Film, Film, Film

last Thursday night we headed out for the opening gala of the 30th Seattle International Film Festival to see a screening of The Notebook, directed by Nick Cassavetes (son of guess who?). The movie is adapted from a bestselling novel i hadn’t read (or heard of for that matter) and was described as a “sweeping love story”. it is basically the story of two people who fell in love as a summer romance, but were from different sides of society (sound familiar?). although a seemingly predictable story line, there were many sweet and sometimes terrible moments peppered throughout. i could have done without the overdone music that catapulted a borderline cheesy moment into a full fledged Hollywood gouda. all in all, i’m glad i saw it.

also saw Coffee and Cigarettes, Jim Jarmusch’s vignettes centered around just those things. some of the scenarios were filmed quite awhile back and had been shown independently. they were definitely eccentric at times. my favorite was Delirium involving the RZA aka Bobby Digital, the GZA and Bill Murray (who they always refer to by his entire name). i also found Champagne to be one of the best as well.

we were also planning to see Saved! but alas the tickets were sold out. the movie opens nationwide next week and we will most likely catch it then. SIFF’s showing sold out due to the attendance of some of the films cast. the reviews have been pretty favorable and it looks to be a fun view.

on the list is Control Room, a documentary by Jehane Noujaim who embedded herself with Arab news agency Al Jazeera to provide an examining look at the perception of the war on Iraq and the medias control over it.

more to come ….