May 28, 2001
Keith and I tried to go see a showing of Bread and Tulips at the Harvard Exit on Saturday, but we struck out miserably. Bread and Tulips is part of SIFF (the Seattle International Film Festival), which is going on right now, and will be going on for the next month. Unbeknownst to us, the movie had already sold out by the time the box office opened that morning, due to advance sales, so the huge line of people that I stood in for about ten minutes was waiting solely for the chance to 1) buy any rush tickets that opened up, or 2) buy tickets for movies showing at that theater later in the day. Once Keith and I realized this, we ditched the line and headed up Broadway to find something to eat.
Arriving at Chang's Mongolian Grill (oh so tasty), we discovered that it did not open for another twenty minutes, so we continued strolling down Broadway to kill some time until Chang's opened. Then we found that the SIFF box office HQ is located on Broadway. So, we decided to go ahead and buy some advance tickets. For many of the SIFF movies, it's the only way you can get in, unless you want to take a chance on rush tickets.
I sat down with one of the leaflets that lists all the movies while Keith went off to a bookstore to buy us some pencils. A few minutes later, the lady sitting next to me went up to one of the sales clerks, politely asked for a pencil, and was rewarded with one. Oh, well, it was a nice day for a walk anyway. I wound up waiting for Keith outside on the plaza, in fact, because it was so brilliant and sunny outside.
When he came back, we spent about an hour circling our choices in pencil and then comparing to see what we both wanted to go to. We only had two choices that actually overlapped, but there was a lot of agreement about the rest, as well. We had trouble narrowing our picks down to seven movies (all we wanted to pay for).
The final itinerary:
If...: Part of the Retrospective series. A British film, directed by Lindsay Anderson, starring a very young Malcolm McDowell as a schoolboy who takes part in a violent uprising against "The Establishment". Probably would never be made in today's post-Columbine atmosphere.
Drive-In Party: I'm really looking forward to this one. Two movies -- a 1950s sci-fi spoof called "Top of the Food Chain" and a sci-fi musical Western, "The American Astronaut" -- at the Auburn Outdoor Theaters. It'll be a hell of a drive up to Auburn and back, but definitely worth it. My first drive-in!
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition: Pretty self-explanatory, eh? The film notes describe it as "one of the greatest man-against-nature sagas to emerge in the 20th century". I recently went through a Jon Krakauer period during which I read "Into Thin Air" about 20 times, and Keith is generally interested in this sort of thing as well, so this one was an obvious pick.
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures: Clips from Kubrick movies, interviews with family members, friends, and cast members, and some shots of the man himself. Should be interesting, as I know little about Kubrick other than that I love most of his movies.
Startup.com: A documentary about a dot-com startup (natch), detailing the heady venture capital days and the subsequent slide into advertising failure. (I'm just guessing, here.) We really wanted to go see the other dot-com documentary, the one about Kozmo.com, but we can't because we're going to a friend's barbecue at the same time it's showing. We'll catch it on video.
Better Than Sex: A lusty fling between a couple of people who've just met, complete with Greek choruses and the like. I can't turn down a movie that has Greek choruses in it.
A Real Young Girl: I'll just quote from the film notes. "Breillat’s mesmerizing paean to adolescent lust is replete with a distaff artist’s uncompromising honesty, unapologetic nudity and graphic sex scenes."
Anyway, I think it's going to be loads of fun, and at the end of it, we're going on vacation; two weeks of independent films and then a road trip; what could be better?