siff: my festival in graph format
Well, friends, it seems that we survived another massive Seattle International Film Festival. Along the way, I managed to see a paltry twenty-five films and went to three galas and a brunch. From the opening night absent champagne cocktails misstep [mb] to the reasonable drink ticket correction, the parties got more fun as the festival progressed (although the non-smoking smoking lounge on the patio at the Pan Pacific was a real mind-bender) and had more meat-free foods than I remember from prior years (maybe a pleasant recessionary side-effect for vegetarians?).
As you can see from the graph above, the whole thing ended on a high note for me (no the Wackness pun intended) with my closing weekend beginning with the Album Leaf providing an inventive and affecting new score for Sunrise and closing with a the world premiere of Em, which won the New Director’s showcase competition a few hours earlier. My favorite movie of the whole festival was Encounters at the End of the World, Werner Herzog’s trip to Antarctica to visit the weird and wonderful creatures living at the bottom of the earth and the things that they study. It bursts with treasures like Shackleton’s cabin, undersea diving, a hole in the earth’s crust, a dirty town staffed by philosopher drivers, linguist botanists, and rock and roll biologists, and one insane penguin that may be the director’s most-admired character. Luckily for those who like science, scientists, the South Pole, or Herzog, this is slated to appear in Seattle in early July.
So, now that it’s over: what are your picks for best and worst?
Related posts:
I saw more movies than you although we saw at least six in common.
My favorites of the festival were (in no particular order) "Half Life", "Everything Is Fine", "The 3 Little Pigs", "Baghead", "Garden Party", "Anvil! The Story of Anvil!", "Newcastle" and I may be forgetting one or two as I inevitably do. My least favorites were "Seachd" and "Mermaid", two visually appealing flicks I really WANTED to like. I had mixed feelings about "Chrysalis" which also was very visually appealing; its story would have been more interesting if the filmmakers had realized just how ludicrously obvious their Big Secret Twist is and dropped the failed attempt to keep it secret.
And then there’s "Battle in Seattle" about which the only nice thing I can say is that discussing our mutual loathing of the flick gave me many entertaining conversations in movie lines.
Sadly, I didn’t see one film this year. Thoroughly enjoying your graph, though.
I only saw a handful of films, but "Anvil! The Story of Anvil" was by far my favorite. "Choke" was a let down… although the rest of the audience seemed to enjoy it.
Wow I can’t believe you saw Otto. I saw that at Sundance and half the audience left about 20 minutes into the film. When the Gut Fucking starting half the audience gasped and abruptly left. It was so funny
Alex
Hooray for information presented in graph format! Clever you. Well done!
For those who like this sort of thing: NYT published a brillant set of charts and graphs on the summer concert series last year. I don’t think the original image is online @ NYT any longer, so here’s an alternative to check it out if you are so inclined.
Love the graph.
Only saw two(!) films this year. Otto, which I gave a three as well, and Towelhead. Both films were disturbing in their own ways.
I sat next to a guy at Union on Friday who was heading over to sing in the Alexander Nevsky (sp?) film at Benaroya and I was sad I hadn’t decided to go to that one. Did anyone see that?
I liked Gonzo the most. But I’m biased.
jeanine: I had intended to go all earlboykinsfor this and do little charts for each of the films until I realized how much work Andrew Kuo puts into those. I wouldn’t have been finished until SIFF 2009!
alex: I didn’t notice many people walking out of the midnight screening of Otto. Then again, it was late, I had just been to the gala and the SIFF lounge, and was only half-awake during parts of it. At the end Bruce LaBruce said something funny about the unlimited orifice possibilities offered by the new genre.
I saw 22 movies. My top 5:
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
Man on Wire
Heavy Metal in Baghdad
Encounters at the End of the World
We Want Roses Too
All documentaries…go figure. The non-docs I liked the most were Ploy, Jar City and The Wave.
Excellent graph, Josh. I thoroughly enjoyed Encounters too. This SIFF I skewed heavily on the documentaries (as always), so my favorites were Trouble the Water and Man on Wire, with Be Like Others placing third. My least favorite film was Phoebe in Wonderland, but even that wasn’t *bad*.
Somehow I only managed to see 4 docs. you’re right though, on average, they’re usually the highest quality. maybe it’s because the best of the narratives make it to wider release anyway while the market for documentaries isn’t as big; so you’re a lot more likely to find hidden treasures in that field. That, and SIFF must have really good documentary programmers.