Ben:  "We've laid in a gala reception for your fair-haired boys tonight.  All of Twin Peaks' best and brightest."

Jerry: "We're holding it in a phone booth?"

Seizure! (1974)

Oliver Stone's first feature film stars Jonathan Frid as a novelist tormented by dreams of the characters he created.  Not good, but when else will you get the chance to see Barnabas Collins, Herve Villechaize, Troy Donahue (playing someone named Mark Frost) and Christina Pickles in a Canadian film written and directed by Stone?

Baghead.  This very, very low budget (which I think is termed 'no budget') film by the Duplass Brothers of Austin, TX cracked me up!  I watched it OnDemand the other night while home alone.  At first I'm laughing out loud but it gets to the point where I genuinely got scared and wanted to close my bedroom shades.  I was too frightened to get off the couch though so I continued watching.  

A great cast of four main characters, none of whom I have ever seen before, carry the film.  

Well done!  A solid 4.5 out of 5 stars  

I have just added The Puffy Chair by the brothers to my Netflix queue.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Most excellent idea for a film festival, Chris!  You have the local wherewithal to put it together in Seattle too.  Maybe a title change of your films would inflate the festival to a couple days.  CurtainsHead and FlappyHead?  All the festival goers attend with the head of their choice.  Cheesehead!  Could be a real blast!!!

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Head is quite the tripfest.

I just watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona.  Loved it.  Spain.  Threesomes.  Art.  Sexy cast.  I want to go to Barcelona.  There was also some great architecture in the movie.  I like Woody Allen's writing.  I also liked the use of a narrator to get inside the character's heads.  The women of this film were well represented.  I could relate to all of them. 

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

 I think Chris would be pretty open-minded about the type of Head he accepts into his festival.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

 Try this one if you enjoyed the Hollywood attempts to make Patricia Highsmith's books into films.  I loved it!

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Be Kind Rewind

What a misfire. It's like listening to the pffff of a balloon slowly deflating for 90 minutes.

I just took a chance on Doubt,

Streep + Hoffman = holy fuuuuck

In the past, the thought that good acting doesn't have much to do with actors crossed my mind, but now I'm sure that these two have it.  Sure, they're always both an immense pleasure to watch, every time.  But together, they gave a pretty simplistic script depth. Just two geniuses in a room, faking it with brilliance. (Amy Adams, Kidman's doe-eyed, red-headed, tender usurper, did the thing well, too. I like her and think we'll be seeing a lot more of her.) And kudos to the writer, too, for giving just enough real, flawed humanity for the players so much room to work with.  This is the kind of movie that actors have wet dreams about.

Two Lovers -- the 'final' film for Joaquin Phoenix, or so he says.  There's a brief moment in the film where he demonstrates his rapping skills with his new pal played by Gwyneth Paltrow.  I hope JP is wrong about his pledge because he is such a fine actor and too young to make such a rash decision.  Kinda reminds me of whatshername -- Dolores Hart?-- who quit acting to become a nun after making a film with Elvis.

Isabella Rosellini played Joaquin's mother and she was completely believable.  

four out of five stars

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Twilight

The nicest thing I can say about this film is that -- wait, no, there's nothing nice I can say about this film. I MST3K'ed it the entire time I watched it because that's the only way I could get through the two solid hours of suck without feeling like my soul was being ripped from my body.

So much of this film made me laugh. The way they horribly truncated the book to fit into the two hours was startling. The addition of a thin background plot to make up for the book's lack of explanation of anything was weak at best, and I was wholly embarrassed by how it played out. And the sparkly skin effect. It's hard to really appreciate the full impact of a line like "THIS IS THE SKIN OF A MONSTER!" when the character is twinkling like a partygoer at a gay rave.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Terror from the year 5000!

Superbad

I liked this, and laughed quite a bit.