Best of Week Two

Back during that first week of the festival when I was sitting down with TCM host Robert Osborne, I asked him about what I see as our current obsession with lists. Ever since that first AFI Top 100 list a little over a decade ago, it seems like you can’t go to a website or look at a newspaper without seeing that someone has another one.

I was talking about the end-of-year top ten lists, I was speaking of stuff like those weird seemingly clueless and highly random ones that pop up on various film websites or in Entertainment Weekly (Zack Snyder is one of the top 25 working directors? Seriously? In what world is that even remotely true?). They just seem so pointless to me, and while I’m as guilty as the next person for always feeling compelled to look at them that still doesn’t mean I understand the fad.

Osborne reminded me that these lists have their place. Not only do people enjoy reading them, they spark debate and get viewers excited. They also potentially lead them to films and filmmakers they may not have ever considered caring about before, and he reminded me that any time you can expand a person’s horizon that’s one opportunity you shouldn’t skip out on.

I bring all of this up because I’m now going to present my SIFF Week Two Top Six. None of the selections from my Week One list are eligible, only the ones that had their first viewing between Saturday of last week and the midnight showing this evening. I’ve also decided to cut things down a little and only focus on the films I truly thought highly of. Hope you all enjoy.

6. ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction – Maybe it was simply the fact a kid standing on the street corner pickign his nose would have looked better in comparison, but this local Seattle production hit me as a seriously good time after the horrors of having witnessed Land of the Lost just a scant 45-minutes before. Quite simply, the comedy worked, the gross-out effects worked and the movie itself worked, this little horror-comedy a heck of a lot of fun that went a long way to helping me redeem what was up until then a truly dreadful night at the movies.



5. City of Borders – Great (if really short) documentary about Shushan, a gay bar in Jerusalem. Director Yun Suh took me into corners and places I was hardly prepared for, the entire film an eye-opening trip to a part of the world many only know from television news reports. Seriously outstanding and I dare viewers to try and forget it.



4. Small Crime – Absolutely charming mystery/comedy/drama/romance coming out of Greece about a young, ambitious police officer on a remote island in the Aegean Sea who decides there is a mystery to be solved when the local town drunk turns up dead seemingly of natural causes. Throw in a famous television personality returning to the island to discover the identity of her father and you have as delightful a little motion picture as any I could have possibly hoped for.



3. Grace – Writer/director Paul Solet’s horror film of motherly affection is so disturbing it left me visibly shaking by the time it ended. Never going where you think it will, the final moments build disgustingly beautiful tension, while the coda delivers a terrifying sucker punch impossible to describe. The movie sent me through the emotional and physical wringer, and yet by the time all was said and done the only think I wanted to do was watch the darn thing again.



2. Hansel and Gretel – Absolutely outstanding South Korean gothic horror-slash-fairy tale of young man rushing to be by his sick mother’s side who suffers a traffic accident in the middle of a dark and secluded forest. Befriended by a trio of mysterious children, he soon comes to realize that he and all the others who come their way are actually their prisoners, the kids looking for parental figures who will love and protect them no matter what. Think Tim Burton meets Guillermo del Toro with a lot of traditional Asian horror elements thrown in for good measure. Easily one of my favorites of the entire festival.



1. Food, Inc. – Scary, thought-provoking documentary about where our food comes from and the potential ramifications. Director Robert Kenner gets footage so horrific I can’t begin to give it justice here. Just know I’ll never think about the grocery store the same way again, and the whole idea about buying things from the organic section (or hitting my local farmer’s market – it is Seattle after all, we have tons of them) suddenly seems extremely appealing. A film not to be missed.