All things perfect and poisonous

June 14, 2009 Poppy Shakespeare (2008) Dir. Banjamin Ross From Blogger One June 14th, the festival was over. Winners were announced, but as the festival wasn't yet over, films were still being screened. I attended one last film, which is among my favorites this year, Poppy Shakespeare . Poppy's story is told through the eyes of her friend, N (Anne Maxwell Martin) at the the Dorthy Fisher mental health day care center they are required to attend. Poppy (Naomie Harris) is different from the other patients that spend their weekdays at the center. Poppy doesn't believe she belongs there. Poppy isn't mentally ill and is required to attend as some sort of mistake due to a questionnaire. N knows that system inside and out and like everyone else at the center, spends her time making certain that she remains forever within the safety of the Dorthy Fisher. So despite not understanding why Poppy would want to leave, she agrees to help her, but there is a nasty catch 22

June 13, 2009 Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) Dir. Sergio Leone From Blogger Every year, SIFF shows a few newly restored archival prints and I never attend these. I don't know why, but when I saw Once Upon a Time in the West had a screening, I had to see it on the big screen. Like a lot of people my age, I once claimed to not like westerns, but my reason was a little different then most. I was raised on westerns. My mother used to watch movies non-stop when I was a kid, burning through VCRs. And most of the movies were westerns. She even used to write fan fiction that was western in setting. So when I would say, "I HATE westerns", what I meant was that I was sick and tired of old episodes of Rawhide, Roy Rogers, and most of the John Wayne library. Just like any genre, there are amazing Westerns out there and most of my favorites are Sergio Leone's films. What I find strange, is that I had never seen Once Upon a Time in the West as a child. Which is

June 12, 2009 Talhotblond (2009) Dir. Barbara Schroeder From Blogger After seeing the insightful documentary We Live in Public , I wasn't going to miss the other internet related documentary, Talhotblond , especially since some of the programmers were very excited about this film. Talhotblond has the tone of a Dateline or 20/20 story. It is sensationalistic and a bit lascivious since it is about a sex triangle between three internet personalities that results in a murder. Depressed about his life, Thomas Montgomery, or marinesniper, found himself caught up in a fantasy where he pretended to be himself at 18, a tough marine in order to impress talhotblond in a chatroom. And this roleplay continued until talhotblond, a young, blond cheerleader found out about the lie and begins to torment marinesniper by throwing her other online relationship with beefcake in his face. beefcake was Brian Barret, a 22 year old who works with the much older, ex marine Montgomery. And as tensi