Ratatouille

Out on the streets, that's where we'll meet
You make the night, I always cross the line
Tightened our belts, abuse ourselves
Get in our way, we'll put you on your shelf
Another day, some other way
We're gonna go, but then we'll see you again
I've had enough, we've had enough
Cold in vain, she said

I knew right from the beginning
That you would end up winnin'
I knew right from the start
You'd put an arrow through my heart

Round and round
With love we'll find a way just give it time
Round and round
What comes around goes around
I'll tell you why

Dig.

A Mighty Heart

I wish that Mariane was played by some unknown actress. Don't get me wrong - Jolie does fine. I am not going to say that she is fantastic or that this is her best movie ever or any superlatives, because I just don't like her and it is hard for me to be objective. I have seen more interviews with her and non-acting parts than I have films of hers, really. I think the role of Mariane would be astonishingly difficult. Jolie loses her accent a few times which is just the kind of thing that bugs me about her. I also hate how directors always do close ups of her eyes flickering and twitching. All that said, I really didn't want this review to be about how I don't like Jolie -- the movie was very well done and that's what I should write about.

I was most impressed by how, even though we all know what happened to Danny Pearl, there was still this horrific anticipation of what was to come. I was sad, uncomfortable and dreading the outcome. This was not an easy film to watch.

I love the community of people surrounding her in this film who support her through and take part in her tragedy. All these people, in this house came together and lived through this horror, just like the families and friends of the 12 other people who were kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan that month. Pearl is not alone. Nor is he more important than the "enemy combatants" being held in Guantanamo Bay.

La Môme (La Vie en Rose)

Through a series of flashbacks and memories, we watch the extraordinary life of Edith Piaf. The music is fantastic and I was simply spellbound by the three actresses portray her at 5 and 10 years old and then in adulthood. All three are amazing.

It seems to me that Edith never, until quite late in life, owned her life or career - even her greatest love wasn't really hers. People managed/owned/manipulated her from the moment she was born until the ripe old age of 47 when she died.

There is a moment or two where you see glimpses of her being in control, but because the story is told in such a non-linear way, I can't tell if that was my own reading or intended. I really enjoyed the actors around her, but we don't get to meet the characters very much.

I learned a lot about her and really enjoyed the sad melodrama.

Delirious

Tom DiCillo made Living in Oblivion and Johnny Suede, both of which I loved, but not quite as much as his more recent, Box of Moonlight, which is one of my top 10 films of all time.

Sometimes expectations are the enemy of experience. This movie would have been a big letdown, if I hadn't checked my expectations right before we went in. I'm not sure what made me do it, but I was glad I consciously lowered them.

In this film, a quirky paparazzi befriends a homeless youth and they work together to get the perfect "shot heard 'round the world." Of course, the homeless guy is hunky and wants a showbiz career...

One DiCillo trademark is how he has a bumbling man as a mentor to another bumbling man and they learn from each other and it's usually pretty funny. That is the case in this film, but the storyline is quite bland and predictable, and Steve Buscemi's character is not quite likable and there really wasn't anything that set this film apart. I am also tired of blonde bombshells in his films....and why is she always just in her bra?? The best scenes in the movie are of Buscemi's character's parents.

A shame to end SIFF on a disappointment. A bigger shame that DeCillo has moved from a favorite director, to a director who made a few films I like.

Wie man sein Leben kocht (How to Cook Your Life)

If you think all Zen masters are calm, confident and wise, meet Edward Espe Brown. He is a Zen master and he is a chef. He is a little neurotic, angry, impatient and funny. We watch him cook and teach cooking and laugh at life and himself. This was a very enjoyable little film.

Hîrtia va fi albastrã (The Paper Will be Blue)

The new(ish) wealth of film coming out of Romania is that it (at least from what we have seen) is smart, consistent and has that...thing....whatever it is that makes it unmistakably Romanian. The three films we have seen from there lately are darkly funny. Some more dark and some more funny, but they all seem to point to a national interest in the plodding, hard parts of life. They also like to make fun of people. This is good.

This movie is about a real moment in Romanian history that was fraught with uncertainty, violence and sadness, but also, movement, excitement and change. We get glimpses of all of this as we follow a small platoon of Militia soldiers through the night of December 22, 1989. Not knowing who or what they are fighting for or protecting, they choose to look for their AWOL team member who, out of excitement, defected to the revolutionaries.

Not for everyone, but certainly my kind of movie.

Paris, je t'aime

Go see this movie.

18 short films about Paris, each by a different director, each with the title of a different neighborhood. The directors include the Coen brothers, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven (!) Gerard Depardieu... the list goes on and on. The only thing more impressive than the list of directors is the casts. Linking to all of them on IMDB would take forever so I will just list a sampling here:
Steve Buscemi, Natalie Portman, Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elijah Wood, Juliette Binoche, Marianne Faithfull, Willem Defoe - it's an amazing spectacle.

Some highlights:
Gus Van Sant directs The Marais and we watch as two hot young men (In a Van Sant film!?!? no way....) share a conversation.
I loved Willem Dafoe as the Grim Reaper in Place Des Victoires.
14ème Arrondissement followed a frumpy postal worker from Denver (brilliantly portrayed by Margo Martindale) with a fanny pack through her 6 day trip to Paris by herself. (Awesome!)

As I type this, I realize that I could find a highlight in almost every one of the shorts and really it's just a fantastic group of films that needs to be seen. It would be easier to write about which ones I didn't like as much, but what's the point in that?

Also as I type this, I realize my friend Gibson will make me pick a favorite, which I don't want to do, but for him, I will: Faubourg Saint-Denis where a blind student and his girlfriend take us all over Paris and it made me want to walk to the travel agent and buy a ticket today.

Offset

A perfect example of a movie we would probably never see if it weren't for SIFF. This drama, a sad and intense family story about a marriage, an offset printing machine and German-Romanian relations, is a little long and bleak. But other than that, I don't have many complaints. The acting is strong, the characters, while not very likable, are interesting and their flaws are what make this good.

The main theme running through this is that people's prejudices run deep. The boss hates Germans, the Germans hate Romanians, the mother-in-law-to-be just wants to go back to Germany, the (German) printing machine doesn't even work right when using inks from anywhere but Germany. If there is a message, it's keep to your own kind, or problems will follow.

Co-written by the writer of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, which you can read my review of here.