The 2009 Philadelphia Film Festival/Cinefest has come to an end! That means many of you have just spent an unhealthy amount of time sitting in a dark room, eyes glued to a flickering light being projected in front of you.
To me, this is the moment when the Fest becomes most interesting—when we all take a deep breath, leave the theater, and talk to one another about what we’ve seen. We may disagree on some of the films (let’s not lie- we may disagree on all of the films), but that’s part of the beauty of the Festival.
This blog was built to be your forum; it is our hope that you use it to share your passion for film with the other members of the Society. So take a moment to tell us what flicks you saw during the 2009 Festival—what you loved, like, loathed…what left no impression at all.
At the very least tell us how many films you saw—last year’s Member High was 49; did any of you beat it?
I got to the festival late and only saw 4 films. One bad, “No Boundaries”. My wife and I both disliked this film. Amateur acting, except for McGraw, story, action sequences, and picture quality. An OK film was “Light Bulb”. Two outstanding films were “Pressure Cooker” and “Burning Planes”. I hope they both make it to the theaters. Sorry I did not get a chance to see some of the other films.
PL
OK — I’ll take the plunge. Remember Jared — YOU ASKED FOR THIS!
What I did at the Film Festival: 16 films (including opening & closing night):
“The Magic Hour” was my favourite film at the festival. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. Even though it’s Japanese, it was a great “screwball” comedy with roots in American films directed by the likes of George Cukor or Billy Wilder. I highly recommend “The Magic Hour” to anyone who loves “the films of yesterday” – especially olf-fashioned screwball comedies.
Chronologically:
(500) Days of Summer – Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of America’s most under-rated talents. Here’s hoping this can be his big break. The dance sequence to Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams (Come True)” is right up there with Ferris Buehler crooning Wayne Newton’s “Danke Schoen”.
Moon – Interesting sci-fi flick about how our future selves are saved by some mysterious process taking place on the moon. Very good acting by Sam Rockwell but even so he is upstaged by the voice of Kevin Spacey and the wacky “emoticons” on the moonbase’s resident robot. In the closing sequence when it is clear that “all will be revealed” to the people of Earth, I was almost stood up in the cinema and said, “SOYLENT GREEN: IT’S PEOPLE!”
The Country Teacher – I found it hard to warm to this Czech film about a repressed gay teacher who decides to move to the countryside, perhaps to live some sort of celibate, “spiritual” life. The title character becomes involved with a hard-working woman farmer and her strapping 17-year-old son (with whom he has more than “an indisrection” as described in Raymond Murray’s description in the Festival Guide). In the end, I was made uncomfortable by the farmwoman basically seeming to tell her son, “Love me, love your rapist.”
Hunger – Many films in one, this is a bleak depiction of life in the IRA block of the Maze prison in Northern Ireland in the 1980s. In the middle of the film, there is an engaging “My Dinner With Andre” like discussion between Bobby Sands (about to start a hunger strike) and an IRA-sympathizing Catholic priest. The discussion highlights the often divergent goals of the IRA prisoners and the political IRA in the outside world. The last third of the film is very tough to watch as Sands continues his hunger strike to death. Both a “doctor” and a “dietician” are noted in the film’s credits – and you’ll know why when you see this art of the film.
20th Century Boys (Chapters 1 & 2) – I was very pleasantly surprised to see that Chapter 2 captured the best “Danger After Dark” feature prize. The first film, while good in a pseudo-Cloverfield way, basically just sets up the neo-fascist state which exists in Chapter 2 (which is even better), as a group of rebels battle against the mysterious politicial/religious cult leader named “Friend” who has taken over Japan and become the darling of much of the international world as well.
The Answer Man – It was great to see Philadelphia looking so good on screen in this tale of a reclusive “Chicken Soup for the Soul” type author whose personal life is not so inspiring as his cult books might suggest. Jeff Daniels was great, but I really liked Lou Taylor Pucci as the young recovering alcoholic owner of “The Book Trader” (WOULD that it were ever SO UNCLUTTERED!).
Don’t Look Down – This is basically just an excuse to see very good looking people have sex and sit around naked for (maybe) 90 minutes. Very little plot in this tale of a sleepwalker who literally falls into bed with a young Spanish woman visiting her grandmother in Argentina. The non-naked moments are quirky, though, since the sleepwalker comes from a family of cemetery headstone makers & he can “see the dead” – as he bicycles & walks on stilts. This is the kind of thing the French used to make.
GS Wonderland – Japanese film #4 for me at this year’s festival, this one explored the world of GS (“great sounds”) music in the 1960s, when groups were trying to imitate the close harmonies of the early Beatles. Our manufactured “boy band” has a secret, though: one of them is actually a girl! Will the tabloid press find out? Will “his” fans still like “him” when they find out? It was a lot of fun to watch with the other 25 (or so) people I saw it with at The Bridge in West Philly.
Of Time and The City – British film critic Mark Kermode hailed Terence Davies’ filmed love-letter to the Liverpool of his youth, so I just had to see it. I liked it but was much too tired to appreciate it as much as I felt I outght to do. It DID make me realize that I do need to make more of an effort to get to Liverpool next time I’m in Blighty. I really liked the short (“James”) which preceded the screening of “Of Time and The City” I was at.
Cuttin’ Da Mustard – I added this film to my schedule so I could bring my nephew – he could get “extra credit” in his H.S. English class or something. The director was there & was obviously proud of his semi-autobiographical account of his time in an acting troupe in Queens. I was surprised by the fairly high production values of the film and the first half or so was very entertaining. But I got less interested as one character turned out to be illiterate and another was homeless and another was (possibly) alcoholic. I felt like I had been invited to a party which turned into a prayer meeting. And the director (in the Q&A) seemed almost to revel in this “bait & switch” approach to filmmaking, which he though would “draw the young people in.” I’m not so sure. (But then again, I’m no longer “young.”)
The Joy of Singing – A FRENCH film with lots of nakedness (and actor Julien Baumgartner was even in the audience at the screening I went to, to see himself in the raw), this one also has a real plot (of sorts), about a Paris singling teacher who might be the unwitting centre of spies trafficking in enriched plutonium. But as Baumgartner astutely pointed out in his (fully clothed) Q&A afterwards, that is just a “MacGuffin” (those French are so cinematically literate!) – the excuse for the plot and the examination of the characters. I enjoyed the film quite a bit – and was happy to hear from Baumgartner that Paris apartments are well heated, so he was not too cold during “those scenes”.
Rudo y Cursi – Engaging tale of two brothers in the Mexican sticks (a banana plantation by the loks of it) who get recruited to play football (soccer) for teams in a Mexico City league. Diego Luna & Gael García Bernal are great together (as they were in Y tu mamá también) — we see their flaws magnified after they hit it big. BUT. . .in the end, after all the family disasters, the only reason there is SOME HOPE for the family is because their sister has married a DRUG LORD, who is able to step in and save things, “Deus Ex Machina” style. I wasn’t quite sure what that was saying about Mexican society.
I Sell The Dead – I so did NOT want to drag myself out to International House late on a Sunday night to see this – and yet, I found it very funny. Told mostly in flashback (like a death-row take on “The Princess Bride”), the tounge is firmly in cheek in this tale of grave-robbers who come across some corpses who just won’t stay dead.
Lymelife – Enjoyable enough story of a first-generation “suburban” family where the mother still pines for the old neighbourhood in Queens and the father is carrying on an affair with mother of the girl the teenage protagonist has the hots for. The title comes from the fact that the gun-toting father of said girl has “lyme” disease, a fact which created a bit of a “heated” discussion in the Q&A after the film (over the line between “physical” illness and “mental” illness). I thought such focus on “lyme” disease (even if the movie IS called “Lymelife”) sort of missed the main point – which is the usual “coming of age” tale – and a very good one at that.
That’s it for me. So let’s hear some more reviews from everyone else!
hello
i saw 41 films. i had a marvelous time as i do every year. i get depressed when the festival is over. my favorites were rhumba, treeless mountain & herb & dorothy.
hi!! I saw 10 movies at the festival this year. And because I work at a movie theater I’m actually seeing every movie that comes out (to my theater at least) this year. the following is a link to my Philly Film Festival recap blog… which in turn has links to each of the movies that i saw and my review of them!
http://magnetichappiness.blogspot.com/2009/04/philadelphia-film-festival-2009-recap.html
Oh dear — the ‘bots seem to have figured out how to post “comments” to your blog. They’re so sneaky!