ALERT: As of a few minutes ago, ShortsFest Opening Night was on standby! Get your umbrellas ready and line up early.

Y’all know how much I love the SIFF Shorts Packages, and I definitely found some gems this year in the packages I had time to preview. All shorts programs are showing at SIFF Cinema Uptown this year.

ShortsFest Opening Night {Thursday, May 25, 7pm}  
My very favorite this year is Bear, (teaser trailer above) which plays as part of the Opening Night package. It’s the “sequel” to a short called Spider, which is about how this guy Jack always takes things just a scoonch past too far when trying to impress his girlfriends.

In Bear, Jack plans an elaborate birthday surprise for his new girlfriend (watch Spider here, re: why she’s new) that goes horribly awry. Also endearing: both shorts include original songs by Ben Lee & wife Ione Skye that are super-cute! Diane Court! Singing! I love it. Go, Nash Edgerton (who also stars as Jack)!!!

Other Opening Night Shorts standouts: Fishing Without Nets, a documentary about Somali Pirates that is simply STUNNING; The Return, about a guy rejoining his family after many years in a Serbian prison, aka: the most depressing short film I’ve ever seen; and Friend Request Pending, which is maybe a little too precious for its own good (OMG old people! Using Facebook! Like teenagers!), but Dame Judy Dench can do almost anything and I’ll still like it.

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{Bad Brains: A Band in DC screens at SIFF on May 23rd, 9pm, at the Harvard Exit}

Mixed emotions are my typical reaction to learning about a new music doc on a band I love. A fellow I was discussing this conundrum with while waiting for something at SXSW agreed, "The best ones are often the ones where you really know nothing about the band beforehand." The truthfulness of that statement knocked me back for a moment. If you already know a lot about the band, how much will you really get out of the documentary? And there's always the time documentary makers have to spend time pointing out how significant a group is - when you already know all that.

So it's with this sense of diminished expectations that I watched Bad Brains: A Band in DC, to my knowledge, the first comprehensive film solely about this seminal hardcore punk band. Thankfully, most of that worrying was for naught. In the end I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It's made up of great footage and intensive interview material tightly edited together. Producing a very watchable and informative, unvarnished look at one of the most important bands - ever. That's not just Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye saying that - it's me saying that.

Point being, if you like punk rock, if you like music docs, or if you've never heard of the band and want to learn some true American history - see this movie when you can. There's one more SIFF opportunity left but I am hoping it'll make a return swing through Seattle at some point.

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{38 Witnesses screens at SIFF May 21, 6:30pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown, May 23, 8:30pm at the Renton IKEA Performing Arts Center, and again May 28 at The Egyptian Theatre, 9:15pm}

Based on the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in NYC, 38 Witnesses dives into the aftermath of a brutal stabbing. Louise (Sophie Quinton, who played Marilyn-clone Martine in last year’s Poupoupidiu, one of my SIFF favorites) returns home to learn that a young woman named Sylvie who lived in her apartment building was stabbed to death in the middle of the night. Her fiancé Pierre (Yvan Attal) tries to cover up feelings of guilt by lying about his whereabouts, but eventually buckles under the stress of the situation and confesses—first to Louise, and then to the police.

As each of the 38 witnesses is questioned a second time, the police determine that all of them heard Sylvie screaming that night, but chose to ignore it instead of reporting it. With each passing day, Louise wonders how the people around her could look the other way, and struggles with the knowledge that her fiancé is one of them—while Pierre’s guilt breaks him down more and more, driving a wedge between the couple.

Director Lucas Belvaux (who also directed Yvan Attal in Rapt, another SIFF standout from 2010) weaves a tight, emotionally distressing tale of responsibility, guilt, and tragedy. Disturbing (especially when they start replaying the victim’s screams over and over again), but recommended.

{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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{Michael is screening at SIFF Cinema Uptown through Thursday, 5/17}

I’m not really sure I can recommend this one to anybody, as I feel like it’s either going to leave you severely depressed, or trigger memories from a traumatic event. I’m still kind of struggling with it—even though I know it’s “just” a film.

Michael chronicles the life of a pedophile who keeps a 10-year-old boy locked in his basement. And while it isn’t graphic, Director Markus Schleinzer shows you just enough detail to make you severely uncomfortable. I guess the point is to make you see that even the most normal human beings can be complete monsters, but I’m not sure this is something everyone doesn’t already know.

Schleinzer does an excellent job of drawing you into the day-to-day with little sensationalism, without any kind of dramatic story arc. It’s just about a very sick man and his captive—struggling with accepting life as is, or trying to get away.

Do I think you should see it? Eeesh. I … just. I can’t really. I mean, from a filmmaking perspective, it’s pretty interesting if you can focus solely on story and acting. But uh, I don’t really know anyone who’d be able to watch this without feeling pretty icky by the end.

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The 38^th Seattle International Film Festival kicks off in a week at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall on Thursday, 5/17 and I’m more excited for the Opening Night Gala than EVER—because they are showing the amazing new film by Lynn Shelton!! !!! ! !

I said that Your Sister’s Sister is probably the best Opening Night film SIFF has programmed since I’ve been going to Opening Night (which is at 7 years, if my math is right—questionable to be sure, but it’s been a few at least) on the Scarecrow Video Podcast a few weeks ago, and I meant it. Shelton has crafted a film that takes a crazily hilarious situation and makes it seem totally and completely honest and real. I laughed, I cried, yada yada yada—but seriously: it’s a REALLY REALLY REALLY good film. Trust me on this one.

And of course, after the film there will be tasty snacks, free-flowing alcoholic drinks, and a whole lot of people analyzing the film, dancing badly, looking for more important people to talk to, and trying to hook up. In other words: PRIME PEOPLE WATCHING (which is what I’ll be doing … along with dancing badly, I imagine).

Get your tickets now! I can’t imagine a world in which SIFF 2012 Opening Night doesn’t sell out, and probably early too.

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{Death of a Superhero opens in Seattle on Friday, 5/4 and is screening at SIFF Cinema Uptown through 5/10}

This is going to be a hard one to recommend, even though I think it’s a really, really good film. Because there is no way you’re going to leave the theater without disintegrating into a sobbing mess.

Based on a book by Anthony McCarten, Death of a Superhero stars that little ginger kid from Love, Actually (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), in a role that proves that he can, you know, actually act. He sure acts the hell out of this role.  

Sangster is Donald Clarke, a 15-year-old boy with brain cancer. He’s also an incredible artist, and channels his feelings of helplessness into some pretty awesome comic book heroes and villains, which Director Ian Fitzgibbon wisely chooses to show on screen in animated form.

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{#ReGeneration opens in Seattle on Friday, 5/4, and is screening at the SIFF Film Center through 5/10}

I gotta give the filmmakers credit for snagging everybody’s favorite 6-pack internet meme good-looking do-gooder, Ryan Gosling, to narrate #ReGeneration. That said, he doesn’t narrate a WHOLE lot of it. And his pretty face is not seen on screen.

What we do see on screen is a whole bunch of teenagers talking about how growing up in an age with constant media bombardment makes it so hard for them to pay attention to any real issues that they end up feeling helpless and like they can’t change the world (so why should they care?)—and a whole bunch of adults agreeing that today’s youth sucks at getting involved, and that their generations were so much better at organizing protests, etc. etc.

It’s basically a lot of interviews with people saying the same thing, “Today’s youth are distracted and seemingly disaffected—they are overwhelmed by all the problems in the world and don’t know how to help.” 

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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!

{We Have a Pope opened in Seattle this past Friday and is screening at the Landmark Guild 45th now}

When the Pope passes, all of the catholic churches Cardinals gather within the Vatican to choose their next spiritual leader. Vote after vote is taken until a consensus emerges. The honored recipient being a far from obvious choice - emerging as an out of nowhere compromise candidate. Which might have something to do with all the other Cardinal's fervent prayers not to be elevated to the papacy. The vote's conclusion signaled via coded smoke to the faithful massed outside awaiting this reassuring message of continuity. 

With throngs of reporters trying to get a scoop on what's going on - in a manner reminiscent of a sporting event or Kardashian sighting. Around this process lies fertile ground for comedy, both slapstick and ironic. There's a touch of that (for example the lights going out and church members insisting nothing is wrong, as well as a confused Vatican reporter). Though it's low-grade compared with the mostly sweetly handled existential crisis that the accidental Pope has to deal with. I smiled throughout the film, but never really was engaged enough to recommend the final result as must-see cinema. Though it certainly has its charms and likely will be a winner with segments of the viewing audience, who are not me.

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