Category Archives: cinema

SIFF Day 3 – Other Worldly

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First movie of the day took me again to Pacific Place. The Edge of Heaven is a German and Turkish film set in both countries. It is a story of mothers and daughters, father and son. The backdrop is political strife among the Turks in Germany and Turkey around the time Turkey started its official application into the European Union. I very much enjoyed it, and the soundtrack is excellent.

Second was the film I was most anticipating this festival, The Fall from the same director who brought us that visual delight The Cell (I love it despite J.Lo). The Fall stars the beautiful Lee Pace (“Wonderfalls”, “Pushing Daisies”) and a young Romanian girl named Catinca Untaru. The pair have amazing chemistry as they weave their fairytale, both in their heads and in their sorry little realities. They are both patients in a 1920s Los Angeles hospital, but their story takes us to the far reaches of the earth – from the middle of the ocean to the middle of the desert and to great palaces. I’m sure, just like The Cell, I’ll be watching this one again and again. (I would marry Lee Pace tomorrow if he asked me. Ho hum.)

SIFF Day 2 – Hot and Dry

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This morning I tried a different route to Pacific Place for the first film of the day. For the last couple of years, I’ve walked down 5th Avenue from Queen Anne all the way to Stewart, then up to Pacific Place. Recently, it has dawned on me the trip is longer than it needs to be, and I could cut out a minute or two if I shifted to 6th at Denny instead. I don’t know if it saved any time, but it provided a different point of view. Still, I think the shadows of 5th, walking under the monorail and along all the brick buildings, are preferable to the wide open treeless expanse that is 6th Avenue. Too much sun, especially on a day like today.

Regardless, I made it with plenty of time to spare before settling in for Continental, A Film Without Guns, a French-language film out of Quebec. It is a film about loneliness and despair. Aside from a short time in a forest, most of the film takes place in a city devoid of character, of color, of life. The main characters are mostly pathetic, which is why we feel for them. There is humor in the dreariness, and, ultimately, hope. A bit slow-paced at times, with little dialogue.

I was back home for most of the afternoon and early evening. Then at 8 I hopped bus number 8 to Capitol Hill and Northwest Film Forum. Here I watched German documentary Dust about, well, dust. I knew this would be a difficult consumption, so I was mentally prepared – unlike the large handful of audience members who left before the end. Being in German, there were the subtitles to contend with, but there was also no music. There was no tempo to help push us through. Nevertheless, it was an interesting piece, focusing on aspects of dust from highly scientific (these parts had the most audience exits) to the whimsical. There were segments on industrial processes causing dust, methods to get rid of dust, studies of dust, making art from dust. If you can keep your attention on it, well worth watching.

Darn Those Meddling Kids! – SIFF Day 1

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My first film at this year’s SIFF was at the Uptown Theatre tonight. Called Before the Rains, it is the English language directorial debut of cinematographer Santosh Sivan. Set in Kerala, India in 1937, it follows the drama of an aspiring British planter, his local mistress, and his friend/partner/local-boy-gone-ambitious. There is passion, adultery, smoldering looks galore. I would like to say it is a typical romantic drama, but I did like how the ending didn’t exactly spoon-feed.

Admittedly, I only saw this film because of Linus Roache, aka ADA Michael Cutter from “Law & Order”. Second lead Rahul Bose is a very nice addition, and the adulteress Nandita Das is not hard to look at. Besides the eye candy, I know a lot of people from India, so I’m a bit partial that way.

The language of the villagers in this film is Malayalam. I was told today by one of those Indians I know a little antecdote regarding it. They say if you take a metal jug and you put 5 pebbles in it and shake it around, that is the language of the area around Mumbai (Bombay) and Chennai (Madras). Put one more pebble in, and that is the language a little further south. Put a 7th pebble in the jar and shake it around, and that is Malayalam.

SIFF is Now Open!

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Today is opening day of the Seattle International Film Festival. The opening night event is an exclusive screening of a film about the 1999 WTO riots, Battle in Seattle. There was a red carpet and some key players are in town, and I was next to the rope to get a glimpse. I kind of decided last minute to go – it’s pretty much on my way home – so I only had my cameraphone with me. My first “celebrity” sighting was John Curley. He was in the pool of cameras, so I couldn’t get a close shot. Eventually those associated with the film showed up – André Benjamin, Michelle Rodriguez, director Stuart Townsend, and star Charlize Theron. Here’s my snaps:
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My Day With DeVotchKa

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Saturday May 3rd was my day with DeVotchKa. It started early, for a Saturday, at The Triple Door. I took DJ Gort as my plus-one for a KEXP Club Concert. I’ve been to several of these events over the last few years, and they do not disappoint. The Triple Door is made for music. The seating is dinner theatre style – a lot of half-moon booths with tables facing the stage. The walls are wood and the acoustics are heavenly. It sounds so good in there, I was a tiny bit afraid I’d be disappointed later that night. They played a few from the new album and a few “oldies”. Lead singer Nick Urata wasn’t very talkative, which is a shame. It’s such an intimate setting, it begs for some witty repartee. Gort managed to fall asleep, the sounds were so soothing. You can listen to the performance through the KEXP website (May 3, 4:06 PM).

After the performance, we caught a matinee showing of the new Pacino film “88 Minutes” where Gort fell asleep again. I don’t blame him, though. The movie was horrid. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it really was not good. What made it worse was that it was set in Seattle. Some scenes were actually filmed here, and most were not. No rhyme or reason to that, either. I almost feel like they filmed as many days as they could in Seattle, then when their permit ran out, they headed north to Vancouver. It seemed sloppy, and the script was dumb dumb dumb. (IMDb says it was all filmed in Vancouver.)

Went back home for a nap, then headed down to the Showbox Sodo. This was my first time in the venue for a concert. I had been twice before for AIS student fashion shows. I got there after doors opened, but still managed to get a nice spot next to the stage. The opening act was singer Basia Bulat, a sweet looking blondie from Canada accompanied by a violist, a cellist, and a ukulele player. Ms. Bulat kicked some improbable butt on a zither (aka autoharp) while singing her own songs. She also played acoustic guitar on about half of the songs. Her sound was a little folk, a little country. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I was impressed enough to buy her cd for my sister today.

Bulat and band left the stage, then after what seemed like forever, an acrobat leapt across the stage tossing silk flowers into the audience. Upon her exit came DeVotchKa and they played. They had pretty much the identical setup as they did at the Triple Door. Here they had an electronic keyboard instead of a piano. Their roadies had notebooks telling them where every instrument, every microphone, every music stand and chair should be. One guy in particular seemed to be in charge and he was meticulous. I hope he’s getting paid well.

I had a very good position at stage left where I could watch the string section pretty much up close. I am fairly sure I developed a crush on Tom Hagerman that night. The intensity and apparent ease he displays on the violin is breathtaking. A second violinist plus Bulat’s violist and cellist made up the quartet. I’m a sucker for strings, so I was quite captivated. DeVotchKa started out with older songs from previous albums. Energetic and flawless, if I were a different person, I would have been dancing along. It was quite a delight to see Jeanie Schroder doing knee bends in time with the music with that shiny sousaphone wrapped around her. They got some new songs in as well in the hour they were on stage. They exited but the show was not over.

AlexandrA, an aerialist, came out onto the floor not more than 10 feet from where I stood. Her cloth (for lack of the correct term) had been let loose from the scaffolding and she climbed on. Twisting and turning, wrapping and flipping, she performed her tricks for us as the band snuck back to play for her. When she was done, the band played a few more songs. This was followed by an encore consisting of a 10 or 15 minute jam of “Such a Lovely Thing”.

By the end, I was hot and I was exhausted. But I was very satisfied.

It’s My Birthday!

Posted in cinema, food, musings, myself, new york city, seattle on by

McDonald's Sign

There’s nothing I love more than myself. And so when my birthday comes around I try and do something special for me. As some of you know, one of those things is buy myself a cheeseburger.

It all began in, let’s say, 1994 when I decided I did not need to eat beef in order to have a complete diet. I had eliminated pork from my diet at least five years earlier for somewhat religious/spiritual reasons. Why did I need to continue to eat cows? I didn’t, and I didn’t think it would really be that much of a sacrifice. The only things I thought I might miss were cheeseburgers and chicken fried steaks. So I made a vow not to eat beef except for once a year – my birthday. On that most auspicious of days, I would consume a cheeseburger for lunch and a chicken fried steak for dinner.

The first of these birthdays found me in the Houston metropolitan area. I decided I would have the Ultimate Cheeseburger at Jack in the Box. It truly lives up to its name. Or it did back in those days. Back then, it was beef, cheese, bread, and their signature onion mayo. Deliciously elegant in its composition, and totally fulfilling. And filling. I don’t remember the chicken fried steak. It is not difficult to find one in Texas that fulfills all my requirements of such a meal, so it doesn’t particularly stand out.

The following several years I was in New York City on my birthday, specifically Manhattan. There are no Jack in the Box’s to be found, but there are several really good burger joints that will not disappoint. And surprisingly, there is a very good place for chicken fried steak – the Acme Bar & Grill. All the years I was in New York on my birthday (including a year after I moved away) this is where I got my CFS. I love this place, and ate there at other times as well, enjoying the Cajun Chicken instead with mashed potatoes and collard greens. They call it N’awlins Chicken now, the Cajun-fried option.

In the first 8 years I lived in Seattle I’ve struggled each year (minus the one I was back in NYC) to find a cheeseburger and a chicken fried steak that meet my criteria. On the CFS side of things, I suppose it’s not all that surprising that I can’t find a good one in the Pacific Northwest outside of Claim Jumper. I even went to Claim Jumper one year – it was good but grotesquely large, and I spent a lot of time agonizing over wasting it versus eating it for more than just the one day. Then a couple years ago I gave up searching. I decided that instead of the CFS, I would have a real turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, something I was beginning to miss more each year since I stopped eating poultry shortly after arriving in Seattle.

That just left the cheeseburger. There are a lot of “legendary” burger joints in the Seattle area. I think I had my birthday cheeseburger at a different place every year. The possible exception could be Luna Park Cafe, which I used to love. (They changed management and while it is virtually the same, there is something just a wee bit different and I don’t like it.) None of the burgers was quite what I wanted and every year I was a little disappointed. So last year, after lamenting that nothing was quite the Ultimate Cheeseburger, my friends convinced me I should just go for it. So, for the second time since I started this tradition, I had an Ultimate Cheeseburger for my birthday, only to discover that those clown-faced jerks changed it. It was more or less the same, but they served it with ketchup and mustard instead of the onion mayo. So, instead of just being able to walk up to the counter and say, “I want an Ultimate Cheeseburger and spicy curly fries,” I had to special order. The burger was amazing, but I was still disappointed.

This year, I decided to do something different. As it does some years, my birthday fell on Martin Luther King Jr Day. While not a holiday at my company, I took the day off anyway so that I could eat my cheeseburger in solitude. I considered trying to find a place that only sells organic free range beef (does that even exist?). I nixed that idea when I figured a place like that would probably want to put sprouts and avocados on my patty. So, instead, I thought that a high-quality steak house should be serving high quality beef – at least something higher grade than McDonald’s. I hope. There were a few steakhouses that came to mind – really just three after I eliminated the national chains. The Brooklyn, Daniel’s Broiler, and the Metropolitan Grill. I checked their menus online and opted for the Met, as it had the simplest cheeseburger.

The “American Kobe Style Beef” Works Burger
American Wagyu sirloin, cheddar and swiss cheeses, caramelized onions, drive–in sauce, lettuce, tomato.

I only made a couple requests – herb mayo instead of “drive-in sauce”, and no tomato. The sauce is their own 1000-Island dressing, something of which I’ve never been a fan.

Birthday Cheeseburger

 

I ordered it medium, it came medium well, which is fine for a burger. There were a bit too many onions, but that was easy to remedy. The first bite was pretty much heavenly. After that, it was just really good. Some bites brought back memories of the mesquite barbecued brisket of my childhood. My meal was accompanied by Sinatra, Gershwin, and other standards, as well as a vodka collins.

Ivan Collins

It was followed by a dish of Burnt Cream which had the consistency of thick pudding or slightly warm butter. After the burger and a few fries, I could only manage a few spoonfuls of the cream, so I boxed it up for home.

Burnt Cream

After my lunch, I walked it off by the Lusty Lady where I snapped their latest marquees, and then up to Pacific Place where I watched Charlie Wilson’s War. Another piece of evidence that there are some good things – besides myself – that come out of Texas.

And now My Day draws to a close. The only thing I regret is not telling my waiter it was my birthday. I probably could have got a candle in my Burnt Cream at the very least. C’est la vie. Next year I plan to celebrate my birthday in Baltimore, near the grave of fellow January baby and literary hero Edgar Allan Poe. Not sure if there’s a Jack in the Box nearby, but perhaps someone will give me a recommendation between now and then.

Aside: Considering the county Seattle resides in is named after Martin Luther King, Jr., you’d think this holiday would be a much bigger deal. Unless you’re looking, it is difficult to find any kind of celebrations or observances anywhere around the city. Quite sad.

An Evening With Crispin Hellion Glover, Part Two

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Tonight after meeting with my writing group, I headed up to the Broadway Performance Hall for Crispin Hellion Glover’s presentation of It is Fine! Everything is Fine. Much like last night, the film was sandwiched between a slide show featuring some of Glover’s written works and a question/answer session.

Watching the slide show a second time in so many days, I saw that it was more of a performance or stageplay, as opposed to a strict reading. There is a red spotlight which Glover stands in, for the most part, for the duration of the presentation. Tonight I sat in the front row directly opposite that red light. At some point, however, he started walking toward the front of the stage. Then he crossed the stage. It became clear, all of sudden, that the deviation was merely a ploy on his part. He had spotted an audience member apparently making a video and he was making the deliberate movements to get the camera to track him and confirm his suspicions. Glover confronted the wrongdoer, requested intervention from the staff, and continued with the presentation from the confines of the red spotlight. This interruption did rattle him a bit, but within a minute, he was back on pace as if nothing had happened. [“Wrongdoer” is a bit soft. I do believe wholeheartedly the filming was done intentionally and not out of ignorance of the rules. I hope he was escorted from the theatre without a refund on the spot.]

The film itself was interesting. The screenplay was written by a man with severe cerebral palsy, who also starred in the lead role. In it, the late Steven C. Stewart essentially was able to act out his fantasy as the character Paul. There is violence, nudity, and sex. The story itself didn’t do a lot for me, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept of being an able-minded person in a wholly defective body. But what did effect me were the sets and staging. The use of color and space in most of the scenes was marvelous. The large, red living room of Linda’s where she sat on an ottoman in the far corner talking to Paul on a princess phone. The cutaway apartment building where we can see simultaneously two of Paul’s later “conquests”. It fed into the fantasy to such an extent that I wondered at times if Paul was imagining these things while sitting in his wheelchair at the nursing home shown at the start and finish of the film.

After the Q&A, I stood in line for over an hour to get an autograph and a little one-on-one time with Glover. Part of what took so long was the amount of time he was spending with everyone else. It says something about the man that after giving an hour-long book presentation, then at least an hour-long Q&A (mostly A), he kept on talking with fans for probably another two hours. I think it’s probably good. I managed to mention I discovered What Is It? thanks to the Tom Green show, but I didn’t ask about the music choices for It Is Fine. Mostly because both of us were quite noticebly tired by that point. What troopers we are!

For more information on Crispin Glover’s film projects and books, visit http://www.crispinglover.com/