MCN Blogs
Kim Voynar

By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com

Posted Thursday, May 28th, 2009 - 1 Comment »
Be Sociable, Share!

SIFF 2009 Dispatch: The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle and Burma VJ

Catching up, at long last, with some SIFF updating. I had a busy weekend family-wise, so wasn’t able to enjoy the fest much of its opening weekend, but I did make it to the fest opener last Thursday night: the gala screening of In the Loop, followed by the fest’s always-hotly-anticipated opening night bash, which spilled out from the lovely Paramount Theater and out onto the street. Many popular city restaurants provided appetizer-sized portions of yummy fare, and there was live music and lots of excitement in the air. I, being old and a wimp, knocked off rather early, but I heard from friends who stayed late that it was a great time.
Sunday Night my husband and I got out for a late-night screening of The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle at The Egyptian (quick, raise your hand if you live in a major city that doesn’t have a theater called “Egyptian”). Things got off to an interesting start as director and Seattle-native David Russo kicked off his introduction by telling the audience that he’d been upset when he learned his film was screening at The Egyptian because it has such a awful (f-bomb) sound system by way of thanking the sound crew for making it as good as it could be, under the circumstances. In all fairness, he’s right on the sound quality at the Egyptian but, uh … thanks?


The screening itself played well to the packed audience, who seemed energetic and excited, with most everyone sticking around for the Q&A. Seattle crowds tend to stay for the Q&As anyhow, but for this one I think I saw maybe 30 people leave, at the most. Russo started off the Q&A by slamming the festival for using his work to promote another film (a screener of fest Gala film Humpday was shown before Little Dizzle). Russo berated the fest for doing this, charging that other artists, whether they said so or not, resented it as much as he did, and that other festivals resist the temptation to do this, even in tough economic times. (For the record, a SIFF staffer told me that the fest does not get paid for those slots, they were just wanting to promote another Seattle director’s film that’s also playing the fest.)
This got things off to a bit of a frosty start with this crowd, which both loves this festival and had just laughed through the offending trailer without thinking anything was amiss. Fortunately for Russo, his film was good enough that the crowd eventually warmed back up to him and started talking about that instead.
Yesterday I caught two films: Burma VJ: Reporting from a closed country and Fear Me Not, a Danish psychological horror story by Dogme95 director Kristian Levring. Two reviews, for Little Dizzle and Burma VJ, are linked below. I’m aiming to have something on In the Loop and Fear Me Not up tomorrow, if I’m not too wiped after tonight’s screening of zombie-Nazi flick Dead Snow.

SIFF Review: The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle

SIFF Review: Burma VJ

Be Sociable, Share!

1 Comment »

One Response to “SIFF 2009 Dispatch: The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle and Burma VJ”

  1. djk813 says:
    May 28, 2009 at 10:33 am

    Surprising to hear a filmmaker criticize a festival showing his film at his screening. Even if the sound isn’t optimal, I don’t think it’s a good idea to alert the audience of a presentation problem before the film because they’ll be more apt to notice it then.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon