Double Reading

“It’s no secret” that Naomi Watts is my favorite actress — and that is what made Ellie Parker such a great film for me. This movie had her doing a range of acting and also gave her a chance to, I would image, have a lot of fun.
The director, Scott Coffey, was in the audience [...]

… madness is the punishment of a disorderly and useless science. If madness is the truth of knowledge, it is because knowledge is absurd, and instead of addressing itself to the great book of experience, loses its way in the dust of books and in idle debate; learning becomes madness through the very excess of [...]

Of all the movies so far that have stood a chance of being called “The Best SIFF Movie So Far” (I don’t think that 2046 or Mysterious Skin should be up for that title since they are sort of in a league of their own — being objects of my obsession and all…), Clean would [...]

In case anyone wonders, my phone number is 206-412-xxxx (yes, I am intentionally x’ing it out). Apparently there is someone with the phone number 206-415-xxxx that calls a lot of people… and doesn’t leave messages (i.e. the number shows up on people’s caller IDs).
So for the past few weeks I’ve been getting random phone calls [...]

So far I’ve been mostly happy with the film I’ve seen as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. Not all of them have been 5s, but I’m still glad I spent my money seeing them.
That changed last night when I saw L’Amant, a Japanese film about a girl who is purchased by three men [...]

What is it about a “film” that can distinguish it from “pornography”? What is the difference between acting and exploiting? After seeing A Hole in My Heart, I’ve been doing some serious thinking about these ideas.
When he introduced the film, the SIFF guy made a comment like, “It’s always nice to see an audience challenged.” [...]

The film was great. It definitely ranks up there with some of the best book-to-film adaptations ever. The acting was superb. The music was haunting. And the message was preserved.
I’ve always thought that The Virgin Suicides was the best book-to-film adaptation ever. The light, ethereal cinematography combined with the amazingly ambient score by the French [...]

In a super exciting turn of events, it appears that Gregg Araki (the director) will be at tonight’s showing of Mysterious Skin. This is really awesome, and the fact he will also be at Saturday afternoon’s showing makes me want to go see it again (depending on how much I like or dislike the film [...]

The SIFF web site describes November as:

[a] change-of-pace homage to the mind-bending thrillers of David Lynch

well, I would say that November is less David Lynch, and more Run Lola Run. Though I felt at times that the movie borrowed ideas from Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, that was really only the first third of the [...]