1) We're happy to report we're up to page 422 in the new Harry Potter and though it might be tempting to take a sicky, CC's acting like an adult by going into work today. As per usual, it takes good ol' J.K. about 200 pages to get the story cooking with gas but once she does, she doesn't disapoint. We had a blast hanging out with all the other Potter crazies at the Union Square Barnes and Noble on Friday night. We got an optic light pen (patent pending), some H.P. stickers, AND a lightening bolt temporary tattoo. Big shout out to the older gentleman in the Dumbledore costume and on the Segway -- we think you were dressed up for yourself and for that we say, "Dude, you rule!"
2) Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A fuller review to come but so far we've been raving the most about the inspired Johnny Depp. One of his most brilliant characterizations ever. Can anyone else do it like him? No, they just can't and they don't even try. He's amazing in this with his grey-tinged skin, perfect teeth, nervous giggle and border-line anti-social behavior. Ahh, love it.
3) Sufjan Stevens. Okay, so this one's not even movie adjascent, but still this guy is so freakin' brill we can't keep it in. Love him, love him so much. So feelin' the Illonoise. So psyched for his show at the Bowery next month. Speaking of the indie rock, good times out at Coney Island on Saturday for the Siren Festival this year. We weren't totally obsessing about one of the bands in the line-up particularly though we did enjoy being there, sweating our ass off and soaking up the atmosphere. The Brooklyn Vegan (who we interupted mid-picture of some freaky girl's outfit, haha ambience) has some lovely pictures.
4) Reports from various sources regarding Maggie Cheung events. Our one friend talked to her briefly in the Walter Reade bathroom (awesome!) and the other one loved Clean despite her extreme hatred of all things Assayas after being subjected to demonlover. Apparently, she's even graceful during dumbass Q&A. Now that's a movie star for you. Woot for the Asian American International Film Festival for bringing her to town and selling out their opening night event in like nearly 2 seconds flat.
It feels good to feel this enthused.
Cinecultist really is a Northern California girl. Summer days that are overcast and require a light weight jacket seems like the best idea ever after struggling through our New York humid city the last month or so. Our vaca has been lovely but it's winding down now and as of tomorrow we'll be back in the gotham of our heart, ready to pound the downtown pavement, shoving innocent bystanders out of our way.
One of the things we did with our vacation was to finally watch Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Bear which we'd rented from Netflix about a month ago and put off because did we really want to watch a "nature" movie? Turns out we did. Beautiful photography and really excellent acting performances from those bears (god, that was a fun sentence to write). The movie does a wonderful job of making the orphaned cub and his buddy, the giant bachelor Kodiak bear both adorable and yet still very much "wild animals." Not suitable for turning into collectable teddy bears. Especially with the crazy bears out on the town sequences, amusing to see a little bear-one-night-stand action and then bear-experiments-with-psychotropic-drug action. Blissed out bears, good stuff.
Thanks by the way to our lovely Nor Cal friends (Cara & Alex, Greg, Shalini, Aliya & Andy) who traveled into the city to see us while we were in town and who tells us they're devoted remote readers. Lovely to see you all, let's do it again very soon.
And in conclusion, if you can swing a spa day at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn like we did on the holiday Monday we highly recommend it. Sitting around in robes by the pool and then having various scented oils rubbed into our face, it is "so choice" as Ferris Bueller would say. Can't you just feel the much needed relaxation oozing from this blog?
The Cinecultist was supposed to be on a 12:50 pm flight from Newark airport to San Francisco for some vacation time in Nor Cal. However, little did we know that the trusty New Jersey transit only runs once an hour past the airport station. Breathless and annoyed we arrived at the terminal just as our flight was leaving. So now we wait, and try not to beat ourselves up too much for not getting our butt in gear faster this morning.
However, it is possible to purchase 24 hours worth of internet usage for less than $10 and we do have all of last week's New Yorker plus our birthday gift of the Granta new writing journal which features Atom Egoyan and Akira Kurosawa, so we should stay relatively entertained. When circumstance forces one to reconsider "the plan" it helps to contemplate the little things that you can enjoy.
Like great movies from last year that are now looping through HBO. Earlier this weekend we caught both Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and where reminded how simply enjoyable both of these movies are. Vivid characters, a strong visual style and intense, believable emotions make it easy to get caught up in their very different stories, carried along to their satisfying conclusions. The great thing too about re-watching movies on television is that even if you do remember essentially what happens, it's been long enough that you're not anticipating every word or gesture. Plus, now there's time to notice new details (like the Clementine and Joel potato heads in his apartment) or further savor bits you liked the first time (the brilliant Alan Rickman/David Thewlis/Garry Oldman showdown in the Shrieking Shack).
Speaking of the obsession de Harry P.: 12 days until the new book comes out and CC's starting to get pretty darn excited. Our office is just up the street from the Scholastic store and they have a huge window display with a countdown clock and Harry Potter music piped into the street to titilate the SoHo mobs. We know it sounds supremely dorky but it makes us a little tingly everytime we pass it enroute to our lunchtime deli salad. Do you think it will seem to suspicious if we call in "sick" on the 15th to stay home to read all day? Our ideal plan would include a late night viewing of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and a stop at the Barnes for the tome.
All righty then, CC's out to go find an outlet in the terminal to rejuice the laptop for at least one DVD on the flight itself. Good thing we had the fore sight to rent Palm Beach Story from Netflix. We need some Preston Sturges to turn around our still vaguely frustrated mood. Have a happy Fourth dear cinecultists and we'll try to find some time to report from humidity free San Francisco.
On Sunday, in the ridiculous humidity, Cinecultist headed out to Billyburg for the Renegade Crafts Fair at McCarren Park with Janelle. Even though we felt like we were melting into our flip flops, it wasn't hard to appreciate the talent of all of the artists involved. CC has been known to be crafty in our day (we took sewing lessons and had both decoupage and beading periods) but this was some serious stuff on display.
One of our favorite tables held work by Stella Im Hultberg, where we purchased the print below called "Nobody Knows."
At the time we were struck by the use of coloring and the irreverant touch of the plant saying something in Japanese, but only when we got home did we realize it was actually an image from the film by Hirokazu Kore-eda which we saw earlier this year about the children abandoned in suburban Tokyo. Funny isn't it that just when we think we're just purchasing art for it's own sake, it's really all about our movie love instead. We're very happy to add it to our growing collection of movie posters including a Roman Holiday print from Rome and a poster from The Apartment from the Museum of the Moving Image. Thanks Stella!
Speaking of awesome artist types who we admire, our friend Hisham Bharoocha is the subject of the quarterly magazine Me this issue. He paints, he sings, he drums and plays the guitar, he interviews people for hip art magazines and poses for snapshots with celebs. A-mazing. The issue is on sale on line and at various too cool for school retail establishments like Other Music and St. Mark's Books so be sure to check it out.
Well, we apologize – Seattle Maggie totally dropped the ball last week on our SIFF coverage. It could be that between the demands of The Man and our jealous Mistress Theatre, we had nary a moment to spare. Or, more likely, it could be that two Sundays ago we were stumped into confused silence by This Charming Girl, a movie in which nothing happens. It was considered one of the top Korean films from last year, which was probably why we had to wade through a packed house at the Harvard Exit. There was a feeling of excited expectancy that comes with such a crowd, which only served to baffle us further when we settled down to 99 minutes of nothing much in particular.
Jeong-hae, a quiet young postal worker, suffers from insomnia and sleepwalks through her monotonous days. She adopts a pet kitten…and then she doesn’t. She gets married…and then she doesn’t. She invites a cute writer on a date…that doesn’t happen. She finally confronts her uncle, who brutally raped her as a child, thus causing her current state of suspended animation. They sit together on a bench in silence for many long moments, and then (Warning: Spoiler!)...nothing happens. Yes, we realize that we are glossing over all of the emotional subtleties of the film; as a matter of fact, we did find it interesting in a dry, abstract sort of way, but it did nothing to engage us personally in the story. While the tedious extended shots of people staring off inscrutably at nothing intoned “deep and meaningful” at us, all we really wanted was for something, anything, to happen. Afterwards, we met up with Boyfriend Todd at the charmingly twee Joe Bar and found that our perch on the dollhouse balcony above the cash register made for excellent eavesdropping on our fellow SIFF patrons. “Well, I fell asleep,” one lady said to her companion. “Then I woke up, but it looked the same. So I fell asleep again.”
“Me too!” her companion said, making us think that maybe we should just pat ourselves on the back for making it through without losing consciousness, and be done with it.
Luckily, staying awake was not a problem last Saturday afternoon during Long Twilight, a Hungarian take on the Shirley Jackson story “The Bus”. Even Boyfriend Todd, who we dragged along with us, seemed remarkably alert and lucid. An elderly lady archaeologist boards a strange bus in the countryside of her youth and has a series of increasingly odd and familiar dreams. Her childhood home appears on the side of the road as a seedy hotel, the same bizarre duo of truckers keep driving by, and a mysterious locket hides an unseen secret. Director Attila Janisch, looking somewhat hunky in a George-of-the-Jungle-turned-Gap-model kind of way, gamely fielded questions after the film. Among other things, he admitted to reading Jackson’s story in his youth and throwing the book against a wall in frustration before learning to embrace the vague mystery for what it was, rather than looking for a specific, concrete answer. Which, coincidentally, describes the best way to approach this enjoyably eerie film.
On Sunday evening, we wrapped up the weekend with The Circus, with our friends Alysha and the Unflappable Mr. Barnes. As we stood in line in the alley behind the Neptune, we realized that we had somehow never seen a Charlie Chaplin picture. Sure, we learned our ABCs with Maria doing her passable Little Tramp impression on Sesame Street and grew up to swoon over Johnny Depp's droll take on the Gold Rush's rolls-on-forks dance in Benny & Joon. We even sat through Robert Downey Jr.’s sadly misunderstood version in Chaplin and Eddie Izzard’s vaguely creepy version in The Cat’s Meow. But Seattle Maggie will tell you now, with authority – we didn’t know what we were missing with the real deal. The very picture of doleful gravity, Chaplin’s Tramp literally stumbles upon a job at a failing circus with hilarious results. As the Tramp woos a sad-eyed ballerina horse rider, he falls into one comical situation after another, including a chase through a funhouse mirror maze, a sleepy lion, a botched clown audition, and a magician’s hat gone disastrously awry. We know we aren’t the first to say it and we won’t be the last, but Chaplin’s prowess at physical comedy is simply incredible. With only the polite cock of his battered hat and the dignified angle of his rickety cane, Chaplin inspires the kind of helpless belly-laughs that most people never indulge in public. And as the Tramp ended up on the high wire act, covered with monkeys and his pants puddled around his ankles, the theater resounded with a cacophony of snorts, cackles, and howls of laughter; we were tickled to find that some of it was coming out of us.
Well, all good things must come to an end - SIFF is wrapping up this weekend. Tune in next week for our final report!
Today is Seattle Maggie's birthday, and someone pointed out to Cinecultist that it might be nice to wish her happy happy on this here internet. So.
Happy B-Day Prater Girl!
However, it seems that our Left Coast correspondent is also having some turning-28-related-angst, so please leave some love for her in the comments reminding her that a) 28 is not mid-life unless she plans on only being 56, in which case our scheme to take over the senior center movie night is shot and b) she can still totally write that novel of hers. She's still full of the piss and vinegar, despite no longer being newly post-grad.
Come on'. Leave her some good wishes below, we already know you love her more than the CC.
At one point last weekend, as we watched a madman merrily whacking off a concert pianist’s fingers with a hatchet, each blow punctuated by a jangle of piano keys, Seattle Maggie wondered exactly how we got into these types of films. There was a more innocent time when we have gone for a bit of Freddy Prinze Jr. fluff or maybe even some Disney ballads. It is probably our own fault for booking a double header of the latest and greatest Asian horror goodies that SIFF has to offer; after we purchased our tickets, we plaintively asked ourselves, "How the heck did we become such sickos?"
Starting on Saturday night, we caught Three...Extremes, a collection of short horror films: Dumplings by Fruit Chan, Cut by Park Chan-wook, and Box by Takashi Miike. Of the three, Dumplings proved to be the best offering. A middle-aged TV actress turns to extreme measures to regain her youth - all we can say is, you won’t be having a hankering for dim sum anytime soon. With the sinuously sexy Bai Ling as dumpling dealer Mei, Dumplings will shock you even if you’ve already guessed the horrible secret ingredient. Master cinematographer Christopher Doyle once again flexes his keen eye to capture the thin line between the grotesque and the painfully gorgeous: the quivering translucent gleam of the dumpling skins, the careless porcelain smudge of flour across the delicate base of a woman’s throat, the restrained rage of a boiling pot of water, the tiny trickle of blood that whispers of the final descent into madness. Kudos to the sound engineers for capturing the perfect squishy crunch of the hideous dumplings, an indescribably awful sound that is enough to make your skin want to crawl away and hide under the covers.
In Cut, Park Chan-wook once again exercises his familiar brand of poetic brutality. A famous director is kidnapped by a disgruntled extra and forced to make an agonizing choice: murder an innocent child or watch as his wife’s fingers are cut off, one by one. While the tension does run high in a “What Would Jesus Do?” sort of way, it seemed a little too staged and unlikely for our tastes (don’t they have security guards in that studio? And where did he find the time to string up all that elaborate piano wire?) Also, the plot is slammed with a random twist at the end that left us feeling more annoyed than anything else. However, Cut successfully manages to weave in some very black humor with its gore, and we giggled even though we felt kind of dirty about it.
As a horse of a different color, Takashi Miike’s Box is a slow meditation on a more personal horror. A withdrawn writer suffers from suffocating guilt over the unwitting part she played in her sister’s death as a child, when they were both acrobats in a rustic circus. A mysterious invitation calls her back to face her past, and her nightmares, once and for all. After making it through Miike’s shocker Audition, we were surprised by the quiet beauty of this film. Many of the scenes were shot in the silent snow, leading to an effective use of sound; noises felt more startling and insistent after the muffled serenity of the swirling white flakes and frozen meadows. Unfortunately, even though we could appreciate the beauty of Box, we found ourselves puzzled by the increasingly inscrutable plot, perplexing characters, and bizarre conclusion. In the end, it seemed safest to declare, “It was all a dream!” and not ask too many questions.
The next evening, Seattle Maggie came across two of the perilous pitfalls of film festival screenings: a 45-minute delay and being trapped in line behind an especially flatulent film enthusiast. We should have known what to expect when the tall fellow in front of us announced to his buddies, "Man, I've been burping up chili all day!" Unfortunately for us, that was not the only escape route that the chili was employing. The minutes ticked on, interminable and stinky; it seemed a screening of Joan Allen's new movie Yes was running over schedule. Suddenly, a chauffeured car pulled up out of nowhere and hovered expectantly in the street. Imagine our surprise when the side door of the Egyptian opened and Ms. Allen herself magically appeared, radiant and impossibly tiny, clutching a mournful little dog. She swept into the waiting car and was driven away before we knew what hit us. We silently cursed our missed opportunity to act like celebrity-crazed fans, perhaps bursting into hysterical tears or rubbing our bodies against the tinted car windows, screaming, "Joan! We love you! But why did you hold up our movie?!"
Once inside, seated far, far away from our chili-loving friend, we were treated to The Ten Steps, a surprisingly effective little horror short from Ireland. We still get a delicious shiver up our spine thinking about the truly eerie climax, as a young girl counts the ten long steps into the darkened cellar. Simple, but still a damn good scare.
This was followed by the feature Marebito, a film that Seattle Maggie shamelessly admits being seduced into seeing by the word "Lovecraftian" in the festival summary. While we are sadly aware that most movies labeled Lovecraftian usually just throw in some tentacles, a passing Necronomicon reference, and call it a day, Marebito does not fail our Cthulhuian sense of a good time. Directed by Takashi Shimizu of The Grudge cycle, the film uses digital video has a diary device, much as Lovecraft’s protagonists would use a journal or a series of letters. Masuoka is a cameraman obsessed with recording every aspect of life. One day, after recording a horrific suicide in a subway station, he decides to investigate the ultimate terror he captures in the dying man’s face. This leads him on a fantastical underground journey to the Mountains of Madness (‘nuff said) deep below the Tokyo city streets, where he discovers a strange young girl shackled to a cave wall. He takes her back to the surface, and things start to get really peculiar as he becomes consumed by his quest for the ultimate terror. The creeping, oppressive, obsessive, elusive horror is classic Lovecraft, and we found this film to be a refreshing change from the usual Scary-Hair-Girl Japanese fright fest. Instead of being helplessly chased around by mysterious evil forces, Masuoka walks into it with both eyes open and camera at the ready. He becomes a victim to terror by choice and eventually becomes comes to embrace it, in both a literal and metaphorical sense. While the somewhat slow pacing, jittery camera, and occasional hokey voiceover may not be for everyone, we applaud Marebito for truly embracing the Lovecraftian spirit. Although some of our questions remain unanswered, the terror remains very real – we’re pretty sure old Howard Phillips would have approved.
Meet us back here again next week for more updates from SIFF!
No, we haven't developed a charming girlish lisp. Whilst moviegoers all around the country, swigging Darth Dew out of their Yoda-head Slurpee mugs**, will be queuing up this weekend with their handcrafted Wookiee suits and telescoping plastic light sabers to either bury or praise George Lucas's missing link, Seattle Maggie is happy to report that the Seattle International Film Festival has officially opened. We're looking forward to 25 days, 347 films of all sizes, and 2 toilet stalls in the Ladies Room at the Harvard Exit (although we hear they've recently added a few more). From our own experiences of the past few years, SIFF has always had a great mix of films: international, domestic, documentary, shorts, mainstream, and living-above-the garage independent. The Opening Gala on Thursday night featured a screening of the aforementioned Me and You and Everyone We Know with director Miranda July in attendance, as well as whatever film celebrities happened to be lurking around downtown. Seattle Maggie fondly remembers lingering over pricey cocktails with our own dear CC at the W Hotel a few years ago, and catching a glimpse of the ever-suave Hector Elizondo, as well as the back of what we were told was Raquel Welch's head. We still get a thrill just thinking about it.
While the long lines in drizzly, pee-stinky alleys and the occasional dull or incomprehensible movie are both inevitable and regrettable, we still always find our spirits to be lifted by the coming of SIFF. There's something about all of these films being given a chance to be seen that makes the world seem like a brighter, more interesting place, and we always come away having seen at least one or two really great movies that we never would known existed.
By the way, Seattle natives, a great way to see movies for free at SIFF is to volunteer. The last email newsletter we got implied they were still looking for ushers. Alas, our cramped schedule does not allow us to lend our time in the coming weeks. To be totally honest, we also must admit that our pride is still stinging somewhat from the fact that we were apparently not cool enough to make the cut for their Volunteer Proofreading Party. Yeah, whatever - Seattle Maggie is going to throw our OWN Proofreading Party. And, we're going to be Prom Queen. Yeah.
Keep it tuned here for more updates from SIFF, Cinecultists!
**By the way, we aren't knocking the Darth Dew - we've tried it, and it tastes sugary and cold, the way a good Slurpee should. It's the Yoda heads that we find so unnerving. Chilled monkey brains from Temple of Doom, anyone? Ew.
Last week it was the odd sight of a crowd outside the dive-y Irish pub on 2nd Ave Dempsey's. This morning it was the enormous Craft Services truck, complete with table loaded with sugary cereals which gave Cinecultist the rubber neck reflex. That's right kids, spring time in New York means film crews invading our neighborhood.
Last year we contemplated stealing ketchup from the Alfie set, but with Chris Columbus's Rent taking over our Eee Vee, CC thinks we might be entitled to at least some pocketed snacks from the loosely guarded cart. Actually, we're not entirely sure it is Rent taking over our streets but this almost certainly hackneyed production feels worthy of our bile, so we'll just assume it is. As you can barely see in our grainy camera phone pic above, we tried to check out the stars' trailers on our way home but the cryptic hand written signs outside the metal doors made it tough to be conclusive. A lackey of some sort came out just as we passed and CC attempted to subtly peer in but sadly, no Taye Diggs or Rosario Dawson sighting.
But really, when it's still 55 degrees or so out as we stroll home from work, bopping along to Bloc Party on the iPod, a little missed Taye sighting isn't enough to dampen our spirits. [But confidential confirmation of the name of the film in our nabe from our sources at the Mayor's office wouldn't hurt either.]
Update! The shooting must have been from this episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent we watched last night. While it gladdens Cinecultist that Vincent "Creepy" D'Onofrio was stalking about our 'hood, it does say something doesn't it about Dempsey's that it was the fictional site of a meeting for a murderer with gruesome chemicals and her victim?
"In between the release of Sullivan's Travels and The Palm Beach Story, Preston Sturges compiled 11 rules for the box office. Like some of Sturges's dialogue, the faster the list is read, the funnier it is:"
1. A pretty girl is better than an ugly one.
2. A leg is better than an arm.
3. A bedroom is better than a living room.
4. An arrival is better than a departure.
5. A birth is better than a death.
6. A chase is better than a chat.
7. A dog is better than a landscape.
8. A kitten is better than a dog.
9. A baby is better than a kitten.
10. A kiss is better than a baby.
11. A pratfall is better than anything.
[Via Mahnola Dargis's article in the Times today about the Preston Sturges series running at the Film Forum starting this weekend. ]
Even though the Oscars are so yesterday's news, Seattle Maggie decided it might be fun to prolong the magic and catch a screening of some of the Academy Award-Nominated Animated and Live Action Shorts at the Northwest Film Forum. We cannot help but feel a little bad for these films, which most of the general public will never see; not to mention that they did not even get the usual 5-second snippet that is usually offered on Oscar night, as these awards were presented via the dreaded Aisle Cam. On a bright note, however, the Live Action Short nominees did get to be within drooling distance of the intellectually sexy Jeremy Irons. While we don't want to be baggin' on CC's boy Jakie, the deliciously seasoned Mr. Irons lights our fire in a way that a young whippersnapper never could. He reminds us of the hypothetical English professor with whom we never had a torrid affair, and in whose non-existent ivy-cloaked office, amidst imagined tumbled tomes of Keats and Kerouac, we became both a writer AND a woman...ah, but we digress.
In a completely unrelated story: Seattle Maggie recently went to see the new baby sea otter at the Seattle Aquarium. As we watched the snoozing wee otter clinging to its mother's belly, we felt the tiny bud of maternal instincts hidden deep in our cold, child-fearing heart begin to unfurl its fragile petals. Oscar-winning Live Action Short Wasp managed to wipe out all that like a late April blizzard. A screaming testament to the merits of birth control, the film made us squirm in our seats as the working-class single mum neglects putting pants on her kids, feeds them sugar out of a bag, and then stashes them in a pub parking lot so she can relive her glory days as a fresh young thing. While we can sympathize with the feeling of wanting to escape her sordid existence for just one night, we have to ask: did she have to have four freaking kids? We can imagine having one or two, say, by accident, but four? Overwhelmed by sticky toddler limbs and ear-gouging baby wails, we give writer/director Andrea Arnold credit for bringing the story so vividly to life, but you couldn't pay us enough money to sit through it again. We did, however, heartily enjoy the surreal 7:35 in the Morning from Spain, which managed to be both disturbing and oddly touching at the same time. It was so original and weird, we consider it a true shame that only a handful of people will ever get to see it.
The Animated Shorts included Gopher Broke, in which an industrious gopher uses his digging prowess to steal snacks from passing trucks. While the plot was more than a little silly, we did have a good chuckle as the tubby rodent ecstatically jetéd through a miraculous rain of gleaming produce. The Oscar-winning Ryan was both visually and conceptually interesting; as a loose biography of Canadian animator-turned-panhandler Ryan Larkin, director Chris Landreth combines real interviews with what he calls "psycho-realism", in which a character's self image is reflected in their actual image. A face might be nibbled away to a twisted remnant by alcoholism, or violently colored bands of light might tighten around the body in strangling loops to represent doubt. Larkin himself made for an intriguing subject, enough for us to want to give him a Google afterwards.
And while we are on the subject of animated shorts, you New Yorkers are lucky enough to be able to catch a screening of The Animation Show 2005, playing now at Cinema Village, no longer playing at the Varsity. This yearly traveling circus of animated shorts, presented by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt, has an excellent selection as usual, sampling nearly every form of animation possible. Some of our favorites included When The Day Breaks, a sweetly nostalgic look at life and death with anthropomorphized barnyard animals; Guard Dog, an afternoon walk from the perspective of an over-protective pet by animation giant Bill Plympton (also nominated for an Oscar); and Pan With Us, a fascinating multi-media interpretation of Robert Frost by Seattle's own David Russo. ![www[1].ward13.com.au by glenn watson.jpg](http://WWW.CINECULTIST.COM/archives/www[1].ward13.com.au by glenn watson.jpg)
Top honors, however, must go to Ward 13, an Australian stop-motion thrill ride in a nightmare hospital. Seattle Maggie has a special fondness for stop-motion magic, and we loved the campy, faux-horror humor. Wheelchair chases, exploding green monster heads, and a friendly dog with two rear ends - we can't understand why the Academy overlooked this little gem. Well, there's always next year.
Lindsay Robertson's Ritalin Reading Series continues tonight at Piano's on the Lower East Side, and damn it, Cinecultist is finally going to attend. It's bloggers, it's short bits read aloud, it's free -- how could we not have gone down there before? Crazy.
Anyhow, some of the most notorious online literary voices will be on stage this evening including Will Leitch, Jessica Coen, Alex Balk and our blog crush du jour, aka Bob of My Blog Is Poop. The Lionel Ritchie post? And then Scott Stereogum's pictorial response? Classique. We're going to sit real close and act like a blogging groupie. Maybe we'll even ask for a body part to be autographed. [via]
UPDATE: Three and a half glasses of wine plus listening to JP heckle various readers does not equal a very thoughtful, socially astute Cinecultist. Just in case you were wondering.
Sunday afternoon, post-brunch, post-Barney's Warehouse Sale Cinecultist and our buddy William ducked out of the freezing wind into the L train for Williamsburg. William in Williamsburg? Coincidence, honest.
At Galapagos on North Sixth Street, we drink a beer and cranberry seltzer respectively, while we wait for the screening to begin. Folding chairs, little glass cups filled with goldfish crackers and projected video art fill the backroom along with the cast, crew and friends of. A packed house for this premiere screening of Lutkoski Fishsticks, a short film by former NYU student Matt Lambert. The crowd whoops it up for him, as the budding auteur takes to the stage. There really is nothing like an audience filled with people pre-disposed to love your work because they're your friends or relatives.
With the sensibility of David Lynch's Eraserhead mating with Jean-Pierre's Delicatessen, Lutkoski Fishsticks tells a sweet sci-fi tinged tale of a fishsticks factory inhabited by its motley workers and an unwelcome midnight snacker. Lambert's work has a higher production value than you'd expect from a low budget short and an obvious attention to detail lends a stylized flare to the whole project. A quick google search lead to mp3s of the soundtrack by Nico Muhly (no relation to the Velvet Underground, or so we could tell).
After a beer at 5 pm, of course CC is going to be well disposed towards a fresh faced film and its enthusiastic filmmaking team. It was easy to overlook the poor quality of the digital projection and to find the non-sync sound used (ie. no real dialogue, just pantomime and a non-diegetic soundtrack) sweet. To compare Lambert's work to Jeunet and Lynch may sound like we're saying we saw a potential new genius behind the lens, and for that it is surely much too soon to judge. However, there was something there. Must we expect more from a first go and a Sunday afternoon in a hipster-y art space? Viva la short films!
A Few Short Film Venues of Note: Ocularis on Sundays at Galapagos, Nami & Johnny K's Superfilm Tuesday nights at DEKK in Tribeca and Pioneer Theater on Avenue A.
Like everyone else in New York, Cinecultist has fallen for Christo and Jeanne-Claude, just in time for Valentine's Day. We <3 The Gates. As an art piece, it's such a beautiful expression of the love these two have for their adopted city. Walking through Central Park today, with seemingly every other person in town, our heart was full too. Amazing how just a little saffron fabric and weighted iron can transform our usual winter landscape into something spectacular. Unfortunately, our digital camera decided to up and die after only three pictures (the other two after the jump) which we guess means we have to go back another day too. Lucky us.
Our friend Adriane filled us up with Christo and Jeanne-Claude trivia over smoothies on Saturday. Just a few things we learned — the couple is exactly the same age, 69 and they were born on the same day! Christo in France and Jeanne-Claude in Bulgaria. Their projects are completely self funded, they pay for their construction with the proceeds from original drawings, photographs and collages derived from the projects. Everyone is paid who participates in the project, and they have their own type of groupies who travel the world to be a part of the work. As we mentioned on Friday over at Gothamist, the MoMA is showing all of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude documentaries over the next few weeks but they're also all available for rent at Kim's Video. Adriane recommends seeing the one about the wrapping of the Reichstag, a major project in the 70s.
Keith Plocek wrote about the cult of Christo last week on the Black Table. The full coverage in the New York Times. Janelle saw a few other orange things in the Park last week pre-unfurling, and Jake has some nice shots as well. Enjoy the loving and obsessive coverage via Gothamist.
Everyone at CC's place of business is abuzz with the Sundance Film Festival. Read A.O. Scott's bitch slapping from Sunday or check out Mindy Bond's coverage via Gothamist. We like Mindy's take because it's New York centric and mostly about attending parties.
Yay for Noah Baumbach by the way, who won for his screenwriting and direction of The Squid and the Whale. We knew our oggling of his writerly self at the Life Aquatic
