Jason watches SUCKER PUNCH

I want to start by explaining to Zack Snyder that if every scene is made to be the most amazing scene ever, then nothing ends up amazing. It's just exhausting. However I know that advice would be lost on Mr. Snyder, and I knew that going in.

As for this particular over-stylized excess, it's the story of a girl Baby Doll (Emily Browning) who is sent to an insane asylum by her abusive stepfather. There she's scheduled for lobotomy, but escapes into a world of her fantasy. In particular, two levels of nested fantasies. In the first, she and her fellow inmates are not in an asylum, they're performers in a burlesque house (and, of course, prostitutes, too). She's the new girl, scheduled for the "high roller" (John Hamm, who of course is also the doctor performing the lobotomy). But even there she escapes into a second level of fantasy, where she and the other girls are an ass-kicking elite fighting force, on a series of missions against various monsters.

Yup, there's a level of stylized hyper-sexuality, and a level of stylized hyper-violence under that. But in the end, back in the world of the insane asylum, she's lobotomized. Zack Snyder has made the perfect metaphor for watching Zack Snyder movies. And it's the audience that got sucker punched. And if that's actually intentional, Zack Snyder is a subversive genius...but I doubt it.

Running Time: 109 minutes

My Total Minutes: 230,365

Jason goes to the Niles Film Museum--March 26, 2011

Back at my favorite silent film museum in all of Fremont. It's been too long!

A SAFE INVESTMENT (1915): Mr. Sidney Drew tells his wife she has no head for business, just before he sets out perpetrating a Ponzi scheme, guaranteeing 50% returns on investments in a gold mine. Of course, this won't end well.

BAD BOY (1925): Perhaps my favorite lesser-known silent-era comedian, Charley Chase as Jimmy Jump, trying to make it in his father's tough iron business. It doesn't help that his mother makes him dress in drag and dance like Isadora Duncan for charity galas. Well, it doesn't help his reputation, it does help the audiences funny bone.

Then, as always, a brief intermission

WHEN A MAN'S A PRINCE (1926): A bonus short added, cross-eyed Ben Turpin is a prince, being forced to marry the gigantic princess of Amazonia in order to pay off his family's debt. Too bad he has his eye (at least one of them) on her maid in waiting, a far more lovely (and reasonably sized) woman. Wacky hijinx ensue.

THE HOTTENTOT (1922): And finally, Douglas MacLean plays a man who is afraid of horses, but gets mistaken for a jockey and goes with it for the love of a beautiful woman. Funny and exciting. The title is the name of the horse who's so fierce he throws most any rider. Guess who our hero has to ride in the big race at the end. This film was shown in it's shortened version (40 minutes instead of 60, and with the title THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS) , hence the bonus Ben Turpin short.

Total Running Time (estimated): 90 minutes

My Total Minutes: 230,256

Jason slips into a Vortex and into DIMENSION 5

I haven't been back to the Vortex room in over a month, I think. Back to back to back film festivals will kill me.

Anyway, the dimension was 5, the martinis were 3, the plot was spies with limited time-travel, and the Asians were interchangeable. Ah, the 60's...when no one knew or cared about the differences between Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc.

And that's all I've got to say.

Running Time: 91 minutes

My Total Minutes: 230,166

Jason goes to SFIAAFF--Closing Night

And finally, it's over. I've loved every minute of it, but I really need a rest.

I started Sunday with the 3rd I South Asian Shorts program.

KUNJO: A poor refugee girl tells her story to her friend, a privileged school girl. She goes on to win the school playwriting contest, taking credit for the story and endangering their friendship. A story of seeing how the others live.

YOU CAN'T CURRY LOVE: A Bollywood romance between a gay UK man of Indian descent and a hotel desk clerk he meets on a business trip to India. Very funny.

GRANT ST. SHAVING CO.: An old widower visits his daughter in New York. She's too busy for him, but he gets a delivery man to take him around the city, which also takes him back in time to when he visited New York as a newlywed.

RAJU: A debt relief scam is played out by a smooth talking Indian man. But it turns out he's as much a victim as anyone.

VICTOR RAMIREZ ASESINO: Victor Ramirez is a killer for hire. Or maybe he's just a loser kid trying to be a man like his father. Either way, it's hilarious.

Then the next show was SURROGATE VALENTINE, a delightful no-budget comedy from Dave Boyle (WHITE ON RICE) and starring local musician Goh Nakamura, who did a brief set before the movie. Interesting aside, Dave and Goh actually met at SFIAFF and decided to collaborate. And the results are pretty awesome. Goh plays...basically himself. A musician on the road, making a living but crashing on friends' couches from SF to Seattle to LA and back. He's got fans (at least, one psycho-devoted fan), he's got old friends, he's got an old friend he wishes was a girlfriend (Lynn Chen, also from WHITE ON RICE). And now he has an obnoxiously full of himself actor tagging along learning how to play a burn-out musician for a movie. It's shot in black and white, which somehow gives it a more real, stripped down feel. And it's got a brilliant deadpan comedy that provides an even greater reward than the off-the-wall antics of WHITE ON RICE. Excellent, I bought the DVD (which comes with a download code for the soundtrack) right away (since they were selling them in the theater lobby).

Next up was BI, DON'T BE AFRAID, which seems ironically titles since 6 year old Bi doesn't seem to be afraid of anything. A sort of slice-of-life adventure in the life of a Vietnamese family. His mom and aunt are always there for him. His father is always drinking and/or visiting a masseuse. His grandfather has just returned home and is basically lying on his death bed. And Bi runs around everywhere. Among all three worlds, and into the wild grasses where he plays with (or spies on) other kids. A subtle film that deserves a second look.

And finally, I ended the night, and the festival, with Gurinder Chadha's IT'S A WONDERFUL AFTERLIFE. Like the title, the movie is chock-full of classic movie references, starting with a hilarious opening scene referencing SEVEN and culminating in a CARRIE homage (that needed split screen, my only minor quibble with the movie). Mrs. Sethi wants nothing more than to see he daughter Roopi married. But Roopi, while a sweet, wonderful girl, is not the loveliest creature...she's fat. Which isn't a problem if you get to know her, problem is that people belittle and mock her before they even know her. And so Mrs. Sethi has to kill them...with Indian food. And then they come back as ghosts and haunt her. But she eventually wins them over into trying to help Roopi find the right man and get married (if for no other reason than Mrs. Sethi can die in peace and they'll all be released). Yeah, I've given too much away already. It's a murder caper, a ghost story, a pile of movie references, and a hilarious, awesome way to end the festival.

The End.

Total Running Time: 353 minutes

My Total Mintues: 230,075

Jason goes to SFIAAFF--Saturday, March 19

Okay, I've had a few days to rest up (read: do all my day job work that fell to the wayside during my three week film fest marathon), and now it's time to finish writing up the last films I saw over the weekend.

First up Friday was a delightful feature from China, PIANO IN A FACTORY. Chen is a musician, a loving father, an ex-steel worker, and a husband whose marriage is falling apart. His wife is leaving him for a guy who sells fake medicine. He doesn't care, he's through with her, divorce happens, and she can take whatever she wants...except their daughter. Turns out, that's all she wants. And she has the money to bribe he with nice toys, and he doesn't. He can't even pay for her piano lessons, and the fake cardboard piano he mocked up at home doesn't quite cut it (no matter how much he explains that Beethoven played the piano even though he was deaf). So finally, he gets a bunch of old steel-workers to open up the abandoned plant again and make a piano. Scrap wood for the frame, old wire for the strings...he's got the blueprints, what could go wrong. What ensues is comical, endearing, fanciful, surreal, and very non-traditionally musical. Oh yeah, and it's funny as hell. Lots of fun.

And then I caught the shorts program: Life, Interrupted.

LYCHEE THIEVES: A story of the brief, intense lychee season in Hawaii, and how some people go batshit crazy possessive over it.

MY NAME IS MOHAMMED: Mohammed is a 9 year old boy in an Iraqi refugee camp. Prematurely mature, since he has to buy his mom's medicine while watching after his little sister.

ROOM #11: Based on the closing of a low-rent apartment building in NY Chinatown, and the upheaval of the evictions around it.

MADE IN CHINA: A Shanghai punk rock documentary. American/UK licks on distinctly Chinese songs. Awesome.

PINK CHADDIS: A documentary about the violent 2009 attack on women in a pub in Mangalore (near Bangalore), India. The attackers were religious extremists defending the "Hindu-ness" of India. In response, a non-violent campaign started to send them pink underwear with messages on them. I'll try to put this as nicely as possible. I'm not one to reflexively judge other cultures, and I'm sure the Hindu religion and the vast majority of its practitioners are wonderful, peaceful, loving people. But men who think it's appropriate to beat women (especially in public, and especially in the name of religious or cultural purity) should be raped up the ass with a splintering stick until they bleed to death. Yeah...that was as nicely as possible.

And that was my Saturday at SFIAAFF. I didn't stick around for the late movies because I had to go watch the San Jose Earthquakes open the season with a soaking wet, horribly refereed, frustrating 1-0 loss even though they outplayed their opponents. I was one of the few who stuck with it until the end, and although the result was frustrating it was good to see my soccer family again.

Total Running Time: 186 minutes

My Total Minutes: 229,722

Jason goes to SFIAAFF--San Jose Opening Night Gala

Celebrating 10 years in the South Bay. How did they ever survive the 19 years without it?

Oh, and when I arrived at the Montgomery Theatre for the show, I ran into my old film buddy, Phil, who now has a film blog, and has already written a much better review of the night than I will. Welcome to the blogging world, Phil! Time to start parlaying that into press passes.

Anyway, the program started with the obligatory thank yous to the sponsors. We love our sponsors at CAAM. Then an adorable dance performance by the Chhandam Youth Dance Company, a dance school operated by Pandit Chitresh Das.

By amazing coincidence (or not), the movie, UPAJ, was also about Pandit Chitresh Das, master of the classical Indian dance technique of Kathak. The lazy way to describe Kathak is to say you can't describe it, you have to see it in person. So allow me to say that I can't describe it, you have to see it in person. Very expressive, with furiously flying feet covered in bells making a joyous, celebratory noise. So it's completely natural to team that up with tap dance. Or at least, it seems like a perfect fit when 63 year old Chitresh Das is teamed up with 30 year old Jason Samuels Smith, a rising tap sensation from Hell's Kitchen. Together they form India Jazz Suites, which...can't be described, it has to be seen. It's not fusion--Das never does tap, and Smith never does Kathak, but it's like they have an amazing wordless conversation on stage, sharing and echoing rhythm and joyful expression.

While I thought the movie captures this pretty well (including their backgrounds and friendly relationship backstage), the real treat that totally blew me away was a brief dance performance by Das and Smith live on stage. Wow, just...wow! While watching them, it's hard not to be hypnotized by their feet. But if you are blessed to be able to see them live, and are in the front row (like I always am!) pull your eyes away from their feet and check out their eyes. There's some amazing, crazy passion going on there. I'm not a dancer, but I believe if you're not seeking (or have found) something in your life that makes you feel what I saw in their eyes, you're not living. For me, watching great movies (and telling others about them) is pretty close.

Running Time: 40 minutes (wow, the movie was pretty short, but the whole show was more than worth the price of admission)

My Total Minutes: 229,536

Jason goes to SFIAAFF--Thursday, March 17

Which is St. Patrick's day. That's right, while everyone else is getting drunk on green beer, my tradition is watching Asian movies. That's just how I roll (not my fault the Irish Film Festival isn't schedules for St. Patrick's Day).

It's also the last night in San Francisco, but I'll get an extra fest fix in San Jose. As it is, I skipped the closing night gala (I'll see the film SURROGATE VALENTINE in San Jose, and didn't want to shell out the money for the party). Instead I just saw one program of shorts: Futurestates. This is a series produced by ITVS. SFIAAFF played a sampling of their first season last year, which I loved. And this program is a sampling of their second season. Awesome shorts using ideas of the near future to illuminate issues of the present.

BEHOLDER: In the future, Real Americans will live in a domed community called Red Estates, where babies are genetically engineered, homosexuality is engineered out, and everyone speaks of the horrors of 'The Coast.' A politician named Bobby Aryana and his wife have a little problem.
EXPOSURE: In the future, the government will deploy squads of 'contagions'--people infected with a benign form of a deadly virus--to infect the general population into health. There will be activists who believe this is a bad idea and the virus will mutate.
THAT WHICH ONCE WAS: In the future, there will be several 'Environmental Refugees,' like Vicente, a little boy who survived a tsunami in Bangladesh. He will apprentice with an ice sculptor, a man whose work by it's very nature melts away. So the only things of value are memories.
DIGITAL ANTIQUITIES: In the future, you'll have to go to an antique shop to read a data CD. Actually, that's pretty close to the present.
THE SPRING OF SORROW: In the future, there will be very little water. One little girl will scavenge water to save her sister.
WORKER DRONE: In the future...this movie will play. But this time I was definitely awake, I paid attention, and I swear it didn't.

Total Running Time: 80 minutes
My Total Minutes: 228,996