Sunday, May 16, 2010

Best of the Fest, and all the Rest

Basquiat

This year I'm going to the Sydney Film Festival. First time I've ever travelled to a film festival before - kinda exciting. So....I'm only going for two days and therefore missing a lot of these films but heres my run down on the best of the fest, in no particular order.

1. Exit Through the Gift Shop - There couldn't be more buzz about this film at the moment. Love his "art" or hate it, this is a good film.

2. Life During Wartime - Todd Solondz I've loved him since Welcome to the Dollhouse, one of my favourite films of all time. Even if some of his more recent films are a bit patchy, I'm still hoping for something as good as Welcome to the Dollhouse or Happiness.

3. The Tree - This film is closing out Cannes Festival and director Julie Bertucelli directed the semi-awesome film Since Otar Left.

4. Last Train Home - This doco looks brutal and amazing - make sure your in a good place before seeing this.

5. The Killer Inside of Me - I'm definitely interested in seeing Jessica Alba getting beaten to a bloody pulp. Also I loved director Michael Winterbottom's 24-Hour Party People.

6. Beautiful Darling - I missed this at Melbourne Queer Festival and I'm missing it at SFF too. I love all things Warhol, this films about Candy Darling one of the Factory crew, I've heard really good things about this.

7. Howl - I love Robert Epstein (director of Life and Times of Harvey Milk and Word is Out) and James Franco, oh and Ginsberg who this biopics about.

8. Nobody Knows About Persian Cats - Indie Rock in Iran - this looks adorable and amazing.

9. White Material - Dear Claire Denis, I've been trying to catch your films for the last two years but its harder than you'd think. I'm very excited that I've finally bought tickets and made a date to see White Material and I'm sure I'll love it, 'gards Sam

10. Joan Rivers: A piece of work -This is why the phrase laugh-a-minute was invented.

11. Four Lions - 'Jihadist comedy' is what this film has been referred to as, its about suicide bombers plotting a wave of terror in the UK. Sounds good to me.

12. Teenage Paparazzo - Yeah so Adrien Grenier made a documentary, the premise of the film is pretty interesting to me. It follows a kid named Austin Visschedyk who decided to become a paparazzi at the young age of 13 - Adrien spotted him in the camera throng and was like 'whats up?' and made a film about it.

13. The Runaways - If you've read my blog (or any other for that matter) you'll know why I'll be seeing this. I know it looks bad but I've totally been sucked into this film.

14. I am Love - I love Tilda Swinton whose starring (I've forgiven her for the Benjamin Button fiasco) but this film also has a lot of Sundance buzz and the plot sounds a bit first-world-problems which is a bit ew.

15. Hesher - Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a greasy, tattooed loner and early Sundance buzz is bad, all signs point to WIN.

16. Ghost Writer - The latest from Roman Polanski whether you love him or hate him, think he's genius or a felon, you can't deny the man knows how to make a good movie.

18. Cyrus - I love the Duplass bro's previous mumbly films Puffy Chair and Baghead. Could their first studio film with an awesome cast (John C Reilly, Jonah Hill and Marissa Tomei) be anything but, um, super-awesome?

2 comments:

bradley.nguyen said...

Man, I'm jealous. White Material! Cyrus! Howl! Also, totally with you on The Runaways. But I'm most looking forward to Four Lions. Hope it doesn't disappoint! It's directed by Chris Morris the genius behind Brass Eye and Jam. (Plenty of Youtubage if you need catching up.)

Samantha said...

so many of these films are coming to MIFF (Four Lions!) and getting general release.

I'm missing Howl (wrong dates) and Cyrus (Runaways clash - probably regret this choice but...).

I'll have to bone up on my Chris Morris too before I go - so excited - also finally seeing a Claire Denis film been on my to do list forever! Only grievous bodily harm can stop me now.