57th Sydney Film Festival -- Carmel style

Hi folks

Well now you have two of us offering our recommendations, aren't you lucky?! Happy to defer to Nick but as I spent all night last night choosing films, composing one-liners to summarise the film for you and finding trailers, I think it's still worth posting my SFF recommendations. Also seeking a date to most of these. Where the film screens twice I've put both options so you can choose which screening you would like to see. The program guide is in tomorrow's SMH and the website and iPhone app launch tomorrow too.

Wednesday 2 June
7.30pm State: South Solitary (Opening Night Gala) (FlexiPasses not valid)
Miranda and Barry Otto star in this film about a woman and her uncle who travel to a remote lighthouse to check on the people running it, and the dramas that ensue.
OR
8pm EV9: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Banksy 'mockumentary'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTlm6dU2xHk

Thursday 3 June
8.30pm DOQ: Mammuth
Belgian absurdist comedy starring Gerard Depardieu
OR
8.45pm EV9: Just like Us
Egyptian-America comedian takes a bunch of stand-up comedians on a tour of the middle east to try to break down barriers through comedy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXYOTwMqR9E
OR
9pm EV9: Near Dark
The vampire movie meets Western Gothic in this 1987 film, the directorial debut of recent Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYo14eZHRNA
OR
9pm State: Howl
A tribute to Allen Ginsberg with a stellar cast.

Friday 4 June
4.30pm State: Lourdes
Compelling tale of a wheelchair-bound believer who visits Lourdes hoping to be healed.

6pm EV9: Three Boys Dreaming
Doco about some talented indigenous teenage boys pursuing an AFL career.
OR
6.30pm: Life During Wartime
Todd Solondz's sequel to Happiness, starring Allison Janney, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBKzHhtCTMM

8.30pm EV9: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
Derek Jarman's biopic of Ian Dury starring Andy Serkis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMKjx8ilLCY
OR
10.30pm EV8 Revolucion
A portmanteau film examining the reverberations of the Mexican revolution produced by Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal's production company.

Saturday 5 June
10.30am AGNSW: A Woman Under the Influence
Cassavetes' classic film in a restored print. Awesome film.

2.30pm EV9: Beautiful Darling
Biopic of Candy Darling, a glittering figure in New York 60s bohemia who starred in Warhol’s films.

4.30pm EV9: Jean-Michel Basquiat
Biopic of the New York 80s artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, from his early graffiti days, through his meteoric rise to multi-millionaire status and then his untimely end.

6pm SOH: Oil City Confidential
Julien Temple’s blistering doco on cult R&B band Dr Feelgood, whose music shook up the London 70s pub sound and heralded the coming of punk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CZMLs8Ke40

10pm SOH: Nosferatu (FlexiPasses not valid)
Classic 1922 vampire film with a live accompaniment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMl6hUZHBqY

Sunday 6 June
2.30pm State: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Fab biopic of the raucous, shocking and brutally self-aware grand dame of comedy, Joan Rivers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIJf-W9FNY0

6.15pm DOQ: The Messenger
Woody Harrelson received an Oscar nomination for his role in this deeply moving film about post-Iraq soldiers drawn together by the challenges of their job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MEApxjYncI

9.30pm EV9: Just Like Us
Egyptian-America comedian takes a bunch of stand-up comedians on a tour of the middle east to try to break down barriers through comedy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXYOTwMqR9E

Monday 7 June
12.15pm State: A Somewhat Gentle Man
Deep from the hacking lungs of Nordic minimalism comes this post-jail gangster thriller starring Stellan Skarsgard.

6.30pm EV8: Restrepo
Sundance prize-winning doco about US soldiers in a remote outpost in Afghanistan who try to bond with the locals.

9.05pm State: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Banksy 'mockumentary'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTlm6dU2xHk

Tuesday 8 June
6.15pm EV8: Freetime Machos
Doco about the most Northern and third lousiest rugby team in the world, from Oulu, Finland.

Wednesday 9 June
4.25pm State: Mammuth
Belgian absurdist comedy starring Gerard Depardieu

Thursday 10 June
2.05pm State: The Most Dangerous Man in America
Riveting doco about Daniel Ellsberg’s transformation from US Marine and Pentagon bureaucrat who justified the Vietnam war, to anti-war campaigner after visiting the front line.

6.30pm State: Women Without Men
Debut feature from visual artist Shirin Neshat, about the struggles of four different women in 1950s Tehran.

8.30pm EV9: Oil City Confidential
Julien Temple’s blistering doco on cult R&B band Dr Feelgood, whose music shook up the London 70s pub sound and heralded the coming of punk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CZMLs8Ke40
OR
8.45pm EV8: A Somewhat Gentle Man
Deep from the hacking lungs of Nordic minimalism comes this post-jail gangster thriller starring Stellan Skarsgard.

Friday 11 June
12.30pm DOQ: Freetime Machos
Doco about the most Northern and third lousiest rugby team in the world, from Oulu, Finland.

4pm EV8: The Temptation of St Tony
A black and white Estonian odyssey of allegory from a Bergmanesque funeral to a surreal cabaret of Lynchian proportions with Tati-esque humour thrown in.

6.30pm State: The Killer Inside Me
Michael Winterbottom’s latest film about a cop (Casey Affleck) who’s also a cold-blooded murderer. Violent but brilliant.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4003225/the_killer_inside_me_trailer/

9pm State: I Am Love
Tilda Swinton stars in this sumptuous Italian tale of a crumbling family empire, intrigue, love, food and affairs. Oh, and gorgeous upholstery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXEAhJb_O0

Saturday 12 June
10am State: The Killer Inside Me
Michael Winterbottom’s latest film about a cop (Casey Affleck) who’s also a cold-blooded murderer. Violent but brilliant.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4003225/the_killer_inside_me_trailer/

6.45pm EV9: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Fab biopic of the raucous, shocking and brutally self-aware grand dame of comedy, Joan Rivers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIJf-W9FNY0

9.30pm State: Cyrus
Flawlessly uncomfortable comedy with John C Reilly as a 40-something divorcee whose blossoming relationship with Marisa Tomei is thwarted by her slyly manipulative son Cyrus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbdNSCQ-qHI

Sunday 13 June
12.05pm State: Senso
Gorgeous new print of Visconti’s classic lush sweeping melodrama.

4pm DOQ: I Am Love
Tilda Swinton stars in this sumptuous Italian tale of a crumbling family empire, intrigue, love, food and affairs. Oh, and gorgeous upholstery.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXEAhJb_O0

6.45pm DOQ: Hesher
Hesher (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is a heavy-metal loner who gatecrashes the stagnating suburban life of 13-year-old TJ. The film avoids sentimentality in favour of anarchic transformation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSr3gRGtIow

9.30pm State: The Ghost Writer
Ewan McGregor is a writer hired to ‘ghost write’ the memoirs of ex-British PM Pierce Brosnan, but then a sinister web of intrigue unravels in this Polanski thriller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_AerBW0EcI

Monday 14 June (Public holiday)
12.30pm EV8: The Most Dangerous Man in America
Riveting doco about Daniel Ellsberg’s transformation from US Marine and Pentagon bureaucrat who justified the Vietnam war, to anti-war campaigner after visiting the front line.
OR
2pm DOQ: Hesher
Hesher (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is a heavy-metal loner who gatecrashes the stagnating suburban life of 13-year-old TJ. The film avoids sentimentality in favour of anarchic transformation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSr3gRGtIow

7.30pm The Kids Are Alright (FlexiPasses not valid)
Julianne Moore and Annette Benning are married, with two kids who decide to seek out their sperm donor ‘father’ when they reach their teens. Mark Ruffalo is said donor, an irresponsible motorbike-riding organic gardener with a limited concept of responsibility.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdDSqgZ87fM

cx