Seattle Gay News - Mobile Edition - The highs and lows of SIFF 36 - The highs and lows of SIFF 36 - Friday, June 25, 2010

The highs and lows of SIFF 36
by Herb Krohn - SGN Contributing Writer

The 36th Annual Seattle International Film Festival concluded with a Gala screening of the new Robert Duvall film Get Low on Sunday, June 13. Over 400 feature films were presented during the 25-day event which is the largest, longest, and most audience-centered film festival in the United States.

Now for the best and worst of this year's film orgy:

First up are the Golden Space Needle Awards, which are determined by the voting members of the audience. Best Film: Hedgehog, a French film. First runner-up was Mao's Last Dancer, followed by Micmacs, then Cell 211, Hipsters, and rounding out the top 5 was The Concert

For Best Documentary there was a tie between the profile of Seattle artist Ginny Ruffner: A Not So Still Life and Wasteland. The first runner-up was the popular The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, which profiled the remarkable New Zealand identical twin Lesbian singer/comedienne team, and also won the Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision, Presented by Women in Film/Seattle.

The Best Director award went to Debra Granik for Winter's Bone, Best Actor was awarded to Luis Tosar for Cell 211, and the chosen Best Actress was Jennifer Lawrence for her performance in Winter's Bone. The Canadian film Ormie, directed by Rob Silvestri, won Best Short Film. Lastly, the Polish film The Reverse won the SIFF Grand Jury prize for Best Director.

The 21st Annual Fool Serious Awards, which polls passholders as they screen an average of 50-75 films, issued its detailed report on all festival entries. The most-liked films, in order, are: Winter's Bone, The Hedgehog, Cell 211, Hipsters, Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, Castaway on the Moon, City of Life and Death, The Concert, The Trotsky, and The Reverse. The Fools' Choice for top documentary films are: The Untitled Ginny Ruffner Project, Wasteland, The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, and lastly Waiting for Superman.

And now for the worst films of SIFF 2010 from the Fools in reverse order from the 10th to the worst film of the festival: The Penitent Man, The Owls, I Kissed a Vampire, Father's Acre, The Damned, Perfect 10, Foxes, Crayfish, Between Two Worlds, and the absolute worst film, Every Day is a Holiday. For more information about the Fool Serious ratings, check out their website at www.foolserious.org

Now for this critic's selections. The best films: The Reverse, Farsan, which was a delightful comedy from Sweden, and Letters to Father Jacob, which was a simple yet very complex film also from Sweden. Two outstanding films that happened to have LGBT central themes were: From Beginning to End, which was a remarkable film from Brazil, and Gordos, an outstanding, clever, and stylish comedic entry from Spain.

In the category of documentary films, both of this critic's choices for the best of SIFF happen to be films of LGBT interest: 8: The Mormon Proposition, a must-see investigative documentary that profiles the conspiracy of the Mormon Church hierarchy to organize and fund ballot propositions to roll back same sex partnership rights; and The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, which has audience members humming their songs for days afterwards. Both are absolutely outstanding documentary works.

Rounding out the worst of the worst (this year's SIFF had very few awful films, the least bombs in recent memory) the second runner-up was Father's Acre, where seldom was any line of dialog followed by a response in less than 30 seconds. Even the long repetitive close-ups of the strikingly handsome actor couldn't salvage this bomb. First runner-up was How Sex Sold Hollywood, which was actually a very poorly organized lecture with a few relevant unique film clips by a local university professor. The worst of the worst was The Wild Hunt, a live action role play film which completely bombed out at the bottom to take the prize as a complete waste of celluloid.

Many SIFF films either are or will become available at Scarecrow Video. The Fool Serious website lists some, and you can check out the selections from Scarecrow at www.scarecrow.com

Until next year's SIFF, we'll see you at the movies.

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