May 21, 2025 • 76 mins
This episode we begin our coverage of Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF)! We're discussing what we've seen so far, making recommendations, and letting you know when/where/how you can see the best films out of SIFF! All reviews and commentary are spoiler-free!
Timestamps
06:50 - Four Mothers
10:28 - Billy
14:50 - Cat Town, U.S.A.
18:20 - Paying for It
21:45 - Time Travel is Dangerous
26:22 - Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
31:19 - Struggle Without End
34:09 - Invention
40:05 - Fucktoys
46:40 - By Design
50:10 - Sorry, Baby
56:10 - Chain Reactions
1:04:30 - The Wailing
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
We were listening to another podcast that talks
about...
They're going through a list ofthings that make you gay.
Am I mistaken or was fallingdown one of them?
It
SPEAKER_02 (00:17):
has
SPEAKER_00 (00:17):
to have been
SPEAKER_02 (00:18):
at this point by now.
Tripping, definitely.
Then
SPEAKER_00 (00:25):
I've been really gay this week.
How
SPEAKER_02 (00:27):
many times have you fallen?
SPEAKER_00 (00:30):
Three times in two days.
Didn't you
SPEAKER_02 (00:31):
fall last, Sif?
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
Yeah.
I rolled the shit out of myankle.
I was crossing the street toavoid some people that were
asking me if I supportedtransfer.
No.
Get away from me.
No, but it was so funny.
I was actually coming back froma screening at midnight on the
(00:56):
bus.
And it was raining really hard.
So the bus is all wet.
And it was dumping.
It was dumping.
It's been it's raining rightnow.
Yeah.
And the bus was coming up to thestop and it was slowing all the
way down.
It was right at the stop.
And they did like a brake checkright as I was getting up.
(01:20):
Like they suddenly just steppedon the brakes.
So my feet slipped.
I landed on my ass.
I hit my...
So your feet came out underneathyou.
Yes.
Landed on the stairs.
Hit my elbow.
And someone did try to catch me,thankfully, which was very nice.
(01:42):
Good effort.
And it was embarrassing enoughthat someone was like, oh my
god, are you okay?
But no, I'm great.
This is actually how I get offthe bus.
I do this all the time.
And then the next day I wentroller skating for a friend's
birthday.
This will help me next time.
I did great.
(02:05):
Up until the last go-round, Ifailed Roller Skating Yeah, it
was fun.
So anyway, that's my story ofhow gay I am this
SPEAKER_01 (02:30):
week.
SPEAKER_00 (02:30):
Welcome to the
SPEAKER_01 (02:33):
haunted
SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
hotel.
UNKNOWN (02:39):
You can check in, but you may never check out.
Welcome to the haunted hotel.
SPEAKER_00 (02:51):
All right, everybody, welcome to The
Screaming Room, the only podcastabout movies.
This is your co-host, Sam, andI'm here with my co-host, Ralph.
Hi, Ralph.
Hey.
I'm liking your bandana era, bythe way.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (03:06):
I've been wearing it in place of like a hat because
it's not as hot.
I have a lot of hair on my head.
And it gets thick and it's longand I haven't cut it.
So I pull it out of my eyes bytying it with a bandana.
And I think I was joking tosomebody about I'm in my David
(03:28):
Foster Wallace era.
No, I'm not going to killmyself.
Don't go too far with that.
I'm just wearing
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
a bandana.
Wearing a bandana, consideringthe lobster and...
calling john up deck uh i thinkhe called him an erection with a
thesaurus
SPEAKER_02 (03:52):
in praise of lost highway actually that might yeah
that kind of layers with somestuff i watched so
SPEAKER_00 (04:00):
cool well i just a little bit of housekeeping at
the top of the episode here um Iknow we've said it in multiple
episodes that we're going tocover until dawn.
We will do it.
I just finished my replay of thevideo game, but we're going to
wait until it hits streaming,and then we're going to cover
it.
We're also going to get toBloodlines, the new Final
(04:22):
Destination movie, eventually.
But we are putting that offbecause this week marks the
beginning of the SeattleInternational Film Festival
in...
And we are going to be talkingabout new releases, or I guess
some of them aren't eventechnically released yet.
(04:43):
We're going to be doing somequick little reviews of what
we've been seeing at the filmfestival.
We're going to prioritize, likewe did last year, anything of
queer or trans interest and, ofcourse, horror interest, which I
have to say overall, just aslike a top level thought here,
Not as much horror this year.
(05:04):
Yeah.
Yeah, we had some bangers lastyear.
I mean,
SPEAKER_02 (05:10):
we had a straightforward slasher.
And a violent nature.
We had a more sort of cosmicexistential horror in I Saw the
TV Glow.
SPEAKER_00 (05:21):
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (05:23):
And Red Rooms being sort of a true crime kind of
thriller, but sort of thehorrifying maybe...
Consuming parts of being part ofthat.
SPEAKER_00 (05:34):
Red Rooms just gets better the more I think about
it.
It really does.
That's a must-watch, listener,from SIF last year.
Check out Red Rooms.
We also had Oddity played at thefestival.
That's right, that's right.
And we got thelong-in-production...
Full Moon feature, ThePrimevals, which I believe we
(05:57):
saw at...
Did we go to a midnightscreening of The Egyptian?
Yeah, we did do the midnight forthat one.
That was a blast.
Yeah.
That's one of my favorite FullMoon features, I think.
Absolutely.
But this year, like I said, thepickings are a little bit
slimmer, but we're going to getto what we can.
(06:17):
We still have a new film fromKiyoshi Kurosawa.
Coming up, a couple screeningsavailable for that.
But we're going to do our brieflittle reviews of what we've
seen.
And if there are screeningscoming up, we're going to let
you know.
That's mostly going to be goodinformation for people in the
Seattle and adjacent areas, ofcourse.
So apologies to internationallisteners.
(06:39):
But some of them are also goingto have online...
streaming available.
So we're going to try to callthat out when it applies.
Cool.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, why don't we start withthe opening night film?
I'm going to kick it off andwe're going to go back and forth
a little bit here.
(07:00):
So opening night at CIFF, theywere playing a film called Four
Mothers.
Directed by Darren Thornton andwritten by Colin Thornton.
This movie follows Edward, who'sa novelist saddled with caring
for his elderly mother.
He finally finds himself...
(07:20):
Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! I reallylike that description.
(07:49):
Wild, eccentric and wildlydifferent ladies.
This movie is it's a greatopening night selection.
I believe this is also availablein the UK already.
Cool.
It's it's just like an over theplate.
smalty, heartwarming littlecomedy.
(08:12):
Last year we had Thelma, which Iactually, for however cheesy it
was, I did really enjoy thatfilm.
Oh, yeah, I loved it.
SPEAKER_02 (08:19):
It was a very low stakes action.
kind of comedy movie with JuneSquibb, who I believe has some
other stuff coming out soon,too.
Maybe she was a presenter at theOscars this year.
SPEAKER_00 (08:33):
Oh, yeah, that's right.
I was like, I almost met her,but she was tired and she had to
go back to the hotel.
This movie is pretty funny.
There's a lot of exactly whatyou'd expect with like...
these these gals not gettingalong it's kind of this kind of
(08:55):
bit where it's just fourdifferently kind of rude old
women yeah and then contrastingthat with the gaze acting out
and then our lead character kindof stuck in the middle Edward
stuck in the middle it wasn't itwasn't great but it did put a
smile on my face here and thereit's it's really nothing
(09:17):
groundbreaking but, um, I can'tsay it wasn't charming in
places.
Cool.
I'll definitely check this out.
Yeah.
I, I will say, uh, if anyone,if, if three of my gay friends
did this to me, I would killthem straight up.
(09:41):
I mean, you're dead.
Yeah.
Sounds, uh, yeah.
Yeah.
So it's, you know, it's a, it'sa comedy.
So I can like kind of get overthe fact where I'm like, I kept
saying to myself, like, whywould anybody do this?
SPEAKER_01 (09:58):
Yeah.
This is so horrible.
SPEAKER_02 (10:01):
Yeah.
The situational comedy aspect oflike, but would you really put
up with this?
Why would you even, why would myfriends even consider this?
SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
What if these old birds were chirping?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was Four Mothers.
Check out the trailer.
See if it's your taste.
All right.
What do you got, Ralph?
What's
SPEAKER_02 (10:22):
your first one?
The first one I watched was amovie called Billy.
This year, SIF has a lot ofdocumentaries, which I do really
like.
At the same time, I'm like, putmore horror.
We at least got a horrordocumentary.
I don't want to learn anything.
I know.
But the first one I watched iscalled Billy.
(10:45):
And I'm just going to read thelittle blurb from the program
here.
In this compassionate yetdisturbing documentary, director
Lawrence Cote Collins inspectsthe life of former filmmaking
friend Billy Poulin, now inprison for murder, through his
(11:05):
own stockpile of video footageand deconstructs the effects of
untreated schizophrenia.
Sorry, I paused kind of weirdthere to make that sentence
sound strange.
Friend Billy Poulin, now inprison for murder, through his
own stockpile of video footage.
She's gone back through his ownarchive of video and is looking
(11:28):
at him and his schizophrenia.
Going into this, this one I cansay a full thing on it.
I'm not going to give away toomuch, but I kind of want to talk
a little bit about it because Iwas expecting it more to be like
a true crime kind ofdocumentary, which in part way
(11:49):
it is, but it's, it honestlydoesn't even mention, I mean, it
mentions that he killed twopeople, but they don't really
mention who those people arebecause they're sort of focusing
on him and his schizophrenia.
And I did, I mean, like it issort of weird to maybe not
include so much of the victims,but at the same time, I kind of
(12:10):
liked that aspect of the,there's so many of these
documentaries about, you know,people getting murdered and it
does the sort of twin peaks,Laura Palmer thing where it's
like this victim that you just,you keep seeing these same
images of them and it's sort of,it's, um, exploitative and
manipulative and it feels kindof gross to the victim's family
(12:32):
a little bit.
Yeah.
But, um, this movie, uh, goesinto his schizophrenia and his,
um, psychosis.
And it was extremely touchingand, uh, made me cry.
Um, cause there's moments inthere that he, he, you know, he,
(12:52):
he becomes aware of what he didwhen he was in his absolute,
just full mania psychosis.
Um, and he, he, he feelsterrible, but he doesn't, he
doesn't, you know, skirtresponsibility.
Uh, Yeah, I think it's a really,really eye-opening movie to
(13:15):
watch if you've never come intocontact with anybody or if you
have never known anybody withschizophrenia.
There's even a moment where thetwo of them kind of try and
visually and auditorily createsomething that looks and feels
like what someone in a higherlevel of their stage of...
(13:37):
schizophrenia episodes, likewhat it would feel like.
And I thought that was reallyfrightening.
It sounds intense.
Yeah, it's very intense.
So I would say definitely checkthis out.
It's called Billy.
And it's interesting because hewas a filmmaker and there's this
element of his own fantasy worldof the movies that he made and
(14:00):
then that sort of bleeding intohis real life of not being able
to discern reality from fromwhat he's creating.
SPEAKER_00 (14:09):
But yeah.
Yeah, you put this on my radarafter you saw it.
I'm definitely going to checkthis one out.
And if you want to see Billy,you can...
That
SPEAKER_02 (14:17):
one, unfortunately, has already gone through all the
in-person screenings.
Yes, I was just going to bringthat up.
But is it...
I'm sure this will be availablevirtually.
SPEAKER_00 (14:28):
It'll be available if you go to sift.net.
And click on the film festival.
You can get the full list offilms, including Billy, which is
going to be streaming online forCIFF from May 26th, that Monday,
through the following Sunday,June 1st.
So you can get it on there.
(14:49):
Awesome.
All right.
I think the rest of my movies upuntil we get to the end here are
going to be a little bitlighter.
Well, kind of.
This next movie made me cry.
So I watched.
I also watched a documentarycalled Cat Town USA.
UNKNOWN (15:04):
Mm hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (15:04):
this movie is about a couple Terry and Bruce Jenkins
who run the Cats CradleFoundation which is a living
community and hospice center forsenior cats and these cats that
for one reason or another haveno place left to go but still
have a lot of love if not lifeleft in them so as a cat owner I
(15:29):
cried through this entire movielaughing It feels a lot like
almost like a Christopher Guestkind of thing, like with the way
they kind of frame Terry andBruce and some of the other,
let's say, personalities, if notcharacters.
Yeah.
You know.
in their orbit but there's a lotof really cute cat footage
(15:53):
there's a lot of sad stories inhere you know because a lot of
times when you know a cat endsup at a shelter at an old age
it's either because they're sickor because their owner passed
away or can't take them inanymore take care of them
anymore but the little cat townis very very cute this is built
(16:14):
or this is expanding on A shortthat was actually at CIFF in
2019.
Directed by Jonathan Napolitano.
And I really did love thismovie.
Even though I kept grabbing mycats throughout it.
Because it was stressing me out.
Yeah.
(16:35):
Awesome.
My cats are only five.
We still have time.
SPEAKER_02 (16:38):
Yeah.
I've been putting off watchingthat.
Because you told me that it madeyou cry.
And I'm...
Yeah, being a pet sort of careprovider and a former cat owner
and having experienced multiplepets throughout various stages
(17:00):
of their life, it's...
Oh yeah.
Cause like some of the stuff onlike the silly stuff on like
Twitter, Instagram, the videosthat really get me are these
stories of animals being likerescued or abandoned when
they've been abandoned andthey're rescued.
I'm just sort of like, oh, thatshit breaks my heart, but it's
happy because it's like, theyget, they get this other life,
(17:22):
they get more love and it's, oh
SPEAKER_00 (17:25):
yeah, absolutely.
And that's like, and that's thesame caveat I would get.
Like, it can be kind of a hardwatch if you've just recently
lost a pet or you have anelderly pet.
This might be, you know, you gotto find yourself in the right
mood.
But along with that, it isreally like heartwarming and
(17:46):
inspiring in places.
So it's kind of a bittersweetmovie, but I did really enjoy
watching this one.
So that's Cat Town USA.
And if you're in Seattle, youcan see it Thursday, May 22nd,
or Saturday, May 24th at SIFUptown.
(18:07):
And it will also be on SIFstreaming from the 26th through
June 1st.
So Cat Town USA, I say check itout.
Awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (18:20):
Well, the next one I watched is called Paying For It.
I was...
This one immediately caught myattention because it is written
and directed by, or excuse me,adapted by Sook-Yin Lee, who did
(18:43):
this movie Short Bus, as well asmultiple other ones.
She also collaborates with JohnCameron Mitchell a lot, who I
believe was in Hedwig, The AngryInch, and a number of other
things.
Cool.
I remember the first time Ishot, I saw short bus and it
kind of shocked me because itwas sort of this like, wait,
(19:04):
that's real,
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
but this isn't porn,
SPEAKER_02 (19:06):
but
SPEAKER_00 (19:07):
yeah.
For those that don't know shortbus has a unsimulated sex.
And yeah, I mean, these peopleare
SPEAKER_02 (19:15):
fucking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's not like, it's, it'snot what you're maybe expecting.
Like it, I mean, there's acouple moments maybe like that,
but there's, it's more intimateand sort of just, Like, whoa.
So I was, like, so into that.
And when I saw this in the listof movies and her name by it, I
was excited.
So the little blurb about it isthat Sook-Yin Lee adapts her own
(19:39):
ex-boyfriend's welcomely tenderautofictional graphic novel
centering on a Toronto-basedcartoonist who begins hiring sex
workers when he and his partnerbreak up but decide to keep
living together.
I can say what I want aboutthis.
(20:01):
I love this movie.
It's extremely, extremelycharming and touching.
It's very odd.
I think I described it to you asa queer heterosexual story
because this guy goes to...
Yeah, he starts...
He realizes that he doesn't wanta romantic relationship anymore
(20:22):
after his partner is sort oflike, oh, I want to pursue
this...
This other thing that I might befalling in love with someone
else.
I want to see where this goes.
So he's like, okay.
And so he just decides to go tryout seeing sex workers.
And he finds that he loves it.
And he finds a specific one thathe ends up seeing for a long
(20:42):
time.
And it's just very, very sweetand very unconventional.
And Uh, yeah, just a really warmand it's very funny too.
There's a lot of really gooddialogue and these characters
are really, really fun.
Uh, so I would say absolutelycheck out paying for it.
It has passed the, it has gonethrough the theaters at SIF, but
(21:05):
I believe this will be available
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
online.
It's not on the SIF streamingservice yet.
I'm actually trying to find outnow, but, uh, no release date
info in terms of streaming keepan eye out reviews of this are
really good yeah keep an eye outfor
SPEAKER_02 (21:21):
it it's uh the actors are great too it's the
acting is wonderful and uh
SPEAKER_00 (21:27):
yeah the trailer made me laugh this is definitely
one i'm gonna i mean we stillhave our little press screeners
but i'm definitely gonna watchthis before the end of the
festival this looks great yeahit's yeah it made me feel good
um so yeah Okay, my next one isalso a comedy.
I think we accidentally kind ofpaired these up kind of nicely.
(21:49):
Oh, good.
This is getting a little bitcloser to our wheelhouse because
it's a genre film and a comedyas well.
Cool.
This is called Time Travel isDangerous, directed by Chris
Redding.
This is a British comedy.
And it's about these two friendsthat run a vintage shop.
(22:15):
And one day they discover in thetrash a time machine built out
of a bumper car.
And they start to use it to goback in time to collect
different objects to sell intheir store.
And that leads them to hookingup with the group of nerds and
(22:37):
inventors...
that originally created themachine.
And they realize there are a lotof repercussions towards using
this time machine.
And it gets very wacky, veryabsurd.
It's extremely goofy andgood-natured.
There's a lot of good laughs inthis.
(22:58):
The only thing that really heldme back from loving it is it's
like...
It has that fake documentarystyle that The Office,
especially both the UK and theUS version, that that show
really cemented in the format oftelevision comedies, and it
(23:20):
really breaks out into film alot.
I hate that style.
I really do.
The handheld...
camera with like the zoom ins onsomeone looking down the barrel
of the lens I hate that shitsort of winking asides to like
the camera people the film crewthat you never really see in
(23:41):
this is just it's not funnyanymore it's
SPEAKER_02 (23:46):
that like did you get that and it's like yeah I'm
literally filming a movie rightnow I'm filming it we're filming
it we got it
SPEAKER_00 (23:57):
yeah yeah Yeah, so I hate that bit.
But otherwise, time travel isdangerous is generally a good
time.
It gets really wacky.
And the core concept of usingyour time machine to run a
vintage shop is, I think, isreally funny.
(24:17):
Even though it kind of abandonsit partway through and then gets
back to it, like, near the end.
I like that concept.
And these personalities in thescience club, let's say, are
pretty funny.
There's a lot of gags around thedifferent inventions they're
(24:38):
making.
And it reminded me a lot ofMystery Science Theater.
They have the invention exchangebit.
Oh, fun.
It's a lot in that style.
So it's a lot of those kinds ofoverly complicated gizmos that
do...
a very specific or small thing.
Yeah.
Something like that.
(24:59):
Those jokes are fun.
Yeah.
I really liked the, the two leadactresses in this, especially.
So, yeah, I think overall, ifyou're looking for a little bit
of a laugh, like a lot of theSIF programming and a lot of
film festivals, I feel likegenerally can be pretty heavy.
And this was a good, bit ofcounter-programming to some of
(25:28):
the more serious stuff because Idid also see a movie about
genocide this week and I waslike in kind of a weird mood
after that
SPEAKER_02 (25:41):
yeah from watching it in the news to watching it in
a documentary or sorry not adocumentary a fictional version
another
SPEAKER_00 (25:53):
documentary Yeah.
So, yeah, that was Time Travelis Dangerous.
That's playing on the 23rd andthe 24th.
So Friday, this Friday andSaturday.
Both at TIFF Uptown.
Yep.
And then it's going to be onstreaming 26th through June 1st.
So, yeah.
Excellent.
If you're looking for a laugh,check it out.
SPEAKER_02 (26:13):
I'll definitely put that in my watch for the next
few sessions here.
Cool.
Cool.
All right.
The next one that I'm going totalk about is a movie called
Sanatorium Under the Sign of theHourglass.
SPEAKER_00 (26:34):
What a title.
SPEAKER_02 (26:35):
Yeah.
And this one is out of the UK.
I will say the first two moviesI mentioned, Billy is out of
Canada, out of Quebec.
So it's in French.
And then Paying for It is out ofCanada as well because they're
in Toronto, I think.
This one's out of the UK.
Also, I guess it looks likePoland and Germany with it too.
(26:56):
So this is a stop motion movie.
This
SPEAKER_00 (27:00):
one looked cool.
SPEAKER_02 (27:01):
It's really
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
cool.
The trailer's dope.
It's really cool.
Or the little clip that theygave us is dope.
SPEAKER_02 (27:05):
Yeah.
It's got some sections in itwhere it's live action, but they
do it in a way where it sort oflooks like it's sort of from the
silent film era, even thoughthere is sound in it.
And there's this object thatsomeone...
Actually, let me read thisblurb, and then I'll kind of get
(27:25):
into some of the specifics.
So this is directed by StephenQuay and Timothy Quay.
So the brothers Quay spinanother fantastical stop-motion
yarn with this surreal storyinspired by the work of Polish
writer Bruno Schultz about ayoung man on a ghostly train
(27:46):
ride toward a sanatorium...
All right, this
SPEAKER_00 (27:50):
sounds like it's getting
SPEAKER_02 (27:53):
closer to the horror genre.
Yeah.
It's fun.
There's this weird object, likeI said, that they sort of are
looking into, and it's sort oflike there's this story that's
unraveling about this man on ajourney.
And it's really, really fun.
(28:14):
It's...
Cool.
Creepy.
And I mean, there's stop motionis always going to be kind of
eerie to me because it's, it'suncanny and it like, you can
make it look so gross andgrotesque and weird and just the
movement of it doesn't looknatural.
But this also, uh, there's a lotthat really felt, uh, inspired
(28:35):
by and sort of maybe doing alittle homage to, um, David
Lynch and specifically anepisode in the return, uh, I
can't remember which one, TwinPeaks, The Return, but it's an
episode where we see Dale kindof floating in this weird space,
(28:57):
Ether, and there's a lot of justimpressionistic stuff that's
happening.
There's a lot of repetitive kindof like zoom-ins and zoom-outs
of these spaces and the way thatit's lit and even the mechanical
things that's happening.
In this movie, they're lookingthrough this sort of like...
Uh, porthole that kind of lookslike the gold orb that's
(29:18):
featured in that return episode.
It's, it's really cool.
I really, really liked it.
It's, it's a eerie spooky andit's, it is kind of like,
what's, where are they?
What's going on?
Uh, I loved it.
I mean, I think stop motion isreally, really incredible and
very, um, uh, admirable there'sso much work and effort that
goes into
SPEAKER_00 (29:37):
that stuff and it's yeah something that we were
talking about a little bit lastyear too with especially the
prime evils like the amount ofwork that and craftsmanship that
goes into stop motion is alwaysreally impressive to me like i
animation in general like i'mlike i don't know how we as a
species are able to have thecapacity to even do this.
(30:00):
Sometimes it just blows my mind.
Like it's just not something I'mbuilt to like do.
Yeah.
Certainly are like fullyunderstand, but when it's done
compellingly, man, it, it reallyknocks my socks off.
SPEAKER_02 (30:15):
Yeah.
Uh, the, there is one morescreening happening on Friday,
May 23rd at 1 PM.
It's at SIF downtown, which is,I believe that's, is that the
AMC?
No,
SPEAKER_00 (30:29):
that's the old Cinerama.
Oh, okay, that's right.
So that might be, that's one ofthe best screens in the city.
Cool.
One of the best places to see amovie in Seattle.
The only caveat is that theseats recline.
And you can't stop them.
One of my films I'm about totalk about, I saw down there.
(30:50):
And when I sat down in my seat,I was like, fuck, that's right.
I forgot about these goddamnseats.
These goddamn seats.
Well, go right into it.
So that was called SanatoriumUnder the Sign of the Hourglass.
Yes.
Great.
So...
Do you have one more before weget into the ones that we both
(31:13):
saw?
I have two more.
Okay, perfect.
I also have two more.
So my next film is calledStruggle Without End.
This is the one that I saw atSIF downtown.
(31:34):
Oh, wait, where did my notes gofor this?
Hang on one sec.
I'm struggling without and.
This is a New Zealand film.
Oh, that's right.
It's sorted under thenon-English title.
So this is a Maori language filmabout the 1864 Battle of Orakau.
(32:00):
as an indigenous tribe defendstheir land from invading British
forces.
This movie looks really good.
I think this is an importantstory.
Definitely seeing it on theCinerama screen helped it out a
lot.
It's a very frustrating and darkperiod in history, especially
(32:25):
for the Maori people, becausethis is early in the The
genocide that the British wouldperpetrate against the Maori
people in New Zealand.
And you get some text at thebeginning and the end that kind
of explains and bookends likewhere this specific battle kind
of falls in the history of theMaori people in the history of
(32:48):
New Zealand and kind of lays outthe ultimate story.
devastation of those people thatwould be done at the hands of
the British I left this movie ina very weird mood I I think it's
again I think this is animportant story I don't think
(33:08):
this is a great movie I thinkthere are moments of greatness
in it I think it looks awesome Ithought the cast was phenomenal
the narrative was just okay IAnd yeah, again, I think this is
a commendable film and animportant story.
And I'm glad it's beingprogrammed here at CIFF for
(33:33):
sure.
I don't know if...
I think all the screenings ofthis one are done for the
festival.
I believe this may be availableoutside of the U.S.
already.
But as of now, it's notstreaming here.
But I would definitely recommendlooking into this to see if this
is in your interests.
Because, again, it is acommendable film, just not a
(33:57):
great one.
But that's okay.
So that was Struggle WithoutEnd, directed by Mike Jonathan.
Yeah, check it out.
SPEAKER_02 (34:09):
Cool.
All right, the next one that Iwatched was called Invention.
Ooh, yeah, I want to see thisstill.
So I'm going to read this littleblurb here.
Callie Hernandez co-writes andstars in this inventive
auto-fictional indie that evokesthe tone of a Haruki Murakami
(34:32):
detective story as a daughterinvestigates her estranged late
father's experimental healthmarketing schemes.
That is quite a description.
I mean, this...
Immediately caught my attentionbecause in this it says Callie
Hernandez, in parentheses, TheEndless, which is a movie I
(34:55):
really love.
And it's by, I forget theirfirst names.
Benson and Moorhead.
Benson and Moorhead.
And she's in that one, TheEndless.
They do a handful of other kindof weird sci-fi kind of...
SPEAKER_00 (35:07):
Yeah.
Where, what is this?
Yeah, they've built out...
this interesting little sci-fiuniverse across their four
feature films, I think.
Yeah, they do some cult stufftoo, don't they?
Yeah, that's part of it, butit's still all in the same
universe.
The Endless, I think, is thecult one.
Oh, yeah, yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (35:26):
yeah.
So this one, like that littleblurb says, she's
investigating...
specifically this one inventionthat she's inherited the patent
of from her father because herfather has died and she goes to
talk to some of his co-workersand colleagues and fellow
(35:47):
scientists and inventors andthey all kind of seem really
really interested in wantingthis patent the product because
they're kind of asking her likewhat are you going to do with it
and she's like trying to figureout what she wants to do
apparently this product was onthe market but then suddenly uh,
you know, the, whoever us, Idon't know that the institutions
(36:11):
that be, I guess they, theypulled it.
And, you know, sometimesthere's, I think there's
history, a history of in thiscountry, the United States that,
you know, people come up withideas and somebody gets wind of
it or gets ahold of it.
And then they take, they'll takeit from you and they'll exploit
(36:31):
it and they'll, you know, makemoney off of it as their own.
And so there was kind ofquestions of that, like maybe he
was assassinated for this thing.
But honestly, it's not thatimportant in this.
It feels like it's kind of thiswoman who is sort of, I don't
know, wanting to figure out howto keep her father alive because
(36:53):
she's sort of learning about herfather through all these people.
She's grieving him because he'sjust died.
And there's these reallyinteresting, like, you know,
infomercial kind of footage thatthey'll splice in of these
different like wacky healthdevices, like things that
(37:13):
supposedly tech, you know, we'retrying to just elongate our
lives and, you know, keep our,our bodies as healthy as
possible.
And it's kind of, it's, it'sinteresting.
It's, it's, it's, they, theydescribed it in this blurb as
like a Murakami detective.
And it does sort of feel likeit's kind of subdued, but it's
(37:33):
also like, weirdly in itsfeelings and kind of...
It does sort of feel likethere's a little...
It could be a noir if theyleaned a little more into that
kind of realm.
But it's interesting.
It's a little quirky.
It feels like a very...
This feels like a film festivalmovie.
(37:56):
If that makes sense.
I kind of get what you're sayingthere.
This one and the next one that Iwill talk about, they feel like
film festival movies.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
These are weird.
The style of this looks kind ofcool.
I did see it was shot in 16mm.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (38:11):
so it's got a graininess to it that I kind of
liked.
Honestly, it sort of feels likea film school movie.
It reminded me a little bit ofsome moments in Lose by a
singer.
Tillman Singer.
Not the movie Lose that'splaying at SIF this year.
No, not that one.
It was a different movie.
(38:32):
Same spelling.
Different movie.
But yeah, this one was, I don'tthink everybody's going to like
it.
There's not a lot of like, itdoesn't get really interesting.
exciting.
Okay.
So it's, it's more of asimmering kind of moody kind of,
(38:53):
Oh, that's weird.
And then you get to enjoy, likeI said, all these kind of weird
infomercial inventions of, oftech devices that may or may not
exist.
I can't remember if some of, Ithink some of them are real, but
some of them may have been sortof just made up or, you know,
taken from other people's sortof starts of inventions that,
yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:12):
Okay.
Well, I might, I might stillcheck this out.
I think you would like
SPEAKER_02 (39:14):
it.
I just, for our listeners, I'mnot sure everybody would enjoy
it, but if you like Benson andMoorhead and you liked Callie
Hernandez and that, I think it'sa really interesting little
story.
So,
SPEAKER_00 (39:27):
okay.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's a invention, uh,by Courtney Stevens.
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (39:32):
Sorry.
The director is CourtneyStevens, who I think was also
the other co-writer.
SPEAKER_00 (39:36):
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I'm seeing here.
Uh, so check that out.
Uh, Or don't,
SPEAKER_02 (39:42):
if you don't like weird shit.
It's not screening in theatersanymore.
The last one was a couple daysago, but it might be online.
I don't know.
It seems like one that would beavailable, but I said that last
time and it wasn't.
I
SPEAKER_00 (39:57):
know.
I don't know.
This one I don't think isavailable to stream yet.
Okay.
But yeah, that's invention.
All right.
We did do a good job of pairingup our...
reviews here i thinkaccidentally because i'm going
into another 16 millimeter filmi so right after i saw that
depressing genocide movie i wentto the theater to see fuck toys
(40:23):
uh written by directed by andstarring anna perna shriram This
is a described as a lush 16millimeter fever dream that
reimagines the fool's journey ofthe major arcana of the tarot
through the story of AP, a rosyyoung woman seeking salvation
(40:44):
from a curse.
She is promised by not just one,but multiple psychics that it
can be lifted for a coolthousand dollars and a simple
teeny tiny sacrifice of a babylamb.
So I went to the late screeningof this.
(41:06):
It was sold out.
I thankfully was able to get inwith our press pass, but I was
really, really excited aboutthis.
This is a queer andtrans-oriented story.
It feels a lot like a JohnWaters movie.
(41:26):
There are elements of it thatfeel like Uh, like there's a
little bit of trauma worldbuilding in there because they,
they refer to it as like trashtown USA, basically.
Cool.
Which makes me think of traumabill.
Yeah.
And like, uh, it's, it's justthis wild, like road movie.
(41:47):
It's about AP, this maincharacter, you know, uh, trying
to make a thousand bucks so shecan get this curse lifted off of
her.
And throughout her journey, she,uh, She meets basically
different characters that matchup with the different cards in
the Major Arcana.
And yeah, there's a lot of funstuff in here.
(42:10):
And along that journey, there'sa lot of sex work.
And I think that's depictedreally well and in a really
funny way that I reallyappreciated.
I am not a sex worker, butthere's...
A lot of examples of problematicrepresentations of sex work that
drive me fucking crazy.
I saw this again like with asold out audience and the energy
(42:36):
was like really high.
People were loving this.
And I did love right at thebeginning.
Well when I got into the theaterlike in the lobby they're
playing like.
uh big frida and like justbounce music hell yeah and i
like asked the concession personi was like is this big frida she
was like yeah she's like bigfrida's in the movie i was like
(42:56):
oh i didn't know that like i'mso excited uh so big frida plays
the uh the first psychic uh inthis film but she's she's so
much fun like i i just love heruh if you don't know uh Big
Freedia, she's a bouncemusician.
She's got this incredibly hugevoice.
(43:22):
I think I described her tosomeone recently as like her
voice, whenever she shows up ina song, it sounds like a genie
coming out of a bottle.
Just announcing herself andcommanding you to do something.
SPEAKER_01 (43:42):
But
SPEAKER_00 (43:51):
I really like this.
I thought there was some reallyfun trans mask representation in
this as well.
Hell yeah.
Oh, I'm excited.
AP's sidekick is Transmask.
Hell yeah.
So yeah, they're the secondcharacter in this movie.
It's just a blast.
The story is ridiculous.
It's all over the place.
(44:11):
But it's about the journey, notthe destination.
So yeah, this is a huge, hugerecommendation from me.
This is one of my favorites ofthe festival so far.
Cool.
If not my favorite.
It's just an absolute blast.
Awesome.
And it was really funny.
(44:33):
Because I was in the passholders line, we got in first,
which is nice because then youdon't have to ask everybody as
the theater fills up, is thatseat taken?
What about that seat?
So I just snagged something inthe aisle.
And I realized as the theaterfilled up, I was like, oh, I
(44:53):
think a couple of the filmmakerssat behind me.
And I was overhearing theirconversation, and then Anna
Perna said her name to someoneelse.
I was like, oh, I'm sitting infront of the director.
The writer-director star.
Star.
It was kind of funny.
So I was like, oh, thatimmediately made me a little
(45:14):
self-conscious.
I was like, okay, don't touch myphone.
pay attention laugh but it waseasy to do because uh i i i
really did love this movie andit was kind of funny too i'm
like you see her boobs a lot atparts of this movie i was like
(45:40):
oh she's sitting right behind meyou just turn around you're like
SPEAKER_02 (45:43):
Nice.
SPEAKER_00 (45:44):
Nice.
Good job.
Give the thumbs up.
She has a 1312 tattoo on hershoulder as well.
Oh, you're cool.
She did a little Q&A at the end,which was fun.
Hell yeah.
But then I left as she wasanswering the last question to
get on the bus that caused me toeat shit, as I described at the
(46:04):
top of this episode.
But that is Fuck Toys, directedby Anna Pernaschura.
Uh, yeah, again, big, big thumbsup.
Uh, I think that's about to hitstreaming.
I think in the next month iswhat I read.
Um, cause it's just finishingall of its, uh, festival dates,
(46:26):
but definitely put that in yourwatch list.
If, uh, John Waters or trauma or16 millimeter hallucinatory
tarot based adventures appeal toyou.
SPEAKER_02 (46:40):
Cool.
Well, I, uh, This year, startingoff the festival, I've been a
little bit busy and preoccupiedwith some work, so I haven't
been able to make any in-personscreenings yet.
Um, so I did, uh,
SPEAKER_00 (46:59):
through a lot of films though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (47:01):
Yeah.
There's, they've, they've had alot of movies available, uh, to
the press, uh, through thesescreeners this year, which I
really appreciate.
And I did reach out to the, theSIF press team to see if I could
get a screener for fuck toysbecause I do really want to see
it.
Uh, and they said they're,they're going to get back to me.
So they are.
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
They're, they're great.
I, I really appreciate them.
(47:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (47:22):
The SIF press team is there.
They've been very, very sweet.
SPEAKER_02 (47:25):
Yeah.
Good to us.
But so my last one before we doour overlap, I'm just going to
do a short one because this isjust a capsule review one.
It's called By Design.
Playful...
Oh, God, I don't know how topronounce this fucking word.
(47:47):
Playful provocateur...
SPEAKER_00 (47:52):
You got it.
SPEAKER_02 (47:53):
I haven't said that word out loud in a while.
Amanda, playful provocateur,Amanda Kramer has crafted
another audacious performanceart based piece of absurdist
satire about fetish and desireas a lonely woman, Juliette
Lewis swaps bodies with a chaironly to find comfort in life.
(48:20):
so yeah so it's directed byamanda kramer like it said uh
stars juliet lewis uh mamuduathi samantha mathis robin
tooney who we know from thecraft and some other things but
um yeah just like that said itwas it it's oh melanie griffith
(48:42):
oh yeah she does the narrationOh, great.
Yeah.
Why have I not seen it?
It's got a couple of otherpeople in there.
It's got, oh, Joe Swanson fromYou're Next.
Oh, yeah.
He looks very different from thewhiny brother in that movie.
Oh,
SPEAKER_00 (48:58):
wait.
Udo Kier's in this, too.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, God.
I
SPEAKER_02 (49:00):
forgot.
Udo Kier's the designer of thechair.
Oh, perfect.
UNKNOWN (49:04):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (49:05):
It's got a lot of people in it.
And it's about, yeah, bodyswapping with a chair.
And it's fun.
I think you'll like it.
So I think you should check itout.
Okay.
Should I do the show times?
Oh, yeah.
(49:25):
It's coming.
We can see it.
You can see it.
Oh, boy.
Tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00 (49:32):
Yeah, this episode might not be out by tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02 (49:34):
So I don't know.
Is it going to be out Wednesdaythe 21st?
If it is today, 4.30 p.m.
Oh, God.
If it comes out before 4.30p.m., it's at CIFF Cinema
SPEAKER_00 (49:42):
Uptown.
Cool.
And then this will also be onCIFF streaming after the 26th.
So, yeah.
And I believe those are for thestreaming...
I believe that's availableinternationally as well.
I did see a couple of films arelimited to Washington state
specifically.
Uh, but I don't think thatapplies to anything we've talked
(50:04):
about today yet.
Um, okay.
I do.
I just realized I missed count.
I miscounted.
I have one more before we getinto our final two films.
Um, I, uh, I'm not going to saytoo much about this film.
Uh, But I do want to bring itup.
I was able to see thedirectorial debut by Ava Victor
(50:28):
called Sorry Baby.
This one is picked up by A24.
It's going to be the closingnight film at CIFF.
This is sort of a tragic comedy,kind of a serious dramatic
comedy.
(50:49):
Yeah.
about Ava Victor's character.
And again, we have anothertriple threat here.
She writes, directs, and starsin this movie.
And basically, this is a storyabout a woman's journey after
something tragic happens to her,which I think it's fair to say
(51:11):
involves sexual assault.
And it's about the absurdity ofthe world around her as she
processes that and, yeah, triesto deal with it, let's say.
This movie is extremely funny.
(51:33):
Extremely, extremely funny.
This is a great...
directorial debut by Ava Victor,who I previously only know from
that one TikTok video where shekilled her husband.
I
SPEAKER_02 (51:44):
definitely did not kill my husband.
Oh,
SPEAKER_00 (51:49):
it's so funny.
I'm excited to see this.
I'm going to go to bed.
You're going to love it.
This is one of the other bestfilms that I've seen this year
at the festival.
I I think a lot of people aregoing to get a lot out of this
movie.
I'm curious what the release isgoing to be like for A24 because
(52:12):
I could see this having somebroader appeal.
But it's just a fantastic,fantastic film.
The absurd stuff that sheexperiences in this is so great
where she's like, you know,she's dealing with like the
doctor after the assault andshe's dealing with you know the
(52:37):
people at work because this wasone of her co-workers that
perpetrated this and it's justit's just a more realistic I
think look about what this typeof assault is I think a lot of
films tend to sensationalizerape in ways that are supposed
(53:03):
to be dramatic and kind ofoffensive a lot of the times and
this yeah this movie kind of isan examination of the effects on
the people that this very oftenand far too often the people
(53:27):
that are often affected by it ISo this was great.
And that being said, it is alsofunny.
So don't let the heavy subjectmatter necessarily scare you
away.
And I will say the incident isnot depicted on screen.
(53:48):
So if that's something that youmight be concerned about, I'll
just let you know now.
That's going to be the closingnight film at SIF.
That's going to be on May 24that downtown.
And then I don't think I havethe release date for this one.
Oh, June 27th.
(54:08):
It's hitting theaters.
I do have that in front of me.
So definitely get out and seethis.
It's...
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's great to see a movie...
about this topic made by womenand, uh, I believe about their
experiences.
I'm not sure if that'sparticular to Ava Victor, but,
uh, yeah, I think it's animportant perspective and it's
(54:32):
nice to see it in this, again,this kind of bittersweet way
where it's like, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (54:42):
Yeah.
I mean, I, I think it could gettiresome to, see these
depictions and stories of thisstuff and just sort of in this
way, leaving you just sort offeeling like distraught and in
despair and just sort of like,Oh, I'm, I'm, they're wounded
forever.
You know, they're just going tobe forever kind of feeling, you
(55:04):
know, like, yeah, there's, she,there's other, other ways that
are, that are of being aftercertain, you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (55:14):
yeah no I hear you I hear you like there's people
process these experiences in alot of different ways and this
is about a character trying tofind out how she can process
what happened to her and I thinkthat's an important story to be
told and in in this film it'sagain it's presented as like an
(55:38):
absurd type of process whereshe's like she's not sure how to
do it
SPEAKER_01 (55:42):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (55:43):
And I think that's a pretty common experience.
SPEAKER_01 (55:46):
Hey!
SPEAKER_00 (55:51):
Great, my cats are getting into the chips.
Hang on one second.
Let me pause this very seriousconversation.
SPEAKER_01 (55:59):
All right, well,
SPEAKER_00 (56:01):
let's get into the last two of our viewings here.
These are two that we both saw,and these are properly in the
horror genre.
Our first film...
(56:21):
is going to be Chain Reactions,directed by Alexandre
O'Philippe.
He does documentariespredominantly around genre and
horror films.
His last film was Lynch Oz,which is an exploration of David
Lynch and his obsession with TheWizard of Oz.
(56:46):
He's also done documentaries onAlien, Psycho, and a film that
explores zombie fandom, and afilm that explores Star Wars
fandom.
That was actually prettypopular, I believe, back in
2010.
SPEAKER_02 (56:58):
Interesting.
SPEAKER_00 (57:01):
So Chain Reactions ties back into a franchise we
just finished.
This is about the legacy ofTexas Chainsaw Massacre.
We can't get away from it.
This song is life.
So this film is based aroundfour or five different
(57:21):
interviews with differentcreatives.
And each of these individualssort of talks about the film's
legacy and what it meant tothem.
So we've got Patton Oswalt,Takashi Miike, Alexandra
Heller-Nicholas, who didWoodland's Darkened Days
(57:42):
Bewitched.
the documentary about folkhorror.
We have the God, Stephen King,who brings up Skinnamarink in
this movie.
And then Karen Kusama.
So five great talking headfeatures in here.
Absolutely.
This was when we got the initiallist of SIF films, I was like, I
(58:06):
can't fucking believe thismovie's in here.
The timing was just perfect.
I had a lot of fun with this,especially coming off the heels
of our franchise rewatch.
How about
SPEAKER_02 (58:18):
you?
Oh, I had a great time.
I mean, I think I kind of textedyou about it a little bit, but
the fact that we just did allthis deep dive on all of these
movies, and especially the firstone, the hearing, basically all
of these creative people say alot of the things that we have
said.
And I mean, like, you know,there's stuff that's been said
(58:40):
about it over and over again,but as well as like other, other
interesting personal sort ofrelations to the movie that all
of them had.
And it actually made me, uh,come up with a few Takashi Miike
movies to watch for Shocktoberthis year.
Cause I was like, Oh yeah, Ineed to see these.
And I, of course I should haverealized that this kind of movie
(59:00):
and, uh, Also, I think the onething that stood out to me is
that all of them veryspecifically vividly, you know,
hold on to that, that hookscene, that meat hook scene.
And I just think that's reallyincredible.
That's just that a movie likethat can be, you know, The best
horror movie of all time, if notthe best movie.
(59:20):
I think I even said that to you.
Watching this, it just makes mefeel more like this is the best
maybe movie ever.
SPEAKER_00 (59:28):
Kind of a bold statement.
One of the best American filmsfor sure.
It's the kind of thing thatfeels like...
it does feel like one of themost American films, if not just
one of the best American filmsever made.
Like it feels like something sounique to this country that it
(59:49):
couldn't have arisen fromanywhere else.
It's, it's such a unique andpowerful film.
And yeah, you can tell throughthese five interviews, like just
how much of an impression itmade on these extremely good,
creators I did love that theybrought Patton Oswalt on because
(01:00:14):
he's the only one that's not Idon't think he's ever directed
anything yeah I believe everyoneelse has yeah super fan he's
just a super fan and his jokeabout the title of the movie is
it's been burned in my brainsince I first heard it it's so
funny that's really great allright Maybe I'll drop the clip
(01:00:37):
in here, but they played at thebeginning of the documentary.
And it's just a great way tokind of get into the legacy of
what this film is known for.
Yeah, the legacy of this film.
And it starts with that fuckingtitle.
Like, it's such a good title.
(01:01:00):
It was so good it was banned.
UNKNOWN (01:01:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:02):
yeah yeah yeah and it's it's also amazing to me
that like I think we talkedabout it a little bit that it
was like one of the titles thatthey were considering was like
what was it head cheese oh yeahSaturn in retrograde in
retrograde it's like oh my godcan you imagine seeing that
(01:01:22):
title at your drive-in like nopass boring boring Um, did you
have a favorite, uh, talkinghead interview in this, by the
way?
Uh, Karen
SPEAKER_02 (01:01:35):
Kusama.
Um, she was, I, her moviedestroyer is might be in my like
top 20 movies ever favorite.
I just, I just, I knew you lovedthat.
I just, it's, oh man, it's sucha performance.
It's a, it's a really simplestory, but the way that it's
(01:01:56):
done is I, so I, I really likedit.
And everything else that she'skind of been involved in.
I think she was directing a lotof the first season of The
Yellow Jackets.
She did a handful of otherthings I really like and has
been a part of.
So I just, I liked her.
seeing that she also loves thismovie so much.
(01:02:17):
I mean, it's, I think if you'regoing to be a director in a, in
horror at some point, he, yougotta love this movie.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02:25):
Like, I don't know.
I don't know if I want to see ahorror director that doesn't
have an appreciation for thisfilm.
I don't, I don't know how thatwould work.
Yeah, really.
But yeah, this was, uh, I thinkgenerally the appeal of this
film is going to be mostly forhorror people.
I think it's going to be hard toget a wider appeal here.
(01:02:48):
But but this is one of thosemovies that's just like is so
indelibly like I think I'm usingthat word right connected to
like American pop culture thateveryone has.
Every American has anunderstanding of it and outside
the US of course as well likeTakashi Miike talks about that a
(01:03:09):
little bit yeah when that moviecame to Japan and he's like I
think he compares the the shockthat he felt watching this to
like seeing grave of thefireflies yes yeah he just
couldn't believe what was on thescreen uh and it's yeah so it's
(01:03:31):
it's really fun to hear uh thesepeople talk about a movie that
we we both love and yeah i uhyeah i thought the uh the five
voices that they chose were wereperfect
SPEAKER_02 (01:03:45):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (01:03:48):
All right, so that's Chain Reactions.
It'll probably be streamingsoon.
I didn't find a date for this,actually.
I think all the...
Am I right in thinking that allof the screenings for SIF have
gone by?
(01:04:09):
Yes, they have.
So unfortunately, it's notscreening at SIF anymore.
But yeah, if you're a horror fanand you're a, especially if
you're a Texas Chainsaw fan,100% seek this out.
It's a lot of fun.
Yeah.
Ditto.
(01:04:30):
All right.
And that means we've got onelast film to talk about here.
And that is called, this film iscalled The Wailing.
The Wailing.
And no, it's not the Korean filmfrom 10 years ago.
(01:04:52):
Actually, let me pull up thesynopsis here unless you've got
it.
I've got the one in the program.
SPEAKER_02 (01:04:57):
Yeah, read it.
All right.
Three women separated in timeand space are unknowingly
connected by a threat thatnobody can explain.
Something is stalking them andprovoking unthinkable acts of
violence with one eerie thing incommon.
the disturbing sound of awailing.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05:15):
That's about right.
Yeah.
I, this is one of the likeproper horror genre films.
Uh, this is a, a very spookysupernatural film that is from
Argentina, I think, or I thinkthere's multiple parts of it.
Yes.
(01:05:35):
Spain, France, and Argentina.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Uh, I really enjoyed this.
I had to watch this in twosittings, though, because I
started to fall asleep.
And when I got to the end, I waslike, I did.
I'll be honest.
I was like, I might have missedsomething.
I had to pull all of themtogether.
(01:05:57):
So I'm going to give this oneanother go because there are
some very good scares in thismovie.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:04):
I loved this movie.
I loved it.
It's got like three parts,essentially.
And they're each following, likethis said, different timelines
of them.
And this first woman is more inthe present time and some weird
stuff starts happening.
They do some awesome stuff withlike the phone and sort of
(01:06:27):
shadows in the back and likereally eerie stuff.
People start dying kind ofbrutally.
It opens pretty violently.
It's got a really good kickoff.
And then you go back in time andyou kind of see maybe how one of
the These people back in timemight be related to this woman
(01:06:48):
that we followed at thebeginning.
Um, and there's this same sortof figure that's appearing
through the handy cam of thisfilm student and it's really
creepy and it's really eerie andit's got some really good, like,
you know, like zooming in onsome like stuff in the
background.
Um, there's some really good,yeah, just like stuff with, uh,
(01:07:11):
I can't remember if it's like alighter or something.
There's a nice, like light.
There's a very good lighter.
Yeah.
That's spooky.
There's, it's like, it's reallygood.
And there was at one point whereI, I, I thought that this was
going to be a standard kind oflike, Oh, it's mental illness
being passed down throughgeneration or like trauma.
(01:07:34):
But, um, I found at least myreading of it was that these
women had, uh, gone throughabuse at the hands of a man, uh,
and had just sort of continuedthat cycle of abuse of like not
stopping it.
(01:07:56):
Cause there's a moment, I mean,maybe we should cut this out
cause it's giving away, butjust,
SPEAKER_00 (01:08:01):
I don't want to give away too much about this at the
SPEAKER_02 (01:08:03):
end that really ties it all together.
I'll just say that.
Um, so I think, I think thatthere's something about that,
about abuse, uh, that's thatthese women have been suffering
and you know, how hard it is tobreak that cycle.
Um, but yeah, Because thisspecter, this figure you'll find
is, you know, sort ofsignificant of what the specter
(01:08:26):
is, I guess.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (01:08:27):
Yeah.
And it does have like this moviedoes have a feel that's
comparable to like it follows inkind of aesthetic.
I would say that I think a lotof horror people would find
appealing.
Yeah.
I'm trying not to give too muchaway I do want to say though
(01:08:49):
that
SPEAKER_02 (01:08:49):
this was the other film that I wanted to bring up
in regards to Lost Highwaybecause there's especially
there's I love this moviebecause it goes back in time
where there's this film studentmaking a movie on her handy cam
and there's some stuff that likereally feels like some shots
from Lost Highway where it'slike I mean there's a lot of
David Lynch stuff where it's ared room with like a light
behind you and they're on thephone but like it really there's
(01:09:11):
this weird you know oh I'm youknow I'm in your house now I'm
following you like oh I've got acamera on you you know like it's
really really eerie and just ohyeah
SPEAKER_00 (01:09:23):
I love this hell yeah like this is directed by
Pedro Martin Calero I have notseen his other film I oh it's
just a short film excuse me I'mjust pulling up his director
credentials right now so this isa debut feature from him pretty
impressive actually I definitelyrecommend this.
(01:09:47):
I'm going to watch it again.
Like I said, I had to do it intwo bites, which I should not
have done.
I
SPEAKER_02 (01:09:55):
might go see it again because we've still got
one more screening at PacificPlace on Sunday, May 25th at
6.30 p.m.
I think I'm
SPEAKER_00 (01:10:08):
going to try and go there.
So if you're in Seattle,downtown Seattle on the 25th,
Um, yeah, let me know if you goto that.
I would, I would love to seethis with an audience too.
And like, there's, there's somuch like spooky lighting and
like dark moody settings in thisthat, uh, even on my, my TV or
my computer screen, I, I waslike, oh, I kind of want to see
(01:10:32):
this on a big screen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially with some of the, uh,let's say the scary scenes.
Yeah.
I wanted a little bit moredetail.
There's some good
SPEAKER_02 (01:10:44):
sound stuff, too, that I think would be really
good to have the, like, ooh,it's coming from all directions,
behind me, in front of me,beside me kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00 (01:10:56):
Well, yeah, and this is the...
Again, this is the first, like,straight-up-and-down horror
movie that we've watched for thefestival, and it's a strong one.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (01:11:06):
It might be the only one that's gonna really,
really...
SPEAKER_00 (01:11:10):
check
SPEAKER_02 (01:11:11):
as
SPEAKER_00 (01:11:12):
many boxes Sif if you're listening hire us to do
your programming for next yearwe do horror programming yeah
but still there's been a lot ofgreat films so far and a lot
more to come we've got anotherweek and then yeah everything
(01:11:34):
hits streaming so that was TheWailing And like we said, that's
playing Sunday the 25th.
And then streaming date TBD.
So if you're in the Seattlearea, get out and definitely see
this in person at AMC PacificPlace.
Go to sift.net for more info.
(01:11:57):
Of the films that we've talkedabout today, do you have a
standout favorite?
SPEAKER_02 (01:12:02):
It's probably The Wailing or...
What was the other one that I...
I've already forgotten.
We did just talk about like,what, like 15 movies or
something.
Yeah.
Oh, um, paying for it.
I think.
Okay.
I'm definitely going to watchthat.
Yeah.
That one looks like fun.
(01:12:23):
Uh, yeah.
I'm, I'm really excited to checkout cloud by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Yeah, I'm really excited aboutthat.
There's a couple others herethat I'm excited to go see in
person.
Sorry, I was leaning away fromthe microphone.
By the way, speaking of
SPEAKER_00 (01:12:39):
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, I had a friend that works at one
of the pubs around here.
He came up to me the other dayand he was like, have you seen
Cure?
I just watched Cure.
I was like, Cure?
I'm not making fun of this.
I was like, yeah, it's one of myfavorite movies.
(01:13:00):
Uh, so yeah, that's, yeah.
I mean, I'm a huge KiyoshiKurosawa fan.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm excited about that.
Uh, yeah.
My big standouts aside from thewhaling, uh, like I've already
mentioned, uh, Fuck toys.
And sorry, baby.
We're both fucking great.
(01:13:21):
Hell yeah.
And yeah.
Yeah.
So if you have a chance to seeeither of those, I'll just say
it again.
Definitely, definitely checkthem out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Well.
Thank you everybody forlistening to The Screaming Room,
the only podcast about moviesthis week.
(01:13:44):
We're going to be continuing ourSeattle International Film
Festival coverage.
We'll probably have anotherepisode in a couple days, maybe
a few days.
Once we stack up, bank a fewmore viewings, we'll come back
with another roundup just likethis one.
Yeah.
Thank you all for listening.
And thank you again to the teamover at SIF for being so
(01:14:06):
generous.
Yeah.
Thank you, SIF.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So check out SIF.net.
That's S-I-F-F dot net.
And if you're enjoying the show,please give us a five-star
review on Apple Podcasts orSpotify Mobile.
It helps us get discovered bynew listeners.
And if you'd like to support theshow with money, click support
the show in the show notes.
(01:14:27):
And in the future, we're goingto be doing the Hellraiser
franchise, and we're going tocontinue our Final Destination
franchise coverage.
eventually uh and then i canupdate people about my new
tattoo which i did not want tobring up in this episode but
that'll be mentioned in thefinal destination episode yeah
(01:14:49):
um and as always find us onsocial media both instagram and
twitter uh search the name ofthe show that is the screaming
room you will find us there uhAnd you can email us at
screamingroompod at gmail.com.
There, I think I got everything.
SPEAKER_02 (01:15:04):
I think you did.
I think you did.
And we will get to Until Dawn.
SPEAKER_00 (01:15:09):
Yes.
Again, I just finished my replayof the video game, too, so I
want to do it while it's freshin my mind.
It's wild how many people are inthat.
I forgot that, like, Rami Malekand Hayden Panettiere are both
in the video game.
Oh, shit.
Wow.
Yeah.
There's a few other names inthere, but we'll get to them
when we finally cover that.
Yeah.
I'm excited to watch it.
(01:15:30):
I've heard it's bad.
SPEAKER_01 (01:15:33):
Woo!
SPEAKER_00 (01:15:36):
All right.
Well, thank you again, dearlistener.
And until next episode, may allof your film festivals be
international.
Yes.
Goodbye.
SPEAKER_01 (01:15:48):
Bye.
(01:16:11):
Outro Music Outro Music
We were listening to another podcast that talks
about...
They're going through a list ofthings that make you gay.
Am I mistaken or was fallingdown one of them?
It
SPEAKER_02 (00:17):
has
SPEAKER_00 (00:17):
to have been
SPEAKER_02 (00:18):
at this point by now.
Tripping, definitely.
Then
SPEAKER_00 (00:25):
I've been really gay this week.
How
SPEAKER_02 (00:27):
many times have you fallen?
SPEAKER_00 (00:30):
Three times in two days.
Didn't you
SPEAKER_02 (00:31):
fall last, Sif?
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
Yeah.
I rolled the shit out of myankle.
I was crossing the street toavoid some people that were
asking me if I supportedtransfer.
No.
Get away from me.
No, but it was so funny.
I was actually coming back froma screening at midnight on the
(00:56):
bus.
And it was raining really hard.
So the bus is all wet.
And it was dumping.
It was dumping.
It's been it's raining rightnow.
Yeah.
And the bus was coming up to thestop and it was slowing all the
way down.
It was right at the stop.
And they did like a brake checkright as I was getting up.
(01:20):
Like they suddenly just steppedon the brakes.
So my feet slipped.
I landed on my ass.
I hit my...
So your feet came out underneathyou.
Yes.
Landed on the stairs.
Hit my elbow.
And someone did try to catch me,thankfully, which was very nice.
(01:42):
Good effort.
And it was embarrassing enoughthat someone was like, oh my
god, are you okay?
But no, I'm great.
This is actually how I get offthe bus.
I do this all the time.
And then the next day I wentroller skating for a friend's
birthday.
This will help me next time.
I did great.
(02:05):
Up until the last go-round, Ifailed Roller Skating Yeah, it
was fun.
So anyway, that's my story ofhow gay I am this
SPEAKER_01 (02:30):
week.
SPEAKER_00 (02:30):
Welcome to the
SPEAKER_01 (02:33):
haunted
SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
hotel.
UNKNOWN (02:39):
You can check in, but you may never check out.
Welcome to the haunted hotel.
SPEAKER_00 (02:51):
All right, everybody, welcome to The
Screaming Room, the only podcastabout movies.
This is your co-host, Sam, andI'm here with my co-host, Ralph.
Hi, Ralph.
Hey.
I'm liking your bandana era, bythe way.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (03:06):
I've been wearing it in place of like a hat because
it's not as hot.
I have a lot of hair on my head.
And it gets thick and it's longand I haven't cut it.
So I pull it out of my eyes bytying it with a bandana.
And I think I was joking tosomebody about I'm in my David
(03:28):
Foster Wallace era.
No, I'm not going to killmyself.
Don't go too far with that.
I'm just wearing
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
a bandana.
Wearing a bandana, consideringthe lobster and...
calling john up deck uh i thinkhe called him an erection with a
thesaurus
SPEAKER_02 (03:52):
in praise of lost highway actually that might yeah
that kind of layers with somestuff i watched so
SPEAKER_00 (04:00):
cool well i just a little bit of housekeeping at
the top of the episode here um Iknow we've said it in multiple
episodes that we're going tocover until dawn.
We will do it.
I just finished my replay of thevideo game, but we're going to
wait until it hits streaming,and then we're going to cover
it.
We're also going to get toBloodlines, the new Final
(04:22):
Destination movie, eventually.
But we are putting that offbecause this week marks the
beginning of the SeattleInternational Film Festival
in...
And we are going to be talkingabout new releases, or I guess
some of them aren't eventechnically released yet.
(04:43):
We're going to be doing somequick little reviews of what
we've been seeing at the filmfestival.
We're going to prioritize, likewe did last year, anything of
queer or trans interest and, ofcourse, horror interest, which I
have to say overall, just aslike a top level thought here,
Not as much horror this year.
(05:04):
Yeah.
Yeah, we had some bangers lastyear.
I mean,
SPEAKER_02 (05:10):
we had a straightforward slasher.
And a violent nature.
We had a more sort of cosmicexistential horror in I Saw the
TV Glow.
SPEAKER_00 (05:21):
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (05:23):
And Red Rooms being sort of a true crime kind of
thriller, but sort of thehorrifying maybe...
Consuming parts of being part ofthat.
SPEAKER_00 (05:34):
Red Rooms just gets better the more I think about
it.
It really does.
That's a must-watch, listener,from SIF last year.
Check out Red Rooms.
We also had Oddity played at thefestival.
That's right, that's right.
And we got thelong-in-production...
Full Moon feature, ThePrimevals, which I believe we
(05:57):
saw at...
Did we go to a midnightscreening of The Egyptian?
Yeah, we did do the midnight forthat one.
That was a blast.
Yeah.
That's one of my favorite FullMoon features, I think.
Absolutely.
But this year, like I said, thepickings are a little bit
slimmer, but we're going to getto what we can.
(06:17):
We still have a new film fromKiyoshi Kurosawa.
Coming up, a couple screeningsavailable for that.
But we're going to do our brieflittle reviews of what we've
seen.
And if there are screeningscoming up, we're going to let
you know.
That's mostly going to be goodinformation for people in the
Seattle and adjacent areas, ofcourse.
So apologies to internationallisteners.
(06:39):
But some of them are also goingto have online...
streaming available.
So we're going to try to callthat out when it applies.
Cool.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, why don't we start withthe opening night film?
I'm going to kick it off andwe're going to go back and forth
a little bit here.
(07:00):
So opening night at CIFF, theywere playing a film called Four
Mothers.
Directed by Darren Thornton andwritten by Colin Thornton.
This movie follows Edward, who'sa novelist saddled with caring
for his elderly mother.
He finally finds himself...
(07:20):
Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! I reallylike that description.
(07:49):
Wild, eccentric and wildlydifferent ladies.
This movie is it's a greatopening night selection.
I believe this is also availablein the UK already.
Cool.
It's it's just like an over theplate.
smalty, heartwarming littlecomedy.
(08:12):
Last year we had Thelma, which Iactually, for however cheesy it
was, I did really enjoy thatfilm.
Oh, yeah, I loved it.
SPEAKER_02 (08:19):
It was a very low stakes action.
kind of comedy movie with JuneSquibb, who I believe has some
other stuff coming out soon,too.
Maybe she was a presenter at theOscars this year.
SPEAKER_00 (08:33):
Oh, yeah, that's right.
I was like, I almost met her,but she was tired and she had to
go back to the hotel.
This movie is pretty funny.
There's a lot of exactly whatyou'd expect with like...
these these gals not gettingalong it's kind of this kind of
(08:55):
bit where it's just fourdifferently kind of rude old
women yeah and then contrastingthat with the gaze acting out
and then our lead character kindof stuck in the middle Edward
stuck in the middle it wasn't itwasn't great but it did put a
smile on my face here and thereit's it's really nothing
(09:17):
groundbreaking but, um, I can'tsay it wasn't charming in
places.
Cool.
I'll definitely check this out.
Yeah.
I, I will say, uh, if anyone,if, if three of my gay friends
did this to me, I would killthem straight up.
(09:41):
I mean, you're dead.
Yeah.
Sounds, uh, yeah.
Yeah.
So it's, you know, it's a, it'sa comedy.
So I can like kind of get overthe fact where I'm like, I kept
saying to myself, like, whywould anybody do this?
SPEAKER_01 (09:58):
Yeah.
This is so horrible.
SPEAKER_02 (10:01):
Yeah.
The situational comedy aspect oflike, but would you really put
up with this?
Why would you even, why would myfriends even consider this?
SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
What if these old birds were chirping?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was Four Mothers.
Check out the trailer.
See if it's your taste.
All right.
What do you got, Ralph?
What's
SPEAKER_02 (10:22):
your first one?
The first one I watched was amovie called Billy.
This year, SIF has a lot ofdocumentaries, which I do really
like.
At the same time, I'm like, putmore horror.
We at least got a horrordocumentary.
I don't want to learn anything.
I know.
But the first one I watched iscalled Billy.
(10:45):
And I'm just going to read thelittle blurb from the program
here.
In this compassionate yetdisturbing documentary, director
Lawrence Cote Collins inspectsthe life of former filmmaking
friend Billy Poulin, now inprison for murder, through his
(11:05):
own stockpile of video footageand deconstructs the effects of
untreated schizophrenia.
Sorry, I paused kind of weirdthere to make that sentence
sound strange.
Friend Billy Poulin, now inprison for murder, through his
own stockpile of video footage.
She's gone back through his ownarchive of video and is looking
(11:28):
at him and his schizophrenia.
Going into this, this one I cansay a full thing on it.
I'm not going to give away toomuch, but I kind of want to talk
a little bit about it because Iwas expecting it more to be like
a true crime kind ofdocumentary, which in part way
(11:49):
it is, but it's, it honestlydoesn't even mention, I mean, it
mentions that he killed twopeople, but they don't really
mention who those people arebecause they're sort of focusing
on him and his schizophrenia.
And I did, I mean, like it issort of weird to maybe not
include so much of the victims,but at the same time, I kind of
(12:10):
liked that aspect of the,there's so many of these
documentaries about, you know,people getting murdered and it
does the sort of twin peaks,Laura Palmer thing where it's
like this victim that you just,you keep seeing these same
images of them and it's sort of,it's, um, exploitative and
manipulative and it feels kindof gross to the victim's family
(12:32):
a little bit.
Yeah.
But, um, this movie, uh, goesinto his schizophrenia and his,
um, psychosis.
And it was extremely touchingand, uh, made me cry.
Um, cause there's moments inthere that he, he, you know, he,
(12:52):
he becomes aware of what he didwhen he was in his absolute,
just full mania psychosis.
Um, and he, he, he feelsterrible, but he doesn't, he
doesn't, you know, skirtresponsibility.
Uh, Yeah, I think it's a really,really eye-opening movie to
(13:15):
watch if you've never come intocontact with anybody or if you
have never known anybody withschizophrenia.
There's even a moment where thetwo of them kind of try and
visually and auditorily createsomething that looks and feels
like what someone in a higherlevel of their stage of...
(13:37):
schizophrenia episodes, likewhat it would feel like.
And I thought that was reallyfrightening.
It sounds intense.
Yeah, it's very intense.
So I would say definitely checkthis out.
It's called Billy.
And it's interesting because hewas a filmmaker and there's this
element of his own fantasy worldof the movies that he made and
(14:00):
then that sort of bleeding intohis real life of not being able
to discern reality from fromwhat he's creating.
SPEAKER_00 (14:09):
But yeah.
Yeah, you put this on my radarafter you saw it.
I'm definitely going to checkthis one out.
And if you want to see Billy,you can...
That
SPEAKER_02 (14:17):
one, unfortunately, has already gone through all the
in-person screenings.
Yes, I was just going to bringthat up.
But is it...
I'm sure this will be availablevirtually.
SPEAKER_00 (14:28):
It'll be available if you go to sift.net.
And click on the film festival.
You can get the full list offilms, including Billy, which is
going to be streaming online forCIFF from May 26th, that Monday,
through the following Sunday,June 1st.
So you can get it on there.
(14:49):
Awesome.
All right.
I think the rest of my movies upuntil we get to the end here are
going to be a little bitlighter.
Well, kind of.
This next movie made me cry.
So I watched.
I also watched a documentarycalled Cat Town USA.
UNKNOWN (15:04):
Mm hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (15:04):
this movie is about a couple Terry and Bruce Jenkins
who run the Cats CradleFoundation which is a living
community and hospice center forsenior cats and these cats that
for one reason or another haveno place left to go but still
have a lot of love if not lifeleft in them so as a cat owner I
(15:29):
cried through this entire movielaughing It feels a lot like
almost like a Christopher Guestkind of thing, like with the way
they kind of frame Terry andBruce and some of the other,
let's say, personalities, if notcharacters.
Yeah.
You know.
in their orbit but there's a lotof really cute cat footage
(15:53):
there's a lot of sad stories inhere you know because a lot of
times when you know a cat endsup at a shelter at an old age
it's either because they're sickor because their owner passed
away or can't take them inanymore take care of them
anymore but the little cat townis very very cute this is built
(16:14):
or this is expanding on A shortthat was actually at CIFF in
2019.
Directed by Jonathan Napolitano.
And I really did love thismovie.
Even though I kept grabbing mycats throughout it.
Because it was stressing me out.
Yeah.
(16:35):
Awesome.
My cats are only five.
We still have time.
SPEAKER_02 (16:38):
Yeah.
I've been putting off watchingthat.
Because you told me that it madeyou cry.
And I'm...
Yeah, being a pet sort of careprovider and a former cat owner
and having experienced multiplepets throughout various stages
(17:00):
of their life, it's...
Oh yeah.
Cause like some of the stuff onlike the silly stuff on like
Twitter, Instagram, the videosthat really get me are these
stories of animals being likerescued or abandoned when
they've been abandoned andthey're rescued.
I'm just sort of like, oh, thatshit breaks my heart, but it's
happy because it's like, theyget, they get this other life,
(17:22):
they get more love and it's, oh
SPEAKER_00 (17:25):
yeah, absolutely.
And that's like, and that's thesame caveat I would get.
Like, it can be kind of a hardwatch if you've just recently
lost a pet or you have anelderly pet.
This might be, you know, you gotto find yourself in the right
mood.
But along with that, it isreally like heartwarming and
(17:46):
inspiring in places.
So it's kind of a bittersweetmovie, but I did really enjoy
watching this one.
So that's Cat Town USA.
And if you're in Seattle, youcan see it Thursday, May 22nd,
or Saturday, May 24th at SIFUptown.
(18:07):
And it will also be on SIFstreaming from the 26th through
June 1st.
So Cat Town USA, I say check itout.
Awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (18:20):
Well, the next one I watched is called Paying For It.
I was...
This one immediately caught myattention because it is written
and directed by, or excuse me,adapted by Sook-Yin Lee, who did
(18:43):
this movie Short Bus, as well asmultiple other ones.
She also collaborates with JohnCameron Mitchell a lot, who I
believe was in Hedwig, The AngryInch, and a number of other
things.
Cool.
I remember the first time Ishot, I saw short bus and it
kind of shocked me because itwas sort of this like, wait,
(19:04):
that's real,
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
but this isn't porn,
SPEAKER_02 (19:06):
but
SPEAKER_00 (19:07):
yeah.
For those that don't know shortbus has a unsimulated sex.
And yeah, I mean, these peopleare
SPEAKER_02 (19:15):
fucking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's not like, it's, it'snot what you're maybe expecting.
Like it, I mean, there's acouple moments maybe like that,
but there's, it's more intimateand sort of just, Like, whoa.
So I was, like, so into that.
And when I saw this in the listof movies and her name by it, I
was excited.
So the little blurb about it isthat Sook-Yin Lee adapts her own
(19:39):
ex-boyfriend's welcomely tenderautofictional graphic novel
centering on a Toronto-basedcartoonist who begins hiring sex
workers when he and his partnerbreak up but decide to keep
living together.
I can say what I want aboutthis.
(20:01):
I love this movie.
It's extremely, extremelycharming and touching.
It's very odd.
I think I described it to you asa queer heterosexual story
because this guy goes to...
Yeah, he starts...
He realizes that he doesn't wanta romantic relationship anymore
(20:22):
after his partner is sort oflike, oh, I want to pursue
this...
This other thing that I might befalling in love with someone
else.
I want to see where this goes.
So he's like, okay.
And so he just decides to go tryout seeing sex workers.
And he finds that he loves it.
And he finds a specific one thathe ends up seeing for a long
(20:42):
time.
And it's just very, very sweetand very unconventional.
And Uh, yeah, just a really warmand it's very funny too.
There's a lot of really gooddialogue and these characters
are really, really fun.
Uh, so I would say absolutelycheck out paying for it.
It has passed the, it has gonethrough the theaters at SIF, but
(21:05):
I believe this will be available
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
online.
It's not on the SIF streamingservice yet.
I'm actually trying to find outnow, but, uh, no release date
info in terms of streaming keepan eye out reviews of this are
really good yeah keep an eye outfor
SPEAKER_02 (21:21):
it it's uh the actors are great too it's the
acting is wonderful and uh
SPEAKER_00 (21:27):
yeah the trailer made me laugh this is definitely
one i'm gonna i mean we stillhave our little press screeners
but i'm definitely gonna watchthis before the end of the
festival this looks great yeahit's yeah it made me feel good
um so yeah Okay, my next one isalso a comedy.
I think we accidentally kind ofpaired these up kind of nicely.
(21:49):
Oh, good.
This is getting a little bitcloser to our wheelhouse because
it's a genre film and a comedyas well.
Cool.
This is called Time Travel isDangerous, directed by Chris
Redding.
This is a British comedy.
And it's about these two friendsthat run a vintage shop.
(22:15):
And one day they discover in thetrash a time machine built out
of a bumper car.
And they start to use it to goback in time to collect
different objects to sell intheir store.
And that leads them to hookingup with the group of nerds and
(22:37):
inventors...
that originally created themachine.
And they realize there are a lotof repercussions towards using
this time machine.
And it gets very wacky, veryabsurd.
It's extremely goofy andgood-natured.
There's a lot of good laughs inthis.
(22:58):
The only thing that really heldme back from loving it is it's
like...
It has that fake documentarystyle that The Office,
especially both the UK and theUS version, that that show
really cemented in the format oftelevision comedies, and it
(23:20):
really breaks out into film alot.
I hate that style.
I really do.
The handheld...
camera with like the zoom ins onsomeone looking down the barrel
of the lens I hate that shitsort of winking asides to like
the camera people the film crewthat you never really see in
(23:41):
this is just it's not funnyanymore it's
SPEAKER_02 (23:46):
that like did you get that and it's like yeah I'm
literally filming a movie rightnow I'm filming it we're filming
it we got it
SPEAKER_00 (23:57):
yeah yeah Yeah, so I hate that bit.
But otherwise, time travel isdangerous is generally a good
time.
It gets really wacky.
And the core concept of usingyour time machine to run a
vintage shop is, I think, isreally funny.
(24:17):
Even though it kind of abandonsit partway through and then gets
back to it, like, near the end.
I like that concept.
And these personalities in thescience club, let's say, are
pretty funny.
There's a lot of gags around thedifferent inventions they're
(24:38):
making.
And it reminded me a lot ofMystery Science Theater.
They have the invention exchangebit.
Oh, fun.
It's a lot in that style.
So it's a lot of those kinds ofoverly complicated gizmos that
do...
a very specific or small thing.
Yeah.
Something like that.
(24:59):
Those jokes are fun.
Yeah.
I really liked the, the two leadactresses in this, especially.
So, yeah, I think overall, ifyou're looking for a little bit
of a laugh, like a lot of theSIF programming and a lot of
film festivals, I feel likegenerally can be pretty heavy.
And this was a good, bit ofcounter-programming to some of
(25:28):
the more serious stuff because Idid also see a movie about
genocide this week and I waslike in kind of a weird mood
after that
SPEAKER_02 (25:41):
yeah from watching it in the news to watching it in
a documentary or sorry not adocumentary a fictional version
another
SPEAKER_00 (25:53):
documentary Yeah.
So, yeah, that was Time Travelis Dangerous.
That's playing on the 23rd andthe 24th.
So Friday, this Friday andSaturday.
Both at TIFF Uptown.
Yep.
And then it's going to be onstreaming 26th through June 1st.
So, yeah.
Excellent.
If you're looking for a laugh,check it out.
SPEAKER_02 (26:13):
I'll definitely put that in my watch for the next
few sessions here.
Cool.
Cool.
All right.
The next one that I'm going totalk about is a movie called
Sanatorium Under the Sign of theHourglass.
SPEAKER_00 (26:34):
What a title.
SPEAKER_02 (26:35):
Yeah.
And this one is out of the UK.
I will say the first two moviesI mentioned, Billy is out of
Canada, out of Quebec.
So it's in French.
And then Paying for It is out ofCanada as well because they're
in Toronto, I think.
This one's out of the UK.
Also, I guess it looks likePoland and Germany with it too.
(26:56):
So this is a stop motion movie.
This
SPEAKER_00 (27:00):
one looked cool.
SPEAKER_02 (27:01):
It's really
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
cool.
The trailer's dope.
It's really cool.
Or the little clip that theygave us is dope.
SPEAKER_02 (27:05):
Yeah.
It's got some sections in itwhere it's live action, but they
do it in a way where it sort oflooks like it's sort of from the
silent film era, even thoughthere is sound in it.
And there's this object thatsomeone...
Actually, let me read thisblurb, and then I'll kind of get
(27:25):
into some of the specifics.
So this is directed by StephenQuay and Timothy Quay.
So the brothers Quay spinanother fantastical stop-motion
yarn with this surreal storyinspired by the work of Polish
writer Bruno Schultz about ayoung man on a ghostly train
(27:46):
ride toward a sanatorium...
All right, this
SPEAKER_00 (27:50):
sounds like it's getting
SPEAKER_02 (27:53):
closer to the horror genre.
Yeah.
It's fun.
There's this weird object, likeI said, that they sort of are
looking into, and it's sort oflike there's this story that's
unraveling about this man on ajourney.
And it's really, really fun.
(28:14):
It's...
Cool.
Creepy.
And I mean, there's stop motionis always going to be kind of
eerie to me because it's, it'suncanny and it like, you can
make it look so gross andgrotesque and weird and just the
movement of it doesn't looknatural.
But this also, uh, there's a lotthat really felt, uh, inspired
(28:35):
by and sort of maybe doing alittle homage to, um, David
Lynch and specifically anepisode in the return, uh, I
can't remember which one, TwinPeaks, The Return, but it's an
episode where we see Dale kindof floating in this weird space,
(28:57):
Ether, and there's a lot of justimpressionistic stuff that's
happening.
There's a lot of repetitive kindof like zoom-ins and zoom-outs
of these spaces and the way thatit's lit and even the mechanical
things that's happening.
In this movie, they're lookingthrough this sort of like...
Uh, porthole that kind of lookslike the gold orb that's
(29:18):
featured in that return episode.
It's, it's really cool.
I really, really liked it.
It's, it's a eerie spooky andit's, it is kind of like,
what's, where are they?
What's going on?
Uh, I loved it.
I mean, I think stop motion isreally, really incredible and
very, um, uh, admirable there'sso much work and effort that
goes into
SPEAKER_00 (29:37):
that stuff and it's yeah something that we were
talking about a little bit lastyear too with especially the
prime evils like the amount ofwork that and craftsmanship that
goes into stop motion is alwaysreally impressive to me like i
animation in general like i'mlike i don't know how we as a
species are able to have thecapacity to even do this.
(30:00):
Sometimes it just blows my mind.
Like it's just not something I'mbuilt to like do.
Yeah.
Certainly are like fullyunderstand, but when it's done
compellingly, man, it, it reallyknocks my socks off.
SPEAKER_02 (30:15):
Yeah.
Uh, the, there is one morescreening happening on Friday,
May 23rd at 1 PM.
It's at SIF downtown, which is,I believe that's, is that the
AMC?
No,
SPEAKER_00 (30:29):
that's the old Cinerama.
Oh, okay, that's right.
So that might be, that's one ofthe best screens in the city.
Cool.
One of the best places to see amovie in Seattle.
The only caveat is that theseats recline.
And you can't stop them.
One of my films I'm about totalk about, I saw down there.
(30:50):
And when I sat down in my seat,I was like, fuck, that's right.
I forgot about these goddamnseats.
These goddamn seats.
Well, go right into it.
So that was called SanatoriumUnder the Sign of the Hourglass.
Yes.
Great.
So...
Do you have one more before weget into the ones that we both
(31:13):
saw?
I have two more.
Okay, perfect.
I also have two more.
So my next film is calledStruggle Without End.
This is the one that I saw atSIF downtown.
(31:34):
Oh, wait, where did my notes gofor this?
Hang on one sec.
I'm struggling without and.
This is a New Zealand film.
Oh, that's right.
It's sorted under thenon-English title.
So this is a Maori language filmabout the 1864 Battle of Orakau.
(32:00):
as an indigenous tribe defendstheir land from invading British
forces.
This movie looks really good.
I think this is an importantstory.
Definitely seeing it on theCinerama screen helped it out a
lot.
It's a very frustrating and darkperiod in history, especially
(32:25):
for the Maori people, becausethis is early in the The
genocide that the British wouldperpetrate against the Maori
people in New Zealand.
And you get some text at thebeginning and the end that kind
of explains and bookends likewhere this specific battle kind
of falls in the history of theMaori people in the history of
(32:48):
New Zealand and kind of lays outthe ultimate story.
devastation of those people thatwould be done at the hands of
the British I left this movie ina very weird mood I I think it's
again I think this is animportant story I don't think
(33:08):
this is a great movie I thinkthere are moments of greatness
in it I think it looks awesome Ithought the cast was phenomenal
the narrative was just okay IAnd yeah, again, I think this is
a commendable film and animportant story.
And I'm glad it's beingprogrammed here at CIFF for
(33:33):
sure.
I don't know if...
I think all the screenings ofthis one are done for the
festival.
I believe this may be availableoutside of the U.S.
already.
But as of now, it's notstreaming here.
But I would definitely recommendlooking into this to see if this
is in your interests.
Because, again, it is acommendable film, just not a
(33:57):
great one.
But that's okay.
So that was Struggle WithoutEnd, directed by Mike Jonathan.
Yeah, check it out.
SPEAKER_02 (34:09):
Cool.
All right, the next one that Iwatched was called Invention.
Ooh, yeah, I want to see thisstill.
So I'm going to read this littleblurb here.
Callie Hernandez co-writes andstars in this inventive
auto-fictional indie that evokesthe tone of a Haruki Murakami
(34:32):
detective story as a daughterinvestigates her estranged late
father's experimental healthmarketing schemes.
That is quite a description.
I mean, this...
Immediately caught my attentionbecause in this it says Callie
Hernandez, in parentheses, TheEndless, which is a movie I
(34:55):
really love.
And it's by, I forget theirfirst names.
Benson and Moorhead.
Benson and Moorhead.
And she's in that one, TheEndless.
They do a handful of other kindof weird sci-fi kind of...
SPEAKER_00 (35:07):
Yeah.
Where, what is this?
Yeah, they've built out...
this interesting little sci-fiuniverse across their four
feature films, I think.
Yeah, they do some cult stufftoo, don't they?
Yeah, that's part of it, butit's still all in the same
universe.
The Endless, I think, is thecult one.
Oh, yeah, yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (35:26):
yeah.
So this one, like that littleblurb says, she's
investigating...
specifically this one inventionthat she's inherited the patent
of from her father because herfather has died and she goes to
talk to some of his co-workersand colleagues and fellow
(35:47):
scientists and inventors andthey all kind of seem really
really interested in wantingthis patent the product because
they're kind of asking her likewhat are you going to do with it
and she's like trying to figureout what she wants to do
apparently this product was onthe market but then suddenly uh,
you know, the, whoever us, Idon't know that the institutions
(36:11):
that be, I guess they, theypulled it.
And, you know, sometimesthere's, I think there's
history, a history of in thiscountry, the United States that,
you know, people come up withideas and somebody gets wind of
it or gets ahold of it.
And then they take, they'll takeit from you and they'll exploit
(36:31):
it and they'll, you know, makemoney off of it as their own.
And so there was kind ofquestions of that, like maybe he
was assassinated for this thing.
But honestly, it's not thatimportant in this.
It feels like it's kind of thiswoman who is sort of, I don't
know, wanting to figure out howto keep her father alive because
(36:53):
she's sort of learning about herfather through all these people.
She's grieving him because he'sjust died.
And there's these reallyinteresting, like, you know,
infomercial kind of footage thatthey'll splice in of these
different like wacky healthdevices, like things that
(37:13):
supposedly tech, you know, we'retrying to just elongate our
lives and, you know, keep our,our bodies as healthy as
possible.
And it's kind of, it's, it'sinteresting.
It's, it's, it's, they, theydescribed it in this blurb as
like a Murakami detective.
And it does sort of feel likeit's kind of subdued, but it's
(37:33):
also like, weirdly in itsfeelings and kind of...
It does sort of feel likethere's a little...
It could be a noir if theyleaned a little more into that
kind of realm.
But it's interesting.
It's a little quirky.
It feels like a very...
This feels like a film festivalmovie.
(37:56):
If that makes sense.
I kind of get what you're sayingthere.
This one and the next one that Iwill talk about, they feel like
film festival movies.
SPEAKER_00 (38:04):
These are weird.
The style of this looks kind ofcool.
I did see it was shot in 16mm.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (38:11):
so it's got a graininess to it that I kind of
liked.
Honestly, it sort of feels likea film school movie.
It reminded me a little bit ofsome moments in Lose by a
singer.
Tillman Singer.
Not the movie Lose that'splaying at SIF this year.
No, not that one.
It was a different movie.
(38:32):
Same spelling.
Different movie.
But yeah, this one was, I don'tthink everybody's going to like
it.
There's not a lot of like, itdoesn't get really interesting.
exciting.
Okay.
So it's, it's more of asimmering kind of moody kind of,
(38:53):
Oh, that's weird.
And then you get to enjoy, likeI said, all these kind of weird
infomercial inventions of, oftech devices that may or may not
exist.
I can't remember if some of, Ithink some of them are real, but
some of them may have been sortof just made up or, you know,
taken from other people's sortof starts of inventions that,
yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:12):
Okay.
Well, I might, I might stillcheck this out.
I think you would like
SPEAKER_02 (39:14):
it.
I just, for our listeners, I'mnot sure everybody would enjoy
it, but if you like Benson andMoorhead and you liked Callie
Hernandez and that, I think it'sa really interesting little
story.
So,
SPEAKER_00 (39:27):
okay.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's a invention, uh,by Courtney Stevens.
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (39:32):
Sorry.
The director is CourtneyStevens, who I think was also
the other co-writer.
SPEAKER_00 (39:36):
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I'm seeing here.
Uh, so check that out.
Uh, Or don't,
SPEAKER_02 (39:42):
if you don't like weird shit.
It's not screening in theatersanymore.
The last one was a couple daysago, but it might be online.
I don't know.
It seems like one that would beavailable, but I said that last
time and it wasn't.
I
SPEAKER_00 (39:57):
know.
I don't know.
This one I don't think isavailable to stream yet.
Okay.
But yeah, that's invention.
All right.
We did do a good job of pairingup our...
reviews here i thinkaccidentally because i'm going
into another 16 millimeter filmi so right after i saw that
depressing genocide movie i wentto the theater to see fuck toys
(40:23):
uh written by directed by andstarring anna perna shriram This
is a described as a lush 16millimeter fever dream that
reimagines the fool's journey ofthe major arcana of the tarot
through the story of AP, a rosyyoung woman seeking salvation
(40:44):
from a curse.
She is promised by not just one,but multiple psychics that it
can be lifted for a coolthousand dollars and a simple
teeny tiny sacrifice of a babylamb.
So I went to the late screeningof this.
(41:06):
It was sold out.
I thankfully was able to get inwith our press pass, but I was
really, really excited aboutthis.
This is a queer andtrans-oriented story.
It feels a lot like a JohnWaters movie.
(41:26):
There are elements of it thatfeel like Uh, like there's a
little bit of trauma worldbuilding in there because they,
they refer to it as like trashtown USA, basically.
Cool.
Which makes me think of traumabill.
Yeah.
And like, uh, it's, it's justthis wild, like road movie.
(41:47):
It's about AP, this maincharacter, you know, uh, trying
to make a thousand bucks so shecan get this curse lifted off of
her.
And throughout her journey, she,uh, She meets basically
different characters that matchup with the different cards in
the Major Arcana.
And yeah, there's a lot of funstuff in here.
(42:10):
And along that journey, there'sa lot of sex work.
And I think that's depictedreally well and in a really
funny way that I reallyappreciated.
I am not a sex worker, butthere's...
A lot of examples of problematicrepresentations of sex work that
drive me fucking crazy.
I saw this again like with asold out audience and the energy
(42:36):
was like really high.
People were loving this.
And I did love right at thebeginning.
Well when I got into the theaterlike in the lobby they're
playing like.
uh big frida and like justbounce music hell yeah and i
like asked the concession personi was like is this big frida she
was like yeah she's like bigfrida's in the movie i was like
(42:56):
oh i didn't know that like i'mso excited uh so big frida plays
the uh the first psychic uh inthis film but she's she's so
much fun like i i just love heruh if you don't know uh Big
Freedia, she's a bouncemusician.
She's got this incredibly hugevoice.
(43:22):
I think I described her tosomeone recently as like her
voice, whenever she shows up ina song, it sounds like a genie
coming out of a bottle.
Just announcing herself andcommanding you to do something.
SPEAKER_01 (43:42):
But
SPEAKER_00 (43:51):
I really like this.
I thought there was some reallyfun trans mask representation in
this as well.
Hell yeah.
Oh, I'm excited.
AP's sidekick is Transmask.
Hell yeah.
So yeah, they're the secondcharacter in this movie.
It's just a blast.
The story is ridiculous.
It's all over the place.
(44:11):
But it's about the journey, notthe destination.
So yeah, this is a huge, hugerecommendation from me.
This is one of my favorites ofthe festival so far.
Cool.
If not my favorite.
It's just an absolute blast.
Awesome.
And it was really funny.
(44:33):
Because I was in the passholders line, we got in first,
which is nice because then youdon't have to ask everybody as
the theater fills up, is thatseat taken?
What about that seat?
So I just snagged something inthe aisle.
And I realized as the theaterfilled up, I was like, oh, I
(44:53):
think a couple of the filmmakerssat behind me.
And I was overhearing theirconversation, and then Anna
Perna said her name to someoneelse.
I was like, oh, I'm sitting infront of the director.
The writer-director star.
Star.
It was kind of funny.
So I was like, oh, thatimmediately made me a little
(45:14):
self-conscious.
I was like, okay, don't touch myphone.
pay attention laugh but it waseasy to do because uh i i i
really did love this movie andit was kind of funny too i'm
like you see her boobs a lot atparts of this movie i was like
(45:40):
oh she's sitting right behind meyou just turn around you're like
SPEAKER_02 (45:43):
Nice.
SPEAKER_00 (45:44):
Nice.
Good job.
Give the thumbs up.
She has a 1312 tattoo on hershoulder as well.
Oh, you're cool.
She did a little Q&A at the end,which was fun.
Hell yeah.
But then I left as she wasanswering the last question to
get on the bus that caused me toeat shit, as I described at the
(46:04):
top of this episode.
But that is Fuck Toys, directedby Anna Pernaschura.
Uh, yeah, again, big, big thumbsup.
Uh, I think that's about to hitstreaming.
I think in the next month iswhat I read.
Um, cause it's just finishingall of its, uh, festival dates,
(46:26):
but definitely put that in yourwatch list.
If, uh, John Waters or trauma or16 millimeter hallucinatory
tarot based adventures appeal toyou.
SPEAKER_02 (46:40):
Cool.
Well, I, uh, This year, startingoff the festival, I've been a
little bit busy and preoccupiedwith some work, so I haven't
been able to make any in-personscreenings yet.
Um, so I did, uh,
SPEAKER_00 (46:59):
through a lot of films though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (47:01):
Yeah.
There's, they've, they've had alot of movies available, uh, to
the press, uh, through thesescreeners this year, which I
really appreciate.
And I did reach out to the, theSIF press team to see if I could
get a screener for fuck toysbecause I do really want to see
it.
Uh, and they said they're,they're going to get back to me.
So they are.
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
They're, they're great.
I, I really appreciate them.
(47:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (47:22):
The SIF press team is there.
They've been very, very sweet.
SPEAKER_02 (47:25):
Yeah.
Good to us.
But so my last one before we doour overlap, I'm just going to
do a short one because this isjust a capsule review one.
It's called By Design.
Playful...
Oh, God, I don't know how topronounce this fucking word.
(47:47):
Playful provocateur...
SPEAKER_00 (47:52):
You got it.
SPEAKER_02 (47:53):
I haven't said that word out loud in a while.
Amanda, playful provocateur,Amanda Kramer has crafted
another audacious performanceart based piece of absurdist
satire about fetish and desireas a lonely woman, Juliette
Lewis swaps bodies with a chaironly to find comfort in life.
(48:20):
so yeah so it's directed byamanda kramer like it said uh
stars juliet lewis uh mamuduathi samantha mathis robin
tooney who we know from thecraft and some other things but
um yeah just like that said itwas it it's oh melanie griffith
(48:42):
oh yeah she does the narrationOh, great.
Yeah.
Why have I not seen it?
It's got a couple of otherpeople in there.
It's got, oh, Joe Swanson fromYou're Next.
Oh, yeah.
He looks very different from thewhiny brother in that movie.
Oh,
SPEAKER_00 (48:58):
wait.
Udo Kier's in this, too.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, God.
I
SPEAKER_02 (49:00):
forgot.
Udo Kier's the designer of thechair.
Oh, perfect.
UNKNOWN (49:04):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (49:05):
It's got a lot of people in it.
And it's about, yeah, bodyswapping with a chair.
And it's fun.
I think you'll like it.
So I think you should check itout.
Okay.
Should I do the show times?
Oh, yeah.
(49:25):
It's coming.
We can see it.
You can see it.
Oh, boy.
Tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00 (49:32):
Yeah, this episode might not be out by tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02 (49:34):
So I don't know.
Is it going to be out Wednesdaythe 21st?
If it is today, 4.30 p.m.
Oh, God.
If it comes out before 4.30p.m., it's at CIFF Cinema
SPEAKER_00 (49:42):
Uptown.
Cool.
And then this will also be onCIFF streaming after the 26th.
So, yeah.
And I believe those are for thestreaming...
I believe that's availableinternationally as well.
I did see a couple of films arelimited to Washington state
specifically.
Uh, but I don't think thatapplies to anything we've talked
(50:04):
about today yet.
Um, okay.
I do.
I just realized I missed count.
I miscounted.
I have one more before we getinto our final two films.
Um, I, uh, I'm not going to saytoo much about this film.
Uh, But I do want to bring itup.
I was able to see thedirectorial debut by Ava Victor
(50:28):
called Sorry Baby.
This one is picked up by A24.
It's going to be the closingnight film at CIFF.
This is sort of a tragic comedy,kind of a serious dramatic
comedy.
(50:49):
Yeah.
about Ava Victor's character.
And again, we have anothertriple threat here.
She writes, directs, and starsin this movie.
And basically, this is a storyabout a woman's journey after
something tragic happens to her,which I think it's fair to say
(51:11):
involves sexual assault.
And it's about the absurdity ofthe world around her as she
processes that and, yeah, triesto deal with it, let's say.
This movie is extremely funny.
(51:33):
Extremely, extremely funny.
This is a great...
directorial debut by Ava Victor,who I previously only know from
that one TikTok video where shekilled her husband.
I
SPEAKER_02 (51:44):
definitely did not kill my husband.
Oh,
SPEAKER_00 (51:49):
it's so funny.
I'm excited to see this.
I'm going to go to bed.
You're going to love it.
This is one of the other bestfilms that I've seen this year
at the festival.
I I think a lot of people aregoing to get a lot out of this
movie.
I'm curious what the release isgoing to be like for A24 because
(52:12):
I could see this having somebroader appeal.
But it's just a fantastic,fantastic film.
The absurd stuff that sheexperiences in this is so great
where she's like, you know,she's dealing with like the
doctor after the assault andshe's dealing with you know the
(52:37):
people at work because this wasone of her co-workers that
perpetrated this and it's justit's just a more realistic I
think look about what this typeof assault is I think a lot of
films tend to sensationalizerape in ways that are supposed
(53:03):
to be dramatic and kind ofoffensive a lot of the times and
this yeah this movie kind of isan examination of the effects on
the people that this very oftenand far too often the people
(53:27):
that are often affected by it ISo this was great.
And that being said, it is alsofunny.
So don't let the heavy subjectmatter necessarily scare you
away.
And I will say the incident isnot depicted on screen.
(53:48):
So if that's something that youmight be concerned about, I'll
just let you know now.
That's going to be the closingnight film at SIF.
That's going to be on May 24that downtown.
And then I don't think I havethe release date for this one.
Oh, June 27th.
(54:08):
It's hitting theaters.
I do have that in front of me.
So definitely get out and seethis.
It's...
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's great to see a movie...
about this topic made by womenand, uh, I believe about their
experiences.
I'm not sure if that'sparticular to Ava Victor, but,
uh, yeah, I think it's animportant perspective and it's
(54:32):
nice to see it in this, again,this kind of bittersweet way
where it's like, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (54:42):
Yeah.
I mean, I, I think it could gettiresome to, see these
depictions and stories of thisstuff and just sort of in this
way, leaving you just sort offeeling like distraught and in
despair and just sort of like,Oh, I'm, I'm, they're wounded
forever.
You know, they're just going tobe forever kind of feeling, you
(55:04):
know, like, yeah, there's, she,there's other, other ways that
are, that are of being aftercertain, you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (55:14):
yeah no I hear you I hear you like there's people
process these experiences in alot of different ways and this
is about a character trying tofind out how she can process
what happened to her and I thinkthat's an important story to be
told and in in this film it'sagain it's presented as like an
(55:38):
absurd type of process whereshe's like she's not sure how to
do it
SPEAKER_01 (55:42):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (55:43):
And I think that's a pretty common experience.
SPEAKER_01 (55:46):
Hey!
SPEAKER_00 (55:51):
Great, my cats are getting into the chips.
Hang on one second.
Let me pause this very seriousconversation.
SPEAKER_01 (55:59):
All right, well,
SPEAKER_00 (56:01):
let's get into the last two of our viewings here.
These are two that we both saw,and these are properly in the
horror genre.
Our first film...
(56:21):
is going to be Chain Reactions,directed by Alexandre
O'Philippe.
He does documentariespredominantly around genre and
horror films.
His last film was Lynch Oz,which is an exploration of David
Lynch and his obsession with TheWizard of Oz.
(56:46):
He's also done documentaries onAlien, Psycho, and a film that
explores zombie fandom, and afilm that explores Star Wars
fandom.
That was actually prettypopular, I believe, back in
2010.
SPEAKER_02 (56:58):
Interesting.
SPEAKER_00 (57:01):
So Chain Reactions ties back into a franchise we
just finished.
This is about the legacy ofTexas Chainsaw Massacre.
We can't get away from it.
This song is life.
So this film is based aroundfour or five different
(57:21):
interviews with differentcreatives.
And each of these individualssort of talks about the film's
legacy and what it meant tothem.
So we've got Patton Oswalt,Takashi Miike, Alexandra
Heller-Nicholas, who didWoodland's Darkened Days
(57:42):
Bewitched.
the documentary about folkhorror.
We have the God, Stephen King,who brings up Skinnamarink in
this movie.
And then Karen Kusama.
So five great talking headfeatures in here.
Absolutely.
This was when we got the initiallist of SIF films, I was like, I
(58:06):
can't fucking believe thismovie's in here.
The timing was just perfect.
I had a lot of fun with this,especially coming off the heels
of our franchise rewatch.
How about
SPEAKER_02 (58:18):
you?
Oh, I had a great time.
I mean, I think I kind of textedyou about it a little bit, but
the fact that we just did allthis deep dive on all of these
movies, and especially the firstone, the hearing, basically all
of these creative people say alot of the things that we have
said.
And I mean, like, you know,there's stuff that's been said
(58:40):
about it over and over again,but as well as like other, other
interesting personal sort ofrelations to the movie that all
of them had.
And it actually made me, uh,come up with a few Takashi Miike
movies to watch for Shocktoberthis year.
Cause I was like, Oh yeah, Ineed to see these.
And I, of course I should haverealized that this kind of movie
(59:00):
and, uh, Also, I think the onething that stood out to me is
that all of them veryspecifically vividly, you know,
hold on to that, that hookscene, that meat hook scene.
And I just think that's reallyincredible.
That's just that a movie likethat can be, you know, The best
horror movie of all time, if notthe best movie.
(59:20):
I think I even said that to you.
Watching this, it just makes mefeel more like this is the best
maybe movie ever.
SPEAKER_00 (59:28):
Kind of a bold statement.
One of the best American filmsfor sure.
It's the kind of thing thatfeels like...
it does feel like one of themost American films, if not just
one of the best American filmsever made.
Like it feels like something sounique to this country that it
(59:49):
couldn't have arisen fromanywhere else.
It's, it's such a unique andpowerful film.
And yeah, you can tell throughthese five interviews, like just
how much of an impression itmade on these extremely good,
creators I did love that theybrought Patton Oswalt on because
(01:00:14):
he's the only one that's not Idon't think he's ever directed
anything yeah I believe everyoneelse has yeah super fan he's
just a super fan and his jokeabout the title of the movie is
it's been burned in my brainsince I first heard it it's so
funny that's really great allright Maybe I'll drop the clip
(01:00:37):
in here, but they played at thebeginning of the documentary.
And it's just a great way tokind of get into the legacy of
what this film is known for.
Yeah, the legacy of this film.
And it starts with that fuckingtitle.
Like, it's such a good title.
(01:01:00):
It was so good it was banned.
UNKNOWN (01:01:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:02):
yeah yeah yeah and it's it's also amazing to me
that like I think we talkedabout it a little bit that it
was like one of the titles thatthey were considering was like
what was it head cheese oh yeahSaturn in retrograde in
retrograde it's like oh my godcan you imagine seeing that
(01:01:22):
title at your drive-in like nopass boring boring Um, did you
have a favorite, uh, talkinghead interview in this, by the
way?
Uh, Karen
SPEAKER_02 (01:01:35):
Kusama.
Um, she was, I, her moviedestroyer is might be in my like
top 20 movies ever favorite.
I just, I just, I knew you lovedthat.
I just, it's, oh man, it's sucha performance.
It's a, it's a really simplestory, but the way that it's
(01:01:56):
done is I, so I, I really likedit.
And everything else that she'skind of been involved in.
I think she was directing a lotof the first season of The
Yellow Jackets.
She did a handful of otherthings I really like and has
been a part of.
So I just, I liked her.
seeing that she also loves thismovie so much.
(01:02:17):
I mean, it's, I think if you'regoing to be a director in a, in
horror at some point, he, yougotta love this movie.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02:25):
Like, I don't know.
I don't know if I want to see ahorror director that doesn't
have an appreciation for thisfilm.
I don't, I don't know how thatwould work.
Yeah, really.
But yeah, this was, uh, I thinkgenerally the appeal of this
film is going to be mostly forhorror people.
I think it's going to be hard toget a wider appeal here.
(01:02:48):
But but this is one of thosemovies that's just like is so
indelibly like I think I'm usingthat word right connected to
like American pop culture thateveryone has.
Every American has anunderstanding of it and outside
the US of course as well likeTakashi Miike talks about that a
(01:03:09):
little bit yeah when that moviecame to Japan and he's like I
think he compares the the shockthat he felt watching this to
like seeing grave of thefireflies yes yeah he just
couldn't believe what was on thescreen uh and it's yeah so it's
(01:03:31):
it's really fun to hear uh thesepeople talk about a movie that
we we both love and yeah i uhyeah i thought the uh the five
voices that they chose were wereperfect
SPEAKER_02 (01:03:45):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (01:03:48):
All right, so that's Chain Reactions.
It'll probably be streamingsoon.
I didn't find a date for this,actually.
I think all the...
Am I right in thinking that allof the screenings for SIF have
gone by?
(01:04:09):
Yes, they have.
So unfortunately, it's notscreening at SIF anymore.
But yeah, if you're a horror fanand you're a, especially if
you're a Texas Chainsaw fan,100% seek this out.
It's a lot of fun.
Yeah.
Ditto.
(01:04:30):
All right.
And that means we've got onelast film to talk about here.
And that is called, this film iscalled The Wailing.
The Wailing.
And no, it's not the Korean filmfrom 10 years ago.
(01:04:52):
Actually, let me pull up thesynopsis here unless you've got
it.
I've got the one in the program.
SPEAKER_02 (01:04:57):
Yeah, read it.
All right.
Three women separated in timeand space are unknowingly
connected by a threat thatnobody can explain.
Something is stalking them andprovoking unthinkable acts of
violence with one eerie thing incommon.
the disturbing sound of awailing.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05:15):
That's about right.
Yeah.
I, this is one of the likeproper horror genre films.
Uh, this is a, a very spookysupernatural film that is from
Argentina, I think, or I thinkthere's multiple parts of it.
Yes.
(01:05:35):
Spain, France, and Argentina.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Uh, I really enjoyed this.
I had to watch this in twosittings, though, because I
started to fall asleep.
And when I got to the end, I waslike, I did.
I'll be honest.
I was like, I might have missedsomething.
I had to pull all of themtogether.
(01:05:57):
So I'm going to give this oneanother go because there are
some very good scares in thismovie.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:04):
I loved this movie.
I loved it.
It's got like three parts,essentially.
And they're each following, likethis said, different timelines
of them.
And this first woman is more inthe present time and some weird
stuff starts happening.
They do some awesome stuff withlike the phone and sort of
(01:06:27):
shadows in the back and likereally eerie stuff.
People start dying kind ofbrutally.
It opens pretty violently.
It's got a really good kickoff.
And then you go back in time andyou kind of see maybe how one of
the These people back in timemight be related to this woman
(01:06:48):
that we followed at thebeginning.
Um, and there's this same sortof figure that's appearing
through the handy cam of thisfilm student and it's really
creepy and it's really eerie andit's got some really good, like,
you know, like zooming in onsome like stuff in the
background.
Um, there's some really good,yeah, just like stuff with, uh,
(01:07:11):
I can't remember if it's like alighter or something.
There's a nice, like light.
There's a very good lighter.
Yeah.
That's spooky.
There's, it's like, it's reallygood.
And there was at one point whereI, I, I thought that this was
going to be a standard kind oflike, Oh, it's mental illness
being passed down throughgeneration or like trauma.
(01:07:34):
But, um, I found at least myreading of it was that these
women had, uh, gone throughabuse at the hands of a man, uh,
and had just sort of continuedthat cycle of abuse of like not
stopping it.
(01:07:56):
Cause there's a moment, I mean,maybe we should cut this out
cause it's giving away, butjust,
SPEAKER_00 (01:08:01):
I don't want to give away too much about this at the
SPEAKER_02 (01:08:03):
end that really ties it all together.
I'll just say that.
Um, so I think, I think thatthere's something about that,
about abuse, uh, that's thatthese women have been suffering
and you know, how hard it is tobreak that cycle.
Um, but yeah, Because thisspecter, this figure you'll find
is, you know, sort ofsignificant of what the specter
(01:08:26):
is, I guess.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (01:08:27):
Yeah.
And it does have like this moviedoes have a feel that's
comparable to like it follows inkind of aesthetic.
I would say that I think a lotof horror people would find
appealing.
Yeah.
I'm trying not to give too muchaway I do want to say though
(01:08:49):
that
SPEAKER_02 (01:08:49):
this was the other film that I wanted to bring up
in regards to Lost Highwaybecause there's especially
there's I love this moviebecause it goes back in time
where there's this film studentmaking a movie on her handy cam
and there's some stuff that likereally feels like some shots
from Lost Highway where it'slike I mean there's a lot of
David Lynch stuff where it's ared room with like a light
behind you and they're on thephone but like it really there's
(01:09:11):
this weird you know oh I'm youknow I'm in your house now I'm
following you like oh I've got acamera on you you know like it's
really really eerie and just ohyeah
SPEAKER_00 (01:09:23):
I love this hell yeah like this is directed by
Pedro Martin Calero I have notseen his other film I oh it's
just a short film excuse me I'mjust pulling up his director
credentials right now so this isa debut feature from him pretty
impressive actually I definitelyrecommend this.
(01:09:47):
I'm going to watch it again.
Like I said, I had to do it intwo bites, which I should not
have done.
I
SPEAKER_02 (01:09:55):
might go see it again because we've still got
one more screening at PacificPlace on Sunday, May 25th at
6.30 p.m.
I think I'm
SPEAKER_00 (01:10:08):
going to try and go there.
So if you're in Seattle,downtown Seattle on the 25th,
Um, yeah, let me know if you goto that.
I would, I would love to seethis with an audience too.
And like, there's, there's somuch like spooky lighting and
like dark moody settings in thisthat, uh, even on my, my TV or
my computer screen, I, I waslike, oh, I kind of want to see
(01:10:32):
this on a big screen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially with some of the, uh,let's say the scary scenes.
Yeah.
I wanted a little bit moredetail.
There's some good
SPEAKER_02 (01:10:44):
sound stuff, too, that I think would be really
good to have the, like, ooh,it's coming from all directions,
behind me, in front of me,beside me kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00 (01:10:56):
Well, yeah, and this is the...
Again, this is the first, like,straight-up-and-down horror
movie that we've watched for thefestival, and it's a strong one.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (01:11:06):
It might be the only one that's gonna really,
really...
SPEAKER_00 (01:11:10):
check
SPEAKER_02 (01:11:11):
as
SPEAKER_00 (01:11:12):
many boxes Sif if you're listening hire us to do
your programming for next yearwe do horror programming yeah
but still there's been a lot ofgreat films so far and a lot
more to come we've got anotherweek and then yeah everything
(01:11:34):
hits streaming so that was TheWailing And like we said, that's
playing Sunday the 25th.
And then streaming date TBD.
So if you're in the Seattlearea, get out and definitely see
this in person at AMC PacificPlace.
Go to sift.net for more info.
(01:11:57):
Of the films that we've talkedabout today, do you have a
standout favorite?
SPEAKER_02 (01:12:02):
It's probably The Wailing or...
What was the other one that I...
I've already forgotten.
We did just talk about like,what, like 15 movies or
something.
Yeah.
Oh, um, paying for it.
I think.
Okay.
I'm definitely going to watchthat.
Yeah.
That one looks like fun.
(01:12:23):
Uh, yeah.
I'm, I'm really excited to checkout cloud by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Yeah, I'm really excited aboutthat.
There's a couple others herethat I'm excited to go see in
person.
Sorry, I was leaning away fromthe microphone.
By the way, speaking of
SPEAKER_00 (01:12:39):
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, I had a friend that works at one
of the pubs around here.
He came up to me the other dayand he was like, have you seen
Cure?
I just watched Cure.
I was like, Cure?
I'm not making fun of this.
I was like, yeah, it's one of myfavorite movies.
(01:13:00):
Uh, so yeah, that's, yeah.
I mean, I'm a huge KiyoshiKurosawa fan.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm excited about that.
Uh, yeah.
My big standouts aside from thewhaling, uh, like I've already
mentioned, uh, Fuck toys.
And sorry, baby.
We're both fucking great.
(01:13:21):
Hell yeah.
And yeah.
Yeah.
So if you have a chance to seeeither of those, I'll just say
it again.
Definitely, definitely checkthem out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Well.
Thank you everybody forlistening to The Screaming Room,
the only podcast about moviesthis week.
(01:13:44):
We're going to be continuing ourSeattle International Film
Festival coverage.
We'll probably have anotherepisode in a couple days, maybe
a few days.
Once we stack up, bank a fewmore viewings, we'll come back
with another roundup just likethis one.
Yeah.
Thank you all for listening.
And thank you again to the teamover at SIF for being so
(01:14:06):
generous.
Yeah.
Thank you, SIF.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So check out SIF.net.
That's S-I-F-F dot net.
And if you're enjoying the show,please give us a five-star
review on Apple Podcasts orSpotify Mobile.
It helps us get discovered bynew listeners.
And if you'd like to support theshow with money, click support
the show in the show notes.
(01:14:27):
And in the future, we're goingto be doing the Hellraiser
franchise, and we're going tocontinue our Final Destination
franchise coverage.
eventually uh and then i canupdate people about my new
tattoo which i did not want tobring up in this episode but
that'll be mentioned in thefinal destination episode yeah
(01:14:49):
um and as always find us onsocial media both instagram and
twitter uh search the name ofthe show that is the screaming
room you will find us there uhAnd you can email us at
screamingroompod at gmail.com.
There, I think I got everything.
SPEAKER_02 (01:15:04):
I think you did.
I think you did.
And we will get to Until Dawn.
SPEAKER_00 (01:15:09):
Yes.
Again, I just finished my replayof the video game, too, so I
want to do it while it's freshin my mind.
It's wild how many people are inthat.
I forgot that, like, Rami Malekand Hayden Panettiere are both
in the video game.
Oh, shit.
Wow.
Yeah.
There's a few other names inthere, but we'll get to them
when we finally cover that.
Yeah.
I'm excited to watch it.
(01:15:30):
I've heard it's bad.
SPEAKER_01 (01:15:33):
Woo!
SPEAKER_00 (01:15:36):
All right.
Well, thank you again, dearlistener.
And until next episode, may allof your film festivals be
international.
Yes.
Goodbye.
SPEAKER_01 (01:15:48):
Bye.
(01:16:11):
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