Thursday, May 20
Castaway on the Moon
City of Life and Death
Details
Seattle International Film Festival Thurs., May 20—Sun., June 13. Tickets and schedule: 324-9996 and
siff.net. Or visit box office at Pacific Place (second floor, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon.-Sat. and noon-6 p.m. Sun.).
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7 p.m., Benaroya Hall
The Extra Man
Some years we recommend the SIFF opening gala for the movie, other times for the party. And tonight the following food and drinks at Benaroya Hall sound excellent. It's not that we dislike Kevin Kline, Paul Dano, and John C. Reilly in this comedy of lonely New York oddballs. All three are funny in their various maladjusted ways: Kline as an asexual prig who precariously survives as a walker of blue-haired Upper East Side widows; Dano as the sexually confused college grad who fancies himself a Fitzgerald hero; and Reilly as the silent, Sasquatch-haired troll who lives beneath their stairs. But the original 1998 Jonathan Ames novel was pretty slight; and the best directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini can do with the material is leap from one shaggy episode to the next. They don't look for depth in these Odd Couple antics, because, unlike their American Splendor, there isn't any. Dano must grow up; Kline does aerobics to classical music; and Reilly eventually speaks (sings, even). The whimsy is so lacquered with retro '70s nostalgia that it's a shock when Dano pulls out a cell phone or goes to work in an office equipped with computers and Katie Holmes. (The latter is quite amusing as a selfish hippie chick eventually bitten in the ass by her Dave Matthews Band philosophy.) With uncertain release prospects, this may be your only chance to see The Extra Man in a theater. But did we mention the party? (NR) BRIAN MILLER
Friday, May 21
4 p.m., Neptune
Air Doll
A fairy tale about an inflatable sex doll that comes to life? It's not the first thing you'd expect of contemplative Hirokazu Kore-eda (After Life, Nobody Knows, Still Walking), but his approach to adapting this manga story is tender, not tawdry. The doll, played by Korean actress Bae Doo-na (The Host), is a wide-eyed innocent who experiences the world with awe. Like Pinocchio, Nozomi wants to be human, particularly when she falls for a clerk at the local video store, where she takes a job while her owner is away. "I found myself with a heart," she says, "a heart I was not supposed to have." Air Doll repeats those sentiments more often than it needs to, and the pervasive melancholy—aren't we all empty on the inside, just like her?—may be too Japanese and too slow for some tastes. But Kore-eda provides jolts of humor and weirdness: Nozomi gets no pleasure from sex (after which her rubber vagina is removed and cleaned), but is brought to orgasm when reinflated through the valve where her belly button should be. Around her, as in Nobody Knows, are lonely urbanites locked in their isolated routines. (Her owner is equally sad, not gross; shocked when his sex toy talks back to him, he buys a newer, more compliant model.) Yet still Nozomi wants to walk among them, and throws away her air pump. Even if she's a throwaway product, she wants to join a throwaway society. (NR) BRIAN MILLER (Also: 9:30 p.m. Mon., May 24.)
4 p.m., Pacific Place
Castaway on the Moon
Dumped, in debt, and down on his luck, businessman Kim Seong-geun decides to end it all and jump off a bridge. His bad luck continues when, instead of drowning, he washes up on Bam Island, a nature preserve in the Han River. He becomes Robinson Crusoe right in the middle of Seoul, and soon realizes he's been a selfish prick all his life. With a tone like Office Space meets Lost meets Into the Wild, Lee Hey-jun's romantic comedy then reaches across the river to a reclusive shutterbug who takes pictures of the city from her window. Her other interests include eating grotesque amounts of canned corn, running around in a motorcycle helmet,lying compulsively on social-networking websites, Blingee.com,and sleeping on bubble wrap. Needless to say, the two immediately fall in love, despite the river between them. I'm not usually a big fan of quirky romances (ever since Zach Braff ruined them for everyone), but Castaway is kooky and endearing. Watching it, I grew a ridiculous, possibly unhealthy emotional connection with: a black-bean flavor packet for ramen noodles, a paddleboat built and painted to look like a duck, and a scarecrow made from Kim's tattered suit and a coffee tin. (NR) A.J. TIGNER (Also: Neptune, 9:30 p.m. Sun., May 23; Everett Performing Arts Center, 9:15 p.m. Wed., June 2.)
6:30 p.m., Pacific Place
Prince of Tears
Prince of Tedium is more like it. The postscript to this handsome but extremely tangled melodrama tells us that 3,000 were executed and far more jailed during the "White Terror" purge of suspected Communists in '50s Taiwan. Settled at a rural airbase, for what's assumed to be a short stay before reclaiming the mainland, the Sun family has two small daughters by different mothers. Sun, a pilot, remarried after his first wife died during the Chinese revolution. He and his new wife, Ping, are soon denounced by his scheming old friend, called Uncle Ding, whom we know is evil because of his burned, disfigured face. Eventually the daughters are separated: one under the care of Uncle Ding (boo! hiss!), the other protected by rich, beautiful Madame Liu (once the BFF of Ping). Everyone's got secrets piled on secrets in Prince of Tears, which draws its name from a fairy tale that's constantly read and referenced here by two generations of women. (The Prince, it seems, was a closet liberal, making the book samizdat.) Meanwhile, a narrator constantly tells us what director Yonfan can't be bothered to show. Well before the movie's late, left-field revelations, you're ready to turn the final page on Prince of Tears. (NR) BRIAN MILLER (Also: 1 p.m. Sun., May 23; Admiral, 9:15 p.m. Wed., May 26.)
