Arts & Culture

Hotter than the Fourth: Movies that make you sweat

Dennis Hartley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:28:33 -0400

Since it’s the 4th of July weekend, which usually signifies the official kickoff of summer and all, I thought it would be fun to cobble together a list of really “hot” movies.(ed. note- the 4th has past but the summer remains, enjoy!) You know-as in sweaty, steamy, dripping, sticky, sudoriferous cinema (get your mind out of the gutter!). If you’re like me (and isn’t everyone?) there’s nothing more satisfying than gathering up an armload of DVDs (along with a suitcase of Diet Dr. Pepper) and just happily pissing away the long holiday weekend ensconced in my dark, cozy media room.

So anyhoo, as a celebration of the season, I present (in no particular ranking order) my Top 10 “summer perspiration films”, or, “The SPF 10”, if you will. I’ve added a “runner up” for each selection, which would make for a perfect double bill, if you are so inclined:

In memory of George Carlin: 7 movies you can’t see on TV

Dennis Hartley — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:25:34 -0400

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck-George Carlin

As I am sure you are aware by now, one of the last living legends of American comedy went up to the roof last Sunday…and got stuck. I’m still reeling (and he’s still stuck).

I can’t really add much to what was already said here on this site earlier this week in a couple of heartfelt posts by digby and dday, or to the eloquent comments they prompted from Hullabaloo readers. For what it’s worth, here was my gut reaction to dday’s post:

No, not Carlin. It's been a while since I actually teared up and got the lump in the throat upon hearing of the demise of an entertainer. It feels like the end of an era.

Allegory, Inc.

Dennis Hartley — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:23:15 -0400

Cusack:
Rome is burning

SIFF-ting Through Celluloid 2: Half-Life & Blood Brothers

Dennis Hartley — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:58:25 -0400

First up this week: Variety has already beat me to the punch (DAMME you, sirs!) and dubbed writer-director Jennifer Phang’s Half-Life as an “Asian-American Beauty”, so I’m going to describe this sometimes overreaching but consistently provocative suburban dramedy as The Ice Storm meets Donnie Darko. An audacious mélange of melodramatic soap opera, dark comedy, metaphysical conundrum and apocalyptic doom, the beautifully photographed Half-Life ambitiously poses a causality dilemma from the old “chicken-egg” school: Which came first, the dystopian society or the dysfunctional family?

The dystopia in question is our near “future”. Global warming has created worldwide coastal flooding, displacing millions of people. The sun (possibly dying) belches massive solar flares, which wreak havoc with technology and environment. Perky news mannequins chirp about a Tiananmen Square style massacre of environmental activists and tsk-tsk over a family murder-suicide conducted via chainsaw. A world gone mad!

Phang uses this sense of looming environmental and societal catastrophe as a metaphor for the emotional storms raging within the souls of her protagonists (much the same way that Ang Lee did in his dark suburban drama The Ice Storm) The global chaos serves as the backdrop for the travails of the single-parented Wu family, living in a Spielbergian California desert suburb and led by the exasperated Saura (Julia Nickson). Saura is the classic “mad housewife”; perpetually exasperated and dead on her feet from trying to juggle a full time job and still spend quality time attending to the needs of a live-in boyfriend (Ben Redgrave) and her two children. Saura, along with her introverted 8-year old son Timothy (Alexander Agate) and confused teenaged daughter Pam (Sanoe Lake) have all been dealing with abandonment issues since Dad took a hike some time back.

Top Girls and Tough Questions

Dermott McCallscreener — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:15:11 -0400

Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls is a play about power and female identity. For Churchill’s characters, these two forces are almost always at odds with each other.
The play is divided between a surreal, dreamlike dinner party attended by famous historical women and the more down-to-earth tale of a career woman in Thatcher-era England. Churchill unites the two settings with a common theme: a woman who wants power has to sacrifice some part of herself to get it, a complex Catch-22 that is entirely unique to women. The collisions between Churchill’s characters suggest that to become a “top girl” in any era, a woman has to betray both herself and her fellow women to some extent.

Ok, ok. Slow down. Those progressive nostrils of yours smell something fishy in that paragraph, right? “Hang on just a minute, Derm!” you say, gesticulating wildly and spilling your Fresca. “Are you implying that there’s a distinct set of characteristics inherent to women, and that to deviate from these characteristics constitutes a ‘betrayal‘?! And even if such a narrow definition of womanhood exists, who gets to do the defining?” Pat yourself on the back, Mr. or Ms. Progressive - those are just the kind of juicy questions Churchill wants you to be asking. And trust me: see this play and you will walk out with a thousand questions bouncing around in your brain. Also: see this play by yourself on a Wednesday afternoon and you will be surrounded by a lot of very old people. But I digress.

SIFF-ting Through Celluloid: The Wrecking Crew & Sita Sings the Blues

Dennis Hartley — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:59:01 -0400

The 2008 Seattle International Film Festival is in full swing, so I thought that for the next few posts I would take you along to some of this year’s screenings.

Navigating a film festival is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff. This year’s SIFF is screening nearly 400 features and documentaries, over a period just shy of four weeks. It must be a wonderful opportunity for independently wealthy slackers, but for those of us who have to work for a living, it’s a little tough catching the North American premiere of that hot new documentary from Uzbekistan that is only screening once at 11:45am on a Tuesday. I’m lucky if I can catch a dozen films each year, but I do take consolation from my observation that the ratio of less-than-stellar (too many) to quality films (too few) at a film festival differs little from any Friday night crapshoot at the multiplex. The trick lies in developing a sixth sense for which titles “feel” like they would be up your alley (or, in my case, embracing your OCD and channeling it like a cinematic divining rod.)

Some of the films I will be reviewing will hopefully be “coming to a theatre near you” in the near future; on the other hand there may be a few that will only be accessible via DVD (the Netflix queue is our friend!). BTW, if you are lucky enough to go to Sundance, Toronto or Cannes, let’s get this out of the way now-Yes, I am quite aware that Seattle gets sloppy seconds from some of the more prestigious festivals; so go ahead, we’ll wait while you do your little “superior dance”. Okay, feel better? Good! Now let’s move on.