Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, Anand Tucker's "Red Riding" Trilogy at Northwest Film Forum : Feb 26 - Mar 4

Seeing the promotions for this film nearly omnipresent in New York last month thanks
to IFC - it's an ideal coincidence to find it here in Seattle upon my return. "Red Riding",
a trilogy of films adapting David Peace's fictionalized crime investigation/Yorkshire serial
murder novels, each film by a different director, each set in a different time period, as
the grinding, meticulous, bureaucratically compounded investigation comes up against
corruption, money and the powers that-be (both within law enforcement and without)
that want to bring it to a standstill again and again. Realized in the best tradition of recent
detective cinema (think David Fincher's career highlight; "Zodiac") as a complex puzzle of
events wherein we the viewer know as much (or as little) as the historic and/or fictional
character's dedication (read obsession) drives them to seek justice and resolution within
a tangled labyrinth of facts, fabrications, dead ends, lies and hidden connections over the
course of decades of investigation, where with the passing of time, truth becomes more
and more obscured.
From the IFC site: "Sure to be one of the cinematic events of the year, "Red Riding" is a
mesmerizing neo-noir epic based on factual events and adapted for the screen by Tony
Grisoni from David Peace’s electrifying series of novels. 1974 - (directed by Julian Jarrold)
centers on a rookie journalist investigating a series of child abductions and murders with
possible ties to corrupt police, business, and politicians. 1980 - (directed by James Marsh)
finds the police and the public still baffled that the “Ripper” remains at large and may have
inspired a copycat killer. In 1983 - (directed by Anand Tucker), Detective Maurice Jobson
notices a number of powerful similarities between the abduction of another young girl and
cases he had investigated back in the ’70s - for which a man was convicted and sentenced."

Link to Northwest Film Forum's "Red Riding" Trilogy site

Link to IFC Films "Red Riding" Special Roadshow Edition site

Link to IFC Films "Red Riding - 1974" site

Link to IFC Films "Red Riding - 1980" site

Link to IFC Films "Red Riding - 1983" site

Portland's International Film & Jazz Festivals : Feb 11 - 28

This year's Portland Jazz Festival features a number of names worthy of the drive or train ride down to
PDX. Rune Grammofon artist In The Country, ECM's Christian Wallumrod Ensemble and the legendary
man himself, who needs no label-affiliation introduction; Pharoah Sanders, among others. Check the lineup.
Also, happening during coinciding weeks, the Portland International Film Festival includes enough quality
cinema to clench it, PDX is the place to be in February 2010. New ones by; Luca Guadagnino's "I am Love",
Ken Loach's "Looking for Eric", Hong Sang-soo's "Like You Know it All", Bong Joon-ho's "Mother", Corneliu
Porumboiu's "Police, Adjective" and Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet". Northwestern-ites, I'd say this makes it
more than worth the drive/the train down there being particularly gorgeous now that we're entering pre-Spring.

"Link to Portland Jazz Festival"

"Link to Portland International Film Festival"

Sion Sono's new Film "Love Exposure" UK Release & New York Screening

Time to break out those All-Region DVD players! Sion Sono's most recent get's a British release and a New York
screening thanks to the Japan Society this summer/fall! Near-impossible for me to give a proper synopsis of this
one, it's truly a cinema experience like no other. Which I realize, immediately sounds hyperbolic, but "Love
Exposure" is that rare film that lives up to the 'incomparable' tag. Part Boy/Girl love story, part Catholic inverse
-moral play ("I Need To Sin!"), part Tokyo Yakuza/ Japanese Religious Cult underworld tale, part modern-day
(Panty-Shot) Grail Quest, part an exploration of the extremities and diversity of the definitions of Love itself (in
all it's forms, both 'healthy' and NOT). As the film progresses and all these elements converge ...and they do,
it's in ways initially comedic and pulp-like (think Manga, Japanese Anime High School dramas) and later as
a EPIC and deeply, deeply effecting Tragedy. ...But even all of that doesn't really do "Love Exposure" justice.

Review from the January issue of Sight & Sound: "It's almost impossible to imagine that a over four-hour-long film
featuring castration, transvestism, religious cults and catholic guilt complexes originating from Japan could be so
darn passionate, so uplifting, so edge-of-the-seat engaging and entertaining. A one-off, indescribable experience"
--Jasper Sharp (Midnight Eye), 2010.

Link to official "Love Exposure" site

Link to Japan Society's "Love Exposure" New York Screening

Link to Third Window Films UK release of "Love Exposure"

:::: FILMS OF 2009 ::::

TOP FILMS OF 2009 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
-------------------------------------------------------

Terrence Malick "The New World" Extended Cut - Rerelease (United States)
Nicolas Winding-Refn "Valhalla Rising" (Finland)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan "Three Monkeys" (Turkey)
Michael Haneke "The White Ribbon" (Austria)
Claire Denis "35 Shots of Rum" (France)
Jim Jarmusch "Limits of Control" (United States)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa "Tokyo Sonata" (Japan)
Steve McQueen "Hunger" (United Kingdom)
Ulrich Seidl "Import / Export" (Austria)
Jia Zhang-Ke "24 City" (China)
Laurent Cantet "The Class" (France)
Anders Østergaard "Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country" (Denmark)
Matteo Garrone "Gomorra" - (seen together with the film below) (Italy):
Paolo Sorrentino "Il Divo" - (as a double-bill socio-political portrait)

Though not consistent enough to warrant whole-hearted inclusion in the list
above, these two films are deserving of a notable mention. Distinct for both
their adherence and total defiance of both the director's known work and content
they both, in distinctively differing ways brought to modern narrative storytelling
and reinvented what we should expect from these directors (one the mischievous imp
of European cinema, the other a rare creative young voice in Hollywood, who somehow
was once again given a budget by the industry to realize one of his visions) and
brought the audience along on absurd, mind-bending, twisted, fantastical rides:

Lars Von Trier "Antichrist" (Denmark)
Richard Kelly "The Box" (United States)

Again this year, the unseen films by a few directors of note that never made it over
here distributed stateside. I suspect a number of these would have made the list, if
I actually had a chance to see them:

Lav Diaz "Melancholia" (Philippines)
Jacques Audiard "A Prophet" (France/Italy)
Sion Sono "Love Exposure" (Japan)
Tsai Ming-Liang "Visage" (Taiwan)
Gaspar Noe "Enter the Void" (France)
Claire Denis "White Material" (France)
Corneliu Porumboiu "Police, Adjective" (Romania)
Bong Joon-Ho "Mother" (South Korea)
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang "Nymph" (Thailand)
Brillante Mendoza "Kinatay" (Philipines)

Respect and appreciation (again!) go out to the Northwest Film Forum and SIFF (both
the festival and the theatre) for bringing many of these to the states, and making
Seattle one of the major cities in the country for catching the best in global film as
an aspect of our urban cultural experience!

:::: ALBUMS OF 2009 ::::

TOP ALBUMS OF 2009 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
---------------------------------------------------------

Leyland Kirby "Sadly, the Future is No Longer What it Was" (HAFTW)
V/A "Open Strings: 1920's Middle Eastern Virtuoso Recordings" (Honest Jon's)
Iannis Xenakis "Orchestral Works" - Box Set (Timpani)
Thomas Köner "La Barca" (Fario)
SoiSong "qXn94" (Soisong)
Black Dice "Repo" (Paw Tracks)
Mountains "Choral" (Thrill Jockey)
Valentin Silvestrov "Sacred Songs" (ECM)
Hildur Gudnadottir "Without Sinking" (Touch)
David Sylvian "Manafon" (Samadhisound)
Alva Noto/Ryuichi Sakamoto "Utp_" (Raster-Noton)
Jim O'Rourke "I'm Happy & I'm Singing..." - Rerelease (Mego)
Broadcast & The Focus Group "Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age" (Warp)
Nadja "When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV" (End)
Bohren & Der Club of Gore "Dolores" (PIAS)
Black to Comm "Alphabet 1968" (Type)
Sunn O))) "Monoliths & Dimensions" (Southern Lord)
Kreng "L'Autopsie Phenomenale De Dieu" (Miasmah)
Max Richter "Waltz with Bashir - Soundtrack" (Virgin France)

Continuing from the films list above... like cinema, the year in sounds
there was the curious repeat theme; 2009 was again a year for diggers.
Wherein, many of the great recordings of the year appeared from otherwise
unknown origins and artists that some years ago were just establishing
themselves, often under other monikers. That much more reason to 'keep
the ears to the ground' as it were and be that much more looking out for
the new and unheard.

Overall again, this was another pretty darn explorative year in sound.
There were many works that took the ears to exciting places, (some, from
new totally unknown sources) that did so in distinct, expressive and
adventurous ways. In particular appearing again in the strange crossroads
where Modern Classical, Musique Concrete, Improv, Metal, 'Noise', Ambient
and academic Avant traditions all meet. Some of these were even witnessed
out in the world in a 3rd Dimension kind of way, performed live, loud and vital.

TOP LIVE MUSIC SHOWS OF 2009
---------------------------------------

Frank Breatschnieder - Decibel Festival, Seattle
Mountains - Decibel Festival, Seattle
Benga - Decibel Festival, Seattle
Echospace - Decibel Festival, Seattle

As an aside, once again this year Dubstep & Hip Hop filled in as my musical
candy/junkfood of choice, offering a less 'nutritional' but highly flavorful
counter to the more brainy culinary type sounds listed above - and an ideal
soundtrack to public trekking/transportation in the urban 'scape:

King Midas Sound "Waiting For You" (Hyperdub)
Anti-Pop Consortium "Fluorescent Black" (Big DaDa)
V/A "5: Five Years of Hyperdub" (Hyperdub)
Goth-Trad "Law/The Clown" (Deep Medi)
King Midas Sound/Flying Lotus "Cool Out" (Hyperdub)

Michael Haneke & Corneliu Porumboiu's new films at Landmark Theatres : Jan - Feb

Art returns to Seattle in 2010! Two major new pieces of cinema that premiered
at Cannes some six months ago now, are forthcoming at the Landmark, both opening
in January. The newest film from the current Romanian New Wave that brought last
year's harrowing "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" and 2007's "Death of Mr. Lazarescu"
by the Cannes Jury Prize winning Corneliu Porumboiu; "Police, Adjective" - as a
investigation into law, language, interpretation, perception and moral conscience
in the context of the then-changing cultural/political climate of Romania. Also!
the highly-highly-highly anticipated, 2009 Cannes Palme D'or winner by Michael
Haneke; "The White Ribbon" - where Haneke creates his first period-piece as a
vehicle to explore his often addressed themes of the ambiguity of external
morality, societal culpability and the role of the individual. This one being
particularly curious as it's setting is pre-WWI Austria, the protagonists are
children, they are a religious youth faction indroctrinated in a new spin on
an old-world philosophy/morality and the film's subtitle when screened in
Europe is "A German Children's Story"; anyone who knows the work of
Michael Haneke will no doubt see the mischief in this!

Link to Landmark Theatres "The White Ribbon" site

Link to Landmark Theatres "Police, Adjective" site

Link to IFC's "The White Ribbon" Cannes 2009 site

Link to IFC's "Police, Adjective" Cannes 2009 site

30+ Films of the Decade: It's 2010, Do You Know Where Your Cinema Is?

Wong Kar-Wai "In the Mood for Love" / David Lynch "Mulholland Drive" / Terrence Malick "The New World" (Extended Cut) / Edward Yang "Yi Yi" / Michael Haneke "Time of the Wolf" / Leos Carax "Pola X" / Apichatpong Weerasethakul "Tropical Malady" /

Tsai Ming-Liang "Goodbye, Dragon Inn" / Predro Almodovar "Talk to Her" / Béla Tarr "Werckmeister Harmonies" / Lars Von Trier/Jørgen Leth "Five Obstructions" / Andrey Zvyagintsev "The Return" / Lucile Hadzihalilovic "Innocence" / Gaspa Noe "Irreversible" / Jia Zhang-Ke "Still Life" / Ilya Khrzhanovsky "4" / Hayao Miyazaki "Spirited Away" / Claire Denis "35 Shots of Rum" / Spike Lee "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" /  

Roy Andersson "Songs from the Second Floor" / Bong Joon-Ho "Memories of Murder" / Ulrich Seidl "Import/Export" / Hou Hsiao-Hsien "Three Times" / Aleksander Sokurov "Russian Ark" / Alfonso Cuarón "Children of Men" / Richard Kelly "Southland Tales" / Joel & Ethan Coen "No Country for Old Men" / Kiyoshi Kurosawa "Tokyo Sonata" /  

Pen-Ek Ratanaruang "Last Life in the Universe" / Yoji Yamada "Twilight Samurai" / Michel Gondry "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" / Hirokazu Kore-eda "Nobody Knows" / Park Chan-Wook "Old Boy" / Takashi Miike "Audition" / David Fincher "Zodiac" (Directors Cut) / Carlos Reygadas "Silent Light" /

New Films by Claire Denis, Ulrich Seidl and Lisandro Alonso at NWFF : Nov 5 - 19

Exceptional abundance of cinema all-at-once over the course of two weeks beginning Nov. 6
at the Northwest Film Forum! Firstly, the most recent film by "Trouble Every Day", "The Intruder"
and "Friday Night" director Claire Denis; "35 Shots of Rum" which, every review I've read, from
the Village Voice to Sight & Sound had good things to say, suggesting this may be her carrier best.
The most recent by Ulrich Seidl; "Import/Export", following on his Cannes Jury Prize winning "Dog Days"
with more beautifully shot, brutal depictions of life in a Eastern Europe and the Global labor
market's exploitation of the post-communism underclass.

Lastly, there's the work of Lisandro Alonso, whose series here, "At the Edge of the World: The
Cinema of Lisandro Alonso," includes his most recent trilogy of films, concluding with 2008's
"Liverpool". Much lauded by Film Comment, Alonso is considered one of the major new director
finds of the past decade, and has been advocated by many of the other major international cinema
publications, following awards in festivals, from Vienna to Oslo to Rotterdam to Russia. Despite the
accolades, his work is rarely seen (this marks his first-ever screening in Seattle), and an entire series
of his work is quite a cinema event. New ones by Denis, Seidl and a Alonso series, making for two weeks
of rarely seen, highly qualitative, new global cinema....And just in time to act as a respite from
the annual season of rain n' gloom that's descended!

Link to Northwest Film Forum "Import/Export" site

Link to Northwest Film Forum "35 Shots of Rum" site

Link to Northwest Film Forum "At The Edge Of The World: The Cinema of Lisandro Alonso" site

Parkins & Mori "Phantom Orchard" / Earshot Jazz Festival - Seattle : Oct 16 - Nov 8

Seattle's answer to an International Jazz Festival - Earshot is back this fall for its 21st installment.
Highlight for me this year, (and quite a surprise) is Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins "Phantom Orchard"
project who's 2003 release on the Mego label still stands as one of the finest fusions on improv
/electronics/electric instrumentation to be released in the past decade. Really. Fans of Evan
Parker's Electroacoustic Ensemble, the Improvised Music From Japan movement, Mori's other
collab project; Death Ambient on John Zorn's Tzadik label, the Polweschel ensemble and the
whole UK Sound323 scene take note!

Another significant show, also hosted by Nonsequitur thouh not directly in Earshot, is that of
Rachel Grimes from the neoclassical chamber-ensemble Rachel's. - check the Earshot and
Nonsequitur sites for other noteworthy goings on throughout the months of October/November:

Link to Earshot Jazz Festival site

Link to Rachel Grimes on the Nonsequitur site

Link to Parkins & Mori "Phantom Orchard" on the Nonsequitur site

Lars Von Trier's new film "Antichrist" at Landmark Theatres : Oct 23

Lars Von Trier's Cannes-shocking newest is (finally!) opening in San Francisco, NY, LA
and Chicago in the month of October. Reports from both Cannes and the New York Film
Festival suggest "Antichrist" to be a return to form (and possibly a new twist or two on the
whole Psychological Horror genre) from the director that delivered one of the worst films of
the early 2000's in the form of "Dogville" and it's sequel, the nearly-as-abhorrent "Manderlay".
Right off, the look of "Antichrist" stands out for its stunning cinematography and intricately
detailed capturing of color and light - quite removed from the post-Dogme rigours of his
recent films. Let's not forget though that Von Trier is the mastermind behind an abundance
of incomparable cinema over the past few decades, as this is the director of "Element of
Crime", "Europa/Zentropa", "Breaking the Waves", "Dancer in the Dark", "The Kingdom"
and "Five Obstructions" that we're talking about - so you've got to cut the man some (a lot
of) slack for just *two* heinous misses in such a singular oeuvre. Check both the IFC and
landmark sites for release dates/cities as well as prominent article in this month's Film Comment:

Link to "Antichrist" article on the Film Comment site

Link to IFC Films official "Antichrist" site

Link to Landmark Theatres "Antichrist" screening schedule