The world’s most relaxing piano solos, volume 7

SIFF this year has been almost uniformly excellent.  Last year it felt like we saw 4 bad movies for every good one – but this time around, even the bad films have had redeeming qualities.  Even the secret festival – always a crapshoot – has been pretty amazing.  I can’t talk about the two films I saw there, but here are the other 8 I’ve seen thus far:

Departures (2008, Japan) – The best way I can think to describe this one is that at it was a very, very good film being slowly strangled by a really stupid melodrama.  Apparently it won the Oscar this year for best foreign film – no idea how or why.  But it was a worthwhile film to see, for those occasional moments of brilliance.

The Yes Men Fix The World (2009, USA) – Two things made this hilarious documentary work: its willingness to stick around when things got awkward, and its use of comedy outside the corporate pranks it was perpetrating.  What would have otherwise been a political documentary starring funny people became instead a hybrid docu-comedy.  And I learned a new text messaging technique!

The Beaches of Agnès (2008, France) – I’d never seen a film by Agnès Varda.  Watching this autobiographical doc made me want to.

Favela on Blast (2008, Brazil) – As a documentary, this one wasn’t that great.  It attempted to tell the story of baile funk and Rio’s favelas through the lyrics of and occasional interviews with its MCs, but didn’t really succeed.  However, the music was awesome, and it was pretty cool to have its hilariously filthy lyrics spelled out in the subtitles.

Rembrandt’s J’accuse (2008, Netherlands) – A film as much about our lack of visual fluency as it was about Rembrandt’s Nightwatch.  Very, very dense (it’s Greenaway!), and something I’ll definitely be catching again once it’s on DVD.  Easily one of the best of the fest so far.

Bluebeard (2009, France) – Pretty terrible adaptation of the Bluebeard fairytale.  After the film, Michael and I came up with two genius ideas – Bluebeard’s Castle would make a great Halloween costume (think dead, blue barbies) and Advent calendar (one of the prizes could be Visine!).  So thanks for that, Bluebeard!

The Maid (2009, Chile) – I have always been kinda weirded out by the idea of live-in maids.  This film did nothing to help that!  An amazing performance by Catalina Saavedra made this intimate portrait of a maid just about perfect.

Sounds Like Teen Spirit (2008, UK) – I was introduced to Eurovision when I was living in London and despite its effects on my liver, I find the whole thing hilariously compelling.  This doc covered the 2007 Eurovision Juniors competition, but not strictly from the “holy shit this is creepy” angle I was expecting.  Probably because it’s harder to make fun of kids… but I was really curious to discover the “why” behind Ukraine’s winning “librarian stripper” entry and instead got a look into the experiences of a few of the less ostentatious acts.