Sunday morning found me at CKDU, doing the AFF special edition of my show. (Shameless plug here: CKDU 88.1 FM, every Sunday morning at 11. I talk about the mooveez.) The city seems so quiet today, and the greyness is a blanket... perfect for spending more hours in the dark. Grabbed a screening copy of Wendy and Lucy. Starring a luminous Michelle Williams, for whom a short, dark bob really works, it's hard to believe she isn't in her late teens. She does a certain kind of innocence very well. The American indie picture, directed by Kelly Reichardt, is a gritty little heartstring plucker, a story of a girl travelling from the Midwest to Alaska who gets stuck in Oregon somewhere, makes a few bad choices and has some bad luck, then loses her dog. It has that grit that all movies shot in the Pacific Northwest seem to be rubbed in, from Drugstore Cowboy to Last Days. When I finished watching the film, I was thrilled to see the sun had come out... my own dog deserves a good run. Wendy and Lucy screens on Tuesday at 9:30pm.
I have a crew of reliable cinepanions who report back to me of what they're seeing at the festival. I received an email yesterday from Jen Bond, who reported on the Friday midnight screening of the campy musical Repo! The Genetic Opera starring Anthony Giles the Watcher Head, Sarah Brightman and Paris Hilton.
"There's a fantastic teenage angst song that comes out of absolute nowhere about 2/3 through the film," she wrote. "My description won't do it justice, but let's just say that while watching it my friend Lisa exclaimed 'That's Joan Jett!!'...and it was, Joan Jett playing the guitar in the middle of the angst-y 17-year-old girl's bedroom...we never see her again in the film."
That sounds kinda awesome to me. Sorry I missed it.
The Spanish horror remains unseen by me. I saw Jason Eisener in the line-up though when I was coming out of the Kevin Smith picture. Jason, if you're reading this, let me know how it was.
Zach and Miri Make A Porno is the new Kevin Smith movie. I've always liked that guy, especially his scripts. After Clerks 2 I wasn't sure he could get more outrageous, or funnier, but he has. The high school reunion section is balls out funny. I can't say too much more about it until it opens in cinemas, except that I suspect it to be the frankest mainstream comedy I've ever seen, in terms of its open discussion of sex. Underneath, of course, it has that mushiness typical of Smith's movies, but... wow. Probably not for the easily offended, or anyone who can't handle a healthy collection of gags about ass fucking.