405 films. Record ticket sales and a 5% year-over-year revenue increase. And one very tired imaginary boy.
SIFF '07: it's a wrap.
This page lists each of the 107 non-archival, feature-length titles screened by the accredited TIG SIFF review staff (of one). The "»" symbol ahead of a title indicates a SIFF award winner.
Brief comments or links to extended coverage follow star ratings:
**** stellar
*** good
** mediocre
* shite
Aachi & Ssipak | *** | week 1
American Shopper | ** | week 2
» Angels in the Dust | ***½ | awesome doc on South Africa humanitarian org
The Art of Crying | **½ | week 2
A Battle of Wits | ***½ | week 1
The Bet Collector | ***½ | week 3
Big Rig | *** | week 2
Black Irish | **½ | week 2
The Bothersome Man | ***½ | Droll, riveting not-so-sci-fi; think urban Norwegian Lost
» The Bubble | ** | cutesy gay Israeli-Palestinian rom-com tragedy. Yeah.
Children | ***½ | well-paced B&W Icelandic angst
Children of the War | *** | startling PBS-y MS-13 expose
Christmas Tree Upside Down | ** | snoozy, PETA-unfriendly Bulgarian tales
The Cloud | *** | intense German nuke-power cautionary yarn
Crazy Love | *** | blog
Cthulhu | ** | blog
DarkBlueAlmostBlack | *** | nicely paced Spanish drama w/ sexy gaptoothed janitor
Daespo Naughty Girls | **½ | comic-booky Korean film gets good in second half
Day Watch | *** | Worthy 2nd episode of Bekmambetov's hi-octane trilogy
» Death at a Funeral | *½ | week 1
Delirious | **½ | week 3
Doubletime | *** | mouth-dropping skip moves; wanted more from Japanese teams
Drama/Mex | *** | Fun interlocking triptych about hot, ill-behaved Acapulcans
Eagle vs. Shark | ***½ | week 2
The Elephant and the Sea | *** | quietly compelling, more sea than elephant
» Emma's Bliss | ***½ | blog
Expired | **½ | week 3
Falkenberg Farewell | **½ | gets good 'round the 70-minute mark
The Fever of '57 | *** | week 2
» Four Minutes | ** | Frustrating, not just b/c jailed pianiste obviously isn't really playing
A Friend of Mine | *** | cute Daniel Brühl + object of Emma's Bliss = naked Fahrvergnügen
Frozen City | *** | week 3
Girls Rock! | *** | most of the time this film rocks, too
Glue | ***½ | HOT. Slightly perverted. And I'm hungry for Nacho.
The Golden Door | *** | week 1
Goya's Ghosts | *** | week 3
Great World of Sound | ** | Dumb, depressing, frustrating record label swindle story
Grimm Love | ** | Heavily-mascara'd Felicity gets obsessed with German cannibals
The Guardian's Son | *** | week 3
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone | ***½ | brilliantly hushed man-love à la maverick Tsai
I Have Never Forgotten You | *** | doc props to Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal
Interview | *** | Buscemi (no SIFF '07 stranger) directs engaging Theo Van Gogh tribute
» In the Shadow of the Moon | *** | nicely produced God-bless-America space-doc
Invisibles | *** | sobering portraits of developing-world crises we rarely see
I Really Hate My Job | **½ | Tiring restaurant Britcom, best when AMM's on
It's Winter | *** | week 3
Joshua | **½ | what begins as a crackerjack demon-seed flick falls apart in act 3
» King of Kong | **½ | week 1
Knocked Up | *** | week 1
La Leon | ***½ | Plaintive, lovely B&W Argentinian loneliness
» La Vie En Rose | ** | week 2
The Life and Times of Yva Las Vegass | *½ | horrible execution of local doc is not her fault
Life In Loops | ***½ | week 1
Like Minds | *** | Great perfs in Donna Tartt-ish school-murder drama
Little Book of Revenge | ** | week 3
Love Conquers All | ***½ | ironic title, harsh events – good but messed me up
Lovesickness | **½ | Telanovela-y Rican tales. Love the old folks.
Made In China | *** | finally, a good local film: touching dad/son legacy story
Man in the Chair | *½ | treacly, preachy, poorly-conceived dud
The Man of My Life | ** | Way-too-long narcoleptic-meets-homo-en-vacances film
Manufactured Landscapes | ***½ | stunning images of ugly industrial realities
Moliere | *** | week 3
Monster Camp | **½ | better for the LARP faithful?
Mushishi | *** | week 3
My Best Friend | *** | even light-side Patrice Lecon
te is elegant and grand
My Friend & His Wife | **½ | Slightly gay Korean drama, all-over-the-place plotwise
Never on a Sunday | **½ | one too many Amores Perros-y twists
Noise | *** | Engaging Oz drama re tinnitus-suffering cop & thwart-attempting criminal
No Regret | ** | fair Korean gay quasi-softcore
Nu | **½ | more naked Fahrvergnügen, but dongier, sadder, Beneluxier, less good
Offscreen | * | week 3
Once | ***½ | blog
One Day Like Rain | ** | end-of-the-word drama that attempts/fails to be Lynchian
One of Our Own | ** | Leap-of-faith pregnancy yarn w/ Lillard annoying as always
On the Road with Judas | *** | another refreshing 4th wall breaker
Opera Jawa | *** | Long, weird, magnificently original Indonesian musical
» Out of Time | ***½ | blog
» Outsourced | ** | week 2
Paprika | **½ | week 1
Paris je t'aime | ***½ | J'aime aussi ce film
A Parting Shot | *** | Learning not to self-destruct en Suisse
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema | ***½ | Zizek's spirited cine-losophy is hardly pervy at all
Red Road | ***½ | creepy Scottish voyeur intrigue I still haven't quite shaken
Red Without Blue | *** | solid doc re identical twins (gay boy and trans sis) and their fam
Rescue Dawn | **½ | week 1
Rocket Science | **½ | week 2
Running on Empty | ** | week 2
» 7 Years | ***½ | Low-key French drama with moral complexity of a Decalogue ep
Severance | ** | week 1
» Sex and Death 101 | * | ridiculous shite-pile not even worth this single-line review
The Signal | **½ | Po-mo pulp starts great, loses way at halfmark
The Singer | **½ | week 1
Son of Rambow | *** | I want to be Didier Revol: Bonjour angleterre!
Still Alive | *** | touching but incomplete docu-bio on cinema god Kieslowski
Strange Culture | *** | Tilda's great in this enjoyable po-po-pomo doc hybrid
Syndromes and a Century | ***½ | another wondrous story-in-halves by Thai master
Tekkonkinkreet | **½ | Yin/yang symbolism amok in nice-looking but dull anime
» Tell No One | *** | convoluted, entertaining, star-studded French intrigue
The Ten | **½ | Ten good belly laughs, ten kinds of stupid
Them | *** | Keep "true story" in mind to be scared shitless
This is England | **½ | Best when murderous thug Stephen Graham pops round
Trail of the Screaming Forehead | ** | B-movie homage doesn't even succeed as camp
2 Days in Paris | ***½ | week 2
Waiter | *** | miserable fictional Dutchman effectively breaks 4th wall
A Walk Into the Sea | *** | week 1
The Yacoubian Building | **½ | homophobic but otherwise fun Egyptian trash-soap
Yella | ***½ | week 3