Double Reading

Last year’s SIFF film A Hole In My Heart has haunted me more than any of the films last year. I regret only giving it three stars. Although the movie was very fucked up and probably exploitative, it was a great work of filmmaking and definitely deserved five stars. Unfortunately, I don’t think Container, Lukas [...]

I’ve been thinking that Iceland is “the next big thing” for music for quite a few years now. After Sigur Ros proved that Bjork wasn’t the only musical genius hailing from the island country, it seemed pretty obvious that something was going on with the music scene in Iceland. Screaming Masterpieces (or is it “Masterpiece” [...]

I’m glad to say that I’ve started SIFF off on a good note. And very apropos, my first film this year was a film about films: This Film Is Not Yet Rated by Kirby Dick. Basically, This Film is a documentary about the MPAA and it’s often-criticized ratings system. Toward the end, the film delved [...]

Just the other night Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) 2006 had its kick-off gala. The opening film was The Illusionist. I didn’t go. But I did end up buying a bunch of tickets for other films. Here is my list, join me if you can! This Film Is Not Yet Rated — May 27 @ [...]

I’ve been trying to come up with some sort of an events calendar/database for stuff like upcoming concerts, talks, CD/DVD releases, etc. that are of particular interest to me. So far I haven’t found a solution I like (so I may just write something on my own), so in the meantime I’ll just do a [...]

If you aren’t aware of my obsession with the film 2046, well, do a search for “2046″ on my blog and you should get an idea of how much I love this movie. That said, I was sad (though not surprised) that 2046 wasn’t mentioned anywhere when it came time for film award season. I [...]

I must admit that ever since Homogenic, I’ve felt that Bjork has gone a bit downhill. I know a lot of people think that Vespertine was her best work, but with songs like “Bachelorette” (one of my all-time fav songs) and “Joga,” how could you go wrong? I thought that Medulla was a step-up from [...]

I just finished watching Ang Lee‘s The Ice Storm and it reminded me of a lot of other family-oriented dramas — and it especially reminded me of plays from the 1950s. I know it’s hardly profound, but I really like it in movies/plays/etc. traverse into the negative zone (as the movie calls it, borrowing from [...]

On Friday (Jan. 13th), I got to see the Seattle premier of new documentary Zizek! at the Northwest Film Forum. The film is distributed by Zeitgeist Films, a company I became familiar with because they also distributed the somewhat life-changing The Corporation. I’ve know that they were working on a movie about Slavoj Zizek, my [...]

I remember when The Dandy Warhols‘ song “Not If You Were the Last Junkie On Earth” came out. I was in high school. I remember thinking, “Wow, this is a good song.” But then I saw the video and the song became (relatively) big and I basically wrote-off the band as sell-outs and copycats and [...]