This feels weird, but...

...I am using part of my lunch break at work to blog. Purely out of guilt I might add - not that I really believe anyone cares if I keep up with this or not - it's strictly self imposed guilt.

What have I been up to? Another good concert (clip included below thanks to my brother and his schwingy new camera), a modern Canadian opera, VIFF, and a nasty stinking cold.





VIFF was generally pretty good this year - a few highlights for me:

Waste Land - a lovely documentary featuring some truly amazing people - it has been picked up for release and I would highly recommend you make the effort. It won the People's Choice at VIFF fyi.




And another lovely film by Mike Leigh - Another Year. Really, really enjoyed this - a lovely quiet look at relationships, in characteristic Leigh style



There are more - Down Terrace, an excellent dark comedy about a British family with criminal ties; and Me, Too - a really lovely and eye opening film about the relationship between a man with Down's Syndrome and his coworker - are the other two of real note for me this year.

Other than that...hmmm...I have finally found some cat food that the perpetually fussy Thomas seems interested in eating.  Now THAT is news! Aren't you glad I bothered posting?

And MORE....

Yet another very quick VIFF post - I only have two more films to go before my 20 picks this year are done.

So - my picks from the last few I've seen?  Broke. ; Pop Star on Ice; Cedar Boys; and I Killed My Mother (see trailer above).

You may have heard of I Killed My Mother - it cleaned up a few awards at Cannes, and has been chosen as Canada's pick for the Academy Awards.   For those of you that haven't heard of it, it is written, directed, and stars (and has art direction by) the now 20 year old Xavier Dolan, based on a story he wrote when he was 17.  Let's stop and think about this for a second: write; direct; star in; 20 years old; first film; Cannes; Academy Awards....

INSANITY. 

But it is well deserved.  The film looks gorgeous, and does a great job of capturing the technicolor intensity of teenage life through the explosive love/hate relationship between a gay 16 year old boy and his mother.  It has shades of C.R.A.Z.Y. and a few drops of Tarnation (particularly the b&w footage the main character takes of himself talking about his mother), but remains a strong, unique story about a very complex relationship.  And it fulfills my seemingly annual film fest requirement to view a gay coming of age story...I don't plan it, it just happens that way.

Too tired but...

Just a quick post on my one VIFF free, meeting free night this week.

First - I've included my favorite VIFF trailer for those of you who haven't already seen it - I laughed out loud the first time I saw it and it still makes me grin.

So how is VIFF going so far?  REALLY well.  I don't have the energy to talk about the films in detail - yet - but in broad categories so far:

GREAT:  We Live in Public (old news I know); Will Not Stop There - oh my what an expected treat this was!  When the film opened with a gypsy porn star playing a folk song with his nose (and that isn't a euphemism), I really wasn't sure what we were in for - but it is a really nicely layered story with great characters and a nice balance of comedy and drama...I may write more on this one later; Afghan Star -    the pop culture wonder of the American Idol style show is a great foil to highlight the issues, culture, and people of a very complex country...and it also proves that teenage girls will vote for The Cute Boy no matter where in the world they are; and The Maid, for a really richly rendered look at the life of a woman who has allowed herself to become defined solely by her role in her employer's family, while never really truly being part of it.

VERY GOOD:  Excited! (it ranks this high largely because the setting is VERY Vancouver! Nice story too.); Only When I Dance; Nora's Will; Rembrandt's J'accuse (lovely and entertaining, but hard to follow at times - information overload from the giant brain of Peter Greenaway)

GOOD: Gigante (lovely character, but slooooow)

NOT GOOD:  It's Not Anime (a couple of good things but largely a disappointment)

Enough for now, more later....

VIFF highlights so far...

Well, I've seen a few very good films, one good, and one that hit the ball right out of the park:  We Live in Public.

Here is the synopsis from the film's website:

Ten years in the making and culled from 5000 hours of footage,  WE LIVE IN PUBLIC reveals the effect the web is having on our society, as seen through the eyes of “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of”, artist, futurist and visionary Josh Harris. Award-winning director  Ondi Timoner (DIG! – which also won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2004 – making Timoner the only director to win that prestigious award twice) documented his tumultuous life for more than a decade to create a riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives.

Harris, often called the “Warhol of the Web”, founded Pseudo.com, the first Internet television network during the infamous dot-com boom of the 1990s. He also curated and funded the ground breaking project “Quiet” in an underground bunker in NYC where over 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days at the turn of the millennium. With Quiet, Harris proved how we willingly trade our privacy for the connection and recognition we all deeply desire, but with every technological advancement such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, becomes more elusive. Through his experiments, including a six-month stint living with his girlfriend under 24-hour electronic surveillance which led to his mental collapse, Harris demonstrated the price we pay for living in public.

This one really keyed into some of my own fears about the new technological world.  I could talk more about the film specifically, but I really think it better you watch it yourself.
What made this screening so great for me is that the director Ondi Timoner was there and did a really extensive Q&A afterwards.   I love this woman's work - DIG! is one of my all time favorite films - and I have to say DIG! ranks higher than this one as a personal fave, but that is only because I have a particular love for stories of crazed musical genius.  Josh Harris, on the other hand, is not a likeable guy.   Timoner has no great love for Harris - she was hired by Harris to film the "Quiet" project over a decade ago (for which he stiffed her financially), referred to him during the Q&A as a charlatan, and admitted that for a long time she had no interest in stringing this footage together.  Thankfully, that changed - as she said in the Q&A, despite her conflicted feelings about Harris, she felt that this was a film that needed to be made - the time was right, and Harris gave her complete access to the footage, letting her tell the story she wanted to tell.

And oh what a story it is.  Harris truly believes that entertainment in the future will involve everyone having cameras in their house, the job of "producers" being to pull this footage into something that is engaging to watch.  Oh the horror - and I like to think (or hope) he is wrong, though the volume of "reality" tv shows is already testing those boundaries.  I get scared by things like the changing meaning of the word "friend"; that the self-worth of today's youngsters is starting to hinge on the number of online "friends" or "followers" they have, and that despite these fears I too have online conversations with people who I really don't know (name? location? age? family? schooling? job? no idea...and those are just the basics).  Are they my "friends"? No.  But how hard is it going to be to hold on to that distinction?  What role do these online connections play in how socially involved we feel?

Uncomfortable questions to be sure, but important ones.

(And I will say a big thanks to Timoner for keeing the "toilet bowl cam" footage to a minimum.)

(and for those of you that read this earlier - I've gone back and corrected some pretty whacky sentences - that's what I get for trying to blog before my coffee has kicked in)

The List!

OK - for those that are interested, here are the films I have tickets for (so far... I have 2 unassigned tickets).
I may die of exhaustion (there are a couple of concerts in there as well) but there are a couple of things I'm really looking forward to - I do love Greenaway, and I do love Rembrandt, so I have high hopes for Rembrandt J'accuse.  We Live in Public is also high on the list, particularly after I saw Errol Morris' interview with Josh Harris...but you can hit the link to find out more.  And I will try to have the energy to do some brief reviews, at least of my faves.  Wish me luck.


Nora's Will

Gigante

We Live in Public

Only When I Dance

Excited


Will Not Stop There


The Maid

It's Not Anime

Afghan Star

Rembrandt's J'accuse

Broke


Cooking History

Wah Do Dem (What They Do)

Cooking With Stella


Cedar Boys


I Killed My Mother

An Education

Chloe

WHEEEE!! It's that time of year!

Yes, it's soon to be VIFF time again!  I've been poring over the guide book, and I think I've found about 20 to see this year - though I still need to buy tickets (which I might right after I post...). 

I do love VIFF, but though it pains me to say so, it makes me long for the crackling excitement of TIFF - which admittedly was my first experience of a film fest of any kind, so the bar was set high.  I have fond memories of the long (LONG) lineup on labour day to pick up my tickets to see how many of my first picks I had this year (it's a complex, nail biting lottery system, details of which I won't bore you with).  I have fond memories of sitting above Nick Cave, behind Roger Ebert, and in front of Alexis Bledel; of seeing Peter Dinklage walk confidently down the theatre aisle to a standing ovation after the screening of the truly lovely Station Agent; of listening to so many young directors so obviously and genuinely thrilled to have their films screened at such a big fest.  I LOVED IT.  Well, except for the crazy prices and overall stress of the whole ticketing process...ok I lie, the ticketing stress kind of added to the thrill of it all.

So - in comparison, VIFF feels kind of... tame.  And easy.  No lottery, no craziness.  And seeing a film is actually cheaper at VIFF than when it comes out in wide release (ok, maybe that qualifies as crazy).  It's very Vancouver somehow.  There's no anxiety, no real buzz - just the opportunity to see what is - hopefully - a great film or two, fingers crossed.

I will keep you posted.