Seattle International Film Festival
The Seattle International Film Festival came to a close tonight and since my journal has transitioned into a place in which I write about (or list) movies in which I have seen recently, this seems to be the appropriate place to chronicle my, albeit minimal, experience at SIFF. Out of a grand total of like a million films playing, I ended up only going to seven, two of which I went to with Joel and two with Jim. I pretty much just went through the list of films and got tickets to all of them that I wanted to see, although I was incapable of getting tickets to Howls Moving Castle and wasn’t willing to go to the $40 gala events of Last Days and Me and You and Everyone We Know, despite interest in all of them. I was lucky enough to get to see a great selection of films, however, and I would recommend almost all of them to anyone with little reservation. Hopefully I can interest some of you in seeing these movies, because they are wicked awesome. I have shamelessly stolen images from the SIFF website, with the intention that maybe it will catch someone’s eye.
2046 Dir: Wong Kar-Wai
This movie totally blew me away, I had previously seen Chungking Express due to continuous recommendations in doing so, but was largely unimpressed. As evidenced in that screen shot, this film has some of the most impressive and unique framing I have ever seen. The story itself is underwhelming and doesn't refrain from using some pretty awkward dialogue, but the film comes together through excellent cinematography, pacing, and an amazing use of music. I think this was probably one of the best films of the seven I saw and I would recommend it to anyone who is anyone; if anyone is interested in seeing another of his films, let me know, I would love to join you.
Godzilla: Final War Dir: Ryuhei Kitamura
Holy shit! This move was so insane, I don't even know where to start. The film itself started off awkwardly, but perhaps we just had to get used to what we were about to see. It turned out to be one of those endlessly quotable movies that had no quotable dialogue. There is this fight scene at the beginning with two monsters attacking Tokyo at once, the scene features gunfire and explosions and kung-fu, it is comparable in action with the climax of most modern Hollywood movies. Thus, I was sitting there thinking, who’s brilliant idea was it to put the big fight scene in the start of the movie? Then, holy fuck, everything blew up, buildings, people, crab-monsters, New York, Tokyo, everywhere else. I'm not kidding, and it didn't let up. I don't think there was a single five minute segment of film in which something didn't blow up. Everyone should see this movie, twice.
Ok, this turned out to be a lot more work than I expected, I will finish the rest another time. In the meantime, who wants to go see Howls Moving Castle sometime soon, I know that a few of you have expressed interest.
As always, if anyone has any movie recommendations, shoot.
2046 Dir: Wong Kar-Wai
This movie totally blew me away, I had previously seen Chungking Express due to continuous recommendations in doing so, but was largely unimpressed. As evidenced in that screen shot, this film has some of the most impressive and unique framing I have ever seen. The story itself is underwhelming and doesn't refrain from using some pretty awkward dialogue, but the film comes together through excellent cinematography, pacing, and an amazing use of music. I think this was probably one of the best films of the seven I saw and I would recommend it to anyone who is anyone; if anyone is interested in seeing another of his films, let me know, I would love to join you.
Godzilla: Final War Dir: Ryuhei Kitamura
Holy shit! This move was so insane, I don't even know where to start. The film itself started off awkwardly, but perhaps we just had to get used to what we were about to see. It turned out to be one of those endlessly quotable movies that had no quotable dialogue. There is this fight scene at the beginning with two monsters attacking Tokyo at once, the scene features gunfire and explosions and kung-fu, it is comparable in action with the climax of most modern Hollywood movies. Thus, I was sitting there thinking, who’s brilliant idea was it to put the big fight scene in the start of the movie? Then, holy fuck, everything blew up, buildings, people, crab-monsters, New York, Tokyo, everywhere else. I'm not kidding, and it didn't let up. I don't think there was a single five minute segment of film in which something didn't blow up. Everyone should see this movie, twice.
Ok, this turned out to be a lot more work than I expected, I will finish the rest another time. In the meantime, who wants to go see Howls Moving Castle sometime soon, I know that a few of you have expressed interest.
As always, if anyone has any movie recommendations, shoot.