Every year I manage to see about 7 films at the Seattle International Film Festival and this year was no different. Whereas last year I mostly saw music documentaries, this year I ended up at a lot of comedies. I also missed a couple things as usual. John Cage’s only film One¹¹ and 103 is supposed to be an abstract meditation of colors. Didn’t quite make it out of the house for that. I also wanted to see Kinski play a live soundtrack to the 20’s silent film Berlin: Symphony of a City, but I neglected to get tickets and lo, it was sold out. (more…)

This new documentary on Scott Walker premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival. Thanks to my pop researcher and informant, Stacey Lester, I’d heard some of Walker’s Jacques Brel covers from the 60’s and his avant-garde hand grenade from the 90’s, “Tilt.” The film fills out that whole strange journey. (more…)

People don’t make black and white movies anymore. They always seem to be black or white nowadays. Not Craig Brewer. The director of “Hustle & Flow” and the recent “Black Snake Moan” makes black and white movies. Maybe it was his early upbringing in Tennessee, where his films are usually set, but for whatever reason, it’s great to go to a film and not feel like a demographic. (more…)

I gotta admit, when I saw the trailer for “Reno 911!: Miami” I almost fell out of my seat with excitement because I thought it was a trailer for “Super Troopers II.” See, I was not yet a fan of the “Reno 911!” My misguided early ’30’s were spent avoiding the show on Comedy Central. But eventually I was worn down and watched it. It is funny. Very funny. How would the movie stand up? (more…)

Here’s what you do: Act 1, introduce the protagonist (Jeremy Piven as Buddy “Aces” Israel), premise (Mob wants to kill him) and quickly fill in the back story. Act 2, order an extra truckload of blood packs and slowly build story to massive gun battle. Act 3, kill everyone off. Or just about. Name it “Smokin’ Aces”. (more…)

I’m more into the aesthetics than the story or the quantity of action scenes so I very much prefer “Curse” and “House of Flying Daggers” and “Hero” to other Kung-Fu films out there. (more…)

A trip to the movies is never a simple endeavor in my family. There is usually at least an hour, sometimes several hours, of deliberation on every possible movie-going topic. Which movie shall we see? How are the reviews? Is it too violent for mom? (more…)

I hadn’t read a single decent review of M. Night Shyamalan’s “Lady in the Water,” which is probably why I enjoyed the film so much. Night’s stories are fantasies, of which adults have very few to choose from. “Lady” extended from a bedtime story he began telling his children. (more…)

“Casino Royale” was the first book in Ian Flemming’s series of James Bond books, so it’s fitting that this latest Bond film also makes a series of firsts. (more…)

Mel’s new movie, “Apocalypto” confirms that he has a fetish for man-on-man violence. Apparently he had a Mayan history expert on-set. It seems apparent that he also had a torture expert advising on 101 ways to destroy human flesh (or maybe it all came from Mel’s imagination). Throughout the movie, I could hear Rachel and Suze on either side of me exclaiming “oh”, “damn” and “now that was unnecessary”. (more…)

Darren Aronofsky’s new film “The Fountain” doesn’t seem to be getting very good reviews. From that, I went into it with the expectation that the plot would be extremely hard to follow, verging on avant-garde. I actually found it rather easy to follow. (more…)

I first became aware of Tom Tykwer (and his awkward-to-pronounce last name) when I saw his film “Lola Rennt” (”Run Lola Run”) while working in Regensburg, Germany. I was still having trouble understanding german, especially at the speed spoken in normal conversation. Fortunately, the dialogue in that film was secondary to the action. While “Lola” might have been his launch pad (more…)