Jason goes to SFIFF--Day 9

So I started the last weekend of SFIFF with LAST WEEKEND--see what I did there? Patricia Clarkson plays the grand matriarch of a reasonably wealthy family who has gathered together in their Lake Tahoe home for Labor Day weekend. Unbeknownst to her sons--who are busy with their own lives, this isn't just the last weekend of summer, this is the last weekend they'll ever spend at the house. Wow, the way I wrote that was really dark and ominous. I mean she plans to sell the house after the weekend. Well, as I already said her sons are busy with their own lives--dealing with insecure boyfriends, or the actress from the show they write for, or a calamitous career mistake--and she is stretched in so many directions and jumps from topic to topic so quickly they think she's crazy. Then a medical emergency interrupts everyone's plans...kind of. Actually, life goes on...and that's kind of the point of the movie. It's a brief, 3-day snapshot of an insane family dynamic (and as the second of six kids, I know that dynamic plenty well) where issues come up, some issues are resolved, some are partially resolved, some are unresolved...and life goes on.

And then back to the lounge for a few more beers before the late show--INTRUDERS. It's a darkly funny thriller from Korea. In the vein of MISERY (there is even an explicit reference to it) a writer goes to a secluded cabin in the woods where he hopes to get some peace and just write. Along the way, he meets a pushy man who talks about just getting out of prison and how it's great to finally talk to a human. And when he finally gets away from him and gets to his cabin...he still doesn't get peace. He's bothered by constant news bulletins about escalating tensions with North Korea over nuclear testing. He's bothered by partying skiers looking for a place to stay. He's bothered by hunters. He's bothered by the dead body he finds in the woods. Wait, what!? He's bothered by the woman he finds in the bathroom when he's looking for help who then accuses him of trying to rape her. He's bothered by a lot of things, and he's not having a very peaceful time in the woods and really not getting any writing done. But at least he's surviving...maybe.

That was a lot of fun.

Total Running Time: 193 minutes
My Total Minutes: 361,484