May 29, 2008
Secret Festival, Dust, The Song of the Sparrows
This year's SIFF has gotten off to an amazing start. I've already doled out a few 4's in my movie voting, compared to the usual "blah" of the 3's that tends to dominate my overall experience every year. I'm not saying that's neccessarily a bad thing -- in fact, I think the "1"s and the "2"s can be amazingly educational -- but there needs to be those movies that hold steady as "not great but okay", so that an amazing knockout can occasionally stand apart from the crowd.
That said, I gave all 3 movies mentioned here a "4" -- that's inclusive of the Secret Fest which I can't really talk about.
The first film, DUST, was a documentary on dust. That doesn't sound particularly exciting I realize, but it's quirky concept attracted me to want to see it. I've been a bit iffy on the experimental films at Northwest Film Forum but constantly try to include some in my schedule each year because I think they are worthwhile and challenging to my own perceptions. I wouldn't say DUST was experimental at all, however. It was a very straightforward documentary with narration and some talking heads. So why would something like this propel beyond just a meager "3" for me? I think a large part had to do with the very well done photography. From the very beginning, the composition was incredibly planned and executed, and the movements were highly precise and direct. I imagined the same dialogue and sets in the hands of an inexperienced layman with a cheap DV cam and immediately began to think what a horror it would have been to sit through 90 minutes of shaky handheld and subpar audio quality of people talking about dust. At times, DUST felt more to me like a narrative, with long sweeping pans and the occasional quirky character commenting obsessively about something unashamed of the camera lens.
But then at other times, DUST went too over the top. Long scientific monologues, though interesting and educational, weakened its pace. Occasionally the camera doubled over an area again, panning as if it were simply out of visuals or correcting a prior attempt, or possibly afraid to stray too far away from the subject for fear they may do something interesting. These little things detracted from the movie overall. Despite that, it had a very similar feel in tone to Out of Time, a SIFF documentary from last year which I rated very highly. It was no surprise then to discover the same programmer picked up both movies. (Thank you, Andy Spletzer!)
THE SONG OF THE SPARROWS was a solid narrative, humorous and touching with a great flowing script, and an exceptional cast. There was some symbolism involving an ostrich searching for freedom and a man searching for the ostrich, but I'm not really sure how to interpret it as of yet. I'm happy to see another great movie from Iran, and especially happy to see another movie that features more of the urban big city life of Tehran. I hate to judge a movie by politically motivated factors, but it's very refreshing to that side rather than a bunch of families huddled in caves way out in the desert, which while important, is less easily related to by american audiences.
I did not think SPARROWS was amazing enough to be one of the best, simply because it didn't really break any new creative ground, but there's a scene involving a group of boys tripping over a bucket of water and spilling a massive amount of goldfish they had saved up for since the beginning of the movie that really broke my heart and almost tipped me over to the "5".
AUDIENCE WATCH: One person in the audience at SPARROWS felt the need to vocalize at certain moments, one of which was when one of the characters did something rude to another, they exclaimed, "jerk!"
May 24, 2008
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson, My Effortless Brilliance
SIFF officially kicked in today with a screening of GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON and MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE at the Egyptian. I'm going for CAPS this year on the movie titles, by the way. Brilliant idea, I know.
GONZO is a loosely assembled hodge-podge of clips, reenactments, sounds and music that flow along a timeline of milestones throughout Thompson's life. Narrated solely through interviews and direct readings from his work by Johnny Depp, it offers up a glimpse at a more personal side behind what in later years could only be determined through reports of Thompson's reclusive personality.
The movie begins with some awkward editing sloppiness which continues at times throughout, and is later dotted by semi-frequent cliched musical interludes, however in its attempt to show Thompson's life it succeeds in portraying not only the biographical aspects of how his writing was shaped, but also a more deeper analysis of what his writings and his character have meant for the political landscape of our country.
Depp's narration of the movie was less painful than one might otherwise expect, though occasional on-screen moments reading out of a book seemed out of place and unnecessary. These portions and other b-roll could have been dropped altogether to tighten the film, which ran at roughly 2 hours.
One of the highlights of GONZO isn't really about Thompson at all: it's a glimpse at the phenomenal work of Ralph Steadman.
MY EFFORTLESS BRILLIANCE is described by director Lynn Shelton as an experiment in making the filmmaking process as organic as possible. It started by first identifying the actors, then building characters around them, and then finally scene suggestion where dialogue was all ad-lib in front of the camera as it was rolling. What came out of this was a natural conversational feel to the movie -- you could tell there was no way it was scripted, but the strengths of the actors were such that it didn't matter. The dynamic between the two leads was incredibly natural and helped drive the success of the film.
AUDIENCE WATCH: Even after a stern warning from festival programmer Beth Barett about cell phone peeking during the film, the woman to my left couldn't resist the warm glow of mobile love about an hour into BRILLIANCE. Piling onto that was two separate individuals in another row making loud crinkly sounds with their popcorn/candy bags for at least a good half hour apiece. People love to hear their own noises!
May 09, 2008
Update + SIFF 2008
It's that time of year again.. The sun starts peeking out and we dash into the local cinemas to postpone spring for several weeks in order to enjoy a bundle of movie goodness.
It's also the time when I start updating this blog on a regular basis. If there's one thing that's kept this thing alive, it's SIFF season, that's for freaking sure.
The SIFF schedule was recently published and the box office has opened, which means I've already assembled a sort of working list. In fact I think this year is a record as far as selecting a working list and actually planning out a schedule so quickly.
I won't be getting a Full Series pass this year due to having just started a new job at Disney. I'll have more to share on that later.
For now, let's just get right to the schedule (behind the cut).
Continue reading "Update + SIFF 2008" »
February 10, 2008
Post Alley Film Festival
The 5th annual Post Alley Film Festival will be held this year on February 23rd, from 1-7pm at the Market Theatre in Pike Place. The festival has a strong focus on female filmmaking talents, as well as spotlighting generally eccentric cinematic shorts.
In 6 hours, you get to see 26 movies (with 15min intermissions between four themed sets), and spend some time in a cool little hidden theatre at the market.
See the Post Alley Film Festival website for more info.
On a more personal note, the festival founder happens to be my former film teacher.
And even more personally, the festival day happens to fall on my birthday, so there's a chance I may not make it. But if you do, tell 'em I sent you!
November 04, 2007
Guerrilla Filmmaking with Jon Moritsugu
This past weekend I took the Guerrilla Filmmaking class at the Northwest Film Forum with Jon Moritsugu (Scumrock, Fame Whore, Mod F*ck Explosion). This was a quick 2 day thing intending to cover ways in which to shoot low/no-budget "punk rock" style. I was only able to attend the Saturday session due to an emergency, but I think I got what I really wanted to out of those quick 6 hours: inspiration, and the sense that if I just get off my butt I can actually do this.
The Saturday session covered primarily pre-production, but floated in and out of various other topics with Moritsugu's energy and enthusiasm. One thing I found really interesting about his perspective on no-budget filmmaking was his advice to always think big -- that despite how you may view your lack of budget now, you should always aim high and then cut back creatively, because there is always a chance the high estimate might actually turn up.
I'm currently in a bad state of affairs as far as ideas, so when Moritsugu talked about Jim Jarmusch's "50 details" my ears perked up. Apparently when Jarmusch was working on "Stranger Than Paradise" he had originally started with a general list of 50 things he really loves. Little items, certain shots, snippets of dialogue, anything. From there, he constructed scenes, and then put scenes together into a story. I love this idea because I always think in very fine details about how I would like a certain scene to be filmed. Writing a story and then working on the details afterwards makes me fear them getting lost in the fray. I realize this is backwards from what the professionals would recommend in how to construct a good, engaging story.
During class time, we viewed a film by a former high school student in a shady part of San Francisco, called "AKA Don Bonus." The movie was a documentary on his life in the projects and was shot entirely handheld by him. It's a very jolting video, and apparently played at various film fests and won an Emmy. The point in watching this was an exercise in how low budget you can be and still be very moving. Keeping crew size down, shooting on location, etc, are all things that can help. We briefly covered the rules for a Dogme certified film and a few on the list reiterated points that can be transfered very easily over to a no-budget style.
Other portions of the pre-production step that were covered were tips on obtaining grant funds, gathering crew, release forms and copyrights, and other general prep work that needs to happen prior to the shoot. Much of this was review for me from having taken the UW's film class, but it was a welcome review and Moritsugu added quite a bit about his own personal experiences to make it worthwhile information. I especially liked his very up front attitude as far as revealing details on his budget, the way he works with his cast, and his own grant application processes. In my so far brief experience talking to other directors, this information seems very tightly under wrap and most seem very secretive or shy about giving out these details. I think it's great to hear from someone who is so open and honest about their style. Not only is it educational, but it also reinforces the DIY ideology that anyone can do this given the information and drive to make it happen.
I think I'm going to start a list.
August 25, 2007
2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick
SIFF Cinema is currently doing a daily run of a bunch of Kubrick movies, kicking off last night with a presentation off 2001: A Space Odyssey and continuing on into the next couple of weeks with various other classics. I caught 2001 and was again floored at how excellently it continues to stand and rise above the test of time.
Even with the somewhat raucous, chatty audience, and my inability to sit still through standard Kubrick-lengthed movies, it never once failed to continue to completely floor me. Every second of the movie is just jaw-droppingly gorgeous in so many ways, far beyond just visual. I've seen the 70mm Cinerama version, and no the SIFF Cinema experience didn't really compare, but it was hard not to again appreciate every element of this movie's production.
I'm sure my comments on the movie have been made dozens of times by people far more qualified to do an analysis, but I did have some observations watching this again, especially after spending time studying some of the finer details on filmmaking.
The audio in the movie, and lack of it, is one of those things that I only now have had a far greater appreciation for. There are the initial scenes that I assume were done completely in ADR using natural sound clips and voiceovers, which then progress into a buildup of powerful orchestration over very grand establishing scenes, then dialogue, and then just at the height of each dramatic scene, there is complete and total silence. This deliberate sensory removal is effective in a large part because of all the prior build-up, forcing you to take notice because of how jarring the change is. It reminds me of something I had read about Ozu's movies where simply because of establishing a particular scene length and content style early on, he could manipulate later scenes by exploiting the movie's already comfortable rhythm in a way that left the viewer no choice but to interpret them in a completely different way.
The other major thing that stands out to me is how the effects still to this day look so real, even better than the best CGI. A large chunk of that probably stems from the fact that CGI is always so polished looking. Kubrick's space is gritty, shadowy, detailed and even dated. But it all still continues to look so real, partly I think because the images we have seen from space match up. Kubrick expands on this shared visual knowledge instead of completely reinventing what space is, and lets us inside a fairly reasonable looking space vessel (which frankly though dated looking, still seems completely realistic). And to establish where we are, as well as to pander to our need to know what would really happen if it were really real, Kubrick fills in all the little details about life in space. From the grippy shoes worn by the stumbling stewardess, to the on-board bathroom with the 10+ step instruction card, and even the hat worn by the stewardess to prevent her hair from going in every direction -- these details were amusing and fun, but also seemed entirely plausible given what we know, and not completely over the top. That realism to me is one of the many great strengths of the movie that make it still so accessible today.
The last observation I had was how amazingly small the crew list was. I don't remember seeing any set design artists or anything listed in the credits, so I have a feeling these were uncredited rather than nonexistent.
August 17, 2007
Still here!
This blog hasn't officially died just yet, it's just been in hibernation as my new found employment sucks up my days. I always felt a certain rush of inspiration just after a SIFF ended that made me want to go out and make movies, but this year that was timed towards the beginning of starting a new job so the dream of filmmaking has fallen slightly to the wayside while the sweet siren of inflated paychecks chains me to the technology field.
I'm not giving up that easily though. It's true I haven't watched squat since SIFF ended (Simpsons, Sicko..), nor worked on any filmmaking related projects, but there is still time to ramp it back up again and I've still got 7 Ozu movies in the queue waiting to be ripped through. Last weekend I attended a videogame and pinball convention down in San Jose called California Extreme (CAX), and this year they had a first ever film festival run where all the movies were videogame and pinball related. The entire convention was a lot of fun and unfortunately I only got to see one of the dozen movies they played (Chasing Ghosts, an excellent documentary on competitive classic arcade game players and their reflections on gaming), but they also had King of Kong (out today in theaters here, go see it!) as well as one or two others I'd previously already seen. Quite an impressive line-up!
On the filmmaking front, I think I'm going to register for that upcoming NWFF workshop with Jon Moritsugu, just to keep things fresh about the process. I really wanted to take their 16mm class but unfortunately it conflicts with my lengthy workday and commute schedule. Perhaps some time later.
Lastly, I have a Flickr feed of various photos and one in particular (see photo above) was receiving an insane number of hits recently just after going live on the site. The photo is of a portion of storage space for Netflix and their giant pallets of DVDs waiting to be unwrapped and shipped to eager customers. I only just now discovered the photo has been posted to a Netflix blog which is cool. Hurray for 15min of fame! (And in case you're wondering, the main pallet in the photo is labeled as 14,000 copies of the Memoirs of a Geisha Bonus Disc).
July 04, 2007
The Seattle Freeze - further publicity
Seattle Metroblogging has mentioned our movie with praise on their blog. Their post also includes more interesting comments from Seattle locals on the phenomenon.
Also via that, a mention on Seattlest as well.
edit - further publicity:
- King5 blog
- a user LJ
July 03, 2007
More on The Seattle Freeze
It looks like someone discovered our little documentary over in the Seattle LiveJournal community, which has garnered it a little bit of publicity and a good chunk of YouTube hits.
The LJ post is sort of an amusing tie-in to a prior blog post I made a while back during pre-production:
"In an effort to recruit personal stories for the movie, I wrote up a very simple post for a local LiveJournal community, knowing full well the mere mention of the term "Seattle Freeze" there would get peoples' pants in a jumble, simply because it has been posted about several times in the past. Although I did not quite realize how much of a jumble it would cause, as I thought I'd made my needs pretty clear. 101 responses later, and still 0 people for the movie. Even after mailing a few to followup, thinking perhaps by commenting they were somehow interested, no response. A little icy, perhaps."
We actually in fact did not end up using anyone from the community, however the number of responses to the original LJ post and this latest one clearly show it is a subject everyone has an opinion on which I think is pretty great in and of itself.
I notice there are a lot of Favorites and five-star ratings on the YouTube video link which seems a bit inflated (likely due to our friends) but I suppose it's better than a single 1-star rating glaring back at you from across the internet.
I really do hope it continues to get more publicity. Not just because I think the whole idea is kind of fun to monitor, but because the subject does deserve to be out there on the table. People may or may not agree with its premise, but the fact is that it has been observed and commented upon by a fair number here and that's something at least worth talking about.
July 01, 2007
The Seattle Freeze on YouTube
As promised, here's a link to the movie. Enjoy!
