Hey folks, Harry here with our first report from this year's edition of the Seattle Film Fest. Both of the films up for discussion here we've covered for a good long time. LAYER CAKE - which is out in theaters and you should definitely get your light saber swinging ass in gear to see... and THE ARISTOCRATS which played SUNDANCE and SXSW and made people hurt from laughing so hard. so here ya go, Thornhill's at it again...
Hey, Harry!!
Greetings from Seattle! I haven?t seen any reports from SIFF yet, so I thought I?d send you my recap of the opening weekend. As I?m sure you?re aware, the 31st Seattle International Film Festival is off and running. SIFF has become the country?s largest film festivals in movie volume, with this years edition growing to 348 films (182 narrative, 111 shorts, and a record 55 documentaries) from 59 countries. This is the first time I?ve been able to log a SIFF report, as the past few years I?ve been away at school when SIFF is throwing down. I was lucky to get into two great flicks on the first two days of the Festival, and I?m looking forward to more cinematic delights over the next couple weeks.
On the Fest?s opening day (05/20) I got to attend a midnight screening of The Aristocrats. It?s a documentary on a joke that comedians tell to each other, and have since the days of vaudeville, but don?t dare to perform on stage because it?s too filthy. A cast of seemingly hundreds of comedians chime in with their take on the joke. I won?t tell you the joke here (it?s not even all that great of a joke), but what has given it such a long shelf life is that it?s constructed so that whoever is telling the joke is able to improv the meat of the tale and the point is to make it as disgusting, wrong, disturbing, and just fucking filthy as they can. The film is really a great look at the nature of comedy; you can see how each comic tailors the joke to their style, puts their own flourishes in, and it really proves it?s not what you say but how you say it. It features a who?s who among working comedians, some of whom tell the joke more effectively then others (I especially enjoyed Sarah Silverman, Richard Lewis, Dana Gould, Drew Carey, the South Park crew, and Gilbert Godfried?s takes). The film is hilarious, but just know that the subject is probably the Dirtiest Joke Of All Time, and definitely has the power to offend.
Those of us at the midnight screening were lucky to witness a short Q and A with the co-director Paul Provenza after the film (the other co-director, Penn Jillette, was busy with ?some dumb magic show? according to Provenza). It was cool to get his take on the film; he wished he could have gotten some clips of the numerous times the joke has popped up in pop culture (tossed-off references on Late Show with David Letterman; the episode of The Odd Couple where it is referenced) but they couldn?t afford to pay for all the clips. He also was asked if there were any versions that were too dirty for inclusion in the film; he said that since the term ?N----r C--t? was left in the film, you can be sure they weren?t too concerned with cleaning up content. He talked about how he was sad that he wasn?t able to get certain comedians involved for whatever reasons (Buddy Hackett passed away before he could give an interview, Johnny Carson passed away a week before a scheduled screening. ?The Aristocrats? was known to be Johnny?s favorite joke), and he praised the courage of THINKFILM, who is going to release the film.
LAYER CAKE
The next night I was able to see Layer Cake. This movie flat out rules! For fans of the recent wave of British Crime Movies (Sexy Beast; Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels; Snatch) this is a must see. It takes the age old premise of a career criminal looking to retire but finding the process much more difficult than he thought, and it creates a tightly wound drama that reveals characters motivations and plot points at a near perfect pace. Matthew Vaughn?s direction is exceptional for a first feature (he must have been paying attention when he produced Lock, Stock and Snatch). The movie has a similar style to Vaughn?s other productions (several quirky characters, layering plot twists on top of each other, the temporarily unclear motivation of the different gangs) but Layer Cake has a different tone that is unique. It effortlessly mixes in comedic moments with the drama, and always feels grounded in reality. I was waiting to see what Vaughn did with Layer Cake before I formed an opinion about him doing X-Men 3; now I?m excited by the prospect of him taking over the franchise (but if he turns Warren Worthington III into a woman there might be problems!). The cast for Layer Cake is uniformly outstanding; Colm Meany and Michael Gambon are pitch perfect as career gangsters, and Daniel Craig is great as the main character, a man without a name (I could defiantly see Craig as James Bond; I love Pierce, but if they don?t bring him back I hope these rumors prove to be true. He just needs to dye his hair brown and we?d be in business). It was fun to see some of the actors from Lock, Stock turning up in bit parts; Dexter ?Soup? Fletcher shows up as a gangster with a taste for ?American birds?, and as Crazy Larry, Jason ?Tom? Flemyng has one of the funniest lines in the movie. Also, Sienna Miller is unbelievably hot as an object of Craig?s affections. Her scene in a hotel rendezvous with Craig may be worth the price of admission; she is a vision. This movie is a real achievement, and I think that in a lot of ways, Layer Cake is the best film that Michael Vaughn has been involved with.
That?s my take on the first two nights of SIFF. I hope that the rest of the films I see in the next couple weeks can live up to this weekend?s experience. I?ll report back with my further SIFF adventures.
You can call me,
Roger X. Thornhill
