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Photo Essay: SIFF Renton Opening Night - Lynn Shelton's Touchy Feely Premiere

three imaginary girls — Sat, 25 May 2013 17:02:44 +0000

If you missed the red carpet arrivals for the Seattle International Film Festival's Opening Night in Renton, you're probably really sad. But don't be! Because Imaginary Rich captured the cast & crew of Touchy Feely for our imaginary film fest fans.

BONUS: Touchy Feely is also screening today: Saturday, 5/25, 1:30pm, at The Egyptian. And if you have tickets, you'll get to see the red carpet be rolled out once again for Director Lynn Shelton and cast, plus there'll be a Q&A after the screening. YAYYYYYYYYYYYY

{More photos after the jump ... }

Imaginary Rich's Recommendations for SIFF Weekend #2

Imaginary Rich — Sat, 25 May 2013 02:45:23 +0000

There's a lot of stuff going on every day at SIFF between now and June 9th. To try and cut through some of the clutter, I wanted to share some recommendations for this long Memorial Day weekend. I've only seen a small fraction of the SIFF films (hard as that may be to believe), so likely there are some gems I'm missing. But based on what I've seen here are some interesting, quality choices worth staying inside for. A few picks that I haven't watched yet but am really looking forward to catching are: The Spectacular Now, Her Aim is True, Drug War and, of course, some of the shorts packages playing.

And don't forget, if you're having difficulty navigating the SIFF website it's probably not you. I'd written up some snarky instructions on how to get around that folks keep mentioning have proved helpful to them.

On to the suggestions...

Nightmare Mystery Theater - Speaking of shorts, I recommend checking out as many sets from this ShortsFest weekend as much as you can. Specifically, I highly recommend the Nightmare Mystery Theater session in order to see The Quiet Girls Guide to Violence and The Sleepover. The former is one of my fave shorts of the past year. The latter is just bloody, fun and rather clever. Don't miss this set for those two reasons.

OK ... now on to the feature length stuff.

SIFF Review: The Punk Singer

Chris Estey — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:27:10 +0000

For those lucky enough to catch Who Put The Bomp?, the sizzling Le Tigre tour documentary shown at SIFF a couple years back, the new Kathleen Hanna biography The Punk Singer will be an answer to Pussy Riot-like prayers. (The two music movies would make a delicious double feature.) The fanzine artist, riot grrrl comrade-avatar, Bikini Kill co-founder, fourth-wave feminism fearless bellwether, Le Tigre musician and more just blazes away in this Kickstarter-funded fiesta of fiery rock and fiercely loving social commitment.

Directed by Sini Anderson, a sparkplug-member of the awesome radical-poetic Sister Spit collective and Chief Curator for the The National Queer Arts Festival, The Punk Singer puts you right in the middle of everything as it happens through the early days of punk girl revolution early 90s style. You're there in the pit at a house show, making the decision to commit to revolution with Bikini Kill. You're there in Kathleen's bedroom with she and her friends, using scissors and paste to manipulate clip art and appropriated text to juxtapose images of female passivity with phrases evoking the tortures of being watched and judged daily by patriarchy. You watch as she puts on provocative, prick-kicking fashion shows even though peers remind her that "we're only in high school, Kathleen!"

And then get blown away again as she takes to the mic like a natural, snarling and screaming and shouting passion for her ideal "rebel girl" and telling the boys to "move to the back (be cool for once)" and "girls to the front!" Her bandmates (Tobi Vail, Katji Wilcox, Billy Karren) have as much verve as X-Ray Spex or The Ramones, and though all the musicians are different from each other in many ways, as a mystical shred-unit of focused protest, the footage of them makes The Punk Singer an essential rock documentary.

Anderson is sharp enough with her own arts and letters background to know how writing and other forms of creativity inspire musicians, and Hanna and Bikini Kill were all about pulling in things that inspired them outside of music as well as the rock they loved. Fanzines are a big part of this saga: self-made small magazines meant to both remind the world of its hypocrisies and set up an uncensored self space to express raw identity (to talk about anything, without caring who it might offend).

Hanna's fitful childhood journey from her birth in Portland to Maryland to attending Evergreen State College just when post-punk was at its apex and a new generation was swelling against the conformist ranks is excellently documented. Hanna's becoming an adult woman created a scorched need to tell the world to pay attention and acknowledge her and other women coming from a childhood cut short by sexual inappropriateness and emotional coldness in her family. It also allows her to dial back to her childhood, reclaiming the simple joys of sharing play and being exactly who she wants to be in the middle of insensitive grown-ups always insisting on their own ways.

People laugh a little about her "Valley Girl" accent, but until someone with a certain amount of cred in the straight world bucks up, the rest of us weirdos tend to go a little unnoticed. And Bikini Kill was dead-set against the everyday cruelties women must endure to find acceptance. Hanna and her friends find all of this unacceptable and are more than happy to call out not only sexism, but racism, and any sort of bullying.

The narrative has intense moments of faithful artistic action, ruminated cultural controversy, and is a wonder of historical data. The media "blackout" that was self-imposed by Hanna and other riot grrrls in response to sexist portrayals in the press may seem to some like it was self-defeating, and maybe wouldn't work now that the power is in super-spin (not retreat). (But really? Is it really?) It's bracing and enjoyable to think that a generation of women said no to being pushed around and objectified by the commercial press, though it may have kept their records from getting further out there (debatable, considering how much acceptance real punk will ever get -- but could Bikini Kill have become Green Day otherwise?). It was a decision they made themselves, and those sort of decisions are always right.

Hanna's own deeply felt personal highs and lows are explored, from finding her calling helping other women to embrace their struggle, and her romance and marriage to Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz of the Beastie Boys; from her sweet friendship with Kurt Cobain (who believed her and protected her when she was stalked by a menacing ex-boyfriend), to getting punched in the face for no reason by Courtney Love freaking out as usual. The final third of the film deals with Hanna's health struggles, which will be news to many fans who may have been out of the loop as to why she hasn't been a focal point in the underground music scene since Le Tigre broke up. She's back though -- her masterpiece, the secret solo (back to the bedroom) 1999 album Julie Ruin is being revived in spirit and mission as new band The Julie Ruin, and there are still plenty of young women and men eager to play out with her and cover her songs.

{The Punk Singer screens at the 39th Annual Seattle International Film Festival on Friday, 5/214, 9:30pm, and again on Sunday, 5/26, 1:30pm at The Harvard Exit}

SIFF 2013: Week Two Highlights

imaginary embracey — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:29:00 +0000

A twisty political thriller, a surprisingly good high-school movie, and a shockingly bad David Sedaris adaptation are among SIFF's highlights and lowlights in week two (May 24-30).

DON'T MISS:

Camion
{screens May 29 at 6:30pm and May 30 at 4:30pm at the Uptown}
A truck driver nearing retirement age gets in a head-on collision on the job, and his two sons come home (somewhere in rural French Canadia) to help him out of the ensuing funk. The story then takes an interesting detour into childhood-regression territory, focusing on the brothers: one's a funny fuckup who looks kinda like Dave Grohl and the other is a straighter-lacer who looks like I dunno who but definitely not Dave Grohl. Despite any casting questions or POV unevenness, this is a beautifully-crafted film with a gorgeous ending.

Paradise trilogy: Love, Faith, Hope
{screening back-to-back May 25 beginning at 10am at Pacific Place}
A captivating series of films focusing on three women as they confront themselves and search for some version of happiness. Love travels with full-figured, fiftysomething hausfrau Teresa as she becomes a "Sugar Mama" sex tourist in Kenya; in Faith we get to know Teresa's sister, a fanatic Catholic missionary whose summer is disrupted by the sudden return of her paraplegic Muslim husband; then there's Teresa's sullen 13-year-old daughter Melanie, making unexpected new friendships at a fat camp and flirting with a much older camp doctor, in Hope. All three feature intriguing photography (director Ulrich Seidl has a fondness for static symmetrical shots, mainly of characters in small rooms) and audacious, often ruthless storytelling (he also has a fondness for challenging the viewer to look directly at unpleasantness). Paradise is well worth your while.

Sasquatch 2013: Your guide to navigating the side stages {Monday, May 27th}

John in Ballard — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:55:41 +0000

We're giving you the day-by-day for this year's Sasquatch! music festival -- check out our recommendations for Friday here, Saturday here, Sunday here, and read on for Monday's picks!

Start Monday off with Nissim at 1:00 on the Cthulhu stage. Nissim is the moniker of Damian Black -- who you might know better by his former alias, D. Black, manager and member of Sporting Life Records and accomplished rapper and producer in his own right. Black gave all that up several years ago when he converted to Judaism, got married, and had a son. Recently however, he’s been lured back into making music, although this time around the music is more earnest and uplifting in nature. Follow his set up at the Bigfoot stage at 2:25 for Minneapolis rapper P.O.S., who’s part of the ever-talented Doomtree collective and part of Rhymesayers, the label that brought us Atmosphere and Brother Ali. P.O.S. comes off a little stronger than some rappers, as some sort of hybrid between punk and rap. He’s just as likely to rap over squealing guitar as he is to record scratches and a bass beat. These two back-to-back is sure to wake you up and set a tone for your last day at the Gorge!

Stick around the Bigfoot stage for Cody ChesnuTT’s set at 3:25. Last year saw the release of his second full-length album Landing On A Hundred, the first since his debut in 2002. Fans of southern soul, R&B, funk, and blues will find a lot to like in ChesnuTT’s music, and his live shows are energetic and oozing with passion. Up next is Dirty Projectors at 4:30, led by the dizzying guitar work of the band's founder and guitarist David Longstreth. The really captivating aspect of Dirty Projectors are the vocals of Haley Dekle and especially Amber Coffman, who at times hit some serious Mariah Carey-level high notes. Their 2012 album Swing Lo Magellan may have been their most gorgeous and explorative release to date.