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Forgot to tell you while I was making koulouria (Gr cookies) I had Knocked Up on. Seth R is a good actor but the movie was a bit crude for me —- actually VERY crude. It could have been so much more but alas, he was his typical self. She was really cute though.

Ladybug Reviews are film reviews by my mother. Visit her at Ladyblog.

Watched Last Chance Harvey yesterday. It wasn’t quite what I expected. Predictable for sure but I REALLY enjoyed the chemistry between DH and ET. DH was great! It was a short movie too which I like.

Ladybug Reviews are film reviews by my mother. Visit her at Ladyblog.

Krabat (2008, written by Michael Gutmann, Marco Kreuzpaintner, based on the novel by Otfried Preußler; directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner) is a fantasy film about a young man, who the film is named for, who is saved from poverty and homelessness. He is taken to a home where other young men are living and working for what turns out to be an evil sorcerer. Krabat is played by David Kross, who later in the year was seen alongside Kate Winslet in The Reader.

I liked it… it was a pretty entertaining watch. It’s very different from Kreuzpaintner’s two previous films, which were actually nothing alike… It plays out more like a drama than a traditional fantasy film, and there are small bits of action. The tone is pretty dark but not inappropriately so. I wouldn’t call this a kid’s film, but there’s not really anything really offensive in it. I did feel like the characters could have been developed a bit more, as it was a but unevenly story-driven. It does cover a variety of themes, though, and pretty well, such as the lure of evil, friendship, brotherhood and death - so it’s probably pretty appropriate for a mid-teen audience, but not young kids.

I’m a fan of Daniel Brühl so it was nice to see him co-starring. He and the director were present and did a Q&A after the screening.

I went to Lee’s Palace a couple of nights ago to see Friendly Fires and White Lies with Barb, Justin, John and Thilo. John loves Friendly Fires but unfortunately we only got to see a couple of songs when they opened for Lykke Li back in the spring. They were great and a lot of fun… and that singer does not stop dancing!

White Lies were good, too, but it’s difficult to compare the bands as they are so different. Friendly Fires clearly has more experience and is more comfortable on the stage. White Lies did a good job but I think they’ll be much more confident after a couple more tours. They looked exhausted and also a bit frightened! I’d been looking forward to seeing them and I clearly wasn’t the only one, seeing as the show was sold out.

Here are a few pics and videos that I took:

I saw Control (2007, directed by Anton Corbijn, written by Deborah Curtis and Matt Greenhalgh) as part of TIFF back in 2007. The director was in attendance for this Saturday 9am screening and when introducing the film, talked about his experience in photographing Ian Curtis and Joy Division back in the late 70’s. He mentioned that the first time he saw Sam Riley, it was exactly the same as when he first saw Ian Curtis: standing outside in the cold, shivering in a black trenchcoat and smoking a cigarette.

Watching this film was like watching a dream. I love Corbijn’s framing and thought the black and white beautiful. The performances were excellent and even though it was a pretty dark film (for obvious reasons), a love of music and of this group in particular is evident.

I don’t know how to describe how I feel about this film. I knew what was going to happen but still felt the emotional reaction that I’m sure was intended. I think the film is aesthetically beautiful. I love just looking at it, hearing the music with the images… and Sam Riley is virtually flawless, so that combined with Corbijn’s talent doesn’t hurt either.

I’ve been a fan of Joy Division for a long time and it was important for me to view this film as a dramatic telling of a story as opposed to a bio-pic consisting only of hard facts. I think the film’s style and pacing were consistent with the feel of Joy Division’s music. This film is way up there on the list for me.

I don’t know much about Jeremy Warmsley. I somehow acquired his latest album “How We Became” and I really love it. I like all types of music for many different reasons but this record feels like it’s perfect: catchy melodies, frail high male vocals, nerdy cute Brit singer, good production using a wide range of instruments with some subtle electronicss, oohs-and-ahhs… be still, my beating heart (which I used to say only beats for Sufjan).

I really like this band. I don’t know why, because they’re not the best band ever, and I’m sure there are some good reasons to dislike them and even laugh at them. But I can’t stop listening to the album and I am going to check out their show on 31 March at Lee’s Palace.

Zift is a neo-noir film from Bulgaria. It tells the story of a man who was jailed for a murder he did not commit. The story is in black and white and uses familiar noir techniques such as the voiceover, non-linear storytelling and the always-awesome femme fatale.

The film is super slick and stylish. Director Javor Gardev comes from almost twenty years of working as a theater stage manager or something and this is very obvious in the film’s choreographed, long take opening sequences.

I’m not going to comment on the Zift’s political statements so as not to make my ignorance so obvious, but in the q&a afterwards, the director had a fair amount to say about it. I will say, however, that this is the type of film that I attend the film festival for. In other words, I loved it!

Here’s a trailer. It has English subtitles:

Sauna is another project by director Antti-Jussi Annila in which he combines different genres in a bizarre mash-up. His previous film Jade Warrior (which played at TIFF in 2006) incorporated Chinese martial arts with Finnish mythology. This film takes the horror genre and tries to marry it with a historical epic.

It fails. The fourteenth century setting is instantly appealing but then becomes bland as we discover that the two main brothers and a team of three others are joining forces to map out a new Swedish-Russian border after a 25 year war. Yawn! Then the traditional, pre-Christian Finnish concept of the sauna washing sins away comes into play, and these characters certainly have a lot of no-no’s in their not-too-recent paths. The brother with the significantly lesser bloody past is haunted first, and the most, while his near-blind brother’s 73 kills take their turn later.

About the older one: a lot of attention is given to his poor eyesight and the use of his spectacles (still a rather new invention back then, I suppose), but aside from one comment near the end, it pretty much led to nothing. Maybe we were supposed to see the tough guy as being weak? I dunno.

The horror parts weren’t much more than jumpy, and the historical epic parts were uninteresting to me - at least as the subject matter of a film. They should have picked one and concentrated on that.

It did have a great look to it, though. The ominous sauna was very creepy and there is no way that I would have ever stepped into it. Also, the “scary thing”, although I have no idea why or how we see it at the end, was truly frightening; I wish that it had been used throughout the film instead of just at the end.

This was screening 5/26.