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Monday, June 24, 2002 ( 12:17 AM ) Carolyn Pietala Some after-fest thoughts on the fest: I did my full series pass about as full as I could for the kind of person I am. When I filled out my "fool serious" ballot at the end of the fest, Nancy had to remind me that I had seen one of the movies. Since I turned the ballot in, I have since realized that there were *two* more movies that I didn't remember that I had seen. Man, was I in an end-of-festival fog. Next year, I think I will fill out the ballot as I go along. Some comments about movies: Nancy is right, God is Great, I'm Not wasn't all that fun. The two main characters weren't very likeable and I wanted to kill Tatou's hair dresser and costumer. The hair styles and clothes they put her in were SO ugly and unflattering. I wouldn't have thought it was possible to make someone as beautiful as Audrey Tatou look that bad. I disagree with Nancy's review of Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. I thought it was very good. A litte testosterone-charged, but, hey it's an American movie about teenage boys. That can be expected. And the scene where one of the insulent little shits gets in the cage with the mountain lion...oh man, I just about stopped breathing, I was so afraid for him. I also loved No News from God and voted it best of fest. Of course, heaven would look like Paris. And do we doubt that the Devil's core staff would all speak English? (It's a Spanish production.) The incongruous flirting between the characters played by Fanny Ardant and the studly young Gabriel Garcia Bernal made me smile really big. I gave the Japanese movie All About Lily Chou Chou one of my lower votes. I didn't like it, but somehow I have this feeling I will still end up talking a lot about it. It's got a great sound track. And one of the distinctive things that I will grant it is the way the sweet flowing music contrasts with the way these repressed adolescents explode and whale on each other. A fun sweet film that the brunch group liked that probably won't receive American distribution is Minoes, a Dutch children's film. And that will be because it *is* a Dutch children's film. Americans don't like to read subtitles, you know. The way the main character, a cat who turns into a young woman, retains some of her feline characteristics is charming. Watching her scamper over roof tops in high heels is fantasy indeed! A couple films I saw, one I liked, one I wasn't so crazy about, were still both good examples of travel by film festival. Beijing Rocks was revelatory. I didn't realize how Westernized youth culture is getting in modern China. Llubljana was kind of dull in that it didn't really have much of a story, but I did get a sense of modern Slovenia that I did not have going in. # |
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