A week and a half after the film festival has ended I've finally decided to complete my mini-reviews for the last two days of SIFF. The delay wasn't exactly unavoidable. However, in my defense, my laptop literally crashed and burned. Okay it didn't literally crash but it did literally burn. It's rather alarming to see smoke coming out of your ( Read more... )

Triangle (Hong Kong) 2007 ***
Three great Hong Kong directors collaborated on this film- Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To. The story is a continuous narrative and is told using the exquisite corpse method. The film, perhaps understandably, has a rather complex setup and didn't seem to flow together well. The last 30 minutes filmed by Johnnie To ( Read more... )

Vice (Russia) 2007 ***Denis is a successful DJ. He has a beautiful girlfriend. The only thing he doesn't have is money. Rather than letting his rich girlfriend borrow money from Daddy in order to prevent their eviction he gets involved in dealing drugs instead. Things do not go well for him ( Read more... )

The last week of the festival and my mini reviews are haphazard, shorter and less coherent as exhaustion creeps up on me and knocks me on my ass. Sorry!

Em (USA) 2007 *
The worst film of the entire festival- self indulgent drivel with bad camera work. Wow! Sign me up for that torture.

Perfect Match (France) 2007 **Bad and boring French "romance ( Read more... )

Princess of the Sun (France) 2007 ***
Mildly entertaining animated feature about young Prince Tutankhamen. Who knew the ancient Egyptians spoke in perfect French?

Island of Lost Souls (Denmark) 2007 *****Three plucky kids must face an Evil Necromancer, a menacing scarecrow, ghostly possession and thousands of trapped souls. It's a perfect balance ( Read more... )

Only went to one film yesterday. Having to work during the film festival has destroyed my viewing schedule.

Walt & El Grupo (USA) 2008 ***In 1941, Walt Disney and a group of artists, animators, musicians and publicists went on a goodwill trip to South America all funded by the US government. They visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. When ( Read more... )

Secret Festival #3 (Country?) year? **This week's secret film was originally supposed to play at SIFF as a regular screening but after it was picked up for distribution it was pulled from the fest. Unfortunately, it was not a very good movie. It was in fact quite bad ( Read more... )

Saturday was a day of mostly bad movies. I was tired and grumpy all day. But why did the midnight movie have to be so good? I could have gone to bed earlier if it was crap.

The Drummer (Hong Kong/Taiwan) 2007 ***1/2Yesterday we saw a bad movie starring Tom Hanks' son. Today we saw a pretty good movie starring Jackie Chan's son, Jaycee Chan. The ( Read more... )

This Way Up (France) 2007 **The filmmaker shot this documentary at Our Lady of Paris, a senior living community in the West Bank, while nearby the wall of separation (built by the israelis to stop suicide bombers from infiltrating country) is being built. Ultimately, the film lacked focus. The director couldn't decide if this was a movie about old ( Read more... )

Very tired and a day behind on my mini reviews. This will be as short as humanly possible. Also, there will very likely be many mistakes. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Call Me Troy (USA) 2007 ***
Documentary about Gay rights activist Reverend Troy Perry. He did lots of cool stuff. This movie however, is not cool and is only mediocre at best ( Read more... )