After a year of virtual film festivals, shuttered theaters, and Covid-delays, it’s finally time for Hollywood to crown the best movies of 2020(ish) via handing out Academy Awards at the 93rd Oscars. On Sunday at 5 pm, Steven Soderbergh will produce a real live actual in-person awards ceremony in Los Angeles (and maybe a few satellite locations for those unable to cross the pond and quarantine). Below, we prognosticate on who will win the major awards and opine on who would get our votes if we were magically granted membership in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
Shoreline Short Film Fest Goes Drive-In
The first thing that I should tell you about this weekend’s Shoreline’s drive-in film festival is that, as of this writing, there …
Mortal Kombat is the best adaptation of the game one could hope for
Film adaptations of video games remain a fraught landscape. I’ve come to approach their arrival with a high degree of skepticism given how frequently the screen adaptations can lose sight of the fun by taking themselves too seriously. It is a joy to report that my doubts largely melted away in the face of the newest Mortal Kombat’s absurdity and commitment to having a lot of fun with the story.
SIFF 2021: Together, Together, Too Far Away, and This Town
My love for comedies has no bounds. Typically I watch films to escape, and I realize that seems pretty limiting considering all the documentaries, dramas and thrillers out there but comedies will forever be my first love. Over the last year as I binge watched like I’ve never binged before, I started to realize Netflix originals, new releases and even HBO are all full of dramas and downers, murders and destruction, depression and angst. I welcome any and all stories, but during a pandemic I don’t find comfort in reality or looking down the barrel of our dismal ecological future. Can a girl just laugh? Damn. The three movies I’m going to talk about below may have had a little strife here and there but they were just fun and heartfelt, exactly what I needed right now.
SIFF 2021: That’s a Wrap
We’ve had a very busy eleven days covering this year’s first-ever virtual Seattle International Film Festival with roundtables and reviews of the bounty of cinema brought to our homes by technology and the tireless programmers and organizers. On Sunday night SIFF handed out awards and closed the festival with Catalan dramedy Rosa’s Wedding. Since then, the SunBreak’s SIFF Squad virtually assembled to chat about our experience with this year’s event and to rehash some of our festival favorites.
SIFF 2021: There Is No Evil & Under the Open Sky
Official Competition films There is No Evil and Under the Open Sky had found a perpetual spot on my “watch later” queue, but when I saw that they secured top spots among the audience awards, I knew that I had to use the waning hours of SIFF Privilege to make them my Closing Night double feature (with apologies to Rosa’s Wedding).
SIFF 2021: Youth v Gov, In the Same Breath, Fly So Far
Three SIFF documentaries to get you fired up about fighting the power.
SIFF 2021: Short Film Roundup
I find creating a complete and beautiful short film (whether it’s 4 minutes or 14), is a more difficult task than a well-crafted feature. With such little time you have to fit a fully fleshed-out concept from beginning to end that leaves the viewer satisfied. In many ways a short film director has the ability to get stuck in your brain for days or weeks after, because they have to hit you like a freight train with the story line or it just falls flat. It more often feels like a poem in motion rather than a story. I had the great pleasure of experiencing several beautiful poems at this year’s SIFF so I’m going to tell you about a few (in no particular order).
SIFF 2021: My Missing Valentine, Final Exam, and Get The Hell Out
I mentioned in our mid-week catch-up that I was really impressed with the focus on diversity, and I don’t mean the surface type of diversity where you talk a good game but present your audience with little-to-no viewpoints outside of one or two token POC directed and/or acted films. SIFF has always done a decent job with this, but in 2021 they’ve exploded with a great lineup including a few “packages” that put a spotlight on regions and cultures that rarely see a single spot in a festival like this, much less a cluster of films. I’m so excited to talk to you about this set of films created by artists specifically in Taiwan. Even in just these three features there’s a diversity in emotion, experience and expression and you’ll love them all.
SIFF 2021, WTF Division: Censor, Strawberry Mansion, Too Late, Get the Hell Out!, and the Horror Shorts program
SIFF’s midnight screenings comprise some of my favorite experiences in a movie theater (usually The Egyptian) over the last two decades. That made looking at the 2021 Fest’s crop of WTF (Weird! Terrifying! Fantastic!) entries a bit of a bittersweet experience.