sfiff47

ok, just before running out to cook dinner to go and then pick up hmc for the lakers-hornets game, here are the films from this year’s film festival that i picked to see. mizhol’s getting married in seattle that opening weekend of april 17th, which complicates things greatly, so sacrifices had to be made. however, it’s still good stuff…

Burning Dreams (Wayne Peng, Taiwan, 2003)
Taiwanese Wayne Peng’s spectacularly shot documentary of a Shanghai school that teaches musical, tap and hip hop dance to young Chinese captures the struggle for artistic ambition and portrays the energy of a modern city in motion and transformation.
4/19 KAB 1:00 BURN19K

Get Up! (Kazuyuki Izutsu, Japan, 2003)
An accused mob boss idolizes the Godfather of Soul so his gang sets out to kidnap James Brown to perform for him before he is incarcerated. A hit yakuza comedy with a lot of funk and even more soul!
4/19 KAB 3:00 GET19K

Last Life in the Universe (Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Thailand/Japan, 2003)
Tadanobu Asano plays a suicide-obsessed librarian whose orderly life is disrupted by a yakuza killing and a chance meeting with a Thai bar girl in Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s contemplative, enigmatic, quietly funny almost-romance, gorgeously photographed by Christopher Doyle.
4/19 PFA 9:00 LAST19P

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan, 2003)
It’s a rainy night in Taipei, and a crumbling kino-barn is screening the action epic Dragon Inn. However, in Tsai’s tribute to cinema, and to cinemagoing, the audience and staff seem more concerned with cruising for a different kind of “action.”
4/21 KAB 7:15 GOOD21K

Doppelganger (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 2003)
Doppelganger uses the classic supernatural theme of the double to generate dread and tension. It’s also a darkly funny and heartfelt work, held together by a dazzling dual performance by Koji Yakusho (Shall We Dance?, SFIFF 1997).
4/22 KAB 7:00 DOPP22K

Love Me If You Dare (Yann Samuell, France, 2003)
Amazing visuals, brisk editing, an antic-driven plot and knockout performances enliven this dark romantic comedy about two friends whose obsession with a childhood game may end up destroying the love they discover for each other as adults.
4/26 KAB 7:00 LOVE26K

Grimm (Alex van Warmerdam, Netherlands, 2003)
A 21st century Brothers Grimm of illicit sex and organ transplants in this absurdist Dutch fairy-tale thriller. Abandoned in the dark woods, a brother and sister trek to deceptively sunny Spain and take refuge with a family with sinister intentions.
4/27 KAB 6:45 GRIM27K

Posted at March 30, 2004 5:28 PM