Two speculative-fiction films (one good, one terrible), a buzzy doc about backup singers, and a purgatory-set Amélie are among the highs, lows, and in-betweens of SIFF 2013 week 3 (May 31 - June 6).

DON'T MISS:

The Wall
{screens June 1 at 6:30pm and June 2 at 12:45pm at the Harvard Exit}
I had mixed emotions viewing this odd, slow, science-fictiony film, but it's stayed with me and my appreciation has grown. The premise is clearly metaphorical -- a woman visiting a remote Alpine homestead finds herself trapped and alone behind a mysterious invisible wall -- and if you're ok with that you're in for a beautifully contemplative experience. The landscape photography is stunning, and the German actress Martina Gedeck amazes in the lead role; her character's narrative voiceover is filled with eloquent ruminations on solitude, connectedness, and the natural world.

TAKE OR LEAVE:

Fatal
{screens June 5 at 4pm at the Uptown and June 6 at 9:45pm at Pacific Place}
A kind of revenge drama from South Korea centering on a very uncomplicated young man who is bullied into participating in a despicable act of violence against a classmate. Attempting to atone ten years later, he forms a relationship with the victim, who is oblivious to his role in the crime. The film is engaging throughout, with the exception of a few clumsily-executed dream sequences, and it doesn't seem micro-budget at all (it was reportedly made for $3000). I just had a really difficult time connecting with this protagonist.

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A twisty political thriller, a surprisingly good high-school movie, and a shockingly bad David Sedaris adaptation are among SIFF's highlights and lowlights in week two (May 24-30).

DON'T MISS:

Camion
{screens May 29 at 6:30pm and May 30 at 4:30pm at the Uptown}
A truck driver nearing retirement age gets in a head-on collision on the job, and his two sons come home (somewhere in rural French Canadia) to help him out of the ensuing funk. The story then takes an interesting detour into childhood-regression territory, focusing on the brothers: one's a funny fuckup who looks kinda like Dave Grohl and the other is a straighter-lacer who looks like I dunno who but definitely not Dave Grohl. Despite any casting questions or POV unevenness, this is a beautifully-crafted film with a gorgeous ending.

Paradise trilogy: Love, Faith, Hope
{screening back-to-back May 25 beginning at 10am at Pacific Place}
A captivating series of films focusing on three women as they confront themselves and search for some version of happiness. Love travels with full-figured, fiftysomething hausfrau Teresa as she becomes a "Sugar Mama" sex tourist in Kenya; in Faith we get to know Teresa's sister, a fanatic Catholic missionary whose summer is disrupted by the sudden return of her paraplegic Muslim husband; then there's Teresa's sullen 13-year-old daughter Melanie, making unexpected new friendships at a fat camp and flirting with a much older camp doctor, in Hope. All three feature intriguing photography (director Ulrich Seidl has a fondness for static symmetrical shots, mainly of characters in small rooms) and audacious, often ruthless storytelling (he also has a fondness for challenging the viewer to look directly at unpleasantness). Paradise is well worth your while.

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{Side Effects opens in Seattle Friday, 2/8, and is screening at Sundance Cinemas, Oak Tree, AMC Pacific Place, and SIFF Cinema Uptown} 

Well, Soderbergh finally made a movie with Channing Tatum that I wanted to see—if only to watch Rooney Mara work her magic.  

Side Effects is one of those movie that I think could have been brilliant, if it focused more deeply on the issue of pharmacology and the responsibility of psychiatrists and drug companies. Instead, it uses those things only to provide a frame around a cheap thriller.  

Mara plays Emily, a depressed young woman whose husband Martin (Tatum) has been in prison for 2 years for insider trading. Emily and Martin were living the high life when he was arrested with mansions and fancy cars and designer clothes, and now the poor girl actually has to work a 40-hour a week job! And she can’t even afford a decent psychiatrist. 

After Martin is released, Emily slips further and further into her depression, ghosting through her days, and eventually slams her car into a concrete wall, which lands her in the hospital and in front of Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law). The concerned doctor strongly suggests that she either be committed or get on antidepressants. 

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{Warm Bodies opens in Seattle on Friday, 2/1, and is screening at both AMC Pacific Place and Thornton Place}

I know there are a few others out there, but this is the first “Zombie Romance” film I’ve seen, and it was pretty well done. But! If you’re a hardcore Zombie purist, you’re going to hate it because it seriously messes with the rules of the genre.

Instead of focusing on the outbreak, Warm Bodies deals with the aftermath of a Zombie apocalypse, where the remaining humans (led by a militant John Malkovich) wall themselves up inside the remains of a big city, and the zombies run around outside eating whatever brains they can find. But here’s the catch: the zombies can think pretty much the same way they did before they became the walking dead.

It gets harder for them to retain their humanity the longer they’ve been at it, but “R” (super-dreamy Nicholas Hoult – yes, even as a Zombie) seems to have a little more consciousness than the others, clinging to his human persona by collecting various chotskies, including a boss collection of ‘80s albums—I knew I was going to like this film as soon as they queued up John Waites’ “Missing You”.

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{The Glass Man screens at SIFF June 1, 9pm & June 3, 11am The Harvard Exit, and again June 5, 9:15pm at Pacific Place}

When this movie started playing, I was like “Hey! That’s Neve Campbell with a British accent! Weird.” And then I totally forgot about that, because The Glass Man starts out as a depressingly awkward thriller that nosedives into Crazytown.

Martin Pyrite (Andy Nyman) is REALLY into appearances, which means he can’t tell his beautiful wife (Neve) that he lost his job weeks ago, and he owes shit-tons of money to everybody. Nope. Martin prefers to just get dressed in the morning and drive to work anyway, because he promised to protect and take care of his wife when he married her, and bygod that means he can’t tell her the truth about them possibly losing their fancy house or having access to expensive jewelry and designer duds. So when a grizzled stranger shows up on his doorstep and offers him a way out, he takes it—even if it means driving the dude around on mysterious errands in the middle of the night.

The Glass Man is kind of a mess, but what sells it is Nyman’s panicked and sincere portrayal of Martin. You FEEL for this guy; you really do. As for the Crazytown part, I don’t want to give anything away, but I’m still processing how it happened and why. One further note: if I had to stick a genre on this movie it’d be “depressing thriller”, because it punches you in the gut at the end. Nicely done, but likely not for everybody.

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{6 Point About Emma screens at SIFF June 1, 7pm and June 3, 1:30pm at Pacific Place, and again June 4, 6pm at Kirkland Performance Center.}

Emma is beautiful, blind, and stubbornly independent. She’s also sure of two things: she wants a baby more than anything, and she’s unable to fall in love with anyone. But after she joins a support group for people with disabilities, her steadfastness begins to shatter when she begins an affair with the group’s secretive counselor. Complicating matters even further, her neighbor’s little brother develops romantic feelings for Emma. With one man obsessed with using Emma for pleasure, and the other obsessed with protecting her, Emma's got quite the love triangle goin' on. 

While 6 Points About Emma suffers a little from its easy-to-figure out resolution, it’s packed with strong performances from Veronica Echegui as Emma, and a great ensemble cast—especially Mariam Hernandez as Lucia. Overall, it’s an enjoyable way to spend a few hours.

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{Robot and Frank screens May 20, 6:00 PM at Renton IKEA Performing Arts Center.}

The near future, as imagined by Jake Schrier in his feature film debut Robot and Frank, forgoes silver jumpsuits and flying cars in favor of a refreshingly plausible iteration, where the principal difference between now and then are that the adults are named Madison and Hunter and Ava and Jake, and helper robots are around to cook and clean for, say, crotchety ex-cat-burglars like Frank Langella’s Frank, whose declining memory and the legacy of his lousy parenting skills make him an ideal candidate for robotic assistance. No one, even his own children, could reasonably be expected to put up with him for long, but the robot, who’s programmed to be somewhat charmingly emotionally manipulative, teases out the best in him.

The movie makes a few tonal missteps (rookie mistakes, most likely) and has an entirely unnecessary and implausible twist towards the end, but otherwise it’s completely enjoyable.

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{Cracks in the Shell screens at SIFF May 18, 9:30pm at Pacific Place, May 22, 9pm at the Egyptian Theatre, and again May 25, 9:30pm at The Everett Performing Arts Center.}

Fine (Stine Fischer Christensen) is a mousy, innocent, and mostly ignored actress who is berated by the head coach at her acting school for not being visible enough, and rightly so, since she promptly falls asleep on stage during an important workshop. So it’s a surprise when she wins a juicy and prominent lead role in a famous director’s new play. 

But amidst struggles at home with an overwhelmed mother and a mentally-handicapped sister, Fine starts to crumble as the demanding director gives her more and more off-stage advice on how to “become” the sexually-charged and destructive character Camille … which, predictably, sometimes involves "becoming" in his bed. (oof. bad joke, sorry!) 

Donning a blonde wig fashioned for the play, Fine adopts Camille’s persona and sets out to romance a handsome stranger named Joachim (Ronald Zehrfeld, whose ruggedness I totally drooled over in last year’s 12 Paces Without a Head), which doesn’t quite produce the tragic results the director was hoping would come across in her acting. Determined to please him, Fine continues a downward, Black Swan-esque spiral on her way to fully becoming Camille, which uh. May or may not end well.

Clocking in at 113 minutes, Cracks in the Shell starts to wear a little thin by the end, but it’s still a nice way to spend the evening—if only to watch Christensen shine in the lead role. And don't worry, it's not *quite* as depressing as Aronofsky's doomed ballerina tale.

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It’s time once again to run down the highlights of this year’s Face the Music program for the Seattle International Film Festival!

There are a ton of great things this year, but the film I think our Imaginaries will be most excited about is the documentary Welcome to Doe Bay, which chronicles the community and camaraderie of Doe Bay Fest—a camping trip/music festival/weekend-long party at Doe Bay Resort on Orcas Island that brings Pacific Northwest music stars and fans together for a relaxing musical retreat, and apparently, some slip-n-slide action and s’mores. The trailer is packed with engaging commentary and familiar faces (Hi, Jace!) and I’m sure the music featured by Sera Cahoone, Lemolo, the Maldives, Fly Moon Royalty, Champagne Champagne, and … wait for it … The Head and the Heart will be the draw for fans of the scene. {Screens June 3, 9:15pm, The Egyptian & June 5, 9:30pm, SIFF Cinema Uptown}

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Emerald City Visions (A Hip Hop Reinterpretation of The Wiz) looks pretty radical. The description promises OC Notes, Don’t Talk to the Cops, and “some of the hottest names in hip hop” (I guess it’s a secret, but I know who I’m pulling for) will infuse the musical score of The Wiz with some fresh flavor and beats. Word. {Screens June 1, 7pm and again at 9:30pm, The Triple Door—and if you see the 7pm showing, you’ll still have plenty time to make it to our Rockstar New Wave Karaoke show!}

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Hey Imaginaries! I'm trying something new with the website Tugg.com and wanted to be sure folks knew about it. For some reason that's a little hard to comprehend, Seattle didn't have a full theatrical run of the new Morgan Spurlock documentary about the San Diego Comic-con. The film follows a set of distinct fans through a pilgrimage to the annual Mecca of comic geek culture. I was actually in San Diego for the convention the year this was filmed, and I seriously want to watch it on the big screen. Thankfully Tugg.com making such a chance available. 

Tugg.com's business model allows folks to demonstrate demand up front for a film and in doing so guarantee a screening. If we can get enough people interested, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope will play in Seattle on May 14th at Pacific Place. Tickets are $9 and can be reserved via the film's event page on Tugg.com. There's a certain minimum number needed to guarantee the screening happens, so if you'd like to attend please sign up as soon as possible. If that minimum is hit, then the show goes on (and your credit card is charged). If it's not, then you pay nothing and we all find something else to do that night. With SIFF just a few days past that, think of this as your last chance to see a movie without waiting in line. 

For full disclosure the film is available today on VOD channels - but don't you think a film about community should be seen in a public space? Hope to see everyone there!