I HIT 75

This is good – last year, for some reason, I only saw 66 films in the theater. This year I have 2 and a half months to go, and I’ve already hit 75. Yippee.

Last Three of the Chicago Film Fest:
12:08 East of Bucharest – This was a socio-political comedy about a supposed revolution in Romania 16 years ago. I know nothing of the history of this region, but apparently it’s unclear as to whether there was actually a revolution, or whether the communist leaders fled first, followed by the hordes of people marching through the streets. This question is examined during the last half of the movie in the form of a low-budget TV show.
The film captured the small-town Romanian atmosphere very, very well. Is this really what the small cities in Romania are like? Mud roads, public-access TV, furniture from the 70s, total poverty and alcoholism at every turn? This movie makes me think that’s what Romania is like. I don’t want to visit and find out for myself…

Suzanne – A French film about old people finding love in their twilight years. Considering the fact that this was a French film, I was pretty unimpressed. But it still made me want to live in France! The characters spend all of their time either 1. Cooking dinner and throwing dinner parties 2. Going out to parks and bars 3. Visiting the local pastry shop…. That’s it. That’s enough to make me jealous. I enjoy my life here, and think I do a good job of not stressing out too much, but I can’t find a good frangipane croissant to save my life! This movie also did an admirable job of using non-stereotypical body types. In other words, the title character was pudgy (not chubby by Hollywood standards, but actually obese by Hollywood standards). She had a good 20 pounds on me, but still looked beautiful in this film. France is doing an awesome job of using actresses who don’t fit particular body molds – when will our country take a hint?



Host & Guest – This was a Korean film about a severely depressed man who has no purpose in life. He becomes friends with a Christian, and they have wacky Odd-Couple capers. This movie was amusing mainly because of the constant digs at George Bush – at one point, a used cum-rag is tossed onto a picture of W, and another time the main character drops ramen on a newspaper, and the camera cuts to a shot of George W with a noodle-head. It’s very funny.

All in all, I wasn’t really impressed with the film fest this year. I took a chance, and saw 8 movies I hadn’t previously read about. It worked great for my schedule, and I liked a couple of the flicks, but I wouldn’t really recommend any of them to anyone. Oh well.