How Gay is Tori Spelling?

(Image courtesy of Regent Releasing)

Are the old gay icons (Liza, Lauren Bacall, etc.) slowly dying off? Or do you have to be dead to be a gay icon (e.g. Bette, Callas, and company)? One candidate for entry into the new young sisterhood of apprentice divahood is
Tori Spelling, who will appear in the SIFF "Gay-la" comedy Kiss the Bride on Thurs., May 29. (She's pictured with co-stars Matt Phillip Karner, at left, and James O’Shea.) She's about to marry one handsome fellow, you see, when his handsome best pal from high school returns to confess some new feelings... Uh-oh, will Tori's big day be spoiled?

The screening is followed by a party, of course. Would it be too much to hope that Tori will be in attendance? (Wasn't she supposedly disinherited by her mother? How much can her airline tickets and per diem cost?) Obviously SIFF revelers would welcome bare-chested hunks Karner and O’Shea, but what about Spelling? Is she worthy of entry into the canon? Perhaps that's up to you, the reader/commentator, to decide.

Topics: Film and SIFF 2008

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SIFF Closer for Oenophiles

(Eliza Dushku in the fest-closing Bottle Shock, courtesy of Freestyle Releasing)

The spigots are opening from the press office at SIFF. Among the bullet points at Thursday's press launch was the festival closer: Randal Miller's Bottle Shock, which will play the Cinerama on Saturday, June 14. (The fest ends Sunday June 15 with regular daytime screenings.)

Set in the Napa Valley, and Paris, during 1976, the wine-world seriocomedy had its premiere at Sundance this winter. Is it a good movie? Does it compare to Sideways? Is it worth the $35-40 ticket for the closing-night gala? Keep reading after the jump...

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Topics: Film and SIFF 2008

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Bad Taste at SIFF?

(Image: www.torontoist.com)

It's always a little tricky to decide what information from SIFF is embargoed from the media before its Web site goes live on May 8. One thing we do know, from both SIFF and Seattle Arts & Lectures, is that the reigning king of bad taste, John Waters, will deliver a talk on Tuesday, June 3. You can already order tickets from SA&L for the Benaroya Hall event which, I'm guessing, will include film clips to illustrate his witty banter.

The last time I interviewed Waters was, I believe, for Cecil B. DeMented back in 2000. In addition to him being very funny and relentlessly quotable (of course), I remember him having excellent socks. I seem to recall complimenting him on them, and his response being a polite kind of "Oh, thanks, I get that all the time."

Now for the sort-of-secret embargoed stuff...could there be another, second, secret Waters event? Give that the SA&L Benny Hall event—priced from $25-100 per seat—might conceivably sell out before SIFF starts taking orders on its site (May 8 for members, May 11 for the unwashed rest of us). That might very well be the case. I'm not sayin' but I'm just sayin'.

So keep your finger poised to click your mouse next week.

Topics: Film and SIFF 2008

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SIFF to Eastside: Drop Dead

Today's press launch for the 34th annual Seattle International Film Festival confirmed a few facts and omitted a few key points. We already knew that the WTO movie Battle in Seattle would be opening the fest, which runs May 22 through June 15. Today we got the more-or-less final list of titles. All that info, plus the actual schedule, should go live on SIFF's Web site on Thurs. May 8 (when the Times also publishes its "guide," i.e. the canned and uniformly positive blurbs written by SIFF). Our more critical SIFF guide comes out Wed. May 21.

Today was a chance to hear festival director Carl Spence and his minions read highlights from three-by-five notecards, watch a few trailers, and see a movie. Earlier this week, however, I sat down for coffee with the gang and heard a very surprising admission from Spence, indicating a trend I never though SIFF would consider. Which you can read after the jump...

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Topics: Film and SIFF 2008

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Phil Donahue Coming to Seattle

(Photo: www.indiewire.com)

Buy your tickets early, you Iraq War haters and fans of the die-hard liberal and former talk-show host. Phil Donahue has co-directed (with Jean Spiro) the acclaimed new documentary Body of War. In the photo above, Donahue is pictured at left with former soldier Tomas Young, now 26, who was shot and partly paralyzed on his fifth day in Iraq. Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder (at right) contributed two new songs to the soundtrack of the film, which follows Young's difficult readjustment on the home front.

The film opens Friday, April 18 at the Varsity (our review goes up Wednesday, but you can read the early word here at the Village Voice).

Donahue and Spiro are scheduled to conduct a Q&A following the 7 p.m. show on Thursday, April 17. You must RSVP at 605-3171 or mulata@gmail.com to attend. It appears both filmmakers will also attend the Friday 7 p.m. show, and that you can buy tickets early through Landmark Theaters: Varsity, 4329 University Way N.E., 781-5755, www.landmarktheatres.com.

And a final word from Sean Penn:

"This is a film about guts, over there and back here. [It's a] Born on the Fourth of July and Coming Home for a new generation."

Topics: Film

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Unexpected Facts Unearthed Via IMDB

The titular lawyer-with-a-heart-of gold in mediocre new NBC show Eli Stone is played by actor Johnny Lee Miller:

...who also played the morally bankrupt junkie "Sick Boy" in the Gen-Echh classic Trainspotting:

Topics: Film and Tube

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Tear Gas, Klieg Lights, and Charlize Theron

(Photo: Pierre Dury)

May 22 marks the gala opening of the Seattle International Film Festival, which is tipping the title of its first flick earlier than usual. (Usually it's a big secret until about two weeks prior.) And the opener is, no surprise, Battle in Seattle, the low-budget indie based on our famous WTO protests back in the fall of 1999. It was partly shot here early last year, directed by Stuart Townsend and starring his girlfriend: a certain Oscar winner you may recall from Monster, Charlize Theron.

Naturally SIFF is hoping that Theron and her b.f. will appear at the fest. (You can also now purchase tickets, at $50-$200, from the festival site.) Usually this means the visiting stars are trotted out on stage for a few minutes, then climb back in their limo to the airport. Because the film has a local connection, of course, Townsend may be more available to the press and for audience Q&As, even if Theron claims prior job commitments. (She's presently working on the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, also starring Viggo Mortensen and Robert Duvall.)

What about the movie? Is it any good? It had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, meaning you can find reviews on the Web. And it just played the AFI fest in Dallas, where our colleague Robert Wilonsky, a regular SW contributor, had this to say after the jump....

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Topics: Film and SIFF 2008

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Crisis at the Grand Illusion?

A concerned reader and avid Seattle filmgoer recently relayed to us a fundraising appeal from the U District's non-profit Grand Illusion Cinema (named for the famous Renoir movie above). The communication was apparently meant only for members of the GI (who enjoy discounted tickets and other benefits), but was forwarded to SW and other local papers. The reader's email sounded pretty dire, reminding us of emergency roof repairs that forced the theater to shut for several weeks last December.

Is the tiny, 38-year-old indie venue in jeopardy? And if so, what forces are putting it in peril? Hookers and crack dealers are part of the problem, as the GI's director just explained to me...

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Topics: Film

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Metcalfe's In the NYT

Talking about a curious decision by the makers of a politically-charged, conservative documentary starring Ben Stein to shut mainstream critics out of advance screenings. You go, John!

Topics: Film

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A Love Note From the Stranger

(Image: 20th Century Fox)

Oh these pesky blog items. You write one too hastily, or that's too open to interpretation, and suddenly everyone is hating on you. Then you have to go back and blog about what you blogged, which may be inspiring additional blog items you don't have time to read elsewhere. Thus, in an email from Brendan Kiley over at The Stranger.

"Your grey ponytail is retrograde and asinine, but I always thought it polite to keep that to myself."

He's insulting me back for a perceived insult to a very close friend at a very closely situated Cap Hill cultural institution, the Northwest Film Forum. Why this ill-feeling and misunderstanding? You can read the original blog posting—where I'll reluctantly continue my comments—here, which only continues the great chain of blogging.

Topics: Film

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