25 posts tagged “movies”

I survived a weekend of movies (barely).

Friday
La Vie En Rose - I really had no strong interest in Edith Piaf's story, but this movie was quite something. The lead actress's range was pretty stunning; she portrayed Edith, a sort of weird-looking woman, between the age of 20 and 40-something (she aged a lot in the last few years of her life). She really made the movie quite engaging; I was always waiting for her to do something crazy. And although I didn't really know much of the music, they used her original recordings for the songs and they were great. Recommended.

Saturday
Big Rig - Another winner, this documentary about long-haul truck drivers was great, not only as a portrait of these men and women and their world but also as a way to see America. The director used shots of the open highway, natural spots, and man-made monuments to great effect as the movie traveled across the U.S. My only complaint (and it's pretty minor) is that the sound mix wasn't good enough to make the CB chatter clear enough to understand. The visuals deserve a big screen (depspite being filmed on video), but it's definitely going to make a good rental someday -- if they get a distributor, and they really ought to soon.

The Cloud - I guess this is supposed to be Germany's version of a big Hollywood blockbuster. Frankly, it didn't seem as ridiculous and over-the-top as one might expect a disaster movie from America to be. It sort of starts out as this teen romantic comedy thing, and right when the romance starts to kick in, sirens signaling a nuclear accident sound and the couple is separated for nearly half of the movie. I thought it worked pretty well as a political (anti-nuclear power) film, and the lead actress, through whose face we experience most of the events in the movie, was excellent (and only 18 or something like that). It came out in 2006, so I suppose it's available in good video stores already.

Sunday
Fever of '57 - This was a great one, maybe one of my favorites of the festival at this point. Starting with the launch of Sputnik, the movie explores not the effect on space exploration that followed but rather the effects the space launch had on the Cold War. I can see now how easily this news could be (rightly or not; mostly rightly) interpreted as a sign that the U.S. was behind the Soviets in weapons technology. One cool interviewee was the son of Nikita Kruschev. Well, well worth a viewing. It's not as much about science as about the Cold War, so if you're not that into space stuff it's worth seeing anyway.

Nanking - Talk about a downer. This excellent, if incredibly sad, documentary focused on the Japanese attack on and occupation of Nanking, China, in 1937. The story was told through interviews with survivors and actors portraying others through readings of their letters and diaries. These others included a number of Westerners who were in the city during the occupation and did their best to stop the killings and the rapes. For the most part, it worked, because most of the actors were excellent B-list character actors who became their roles. However, I was a little jarred out of the moment every time Woody Harrelson appeared on screen as the American clinic doctor. I just could never quite buy it. However, the story is so compelling that you get sucked right back into the narrative, as tough as it is to hear about what happened in Nanking. It's probably not an easy one to see unprepared, but it was definitely well done and worth a viewing if you can.

Woman on the Beach - So far in this festival, the movies have been pretty good, and I've also been lucky to have the director appear at more than half of the screenings I've seen. This is one screening where I wish the director was around, because I think he has a lot to answer for. The SIFF programmer who introduced the film said that this director's works consistently place in the bottom 10 for SIFF audience scores. Still, they keep putting him in the festival for some reason. Maybe they should take the hint.  It's not that the film was all bad. I thought the actors were quite good, and the characters for the most part had some interesting quirks and such, the kinds of elements of a movie that make you want to stay. (I might also mention that this screening was 9:30 on a Sunday night, and the movie was two hours long.) The direction, however, was a bit listless in places. And the plot... well, I think there was some sort of moral or point that was lost on me. I could see a lot of places where a better editor could have livened things up just a tad. And at the end, the movie pretty much just stopped. I was glad, because I was tired and it was late. But it didn't really resolve a thing. Maybe my friend Chris will see something that I didn't, though.

I get a two-day break before seeing a movie on Wednesday night, and then I get another break until the weekend sometime. It would have been nice to have a little bit more non-movie time to do stuff this past weekend, but I'll take what I can get. 

So as an addendum to my last post, when I brought my PC back home and plugged it in, the problem started happening again.  Neither hard drive was accessible.  I opened up the box and plugged in only the primary (boot) drive, and although I still get an error when I boot up, I can read from the drive and run Windows.  I wish I could get at the files on the other drive, though! The DVD burner burns CDs like a charm, so I spent some time this morning backing up my latest photos. These include photos from three Flickr Meetup events and Sasquatch, so it took a few disks.

Last night, I went to another Flickr Meetup event at Victrola's new roastery cafe. I didn't stay super long because Elizabeth arrived after her movie for a ride home, but it was fun. I took a bunch of photos, too.

Hole in the head

1 comment

Tonight starts the six-movie weekend with La Vie En Rose. I get the feeling this weekend's going to busy, especially if I try to fit in a trip to Fry's to buy a new power supply or IDE cables.

We finally bought our tickets for the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) last night.  We're seeing a lot of movies.  I'll bet Elizabeth is not looking forward to May 31-June 8 when she's seeing one or more movies per day. For me, it's next weekend when I see 5 movies in two days.

See our full schedule in my LJ.

We've got a lot going on. Tonight, Elizabeth's going out to see a non-SIFF movie with a friend, while I prepare for tomorrow. Tomorrow, we get up too early to drive 160+ miles to the Gorge. We bake in the sun and hear some good bands, and then we drive back after the show. I see a movie at 1:45 the next day, so I won't be able to sleep too much. SIFF takes over for a while. And next week, I also have to drive to work Tuesday through Thursday for some in-office training.

Also, I'm looking at a rental house at 11 a.m. today and another at 5 p.m. And if Elizabeth has trouble picking up the tickets tonight, I may have to run down to Pacific Place before the box office closes at 7. Whew.

On Saturday, I did another Flickr photostroll with the Seattle Flickr Meetup.com group, and it was a pretty good time. This time, I stayed a little (OK, a lot) later, and I got a few OK night shots as a result. See the photoset here.

Escape

On Saturday, I did another Flickr photostroll with the Seattle Flickr Meetup.com group, and it was a pretty good time. This time, I stayed a little (OK, a lot) later, and I got a few OK night shots as a result. See the photoset here.

Other than that, it was a pretty forgettable weekend. Coming up is SIFF (we need to buy some tickets before I can post our line-up) and the Sasquatch Music Festival on Saturday (Björk, The Arcade Fire, Neko Case, a bunch of other folks). 

I had a pretty good weekend. Friday night, we saw Blades of Glory, which was tons of fun. Afterward, we had drinks at the new, cocktail-lounge version of the old Ballard dive bar Coppergate. I had a pretty good drink that included some rhubarb juice, but negihama's cherry cocktail was a little too Champagne-y for our tastes.

On Saturday, I went to the UW to meet up with some Flickr folks (the Seattle Flickrite Meetup Group) to do a "photostroll." We wandered around campus, the camera geeks with their huge lenses mixing with a couple of us with point-and-shoots. Everyone was very nice, and I got a few nice shots (click here for the set):

Kane

Afterward, we first went out for coffee and then beer. It was a lot of fun, and I'm definitely going to try to come out to their events in the future.

Today, we had breakfast at Hi-Life and I worked in the yard. I think the lawn looks a lot better than it did last year, and I hope I can keep up with the weeds until we have to move.

Wookiee

I have to reinstall my scanner before I scan them in, but I got five more sketches for the "Music" sketchbook. I'll link to'em when they're ready. I think that if or when I go to Stumptown or SPX, I'm going to start a new book with a new theme. Maybe "Space," finally?

In a ripoff of homage to Julie's latest LJ entry, a thumbnail of the past few days:

Wednesday - Thursday: Dunno

Friday: Elizabeth meets with potential caterer. Dinner at Old Town Alehouse in Ballard.

Saturday: Got "Lego Star Wars" (the first one) in the mail, played it a bunch. Saw Pan's Labrynth.

Sunday: Brunch at Vera's. Jam and eggs bought at sunday market. Finished up Save-a-Date cards. I cooked risotto. Watched National Treasure (from the library).

Today - Friday: Working.

The cold has mostly passed, and I'm back to work. (Our client, a certain mega-huge tech company based in Redmond, does not take Presidents' Day off, so we can't, either. Of course, the Chinese writers who produce some of the content I edit are taking the entire week off for Chinese New Year.)

I guess there isn't too much to report about this weekend. We cleaned the house some, I got closer to finishing Lego Star Wars II (down to two super stories and some brick-buying), negihama made a great dinner last night. For Chinese/Lunar New Year, we got some takeout from Snappy Dragon and rented Raise the Red Lantern Saturday night.

We're still trying to figure out the food: The budget, whether we want a restaurant that can cater (and still handle the linens/china part) or just find a reasonable caterer, etc. We're meeting with a photographer tonight to look at her portfolio, and now I have the number of the guy who did my sister's wedding, whose rates two summers ago were comparable to this other person's. We need to rent chairs for the wedding site. We still need to get more info about hotels. I need to work on the wedding Web site and add more info about the wedding site(s) and things for out-of-town guests to do in Seattle.

Once we get food and the photographer figured out, we should be a lot less stressed. Save-the-date cards are ordered and should be delivered sometime this week. So that's something that'll be done soon!

Thanks everyone for the congratulations. We're sort of in a high-stress race to find a venue right away, because I took my sweet time in asking and places are probably going reallyreally fast for the summer/early fall. I need to check with my Mom and find out where my sister considered having her wedding before settling on the final location (which wasn't a bad place at all). And I have no idea what sort of budget we should have. Augh! Stress stress stress, but I'm still very happy.

Stuff I've meant to post about when I wasn't preoccupied with, y'know, other matters:

Oscar nominations:

I haven't seen many of these movies at all. A few weeks ago, Entertainment Weekly had a list of movies I "need[ed] to see" before the Oscar broadcast. Out of 25, I'd seen 2. So I don't think I'm going to catch up.

For my reference, I've bolded the ones I've seen so far:

Motion Picture of the Year

* Babel
* The Departed
* Letters from Iwo Jima
* Little Miss Sunshine
* The Queen

Actor in a Leading Role

* Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
* Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
* Peter O'Toole, Venus
* Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
* Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Actress in a Leading Role

* Penélope Cruz, Volver
* Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
* Helen Mirren, The Queen
* Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
* Kate Winslet, Little Children

Actor in a Supporting Role

* Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
* Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
* Djimon Housou, Blood Diamond
* Eddi Murphy, Dreamgirls
* Mark Wahlberg, The Departed

Actress in a Supporting Role

* Adriana Barraza, Babel
* Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
* Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
* Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
* Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

Director

* Alejandro González Iñárritu, Babel
* Martin Scorsese, The Departed
* Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima
* Stephen Frears, The Queen
* Paul Greengrass, United 93

Best Animated Feature

* Cars
* Happy Feet
* Monster House

Adapted Screenplay

* Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham & Dan Mazer; story by Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham, Anthony Hines & Todd Phillips
* Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby
* The Departed, William Monahan
* Little Children, Todd Field & Tom Perrotta
* Notes on a Scandal, Patrick Marber

Original Screenplay

* Babel, Guillermo Arriaga
* Letters from Iwo Jima, Iris Yamashita & Paul Haggis
* Little Miss Sunshine, Michael Arndt
* Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro
* The Queen, Peter Morgan

Art Direction

* Dreamgirls
* The Good Shepherd
* Pan's Labyrinth
* Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
* The Prestige

Cinematography

* The Black Dahlia
* Children of Men
* The Illusionist
* Pan's Labyrinth
* The Prestige

Costume Design

* Curse of the Golden Flower
* The Devil Wears Prada
* Dreamgirls
* Marie Antoinette
* The Queen

Documentary Feature

* Deliver Us From Evil
* An Inconvenient Truth
* Iraq in Fragments
* Jesus Camp
* My Country, My Country

Documentary Short Subject

* The Blood of Yingzhou District
* Recycled Life
* Rehearsing a Dream
* Two Hands

Film Editing

* Babel
* Blood Diamond
* Children of Men
* The Departed
* United 93

Foreign-Language Film

* After the Wedding (Denmark)
* Days of Glory (Indigènes) (Algeria)
* The Lives of Others (Germany)
* Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico)
* Water (Canada)

Makeup

* Apocalypto
* Click
* Pan's Labyrinth

Original Score

* Gustavo Santaolalla, Babel
* Thomas Newman, The Good German
* Philip Glass, Notes on a Scandal
* Javier Navarrete, Pan's Labyrinth
* Alexandre Desplat, The Queen

Original Song

* "I Need to Wake Up" (An Inconvenient Truth), music & lyrics by Melissa Etheridge
* "Listen" (Dreamgirls), music by Henry Krieger & Scott Cutler, lyrics by Anne Preven
* "Love You I Do" (Dreamgirls), music by Henry Krieger, lyrics by Siedah Garrett
* "Our Town" (Cars), music and lyrics by Randy Newman
* "Patience" (Dreamgirls), music by Henry Krieger; lyrics by Willie Reale

Animated Short

* The Danish Poet
* Lifted
* The Little Matchgirl
* Maestro
* No Time for Nuts

Live-Action Short

* Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)
* Éramos Pocos (One Too Many)
* Helmer & Son
* The Saviour
* West Bank Story

Sound Editing

* Apocalypto
* Blood Diamond
* Flags of Our Fathers
* Letters from Iwo Jima
* Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Sound Mixing

* Apocalypto
* Blood Diamond
* Dreamgirls
* Flags of Our Fathers
* Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Visual Effects

* Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
* Poseidon
* Superman Returns

Books I've read:

I'd like to keep track of what I've been reading this year, even if I'm not up to posting reviews of any sort.

So far in 2007, I've read:
- A Gift Upon the Shore, by M.K. Wren - post-apocalyptic story that had a few interesting points to make about religion versus non-biblical truth

- 31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today, by Barry Werth - the story of the first 31 days of Gerald Ford's presidency (through the pardon of Nixon). I was underwhelmed by the attempt to blame Ford for maneuvering/enabling Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney into positions of power and setting the course for George HW Bush and his son to follow. However, this was a great insight into those troubled times and the tightrope that Ford had to walk post-Watergate. I still don't agree with the pardon, but I understand his reasoning and the extenuating circumstances, too. I found it amusing that the pardon occurred on the same day that Evel Knievel tried to jump Snake River Canyon.

- Various "pamphlet"-sized comics

- Kane Volume 6: Partners TPB, by Paul Grist - more stories of the criminals and police department in New Eden