Art & Copy

A series of interviews with the people behind some of the most recognisable advertising campaigns of the last several decades. This includes nearly every Apple ad, Nike's "Just Do It" campaign (inspired by the last words of an executed felon), and a number of others.

Overall the film takes a pretty upbeat attitude toward a social structure that most would agree is more bad than not. But it does a good job, because you can definitely come away with a new appreciation for the people who are trying to do something good in spite of what they're getting paid for. Not a ground breaking documentary, but a neat look at some influential people who are heard from very seldom.

Egon & Dönci

I'm usually pretty forgiving of animated films. Stuff aimed at kids can be pretty basic and unpolished and still very charming. But this was just irritating. Featuring almost no dialogue, the characters instead make retarded grunting and wheezing noises to communicate. And while there does seem to be a plot, the entire thing also feels more than a bit like an extended music video, breaking out into 5 minute techno light shows more than a couple times. Probably great to watch stoned, but not really my thing right now.

Tears Of April

A woman fighting on the losing side of the Finnish civil war in 1918 is captured, and befriends her captor on the way to her trial. The setting is pretty standard, but the cinematography and acting make this work really well.

The two leads are both excellent, and the judge, a writer who has found his bloodthirsty side during the war, is played to chilling effect. A number of chilling scenes between him and the male lead are worth watching several times, as well as the chemistry between all the leads.

The Karamazovs

A fascinating look at the classic Russian story told by a troop of actors rehearsing the play in an old Polish steelworks. But this is much more than just a presentation of a play. The back stories of the actors are part of it, as are the stories of the audience, factory workers looking on during the performance.

It's fantastically surreal to see the actors moving about the space, using found items as improvised set pieces, while the audience literally stands in among the actors, observing. The performances are fantastic, the music is beautiful and very effective, and overall it's just a really unique and interesting piece of film.

The Whole Truth

It takes a lot for me to walk out of a movie. But after 45 minutes of high school drama class acting, and the most hackneyed string of cliches ever put to film, I couldn't take another minute of this atrocious crap.

ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

Many zombie films have an element of social commentary. The George Romero originals typically cast the undead in the sense of some disadvantaged group, usually in terms of class or race. And even outside of his work, a lot of them tend to take the apocalyptic events as something of a social equaliser in exploring the interactions of the surviving few.

But there's definitely a level at which it becomes tiresome, and ZMD hits it pretty quickly. The premise is a zombie outbreak in a small town, which the media attributes to middle eastern terrorists, and the church attributes to sinful behavior. Queue our plucky heroes, an Iranian girl back from college, and a completely over the top gay couple visiting from The Big City.

The dead don't have much to say. In fact, for a zombie film, they have surprisingly few appearances, and are largely innefective even then. So the only interesting spots come from various rednecks mistaking the girl's country of origin for Iraq, and a wide assortment of biggots trying to throw the gays to the zombies before their sinful behavior infects them too.

Okay in theory, but these topics are handled with such a heavy hand that it's really hard to tolerate for more than a few minutes. Fortunately there's plenty of gore to offset the bad acting. And since zombie movies are supposed to be cheesy anyway, this one is certainly acceptable, if nothing special.

Animated Enemies with James Forsher

I hadn't been to a presentation series at SIFF before. Animated Enemies wasn't a great introduction, due to a number of technical problems that left us viewing maybe half the scheduled clips. But Professor Forsher was interesting to speak with. Not a lot of a point to the presentation, really, as it was more of an informational piece about racism in cartoons during the first half of the 20th century, but certainly interesting to watch.

After seeing this presentation I'm interested in taking a class with him at UW, more than anything else.