Ten years ago today, "J" and I met, by the chance good fortune of sitting in our favorite spot at the Egyptian theater: back row of the front section, middle seats. We both liked the film, the film Hipsters, too. It's been a great ten years.

Every year 130 million Chinese migrant workers take leave from their city jobs to visit their home towns and their families over Chinese New Year, the largest human migration in the world. The film profiles Zhang Yang and Zhang Changhua, who left their impoverished Sichuan village when their daughter Qin was an infant (leaving her in her ( Read more... )

This 2009 film stars Alfred Hitchcock, who died well before the film was made. He appears in two forms: archival clips of the real Hitchcock and in the form of a Hitchcock impersonator (Ron Burrage, voice by Mark Perry). The premise is that in 1962, Hitchcock met his 1980 self, and that when one meets one's double, one of them must die.
In addition ( Read more... )

Juan Oliver (Alberto Ammann) has a new job as a guard in a high-security prison. He visits the prison the day before he officially starts work and takes a tour. He becomes trapped inside the prison during a riot, and is brought to prison gang leader "Malamadre" (Luis Tosar), who nicknames him "Calzones". How will he survive?
The film was directed ( Read more... )

At age eleven, Li Cunxin (Chi Cao, adult; Chengwu Guo, teen; Wen Bin Huang, child) was selected to leave his rural Chinese village to study ballet in Beijing. He later went to Houston for a cultural exchange, staying with ballet director Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood). During his stay, he got to know Elizabeth Mackey (Amanda Schull). Toward the ( Read more... )

Louis Ives (Paul Dano) is laid off as a professor and moves to Manhattan. He answers a roommate ad and moves in with the eccentric Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline). Henry is an imperious failed playwright who works as an "extra man", accompanying old women to social functions where appearing alone would be socially inappropriate. Louis also gets ( Read more... )

One month ago today, I saw Hipsters at SIFF. Because I was already there for the preceding film ( Violet Tendencies), I was able to grab my favorite spot in the theater, which in the Egyptian is the middle of the back row of the front section. I left my stuff there to claim a seat and went to talk with friends seated elsewhere.
While I was off ( Read more... )

This morning I went on a hike in Seattle, in Discovery Park. It was cool and peaceful there when I arrived, but it got warmer and busier as time passed.
When I got to the shore, the tide was very low. It was full Moon today, with a partial lunar eclipse early in the morning, which makes tides more extreme; apparently when I was there it was near ( Read more... )

The Seattle International Film Festival is over, but they're doing something new to start their off-season: a series featuring some of the most popular films from the festival. They didn't have all of their most popular films, because in some cases they had to return the film prints promptly, but they have 14 films that they're running again ( ( Read more... )

Last night I went to the SIFF Closing Night Gala. It was a fun party. The food was delicious, but gone very quickly. The drinks were plentiful, unlike some of the other SIFF parties where the drinks tended to run out fairly early too. But the real point was just mingling with friends, SIFF-season acquaintances, film-makers, and possible new friends