SFiFF xii: Show and Tell: A Scanner Darkly

SHOW AND TELL: TOMMY PALLOTTA AND A SCANNER DARKLY (2006)

This was a last minute add-on to the Festival, so its not in the Program Guide and I have no cool graphics.

Tommy Pallotta has produced:

1. A Scanner Darkly (2006) (producer)
2. Hell House (2001) (associate producer)
3. Waking Life (2001) (producer)
4. Figures of Speech (2000) (producer)
5. Snack and Drink (2000) (producer)
6. Roadhead (1999) (producer)
7. High Road (1996) (producer)

Tommy Pallotta was here to show clips of his Rotovision (?) animated films leading up to A Scanner Darkly, a Richard Linklater film, to be released this summer, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick .
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SFiFF xi: Swimmers

SWIMMERS (2005)
USA 90 minutes

This film was a bonus during SFiFF for members only on Sunday morning.
The Swimmer was a 1968 movie starring Burt Lancaster and based on a story by John Cheever. Reportedly there is a remake of that in production starring Alec Baldwin. Swimmers bears no relationship to that, whatsoever.

Written and directed by Doug Sadler
Cast:
Cherry Jones [two-time Tony Award-winner] as the Mother
Sarah Paulson as the Niece
Tara Devon Gallagher as the Girl

Maryland Outer Banks

Eleven year-old Girl loves to swim, during a swim meet; her left eardrum pops, requiring surgery that will cost $11,000.
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‘Nuff Said

Nuff Said

The NYTimes FINALLY reports on the best (and non-Administration Approved) routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last weekend, given by guest host Stephen Colbert — they had previously “overlooked” Colbert’s comments (focusing on Bush and his Mini-Me routine) because Colbert caused so much discomfort — the truth hurts no matter who says it (especially if it’s NOT a White House Correspondent who says it, and it hasn’t been run by Karl Rove).

From the article’s description of Colbert’s routine:

“Now I know there’s some polls out there saying this man has a 32-percent approval rating,” Mr. Colbert said a few moments later. “But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking ‘in reality.’ And reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

That line got a relatively warm laugh, but many others were met with near silence. In one such instance, he criticized reporters for likening Mr. Bush’s recent staff changes to “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” “This administration is not sinking,” Mr. Colbert said; “this administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”

UPDATE 22 MAY 06: The NYTimes is now right on top of this story, today making the point that audio of the Colbert routine is the #1 paid download at iTunes, topping the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, and even Paul Simon! In addition, the Times points out that their NON-coverage of this routine (as opposed to the Bush sanctioned routine, of which they did chuckle and cover) was probably a mistake. To quote their public editor, Byron Calame, “there should have been ‘a separate story that anticipated the reaction the routine generated and explained its political significance, rather than waiting to capture it after the fact.’ ” Duh.

Top Work

Graft stubsNo, I didn’t get hair plugs…

Just before it started to rain on Monday afternoon, I climbed into my unproductive MacIntosh apple tree (which regularly blooms with scab — a fungus infection — in late July, whereupon all the young apples fall off the tree) and started grafting scions of other apple varieties onto some of the limbs. Last year an orchardist suggested top-working the tree instead of cutting it down because it rarely produced edible fruit.

We inherited this particular tree along with five other semi-dwarf varieties (two Rome Beauty, Northern Spy, Macoun, and Cortland) with the property, all about twenty years old at the time we moved in. Besides the MacIntosh the other trees, despite our utter inexperience and ineptitude tending an orchard, regularly bear prolific quantities of beautiful fruit. We managed to press fifty gallons of cider last year, and we still left bushels of apples on the trees because we just couldn’t fit all of them onto the truck to take them to our local press (our sheep, cows, and the wild deer were very happy to help with the rest).
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SFiFF x: Romance and Cigarettes

ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES (2005)
USA, 115 minutes
Written and Directed by John Turturro

Cast: James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Kumar Pallana, Christopher Walken, Mandy Moore, Aida Turturro, Mary-Louise Parker, Eddie Izzard, Elaine Stritch and more.
romance.jpg
John Turturro’s exuberant new film is many things: a warm, affectionate portrait of a working-class American family; an homage to the musical; a scatological celebration of outrageous behavior; an exploration of love and a vehicle for some of the world’s finest actors to let it rip in a deliriously over-the-top, no-holds-barred melodrama of the age-old love triangle. [SFiFF Program Guide]

The plot and moral doesn”t matter, just sit back and enjoy these wonderful actors doing wonderful things, it”ll come to you.

I laughed ‘til I cried.

Do yourself a favor and see this as soon as it comes around.
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Stick A Fork In It, It’s Done

View
Last Sunday the the weather (overcast and cool, but not raining) and my schedule (no planned activity) allowed me to dig my main garden in preparation for spring planting. This is a critical beginning to the gardening year because digging fluffs the soil, gets those microbes converting the generous amounts of organic matter (read: cow poop) into available nitrogen, and removes the weeds that got established in the long autumn demise into winter last year.
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SFiFF viii: Scribble Scrapple I.C.You

SCRIBBLE SCRAPPLE I.C.YOU (2006)
U.S.A. 90 minutes
Five short live performances with movie screen.

Golin Levin from Pittsburgh, presenting THE MANUAL INPUT WORKSTATION started off with an overhead projector, doing hand shadows, when he would make a hole, it would fill up with light and he”d open his hand and drop it—thunk! or ping!—and stuff would roll around making its noise and pretty soon there were lots of thingys rolling around and making a cocophany of digital light and sound. Weird and cool at the same time.


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SFiFF vii: Bashing

Perpetual_Motion.jpg
BASHING (2005)
Japan 82 minutes

Written and Directed by Masahiro Kovayashi
Cast: Fusako Urabe, Ryuzo Tanaka, Takayuki Hato

With an initial disclaimer that the film is fiction “loosely based on real events,” Kobayashi plunges into the desolate daily existence of Yuko, an aid worker whose recent kidnapping and release in the Middle East has made her the town pariah once back at home. As the narrative begins, the situation has reached a tipping point and, in quick succession, Yuko is shunned by coworkers, fired from her job, harassed by strangers and dumped by her boyfriend. The message to Yuko, finally stated in blunt terms by a taunting voice on her answering machine is thus: “If you”d been killed, you would have been a heroine. Now you are nothing but an embarrassment to us all.” [SFiFF Program Guide]

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