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VIFF '11

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Another year of the Vancouver International Film Festival. I felt like I saw a lot more duds than goods. My VIFF choosing game is totally off. Before I forget what I watched and what I felt, here are the films I watched:

Intense relationship film that makes you never want to cheat on your boyfriend/significant other, even if the person you're cheating with is hot and besides, why cheat on Seth Rogen. Also reminds you not to confuse lust and the excitement of something new and different with love.

Think of every French art film cliche and put it all in this movie - melancholy, over wrought drama over nothing, blank stares, young spoiled rich people being activists and academics. I couldn't wait to get out of the virtually empty theater.

Fell asleep. This may have had to do with watching this film after work. But it also may have a lot to do with me not knowing at all who the author W.G. Sebald is and as a result, not really being at all interested in what was being said. Why did I buy tickets to this film then? Because the director had done this really great documentary on Joy Divison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2v4UwEiO-g that I thought that regardless of me not knowing who Sebald was, that it would have been interesting enough that it wouldn't have mattered. Bummer, not the case. I had also read that this film was visually beautiful. Lies.

Really engaging documentary about food waste in the western world. It made me want to join a CSA (where you go to farms like say, UBC Farms each week and pick up a box of produce - you don't get to choose the produce, but it's seasonal and cool). And have bees. My only thing is that I felt like the documentary could have gone so much deeper, it did a very surface level explanation of what was going on, but I felt like more connections could have been made. But I can see how complicated and hard that is to convey in a short amount of time because the problem is so vast and intricate. My other complaint would be that a teenage girl pulled out her iPhone during the film and proceeded to play several different games before someone got up and told her to put it away.

I thought this would be one of the better films I'd see at VIFF. The film looks good, but everything else about it was terrible. Having weird overly sexual scenes where it didn't even feel sexual anymore - just awkward and painful to watch.

So stoked on Steve Nash. I like multi-talented people. Two time MVP who made his own documentary, read Naomi Klein's "No Logo", skateboards around, and has a bunch of fitness centers. Steve Nash!

Documentary that follows the tour that had Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Vetiver before they got really popular. Every night they play a final jam altogether at the end of the show (the family jam) and it made me think about how I used to long to go on tour when I was in high school and I imagined it being more or less like this.

EL BULLI. First off, whoa El Bulli employs a lot of good looking chefs. Anyways. Ferran Adria explained that what they are more interested in El Bulli is the emotional aspect of food, and creating something different, innovative, and revelatory in that sense. And it made me realize that that is what I want for myself and what ever I do.

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