It's San Francisco Film Fest time again, and I already have my lineup, in alphabetical order (by director):
Ahmad's Gubra
Glawogger's Workingman's Death
Hou's Three Times
Martin's A Short Film about the Indio Nacional
Solito's The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros
Suwa's A Perfect Couple
Suzuki's Princess Raccoon
Plus more vying for my attention:
- Maddin's "The Heart of Guy Maddin" (because he's actually going to be there)
- Zwigoff's "Art School Confidential"
- Solanas' "The Dignity of the Nobodies"
- Garrel's "Regular Lovers"
- Kobayashi's "Bashing"
- Sokurov's "The Sun"
- Herzog's "The Wild Blue Yonder"
- Ruiz's "The Lost Domain"
- Smith's "Heaven and Earth Magic," with Deerhoof playing live
- Tsai's "The Wayward Cloud" (which, after seeing bits and pieces of the infamous last 5 minutes of the film, I'm probably going to detest, especially after I told M, right before What Time Is It There? began, that the film would probably start with a shot of a guy smoking a cigarette for five minutes, and sure enough...)
But I thought I'd put a little plug for Neil Marshall's The Descent, a nicely effective horror flick about, well, six women in a cave. Contrary to the synopsis on the SF Film Society page, there are actually cheap shocks and gratuitous violence galore -- lots of jumping out from shadows, eye-gougings, and eviscerations, etc. -- but that isn't a bad thing. (I think I like Marshall's earlier film, Dog Soldiers, better; that film was six men in the woods instead.) But it helps, it really does, to have a beautiful, kick-ass Pinay (Natalie Mendoza) as one of the female leads.
but sunny, you took all the photos with your sexy camera! you also had more fun conversations with different people. (was it you who had that discussion about how filipino food isn't more popular because there was never any royalty to develop the cuisine for presentation?) oh, and of course you spent time at the children's museum in ATL with izzy, who is just soooo adorable.
looking forward to your film reviews, too...
Posted by: Gladys on March 31, 2006 06:30 AMi am so glad you are up and blogging again. i was so lost without my wily fix!
Posted by: karen Swing on March 31, 2006 09:52 AMDo catch "Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros"!!!
At mauunahan mo pa ang mga Pinoy sa Pilipinas na mapanood ang Indio Nacional. I'd be looking forward to the local screenings of Raya Martin's film.
Posted by: Ruthie on April 1, 2006 03:13 AMsunny! auraus solito (director of blossoming of maximo oliveros) was my student in UP during that semester we were classmates under the late angelito santos.
aureaus' generation of students from my classes include buddy zabala of eraserheads, congressmen gilbert remulla and alan cayetano, broadcasters tintin bersola, karen davila, dodge dillague, abner mercado and many others.
maximo won prizes in rotterdam, singapore, montreal and berlin. it was the first pinoy-produced full length film to make it to the competition section of sundance. please say hello to aureaus for me and tell him that they should send maxi to australia!
ill be here till april 07. ill return to UP to teach again after my phd.
say hello to our friends back there. was with roland tolentino in singapore last year. cheers.
Posted by: jose wendell capili on April 10, 2006 02:15 AM