Hello, SIFFers! First of all, if you're interested, you can read my thoughts on the opening night gala here.
And there's good stuff playing today! Good stuff. Also, bad stuff. Here's the situation:
Dominic Holden highly recommends the weird, wonderful A Woman's Way:
You'd think watching an ex-con and a transgender prostitute fall in sweet, sweet love would be weird. But it's not. In A Woman's Way, directed by Panos Koutras, everyone smokes constantly and drinks lots of coffee and booze in Athens, Greece, and our lovers both have a knack for fixing lamps. Then they make graphic love in a whirlpool of rainbow light. Campy friends share the best of advice before keeling over. Funerals are had; babies are fed. It's so wholesome, right? But this modern-day revival of Greek mythology pulls a midpoint mind-fuck that will leave you reeling.
Charles Mudede wrote about With a Little Help from Myself earlier today:
From the director of Monsieur Ibrahim, François Dupeyron, this film is about two things. One, the heat wave in 2003 that killed 14,000 seniors; and two, a family of African immigrants supported spiritually and financially by Sonia (Félicité Wouassi), the insect woman of the 21st century. Her family lives in the projects outside of Paris, and her beauty has captured the heart of a man who drives around the projects picking up old people killed by the heat. The woman also has a bum husband and two sons (one is weird; the other is dumb), and two daughters (one is attractive; the other ugly). The film has lots of great African music and French hiphop.
It's also the opening night of ShortsFest Weekend, so shorts-lovers should walk fast, not walk regular-pace, to SIFF Cinema.
There are also a couple of documentaries playing today, both of which seem like they might be interesting, but range from kinda-lame to UNBEARABLY UBER-LAME: the fawning Pirate for the Sea (me: "[Paul Watson's] unflinching, aggressive activism is inspiring (he calls Greenpeace âcorporate whoresâ), and well worth a documentary, but Pirate for the Sea suffers from an awed, folksy one-sidedness"); and the completely inept Know Your Mushrooms (also me: "A ridiculous and useless ragout of mushroom puns, corny animation, inane trivia, and super-duper-high people describing their boring-ass shroom trips: 'Now. Hey. That might be an interesting thing. Could you go through a wormhole with the mushroom and find yourself on a planet like earth? It sounds like fantasy, whatever, as I keep telling people, yesterdayâs science fiction is todayâs science, and things we didnât think were possible are possible'").
I don't recommend either, but Pirate for the Sea is at least mildly engaging. Know Your Mushrooms, on the other hand, WILL KILL YOU. LIKE A FUCKING AMANITA PHALLOIDES.
See you tomorrow!
