Quick Update from SIFF-land

Damn, I love this poster. Just saying. And it does have a bearing on this overdue Petri Dish missive.

The last two to three weeks of my life have been spent split between my day job and the glorious rigor that has been covering the Seattle International Film Festival for the SunBreak.com.

I've seen a ton of great movies, and better yet, I've been able to interview some of the makers of those films in detail. It's been the most inspiring couple of weeks I've had, writing-and-movie-lust-wise, in awhile; though the writing part's been hard to squeeze in 'twixt dashing madly between theaters, home (sleeping and eating can be quite the nuisance sometimes), and the W Hotel (site of most of the interviews I've conducted).

I'm enjoying an actual vacation (or, more likely and aptly, a stay-cation) for the next couple of weeks and plan to use that time to get a lot of creative/writing things up to speed. I'll, of course, be getting the ol' Petri Dish caught up on all that I've imbibed in, pop-culture-wise, for the last month or two--including, I hope, a detailed recap of the 28 movies I saw as part of the SIFF experience. Also, I've still got three or four more interviews to transcribe and post for the SunBreak. And we're working on scheduling another Bizarro Movie Night at the end of this month as well.

In the meantime, feel free to jump over to the SIFF-related posts at the SunBreak. All partisan bias aside, our little upstart site's done a pretty great job of covering the Fest. You can take in the picks, pans, and recommendations from the entire eminent staff at the SunBreak, gnash your teeth in envy at the movies you missed, and sigh with relief at the crap you avoided.

Enclosed please find links to the SIFF interviews I've posted at the SunBreak so far...

Senior Prom director Nicholas Terry (a nice kid who gladly put up with me making him pose for all sorts of goofy pictures, including this artsy-fartsy shot I took of him)

Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet, directors of the mesmerizing giallo-cum-art-film Amer 

Jeff Malmberg, director of SIFF Best Documentary Feature Award winner Marwencol. 

Three more interviews should go up onto the SunBreak within the next week or so, and they should be pips. Stay tuned...

Comments

Naomi Johnson said…
OTR, the book was Even, by Andrew Grant. Don't know what book Vince referred to.
7:49 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mining for Overlooked Pop Music Jewels: Jigsaw

Image
Venerable record chain Tower Records filed for bankruptcy late last year, and its demise bummed me out in a big way. I hadn't shopped with frequency at Tower in ages--put bluntly, their steep prices of late alienated me big-time--but back in the eighties the chain's size and diversity did a lot to open my ears. I remember every purchase I made at Tower Records' Tacoma store from my first at age 14 (for the record, a cassette of Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and a vinyl copy of Sparks' Angst in My Pants ), all the way to just before I moved to Seattle at age 21 ( Invisible Lantern by the Screaming Trees --and yes, I AM a big ol' dork for remembering). Rampant sentimentality, however, did bupkis to keep me from picking at the chain's dying carcass late last year like any good bargain-hunter. Right before the Tower Records on 5th Avenue in Seattle breathed its last in December, it bestowed one last parting gift in its final week: a 90%-off sale that drew...
Read more

An Interview with Joe Dallesandro

Image
( I wrote this interview for Seattlest.com , and it is reprinted on the Petri Dish with their kind permission. ) For a minute, it looks like the perfect photo opportunity. Joe Dallesandro—former bodyguard at Andy Warhol’s fabled Factory, star of several key Warhol-sponsored cult films in the sixties and seventies, and accidental avatar of the Sexual Revolution—stands outside the W Hotel in downtown Seattle, his back to me. He cuts an almost dangerous-looking figure. Clad head to foot in black, his compact body sits atop slightly bowed legs in an almost pugilistic stance as he smokes his cigarette. A soul-patched, dark-haired kid stops to bum a smoke, and both figures huddle, almost silhouetted thanks to the overreaching shadow cast by the hotel building, as vaporous off-white ribbons of smoke curl above their heads. But then Dallesandro begins to turn, and I don’t want to come off like some stalker before a formal introduction, so I retreat back into the hotel lobby. The sublime noir ...
Read more

Character Actor Heaven: Hollywood Collectors Show, Feb 2005

Image
Hollywood Collectors' Show, February 18/19, 2005 Character actors are the building blocks of cinematic life. And like a lot of important foundations (architectural or otherwise), they get little credit from the outside world for their contributions. Fortunately, there's the bi-monthly Hollywood Collectors' Show , where fans of all stripes can show these hard-working but underappreciated fixtures of film and TV some serious love, and even get some love back. Expect to make a bit of an investment for that love. Daily admission is $15 ($25 for a two-day pass), and all of the celebrities in attendance charge for their autographs (more on that later). But for a real film (or TV) nut, a Hollywood Collector's Show is absolute manna from heaven, and totally worth the extra change. Imagine a Star Trek convention stripped to its absolute essentials--ample celebrity guests and heaps of cool merchandise--and you get the idea. My wife and I saved our pennies for several months and ...
Read more